M.U
Gc
978.2
Sh9h
v. 2
1192386
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
1833 01065 1435
History of Western Nebraska
and its People
: — (T
History of
Western Nebraska
*. — —
and its People
GENERAL HISTORY. CHEYENNE, BOX BUTTE, DEUEL, GARDEN,
SIOUX, KIMBALL, MORRILL, SHERIDAN, SCOTTS BLUFF,
BANNER, AND DAWES COUNTIES. A GROUP
OFTEN CALLED THE PANHANDLE
OF NEBRASKA
GRANT L. SHUMWAY, SCOTTSBLUFF, NEBRASKA
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ISSUED IN THREE ROYAL OCTAVO VOLUMES
VOLUME II.
ILLUSTRATED
THE WESTERN PUBLISHING & ENGRAVING COMPANY
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
19 2 1
COPYRIGHTED 1921
BY
WESTERN PUBLISHING Sc ENGRAVING COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
PART I
11S2386
CHAPTER I 1
Nebraska Came From the Sea
CHAPTER II 4
Old Trails
CHAPTER III ... 6
The Flag of France in the Wilderness
CHAPTER IV 8
The Fur-Traders
CHAPTER V 10
Robert Stuart's Winter Camp
CHAPTER VI 12
Jacques Laramie's Caravans and Fleets
CHAPTER VII 14
General William H. Ashley's Trappers — Death of Hiram Scott
CHAPTER VIII IS
Joshua Pilcher and Forty-Five Trappers
^CHAPTER IX 17
First Wagons on Overland Trails
CHAPTER X 19
Wyeth, of "Cape Bay," and His "Down Easters"
CHAPTER XI 21
Nez Perce and Crow Indians — Crow Creek Named
CHAPTER XII .... - 22
Little Moon Lake — Famous Missionaries
CHAPTER XIII 24
Forts at the Laramie
CHAPTER XIV 26
Robideaux of St. Genevieve — Kiowa Raid by Red Cloud
CHAPTER XV 28
The Steamboat El Paso Here — Reuleau, the Trapper
CHAPTER XVI 30
Government Buys Fort Laramie — Ft. Fontenelle is Built
CHAPTER XVII 32
Brady Island Tragedy — French Boat Song — Jim Bridger Meets Sir George Gore
PART II
CHAPTER I 34
Indian Migration across the Platte
CHAPTER II 36
Indian War and Legend — The Story Teller
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER III 39
The Pawnee Pilgrimage — The Spotted Robe — Ti-wa-ra, the God of Court House Rock
— Battle of Ash Hollow
CHAPTER IV 42
The Legend of the White Hawk— Old Bull Tail's Daughter
CHAPTER V .... 44
Belden, Bridger and Baker Episodes — Early Conferences With Indians
CHAPTER VI 47
Songs of Parker and Minto
CHAPTER VII 49
Red Cloud and Spotted Tail — Massacre of Cottonwood Canyon
CHAPTER VIII 51
Sunset on the Platte — The C.ibralter of Nebraska — Cheyenne S on Bellechugwater
CHAPTER IX 53
In the Shadows — The Fire Fly Song— Cached Furs — Old Land Marks — Trapper's
Rock
CHAPTER X 55
Stage Drivers — Road Agents — Pony Express Riders — Chas. Cliff's Adventures — Jules
and Slade Feud — Creighton's Quick Fortune
CHAPTER XI 57
Sacrifice of Frontier Women — Indian Execution at Ft. Laramie
CHAPTER XII 59
The Grattan Massacre — Spotted Tail's Dramatic Deed
CHAPTER XIV 62
Butler's Storv of the Cow War— Harnev the Squaw Killer — Another Ash Hollow
Battle
CHAPTER XV 65
Murder of Spotted Tail — Cow Dog's Puni shment — Battle in Scottsbluff Mountain Pass
CHAPTER XVI 67
A Buffalo Bill Episode — More Indian Troubles
CHAPTER XVII 69
The Battle of Horse Creek — Colonel Moonlight's Mistake — President Lincoln's Message
to the West
CHAPTER XVIII 72
Julesburg Burned — Mud Springs Attacked — Battle on Cedar Creek
I'll \ITEK XIX 75
Coad's Battle on Lawrence Fork — "Shorter" Countv Organized — Tank Fighting on the
Platter— Buffalo Bill Kills Tall Bull
CHAPTER XX 77
Indian Vgencies Adjusted— Sitting Bull's Determination — Battle of War Bonnet Creek
CHAPTER XX] 79
Sand Hills Station Robbery — Big Bear, or Crazy Woman — The Sod Cabin — Priva-
tions "t Early 5 ears
CHAPTER XX 11 82
Revolt of Dull Knife — Winter Fighting in the Pine Ridge — End of Indian Wars — Sign
Language
CHAPTER XXII I 8 4
'I'lu Winding Story — Sages Tale of Orgies — The Xew Dawn
PART 111
en VPTER I S7
When Cattle Mm Wen- Kings
CONTENTS vii
CHAPTER II 90
Stage Station Ranches — Naming Fort Mitchell — First Ranches on the North Platte
River
CHAPTER IV 92
The Battle of Sixty-Six Mountain
CHAPTER V 95
The Ride of Dan Dillon and Others — The Start of the Texas Trail
CHAPTER VI 97
Cowboy Escapades — Death of Jimmy Tate — Red Path Bill — Fraternal and Class Senti-
ment
CHAPTER VII 100
Coad's Ranch at Scottsbluff Station — Sheedy's Seven-U Ranch — Anecdotes About
Them
CHAPTER VIII 102
Surveyor Schleigel's Teamster Hung at Sidney — The Bosler Range — The VB Brand —
Minnie Montgomery Honeymoon — The House of La Grange
CHAPTER IX 104
Creighton's — The First Ranch of All — Death of Creel in Bull Canyon — Tom Kane's
Adventure — A Cowboy Wedding
CHAPTER X 106
First Ranch in Nebraska West of North Platte, Keith & Barton — H. V. Redington's
Ranch — Nerud's Corner — Later Snake Creek Ranches
CHAPTER XI 109
Colonel Charles Coffee of Creighton's. Box Elder, Rock Ranch, Hat Creek and Chadron
— Emmet & Brewster — Arrest of Fly Speck Bill — First Gardens in Sioux County
CHAPTER XII Ill
John Adams Joins Redington in First Ranch of the Panhandle — The Rustlers — Origin
of Ranches on Cedar Creek — Smith's Fork or Rush Creek — Vantassel's Tie Contract
CHAPTER XIII 113
Jim Kidd's Training Ground — V-Cross and Cherry Creek Ranches — Henry County
Hughes — Little Moon Postoffice — Oelrich's Wild Escapades
CHAPTER XIV 116
Around Camp Wagons — A Horse Trade With Doc Middleton — Arbuckle's Break Post —
Scotchmen Buy Big Ranches — John Clay and the Two-Bar
CHAPTER XV 118
Frewen's Ranch Experience — Hanging of Billy Nurse by Vigilantes — Holding up Doc.
Middleton — Death of the Famous Character
CHAPTER XVI 121
Perry Yeast's Success — Judge Gaslin, Who Wrote "The Law of the West" — Tom Ryan's
Defiance
CHAPTER XVII 123
Newman's Ranch on the Running Water — Bartlett Richards & Company — The Scourge
of the Land Inquisition — Cattle Rustlers — Hall & Evans — Evan's Battle For Right —
First Dairy Herd
CHAPTER XVIII 125
Big Ranches Round About — First Dry Farming at Big Springs — Other Ranches on
Lodgepole — Newman Leads the Turks Through "Jerusalem" — Walrath. from Ox Team
to Aeroplane
CHAPTER XIX .127
Creighton Expands — Snodgrass and McShane — Mcintosh Founds "The Circle Arrow" —
Simpson Organizes the Bay State Companj
CHAPTER XX 129
Earlv Sub-Irrigation — Bav State Buvs Coad's North River Ranch — J. S. Robb, Foreman
— Mary Rose's Grave — The Grout House — J. 11. D. Ranch — Round-up at Circle Arrow
— Death of "Skv Pilot" at Pine Bluffs
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXI
Paxton's Ogallala Company— Hall'? Famous Drive to Pine Ridge— Dick Bean's Death
— Gun .Men and Frantz's Comical Episode
CHAPTER XXII
I \. Hall and Robert Graham's Old Time Ranch — Ogallala Men and Events— Indians
Get Southers — Bargain Sales of Ranch Locations — Harper's Deal
CHAPTER XXIII
An Indian Wagon Race — Building Camp Clarke Bridge — Round-up — Wild West Shows
— Tom Horn's Outlaw Horse — Six Thousand Cattle Milling in the River
I'll M'TKK XXIV ..." .' ,
The Farquerers and Cross Country Riding — Hunting Geese on Hughes Island — Fun of
the Frontier — Jimmy Moore's Long Walk
CHAPTER XXV
The First Grangers— Murder of Collins at Camp Clarke — Sheriff Campbell Gets Doc.
Romine — Beginning of Minatare
CHAPTER XXVI
Perry Braziel Arrives on the Texas Trail — Trailing Cattle to Judith Basin — Sunder-
ling's Elkskin Trousers — The Drive to Pine Ridge — Two Girls of the Prairie
CHAPTER XXVII
Laing's Ranch — The Water Holes — Death of Wheeler — First Hogs on North River —
First Hogs on Pumpkin Creek — Killing Rattlesnakes
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Virginian — Arbuckle's Ranch — Romance of Parents of Madeline Force — Lingle of
Valley View — Connoly's of the "PF" — New Ranches — Hank Inghram's Narrow Escape
CHAPTER XXIX
The Shifting Sands — The Storm of 78— First Settlers on Pumpkin Creek — First Cow
in Western Nebraska— Mental Giants of the Big Cow Days
CHAPTER XXX
Vigilantes Hang Reed at Sidney— The Great Bullion Robbery — Whispering Smith Gets
CHAPTER XXXI
Oberfelders Demonstrate Hog and Alfalfa Combination — Later Ranchers Near Oshkosh
— Poor's Ranch. Where Sheldon Hit the We st — Cowbovs Marking Graves — The Mid-
night Ride of Wild Horse Harris
CHAPTER XXXII
McDonald Hung by Vigilantes at Sidney — Sheriff Trognitz's Joke— Practical Jokes of
Old Timers
CM M'TKk XXXIII
Gordon's and Whitehead's Ranches — Voder's Beginning and Expansion — New Develop-
ment in Goshen Holes — Beginning of Alfalfa and Sugar Beets
CHAPTER XXXIV
Sand Hill Ranches of Todav — Dangers of the Stampede — Origin of Some Western Ex-
pressions—Pranks of Early Days
CHAPTER XXXV
First Ranch in Dawes County — Graham and Snvder on Niobrara River — Other Ranches
War Fort Robinson — Stampedin' on the Old Trail
CHEYENNE COUNTY
CHAPTER I
Historj of ilu- Count)
('II M'TKk M
Wihh-t Days
<ll M'l'Kk HI
nization of Cheyenne County
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER IV 182
Ivodgepole
CHAPTER V 188
State Officials
CHAPTER VI 191
The Press
CHAPTER VII 192
Fraternal Orders and Clubs
CHAPTER VIII . . . ' . . • - 194
The Church — The Bar — The Medical Profession
CHAPTER IX 197
The World War
BOX BUTTE COUNTY
CHAPTER I 199
Organization of the County
CHAPTER II 207
Churches — The Press — The Bar — Professions and Businesses
CHAPTER III 210
Military History
CHAPTER IV 214
Civil War Veterans
DEUEL COUNTY
CHAPTER I 220
Organizations of Deuel County
CHAPTER II 221
First Settlers
CHAPTER III 222
County Organization and Development
CHAPTER IV 224
Irrigation in Deuel County
CHAPTER V 226
County Officers
CHAPTER VI 228
Towns
CHAPTER VII 233
Schools in Deuel County
CHAPTER VIII 235
The Churches in Deuel County
CHAPTER IX 237
The Press— Banks and Finance — Bench and Bar — Medical Profession — Fraternal Or-
ganizations
CHAPTER X 242
Deuel County's War Record — Grand Army of the Republic
CHAPTER XI 244
Climate and Products of Deuel County
x CONTEXTS
GARDEN COUNTY
CHAPTER I 246
Early History
CHAPTER II 252
Boundary Disputes — As Between Individuals
CHAPTER HI ■ 254
Agricultural and Live Stock Industries
CHAPTER IV .... ' 256
Towns in the County
CHAPTER V 264
Railroads — Schools — Churches — The Press — Bench and Bar — Banking and Finance
CHAPTER VI 271
The County's Part in the World War
CHAPTER VII 274
Social and Fraternal Organization
CHAPTER VIII 276
The Medical Profession
SIOUX COUNTY
CHAPTER I . 277
Description and Early History
CHAPTER II 280
First Settlers and Early Town Histories
CHAPTER III 284
Medical Fraternity — The Bar — Story of the Schools — The Churches
CHAPTER IV 288
Banking and Finance — Fraternal Organizations — Industries
CHAPTER V ' 292
Organization of Sioux County — County Officials
CHAPTER VI 296
Sioux County in the World War — Early Schools — Wild Life
KIMBALL COUNTY
CHAPTER I 302
The History of Kimball County
CHAPTER II 313
Soil, Climate and Possibilities
CHAPTER [II 321
Transportation — I [ighwaj s
CI I \ITKR IV 325
The Community of Kimball
CHAPTER V 337
Kimball County in the World War
MORRILL COUNTY
CHAPTER] 348
Morrill Count}
CHAPTER H 360
1 ransportation I levelopment
CONTENTS xi
CHAPTER III 363
How the Land Changed
CHAPTER IV 371
Government Irrigation
CHAPTER V 380
Bridgeport Business Directory — The World War — Other Activities
CHAPTER VI 397
Bayard
CHAPTER VII 405
Morrill County in the World War
SHEHIDAN COUNTY
CHAPTER I 417
How We Began
CHAPTER II 422
Creation of Sheridan County
CHAPTER III 428
Banking and Finance
CHAPTER IV .434
The Story of the Schools
CHAPTER V 440
Sheridan County and the World War
SCOTTS BLUFF COUNTY
CHAPTER I 444
When Part of Cheyenne — Early Experiences
CHAPTER II 449
Gering — First of Many Things
CHAPTER III 454
City of Scottsbluff
CHAPTER IV ...... ' 463
The Newspapers — Early Days in the County
CHAPTER V 469
Incidents and Personalities
CHAPTER VI . 476
The Story of Irrigation
CHAPTER VII 480
More of the Irrigation Storv
CHAPTER VIII 487
Scotts Bluff County Schools
CHAPTER IX +90
Officials Scotts Bluff County
CHAPTER X 494
The Farmers Revolution
CHAPTER XI 498
The Church — Its Accomplishments — First Religious Services
CHAPTER XII 502
Scenic Beauty — Manufacturing and Other Industries
CHAPTER XIII 50S
The County Military Record— Honor Roll — Fraternal Orders
xn CONTENTS
BANNER COUNTY
CHAPTER I
Following Horace Greeley's Advice — Early Experiences
CHAPTER II
Beautiful Scenery — Tragedies — Ranches 'and Schools
CHAPTER III
How the County Began — Early Officers
CHAPTER IV
Once a Part of Lyons County - Banks - The Press -Industries
CHAPTER V
Irrigation — Early Postoffices — Early Experiences
DAWES COUNTY
CHAPTER I
The Earliest Years
CHAPTER II ....
Chmate — Agriculture and Soils
CHAPTER III
' Settlement and Indian Days in Dawes County
CHAPTER IV ... .
Early Days — And Crawford — Many Fir
CHAPTER V
County Organization and Government
CHAPTER VI ....
Town of Chadron
CHAPTER VII ...
Businesses and Professions
CHAPTER VIII
Churches and Schools - Banks — In the World War
Things
511
515
520
523
526
530
534
540
547
550
553
568
571
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"Came From the; Sea" 3
Robert Stuart's Winter Camp, 1812-13 11
Death oe Hiram Scott 14
Grave of Red Cloud's Daughter, Fort Laramie, Wyoming 49
Camping Ground of the Hostiles 64
HostilEs Coming in From the Bad Lands to Surrender 66
Indians "Home Life" 68
On the Range Near "Signal Buttes" 87
"Branding Calves" 88
Cowboys Resting and Playing MumblEpeg 88
Sidney R. Probst, Sr. , 89
Four Old Time Cowpunchers 98
John Bratt 119
Long Horn's Fagin Ranch, Alliance 123
Hanging Reed by Vigilantes Committee 152
First Cemetery, Sidney 167
Fine Residence of Sidney 167
Sidney Short Route to Black Hills 168
Sidney in 1877 169
Interior of Oberfelders Outfitting Store, 1877 170
Overland Trail on the "Old Trails" Route For San Francisco . . . . 170
Pony Express and Overland Mail Office, Fort Kearney 170
An Old Prairie Schooner 172
Old Court, Sheriff's Residence 177
Cheyenne County Court House, Sidney 178
New High School, Sidney 180
Catholic Square, Sidney 180
Birdseye View, Sidney 181
Carnegie Library, Sidney 181
North Side of ShElden Street, Lodgepole 183
High School, Lodgepole 184
Blind Cannon Near Point of Rocks 186
■Methodist Church, Sidney 194
"Samie Girls" 197
How the Court House Was Moved to Hemingford 200
Box Butte County Court House, Alliance • . 201
Street Scene, Alliance 204
High School, Alliance 205
St. Agnes Parochial School, Alliance 206
Oscar O'Bannon and S. Avery 211
Deuel County Court House, Chappell 225
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Chappell in 1886 ....
Business House, Chappell
Street View, Chappell
Western Lumber & Hardware Co., Chappell
Farmers Elevator, Chappele
Street Corner, Chappell
High School, Chappell
Methodist Episcopal Church. Chappell
Catholic Church, Chappell
Christ Lake
Farm Home, at Ash Hollow
Rock at Ash Hollow. Near Spring
Rush Creek Ranch. Rocky Point
Pulling Dead Cattle Out of Swan Lake After Bli
Old Hartman Store and Postoffice, 1892
First Schooehouse, Oshkosh, 1898
First Store, Oshkosh
First Dwelling, Oshkosh
Street Scene, Oshkosh
Main Street, Lewellen
First National Bank, Lewellen
Street View, Lisco ....
Residence of Mr. Myers. Lisco
Schoolhouse, Lewellen
Old Stone Schoolhouse, Oshkosh
Grade School, Oshkosh
State Bank Building, Oshkosh
"Feeding Time," Nicholson Bros. Ranch
"Some Winter/" April 17, 1920, Harrison
First House Erected in 1886
Sioux County Court House, Harrison
Public School, Harrison ....
Methodist Church and Parsonage, Harrison
Catholic Church, Harrison
Drilling For Oil At Agate
New Road, Monroe Canyon. Near Harrison
"When iiie Boys Were Leaving"
"Haunted House," Near Harrison
Coliseum Rocks, Near Harrison
Street View, Bushnell ....
High School, Bushnele ....
i 1 i Residence of Isaac Roush (2) Residence of John I,
Settlers of Kimball (4) Right. Residence of He
Cambele
Mrs. \,\ N( H. First Settler, Born June 24, 1832
KiMiiAi.L County Court House, Kimball
Win: \r Seeding on the Ranch of T. L. Bogle
Branding Scene Near Kimball
Ranch RESIDENCE OF WiHTCOMB BROTHERS, North of Dix
Marc
Filer
h, 1913
(3) Some:
ogler; Left,
arlv
John
LIST < )F ILLUSTRATIONS
Birdseye View of Kimball in 1900 .
Street Scene, Kimball * . . .
Residence of Robert Garrard, Near Kimball
Kimball County High School, Kimball
Modern School Near Kimball Known as "Pedrett
Methodist Episcopal Church and Sunday School
Residence of John Ewbank. Near Kimball
Residence of Chas. E. Jacoby, Photographer, Ki
High School, Dix
Residence of Petrus Peterson, Dix
Residence of E. E. Goding, Dix
Rural School, North of Dix
Soldier Boys in World War
Court Hou^se Rock, South of Bridgeport
Morrill County Court House, Bridgeport
Public School, Bridgeport
Sheridan County Court House, Rusiiyille
Western Potash Company, Antioch
Street View of Antioch ....
Second Street, Rushville ....
Rusiiyille School
National Potash Company
East Ward Si
"Where Pltrd
Antioch
rooL, Scottsbluff
Primed the Pump With Milk'
First Cabin, Gering, 1886
Gering Courier, 1887 ....
Street Scene. Gering
Public School, Gering ....
Site of Roubidoux's First Blacksmith Shop
Site of Roubidoux's Second Blacksmith Shop
Homestead of Mrs. Elizabeth McClenahan, 1889
Primitiye Soddy, Scottsbluff
First Church, Scottsbll t ff
Residence of T. C. Hally, Scottsbluff
View From DEroT, Scottsbluff
Broadway, Scottsbluff
A. T. Crawford's Garage, Scottsbluff
Old Home Place of Jesse Pickering Near Mix at.-
Farm Ranch of J. A. Jones
Spillway Pathfinder Dam, Nebraska's Niagar.
Rev. J. B. Currens
Scotts Bluff Mountain
Sugar Factory, Scottsbluff
Lover's Leap
"Twix Sisters" Ruck
Smoke Stack Rock
Early Schoolhouse
Wheat Seeding
Marketing Potatoes
School
xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Hampton's Golden Wedding 528
First House in Dawes County, Built in 1879 ......... 531
One Hill of Dawes County Suds 535
Dawes County Trout Stream 536
Superior Domino, 557924, Owned by Mrs. Wm. Braddock 538
Braddock and Deffenbargh, Breeders of Registered Cattle 539
Bordeau Ranch, Owned by P. B. Nelson, Chadron 540
Dawks County Court House, Chadron 548
Cram ford in 1886 550
An Early Day Home. Chadron . 554
Street View, Chadron 559
Second Street, Chadron . . . . . ... . . ■ . . 560
Jack Rabbit Roundup, Chadron 561
First Schoolhouse, Ten Miles South of Chadron 562
Public Library, Chadron 566
Federal Building, Chadron . 567
C. T. Coffee. Chadron, on Tract in 1871 570
Methodist Church 573
State Normal School, Chadron 574
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
AND ITS PEOPLE
CHAPTER I
NEBRASKA CAME FROM THE SEA
We will begin at the beginning, and add a
chapter to the geology of the state, a geology
heretofore treated by Barbour, and Condra,
and Schramm, and to which research and ex-
ploration has added much of valuable infor-
mation. We will tell of the far-off , misty
past, when White river, and the Niobrara,
Snake creek, Bluewater, the Lodgepole, and
the twin merging valleys of the Platte, or
Flatwater, and Gonneville, or Pumpkin creek
were yet to be. When the surface of the earth
was of hot rocks in the forming, and the sky
above was hidden in the mists which enveloped
our celestial baby world.
At first the sun could hardly penetrate the
humid atmosphere, and the dull haze was il-
lumined by lurid igneous fires, but by and
by sunlight broke through and startled the
concentrating elements to pulsating life — life
that came from the hot ooze of primeval
oceans, and which has developed through long
laborious years, to busy brain-driven entities.
History is moving rapidly in these later
days ; there have been sordid things like war to
take time and attention, but at intervals, in
silences and solitudes, the mind finds re-
laxation. The intellect finds restful exercise in
contemplation of origin and destiny, or in
translation of the silent language of the ages,
from the rocks of the pre-historic world.
Clumsily, I have sought to assist, and in
reading the rocks, I find the story of the an-
cient sea, the islands and the antecedent
streams of our own state, and this particular
part thereof, written legibly upon the cliffs,
and in the hills and valleys. So while the
floor of the world is granite, we find above
that floor, Nebraska, even as it stood in the
midst of the first landed area of the earth,
while the waves of the Cambrian sea beat
upon shores in Wyoming, Ohio and Oklahoma.
And here, the first live creatures of the world
crawled from the primal slime, upon the
shore of the primeval sea. But later, when
the- entire Mississippi valley was in the bot-
tom of the Silurian ocean, Nebraska also took
the plunge.
Again nearly all of the North American con-
tinent emerged in the lower Devonian, and
was connected to Asia by way of the Behring
straits. At that time the Omaha, Lincoln,
Witchita mountain range was a particular
scenic attraction of Nebraska and Kansas. Its
axis was a little east of the present site of
Lincoln, and could you sweep away the cov-
erings, you would still find its rugged peaks
and canyon beauty.
During the Carboniferous period this gran-
ite range was there. Around it is spread the
sedimentaries of the Mississippian, and over
it the Pennsylvanian formations, for the great-
er part of Nebraska took another plunge
into the sea. Eastern Nebraska came up from
the ocean, with almost all of the North Ameri-
can continent at a little later date. But an
estuary from the Pacific covered that part of
the state west of the one hundredth meridian,
and it also covered western Kansas, Oklahoma,
through the varying ages, came down to a
time comparatively and geologically modern.
The course massive buff and grey Dakota
sands, some places five hundred feet thick,
were spread over Nebraska, indicating a mov-
ing body of water with currents sufficient to
carry away the silts, and also indicating that
eastern Nebraska was also again under the
water surface.
At the close of the carboniferous age, inter-
nal forces again disturbed the Omaha. Lincoln,
Wichita range, but it never reached full pro-
portions, owing to the weight of covering de-
positions. Buried under the sedimentaries of
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
eastern Nebraska and central Kansas, it still
exists, a twin of the Ozarks, lower in altitude,
and covering a much larger area.
When the more violent disturbances shook
the fractured region, great slabs of granite one
hundred feet thick and miles in area, were in
places thrust out almost horizontally through
the comparatively newer rocks and shales, and
these granitic intrusions have puzzled geolo-
gists, and turned aside the tides of oil pros-
pectors from time to time. Granite and Red
Beds have been discouraging features to oil
geologists : yet daring prospectors have drilled
through these granite barriers into the shales
below,. and others have found best qualities of
petroleum in Red Bed anticlines.
West and east of these sunken mountains
are faults and folds, synclines and anticlines.
In Kansas and Oklahoma are battery after
battery of perforations, where the oil drill
has penetrated the upper sediments and cover-
ing caps, and from these pour steady streams
of oil, and gas wells bring forth elements for
the service of mankind. And so Nebraska
may some soon day yield from her interior
store, rich contributions for her people.
West of this mountain range rolled the
waves of the last Cretaceous sea — the vast
marine water which divided the American
continent. Perhaps a low coastal range separ-
ated it from the Gulf, and it probably extend-
ed, widening, to the arctic circle.
Between the Nebraska-Kansas range and
the Ozarks there was an estuary, which might
be called Topeka bay, and on the western
shore of the sea were others, and into these the
ebb and flow of tide and current carried sponge-
like woods, where water-logged and slime-
burdened they settled down, and after ages
they became coal beds.
Out in the expanse of the Central Ocean,
there was an island, a hundred miles or more
in length, along about the eastern border of
the present Laramie plains. This Hartville
island as we shall call it, was of igneous
rocks, thrust edgewise up above the sea. Its
western shore was of rugged wave-washed
granite cliffs, and its eastern border was of
crumbling Benton shales and greenhorn lime.
Tin- Benton series was fractured when this
island was funned, it was the newest of the
rock so broken. And the Niobrara chalk rock-
was the first laid after the faulting of the
world's crustal shell. In the rapidly shallow-
' ing sea that covered most of Nebraska's cen-
tral plains, the Niobrara, the Pierre, and
other shales were laid. Much of this part
of the ocean for long year.-,, probably ranged
in depth from one hundred to two hundred
fathoms. There the little grains of glaucon-
ite occurred from decomposition of organic
matter contained in tiny foraminiferal shells.
This hydrous silicate of potassium and iron is
seventeen percent potash. The soil of Ne-
braska is fertile as a result.
There came a time when the ocean floor
was bared, except for pools, lagoons and
marshes, and long lakes of slowly moving,
brakish water ; and the antecedents of the
Niobrara, White river and the Platte ran west-
ward from the mountains to an inland sea. It
was at this time, after the Pierre shales were
laid, that Hartville island sank, and Nebras-
ka's sea was shallowed. Islands and banks of
mud, sand and rock arose dripping from a
dismal swamp, and miles and miles of marsh
appeared. The Laramie, or Fox Hills, mas-
sive sands and varigated shales, and thin
silicious lime rocks were laid about the base of
the sinking Hartville island. Cross currents
made mixed bedding, and slightly moving
water left sandstones marked with ripples.
Paleo-zoologists say the Laramie period was
the last of the Cretaceous, and paleo-botanists
say that it was the first of the Tertiary.
Marine animal life lingered over into the new
and marshy conditions, while plants changed
quickly, and the old varieties passed away.
Quite likely, the Cretaceous was before and
the Tertiary after, and the Laramie during the
Rocky Mountain revolution. It was the per-
iod of transition. Benton oysters found new
expansion, then changed into large fresh wat-
er clams, ten inches long. Soft woods of
prodigious growth, that made ligniteous coal,
passed away, and hard woods took possession
of the plains. The Hartville Island sank still
more, and over the west the great pleistocene
lake was spread.
Bones of the Eocene were caught and swept
along by the rushing waters, and are to be
found in these later days of science, in rifts
and drifts at Agate, and in the Goshen
Holes. The country east and west of the sink-
ing island warped and cracked. Great fis-
sures paralleling the island opened up. to be
quickly filled with ooze and slime, now hard-
ened into Brule clay. At the base of the
Scotts Bluff mountain (there was no mountain
then) and in the Ardmore country, the clay
was warped and twisted and tilted, and caught
mammoth turtles, and winged water bats in
its toils, to hold them there forever.
The original horse, a dozen varieties of the
hippos family, from tree climbing horses and
five toed ponies eighteen inches high, to the
almost modern horse, left skeletons in the Agate
fields. And there are bones of giant hogs,
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
that once wallowed in the marshes of White
river, and duck-billed dinosaurs that crawled
awkwardly through the water and mud.
Croaking amphibious monsters, sprawled in
mud and sand, or coiled under dripping trees,
or splashed in shallow waters, in search of
food, and wrote dumb tales of the Pliocene on
the rocks.
Through the rifts in the clouds that envel-
oped the earth, the eternal sun was breaking.
The brain cases of the higher forms of animal
life were growing, and yet there is lacking evi-
dence of the existence of primitive man. His
bones are not found in White river stones,
along with his presumed contemporaries, but
"Came From The Sea"
the evidence does exist that the Day of the
Brain was dawning in the Younger World.
Over the marshes swept the untrammelled
wind. Over stretches of water and sand is-
lands, aeolion agitation bore volcanic ash and
dust and sand, which found lodgement in deep
lagoons and moist places. When the later
igneous activity stirred the western mountains,
air currents carried the ashes high and far,
and then for days and days they sifted down
into the wastes of water on Nebraska. Thou-
sands of acres in the Holdrege-Orleans dis-
trict, and in the Scotts Bluff-Wildcat moun-
tains, and in the Pineridge, contain beds of
volcanic ash, of fine commercial quality.
Aerial combinations of ashes, dust and sand,
and glauconite came over the wastes. Into
the shallow waters they sank, and interstrati-
fied with sub-aerial and lacustrine substances,
and formed the rich Loess soil.
When the last terrestial convulsion came, the
Omaha-Lincoln-Wichita range growled and
rumbled in its subterranean depths, the Ozarks
hesitated and finally thrust their ragged sum-
mits higher, the Sierras came up out of the
sea, and lava beds spread over Idaho ; the
Black Hills rose towering, and Hartville is-
land came up again to the sun. Nebraska hesi-
tated for a time, deciding whether to become
an agricultural state or break up into tumbled
mountains. Ah, what a time that would have
been to have lived, and seen old Nature build
the heart of the American continent.
A nearly mountain range, "that died a born-
in' " ran from Furnas county to Dawes and
Sioux counties. Nearly volcanoes sprung
the earth in a dozen counties of Nebraska. The
Goshen Holes, east as far as Broadwater, Ne-
braska, swelled like a poisoned carcass, and
there today are rounded domes and anticlines,
of older rocks surrounded by the new, and
geology points prophetic fingers to the de-
formations.
Depositions of the Gering river and the
Hartville sea tell vividly the story. Out of
the range of mountains in eastern Nebraska,
from much of Nebraska's area, the waters
cumulated in great, slow-moving streams, that
meandered westward until they encountered
the lifted ridge of the nearly mountains. One
broke these hills somewhere in Sheridan coun-
ty, and another near Curtis, and they moved
westerly with increasing velocity. The finer
silts were carried on in the currents and the
coarser sands filled the river beds. We have
traced the course of the Gering river; we find
it between the forks of the Platte, and in the
Scotts Bluff- Wildcat mountains. Partly broken
and gone, partly eroded away, yet sufficient re-
mains to trace the majestic current, that left
coarse grey and brown sandrocks, flecked with
rectangular specks of black. The turreted fa-
cades in the castellated hills, from Courthouse
rock to Eaglenest, are the sands of the Gering
river. At Chimney rock the sands of the spire
indicate one hundred forty feet of deposited
sand.
The sands grow finer from Scotts Bluff
mountain as the current slowed down. Then
step by step the finer silts appear, and over all
the once bottom of the Hartville sea, from
Rawhide buttes to Pawnee buttes, the wind-
perforated rocks and soft sandstones are
formed in wierd fantastic shapes. They give
identity to the hills along the Red Cloud trail,
they are as monuments for a long dead sea.
The sun shines on the whitened lifted rocks,
'and the pale moon on ghostly forms that rose
out of the ancient waters, while places disturb-
ed by the last upheaval, have been worn away
by wind, and storm and stream. And glaucon-
ite has been wafted from the ancient ocean
floor, along with other sand, and it covers the
Dawes and Furnas ridge for miles and miles
and miles. Hence the Great Sand Hills of Ne-
braska.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER II
OLD TRAILS
There is a woof and warp to every garment.
And the garment of frontier history is made
over and upon old trails that twist and wind
through canyons and woods, over mountains,
and in the valley. These trails were old when
the trapper came, when the first Latin ad-
venturers penetrated the wilderness, which is
now so alive and teeming with inspiration, with
human action, and human thrills of ecstacy
and tragedy. They wound along the banks of
the rivers and their tributaries, finding the most
passable fords and accessible passes, the drink-
ing places and the meadows.
From the Bluewater (Snake creek), and
L'eau qui court (pronounced lo-ke-cort and
now called the Running water or Niobrara),
from the Lodgepole, Gonneville (or Pumpkin)
creek, Lorrens' (Lawrence) fork, and from
White river; and to and from the springs in
the hills, criss-crossing the valleys, in the sand
hills, or on the high divides, they made a verit-
able net work of trails — -trails which were
made long before the time of the Indian.
Before the periods of those industrious
peoples — the mound-builders of the Missis-
sippi valley, and the cliff-dwellers of the sad
southwest, and the earth-dwellers of Nebraska
— this land about us, newly risen from prim-
eval sea, this mystical sunland of the younger
world, became a land of trails. At the foot
of Scotts Bluff mountain, in the bad lands
north of Harrison, in the bluffs of the Run-
ning water, are found fossils, telling an un-
recorded story. Pterodactylus, the flying lizard
of long ago, turtles, and the bones of the
Mastodon are here. We may yet find trails of
Irish Elk and Cave Bear, which the first men
slew for food and for adventure.
First men were strong — grotesque and
powerful — huge hairy frames and knotted
twisted knees, with muscles which could tear
limbs from the trees. The battle of the world
was for the physically endowed. They cared
nut for the un-named stars; nor that the sec-
cond sign of the Zodiac had appeared, and
smiling on the world, was yielding a new in-
flux and order of intelligence. They knew not
thai man's mentality had begun to grow, and
would continue until the world was swept free
of the cumbersome, useless creatures of Plio-
cene, and their old trails would be no more.
These trails are buried now, under the
drill of glaciers and the wash and ashes of the
ages. And the trails of glaciers, the ice-grind
of centuries are strewn with stranger rocks and
stones, torn from the breast of their mother
mountains, and carried on long journeys, and
each peculiar kind, and its worn face, tells the
story of its pilgrimage.
The glaciers melting, poured released floods
in natural channels, and new rivers began
the first hilarious journey to the sea. Pos-
sibly the same liquids have made the same
journey many times — coming back in vapors
and falling in rain or snow — and then follow-
ing the water trails made by the melting gla-
ciers, centuries ago.
Deer, buffalo and elk, kindred and hostile
beasts of early America, made the trails of the
later "Overland." They crossed the gaps in
the Pineridge, and in the Scotts Bluff- Wildcat
range; they meandered up and down the val-
leys, and made worn thoroughfares over the
South Pass, long before the American Indian
found the heart of the new world.
We can go back only a relatively short per-
iod in our stories of events along the old trails,
for only the smooth surfaces of stones, only
silent fossils of giant things, only echoes from
a disintegrating atmosphere, and the dumb si-
lent zodiac, furnish the meagre information
as to what happened here, before the half-
savage French or Spanish trapper and adven-
turer penetrated the vast wilderness of the new
continent.
It has been a delight to find a bit of un-
usual or remote history that has a local signifi-
cance, and any motive behind human action is
always interesting. There are but vague ref-
erences to the first trails of Europeans in this
land, and they are so conflicting that it leaves
a question mark in the mind. Fortunately, I
have found in my rambles, stories that I shall
give here, and leave the reader to determine
their historic value. They may find incredu-
lous minds, but to me they have become fixed
as signal fires along the horizon of the past, in-
dicating the mark of the first white.man's foot
in all of Nebraska. The opening trail of civ-
ilization in the mighty west.
The first story dates back to about the
time of Coronado's search for Quivera, the
wonderful city of gold, which brought about
the discovery of the great plains and the buffa-
lo. It was following Coronado's futile attempt
that the Padres were inspired to attempt to
plant religion among the Indians of the great
plains.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
Spain had established a foothold in New
Mexico, and the Padres were advancing into
the plain and mountain tribes, to plant the seed
of the church. The southwest had been par-
ticularly susceptible to their teachings, and
vast missions of adobe were in the building
stage of development.
Some years ago, I was in the San Juan
valley, and there met Jay Turley who is as full
of romance and constructive genius as the
sand-hills of Nebraska are full of lakes. To-
gether we traveled several days, through the
valley which is rich in resource and tradition,
and there we met, feasted with the ancient
families, Jaques and Archileto. Over fri-
joles (beans) and stewed lamb, hot with pep-
pers, we chatted w,ith "Le Vent," (the wind)
who was a French-Spanish-American. At
Farmington I met Stapleton and his charming
Celtic bride, whose father had for years lived
under the shadow of the pueblos at Taos
(pronounced Tous). There were stories and
stories, and legends and legends, and I deter-
mined to learn more of them. To familiarize
myself, I went to the Indian country. At a
trading post I met an old Navajo, who direct-
ed some remark to the ladies of our party
which the trader interpreted as "pretty wom-
en." For us, he asked the weather beaten man
if he could tell where we were from, and he
made a comprehensive gesture to the north
and said the one word "Cheyenne." As an
indication of how he knew, he touched a fur
worn by one of the party, which was of beaver
trapped at the base of Laramie peak, which
was once the land of the Cheyennes.
My investigations later led me to old Santa
Fe, and I stood at the corner of the Plaza,
which was once the end of the Santa Fe trail.
I stood with uncovered head in the shadow of
the mission — centuries old — that was near
this spot. About a half a block from the
Plaza, which, had it articulation, could tell
such wonderful stories, through one of the
many doors in the white Wall that faces the
street, is the home of Ex-Governor L. Brad-
ford Prince, the historian of New Mexico.
And facing the Plaza itself, is an ancient adobe
building, the home of the state historical so-
ciety. In this I loitered by day pouring over
old scraps of history, and at night I would
leave the hotel to stand in the Plaza, listening
to the whispering winds and voices out of the
past.
It was at Santa Fe that I learned of Dacom-
bo, who, so far as I can learn, was the first
white man to visit America's valley of the
Nile. With an introductory note from Don
Juan Jaquez I met Don Sol Luna, then republi-
can national committeeman, but who is now
passed, and asked him if he knew any stories of
the first Spanish invasion of the north. I asked
him about the Padres and Dacombo. He knew
little of them in an historical way, but he re-
membered one person of that name residing
along the trail from Raton to Taos, of which
I made note. Then I visited Taos, going in
over the Cimmaron desert.
About twenty-five miles east of Taos, near
the summit of the continental divide, is a lone-
ly hut and when I went to Taos, I paused there
for refreshments, and also because Senor Sol
Luna had given me a token of introduction to
Miguel Dacombo; and here it was that he,
knowing of my desire, sat squat upon the
ground, and with a stick sketched crudely in
the sand, after the manner of story tellers and
tradition men of the southwest. And this is
the story imperfectly told in broken English,
as it had come to him through fourteen genera-
tions of ancestry:
"I, Miguel Dacombo (the camper), being of
the ancient family, will tell you now the story
of 'The Nine Years.' Fra Juan de Padilla,
and Fra Juan de La Cruz, and Dacombo, the
soldier with two boys, Lucas and Sabastian,
went into the far land of Quivera, to teach
the desert men, the Christ. They crossed
leagues of waste, perhaps three hundred and
perhaps rive hundred. They forded rivers, and
after a time, Padre Padilla said, 'We have
reached the land.' It was late in the summer,
and they had come upon a bluff overlooking a
wide glade. A river there was in the glade,
which they afterwards found to be very shal-
low and full of dangerous quick-sands. Many
islands there w r ere, and trees and grass. Here
were the people they had come to teach.
"The desert men came running, whereupon
Padre Padillo told all to hide and he would
meet them alone. He knelt down to pray, and
the desert men fell upon and killed him, while
kneeling. Fra de La Cruz, some days later,
saw a small band, and being in sore need of
food, he tried to reconcile them, but they also
killed him. Then it was that the Soldier spoke :
'They are God-less, — they are devils, — let us
go away.'
"They went not back over the desert, but fol-
lowed the river toward the mountains. They
traveled slowly and crossed the river many
times. They followed other rivers that ran in-
to it, and became lost in great mountains of
sand. Winter came and they made a cave.
There were winds that almost buried them
in the sand, and there were snows. They had
good water and plenty of fish ; and Sebastian,
who hunted, occasionally smothered a deer in
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
the snow-drifts. They had no weapons but
knives.
•'Summer came, but they found not their way
out of the sand mountains, for the mountains
shifted in the mighty winds, and the mirage
lured them many a league, and arroyas be-
wildered and confused them. Another winter
was spenl like the first. They had plenty of
meal and wood, and clothing made of skins.
"Another summer, and the great river again.
They blessed the Holy Virgin that they were
out of the sand mountains. One day, as in a
vision, great cities shone in the sunset; and
they travelled towards them many days. At
last they saw they were mountains, almost
like great pueblos. Mountains, many miles
of them, that stood up, like ruins of castles.
The Soldier said to Lucas and Sebastian, 'This
is like dear old Spain.' There were giant
castles, churches, long walls, steeples, all won-
derful ; but there were no desert men. No
people were there.
"The 'crooked-backed oxen of the plains,' in
mighty herds, moved over the hills and val-
leys to the south. Where can they go ? They
travelled by for days and days, and the sol-
dier said, 'We must be far from home, for the
oxen never get as far as Piguex.' They spent
a winter in this land. The boys dreamed of
the giants that had builded these great castles,
but the soldier was tired, and his body had
many sores. He was sick, but he dreamed and
dreamed and dreamed.
"Summer came and the wild cattle went
north. Sometimes they ran. and a few are
killed, which they found were good for food,
and with the coming of summer, the soldier
and his boys travelled south for many a league,
where they found another river. Many times
they left it, and wandered into the desert trying
to get home, but they were driven back fam-
ished. Finally, captured by a tribe of desert
men, they were taken toward the sunset until
they reached mountains that shone red at
sundown like the Blood of Christ. Here there
was water, and wood, and game and berries.
How far did they go? Once Sebastian had
fever, and once Lucas had sores on his body,
and oh, how they all wanted to go home. But
with the wild people, and the impassable moun-
tains, where trails in the canyons ended abrupt-
ly, and the swift and ever swifter passing of
seasons, it seemed like they never could reach
their people.
"Nine years passed before they found the In-
dian village Piguex. The boys were bearded
men. Few were there who knew them, but
their hearts were glad to be once more among
their own people. The mark of the desert is
upon us. Here am I. still in the desert, at-
tending goats ; and telling you this story, as it
has come to me, from father to son, and fath-
er to son, since it was first told by Dacombo.
the soldier, and his sons, fourteen men ago."
The Padres Padilla and Le Cruz were killed,
probably near Columbus, and the river of
castles is quite likelv the North Platte river,
and the time about 1540-1550.
CHAPTER III
THE FLAG OF FRANCE IN THE WILDERNESS
'flic nexl old trail, the mxt white man's foot
dial made iis mark upon the soil of Nebras-
ka, was in 1739, when Mallei brothers made
their journey into the wilderness, and research
of historians regarding this enterprise is of a
very meagre and indefinite order.
The Spaniard had taken Mexico, and estab-
lished himself as Ear north as Santa Fe and
England was having its historic strug-
gle Hi' colonizing the Atlantic coast, and the
ith splendid enterprise, were reach-
ing far into the interior of the western world,
and, amalgamating with the native tribes, were
laying firm foundations for grasping an em-
pire.
From Montreal and Canadian possessions
the call of the wild had attracted French ad-
venturers into the mighty forests west of the
great lakes, and now, in 1739. from New Or-
leans, then a frontier city, Mallet brothers
began a noteworthy journey into the new and
wild country. They were to ascend the Missis-
sippi river to the mouth of the Missouri, then
to follow that stream for a distance, then strike
west into the unknown land, descend upon
Santa Fe from the north, and to lav claim to
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
everything north of the Spanish city in the
name of France.
Some history makers say that they ascend-
ed the Missouri river to the Arikarie villages,
then turned south and crossed the Platte and
Arkansas rivers. Watkins says their journey
is somewhat shadowy, and Chittendon tells
us that they left the Missouri river at or near
the present site of Sioux City, on May 29th,
and reached the Platte July 2d (a physical im-
possibility in those days of slow travel, and
that they ascended the Platte to the forks, and
the south fork to the mountains, arriving at
Santa Fe, July 22d. The distance would be a
thousand miles, and the time fifty days, or
an average of twenty miles per day. which
deduction makes it questionable, although pos-
sible.
But the story I have to tell, as I said, will
fall upon some incredulous ears. It bridges
in such a remarkable manner, the one hundred
and fifty years from the time the trip was
made, to the date the story came to me, that
I would hardly venture to include it in his-
tory, except that I found some translations
from Duiderot and De Margry, that fix the
dates as stated, and lend confirmation to the
balance of the story.
Old-timers, over on Gonneville, or Pumpkin
creek, will remember Francois Jourdain, and
around Sixty-Six mountain the pioneers will
remember "Tommy" Chaunavierre. (The
cowboys called him "Shunover.")
In the old days, thirty or more years ago, I
frequently visited "Frenchy" Jourdain's cabin,
which was about three miles east of Wildcat
mountain, and I enjoyed his stories. He was
not a voluble man, but if you started him upon
reminiscence, tradition or history, he would
wax eloquent in gesticulation and expression of
countenance, even if not very articulate.
On more than one occasion, I found "Old
Tommy" visiting him, and at such times I
could be little more than a listener. Their
volatile conversation rattled on, half in French,
and occasionally Tommy would refer to some
ancient manuscript. Frenchy had a coverless
book to which he occasionally referred, and
this was printed in the French language.
The words "Mallet" (Mawley) and "De
Margry" (Demarjory) soon fixed themselves
in my mind, and after a time I got the story.
Tommy claimed that a distant relative — a far
off ancestor — once had the wonderful distinc-
tion of being selected by the Crown of France,
as one of the party of eight, who under Mallet,
was on a tour of investigation and exploration,
and that about one hundred and fifty years
before, they had passed through this very part
of the country. Their route, as outlined by
Chaunavierre, left the Missouri river near the
present site of Pierre (Pe-air), and up the lit-
tle Missouri or Teton river, then across to
White river, entering Nebraska at a point a
little west of the present site of Chadron. They
crossed the Pineridge near the Belmont sta-
tion and the Running Water at Bell, where
Charles H. Irion once was in the mercantile
business. Then up Whistle creek and Coyote
canyon, crossing the Snake creek valley, a few
miles west of the present site of Curley, then
near Spottedtail springs and down the west
Sportedtail to the Platte river, then up Horse
creek to a point some distance above the old Y-
cross ranch, then turning southward, keeping
close to the foot-hills, they arrived at Santa
Fe in due time and completed their mission.
De Margry says that they reached the Platte
river on June 2. 1739, and that they called it
"Flatwater." This is the first time in all rec-
ord, that I have seen the Platte river designat-
ed by a name, and it is the second story of
white people in western Nebraska.
Since taking up this work the old story came
back to me, and I have sought for its confirma-
tion in contempory history. A story of start-
ling interest has been uncovered.
One would hardly think that, during the
reign of Louis XV, the Crown of France
would take much interest in the development
of foreign empire ; but some years before, an
adventurer named John Law had wrecked the
finances of the French government in a Mis-
sissippi speculation, and the succeeding prime
minister. Cardinal Fleury. was engaged in the
desperate task of reconstruction. There was
only one way by which this could be accom-
plished, and that was by keeping the youthful
king busy with frivolous pastime, while the
master-hand performed the labor. And in
this matter, the careless act of a nurse material-
ly assisted. She was an attendant of Louis
XV, when he was a child, and permitted him
to play with the daughter of a blacksmith, for
whom he formed a childish attachment.
At the ripe age of fifteen years, the minis-
try selected a Polish princess as the bride for
the king. They reasoned that this plaything
would keep him out of public affairs. After a
time he began to think of the playmate of his
childhood, and to keep him amused, the min-
istry made search, and found her, then grown
into a beautiful woman. The king was might-
ily pleased, and he bestowed upon the black-
smith's daughter the title of Marchioness le
Pompadour, and for twenty years she was the
virtual ruler of France.
Spain had been anticipating an alliance of
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
the French King with some one of Castillian
nobility, and it is not the character of the
Spaniard to take kindly to the shattering of
hopes because of a blacksmith's daughter. The
conditions had reached such a stage that they
involved the territory of the new world. Span-
iards had been endeavoring to get a foothold
in the valleys of the Arkansas and the Platte,
and it was under the direction of the French
ministry that Mallet brothers traversed the
wilderness in 1739.
It may be noted that during the latter part of
Lady Pompadour's sway over King Louis, that
the French people were seized with a spasm of
interest in literature. This was indeed one of
the great epochs of France, and was likely
brought about by the skeptic, Voltaire, who
jarred upon the super-sensitive religious in-
clinations of the time, and so suited the French
temperament of that period, that it provoked
their sluggish intellects, drugged with long
years of excesses and vices, into some sort of
natural action. In passing it may be well to
add that after the death of Pompadour, when
Madame Du Barry became the favorite of the
degenerate king, the French government prac-
tically collapsed.
Mallet brothers, carrying the French flag
into the wilderness, was the wise work of .
Cardinal Fleury, and it was the same force that
prompted the expedition of Verendrye into
northern Wyoming in 1740.
Whatever feeble collateral history there is
available at this time, was probably inspired by
Lady Pompadour. And from Duiderot, one
of the famous scriveners of the time, and from
De Margry, are the only references to the jour-
ney, that I have been able to find. I would
give much for the manuscript of Tommy
Chaunavierre, but he is passed; and the family
long scattered to other lands.
CHAPTER IV
THE FUR-TRADERS
The fur trade began in the territory about
us, a little over one hundred years ago, and it
continued until the passing of the buffalo.
The active period was for about fifty years,
and the romance of that wild, hard life is now
only a memory.
The dangers attendant during the Indian
wars, the thrilling experiences of emigrants
and pony express riders, and the overland
stage, and the later inspiration of the cowmen,
each have important parts ; and in the evolution
of the past, the homesteaders of twenty-five to
thirty-five years ago, and the people of the
later periods, each have been history makers.
The slow process of irrigation, has been an-
other epoch in our little world, and the full-
ness of its glory is not yet nearly reached. But
fur trailers and trappers came into this primi-
tive wilderness, largely for the love of ad-
venture, and they built campfires that burned
so brightly for a time which now have faded
and smoldered, and are lost into the receding
past.
The Latin races have always been pioneers
ration and enterprise. The Cross of
Christ, and the Sword of the Spanish Con-
querer, have gone hand in hand over the great
southwest, and it was in the early centuries that
Spanish pilgrims wandered into the northwest,
and many of them never returned.
Foremost among the fur-traders, came Man-
uel Lisa. He organized the Missouri Fur
Company about 1807, and sent out trappers
and pushed boats up the Missouri and the
Yellowstone. The fierce competition waged by
the Hudson Bay company, on the upper Mis-
souri river and its tributaries, effected a change
of base. We find no record of Lisa visiting
this section of the state, but his mark is
stamped indelibly on this land. A number of
writers seem to think he was here about 1809,
but no real record has been found. Manuel
Lisa and his wife were the first white people to
set up housekeeping in Nebraska, they estab-
lishing a home near the mouth of the Platte
about 1809.
Jacques Laramie, was at or near that time,
associating himself with free trappers and es-
tablishing a rendezvous at the confluence of
the Platte and Laramie rivers, and there are
evidences that white men had preceded him.
Someone in earlier years had left the mark on
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
the Hartville hills. Roi and Dornin were met
by the returning Astorians, at the eastern end
of Grand Island, in the spring of 1813, and
they were on their way up the Platte. For
how many years they had been coming there
is no record, but that they might have been
associated with Manuel Lisa, seems quite prob-
able. They appeared as free trappers at the
mouth of the Laramie in the later years.
When Robert Stuart and party met them at
Grand Island, they had come up the river in
a boat, and they disposed of the elkskin craft
to the Stuart party. Rio and Dornin them mov-
ed on up the Platte through the Sand Hills,
and must have traversed the Old Trail some-
time during the same year.
The fur hunters of that day left their mark
upon the country and some of the names linger
over to this time. Among those who met in the
annual rendezvous on the Laramie, were
Jaques Laramie, and M. Goshe, and Gonne-
ville. Each left his bones in the western land,
and each brought lingering names to the geog-
raphy of the west : Laramie peak, Laramie
mountains, Laramie plains, Laramie river and
the Little Laramie, Laramie city and old Fort
Laramie. Goshe frequented the land south-
east of the annual rendezvous, and had built
him a cabin on Cherry creek, and here he was
found dead, apparently murdered by Arapa-
hoes, which were never to be trusted, and then
the numerous basins and flats on the eastern
border of Wyoming, south of the Platte, be-
came known as Goshe's Holes.
Probably the change in the name was due to
the Mormons, who probably misunderstood it
in the first place. The notes of many para-
graphers call it "Goshen Hole" after the Mor-
mons' pilgrimage to the valley of Great Salt
Lake. John Henry Smith, a once prominent
Mormon, now passed, told me that there was
something about this country that appealed to
those of his faith, when journeying into the
mountains, and many of them wished that this
could be made the Mecca of their journey.
Among the meagre personal effects of M.
Goshe, at the time of his demise, were found
crude sketches which indicated that he trap-
ped on Cherry creek, Horse creek, Bear creek,
Lodgepole creek, Lawrence fork, and Gon-
neville or Pumpkin creek, all of which were
then unnamed.
Gonneville was like Goshe, a French Creole,
and after the annual meet at the Laramie ren-
dezvous, he would disappear into the southeast
wilderness, where he trapped for beaver as
far east probably as Ash Hollow. His period
of activity extended from 1820 to 1830. He
was with Bissonette at the time the bones of
immortal Scott were found near the spring on
Scotts Bluff mountain, and he was killed by
Indians in 1830, near the point where Lor-
ren's fork joins Pumpkin creek. The latter then
became known as Gonneville creek, until the
coming of the cowmen.
It seems natural for successive classes of
people in any territory, to unconsciously en-
deavor to obliterate the names and the glory
of the departing peoples. Thus the reckless
and contemptuous cowmen changed much of
our geographical nomenclature. Lodgepole
creek became commonly known as Pole creek,
and Gonneville creek lost its historic signifi-
cance in the prosiac Pumpkinseed. Lorren's
fork became Lawrence fork, and the beautiful
Bluewater now bears a disagreeable name, the
Snake.
There is a justification for new people, who
accomplish new things, to stamp indelibly the
fact upon some physical attraction, but if it
must be done by tearing down an identity that
was here long before, it becomes a travesty,
and an act little short of vandalism.
Take for instance, Mud Springs, so full of
history that a volume could be written concern-
ing it but the railroad has named the station
"Simla." What does Simla indicate? Pos-
sibly the name of some railroad official, and
possibly not so much as that. But it does mean
the obliteration of an historical identity and
association, and a sentiment that the genera-
tions of men would appreciate.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER V
ROBERT STUART'S WINTER CAMP
On June 20th, 1812, Robert Stuart, with a
party of six others, left Astoria, Oregon, car-
rying dispatches to John Jacob Astor, of New
York. The personnel of this party were hard-
ened mountaineers and each is worthy of a
volume of history, but as the achievements ap-
pear from time to time, it will not be neces-
sary to give them further introduction now.
\\ Inn near the present site of Walla Walla,
Washington, John Day, who was one of the
party, was taken ill, and attempted suicide.
Friendly Indians were prevailed upon to take
him back to Astoria, where one report says
he died. Another says that he recovered,
which is quite likely true, for mention of his
deeds can be found in the records as late as
1819.
Upon the upper Mad river, now called
Snake, they met with a party of four trappers,
which the Astorians had left in the moun-
tains the year previous. These consisted of
Edward Robinson, a Kentuckian who in a
brush with the Indians at an earlier date had
lost his scalp, and John Hoback, Jacob Rizner
and Jacob Miller. The Blackfeet had strip-
ped them completely, and the first three named
returned to the mountains to recoup their lost
fortunes, while Miller joined Stuart's party,
which made it again seven in number. Robin-
son. Hoback and Rizner all perished in the
wilderness.
Stuart's party proceeded onward, and met
with many hardships. When near the conti-
nental divide, which they crossed on October
20th; when for several days they had been
without food, LeClerc, a French-Canadian,
came to the leader with the startling proposi-
tion that they cast lots to see who should die
to furnish food for the others. To obtain the
consent of Stuart, he proposed that the leader
should not take the hazard. Unable to prevail
upon the man to desist from his horrible sug-
gestion in any other way. Stuart told him that
if In- heard another word of it. the man who
made the suggestion would be the one to die.
The Canadian subsided, and fortunately they
soon thereafter killed a run-down buffalo bull.
With lives sustained, the party was enabled
to continue proceed as tin- discoverers of
1 Iverland Trail, which from the east
as far west as western Wyoming, has been
used with only slight variation-, by ( Iregon
emigrants, California gold seekers, ami Mor-
mons.
This adventurous party went into winter
quarters early in November, 1812, on the north
bank of the river, which they afterwards iden-
tified as the Platte, at the point where Poison
Spider creek comes out of the north. Game
was abundant, and while four of the party
worked at making a suitable winter habitation,
the other three were out in the adjoining
mountains shooting buffalo, deer, bighorns,
and other big game with which the country
abounded.
Here they reveled and feasted after their
days of famine and meat boiled, broiled and
roasted made the variety of the daily fare.
But they were not destined to remain undis-
turbed in their comfortable quarters. Early in
December they \vere visited by a score or more
of hungry Indians, professing friendship af-
ter the manner of the early redmen when des-
titute and hungry. They were fed from the
abundant stores of the Stuart party and sent
upon their way with several days rations.
This visit, the travelers knew, would be only
a beginning, so they reluctantly broke camp on
the 13th of December and proceeded down the
river.
It was late in the month when the party
reached the prairies of Nebraska. They trav-
eled on until about the line between the pres-
ent counties of Morrill and Garden, where the
white dreary solitude looked so destitute of
subsistence that they retraced their steps for
three days before finding a suitable location
for their camp.
On New Year's day, 1813, they were in a
Cottonwood grove on the north bank of the
river at a point about four miles west of the
present city of Scottsbluff. Here there were
trees large enough to make canoes, and the
Platte, though frozen over had an appearance
of being navigable for small boats.
In the years that have passed since then,
the river has changed its course, and has cut
into the lower end of Spring creek, leaving
the location of the old camp upon what is
know n as Big Island just at its lower extrem-
ity.
At this place some of the older dwellers of
the valley — Theo. D. Deutsch and others —
can recollect the very old cottonwood stumps,
possibly the very trees cut by this party and
made into canoes. And Mr. Deutsch is the
owner of a hand forged ax, found on this is-
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
land which might have been once used by the
Stuart party 100 years ago.
I wonder if the resolute Stuart ever had
visions of the future — if he ever dreamed
that he and his party were blazing the trail
for the mighty shifting of population that
later crossed the continent. Children not then
born, were the heads of families with Marcus
Whitman, who piloted emigrants to Oregon in
1842-43 and 44. And there are great grand-
parents now living that were not born when
Whitman made his journey.
This camp on Big Island was in the long
ago. It was fifteen years before Hiram Scott
Robert Stuart's Winter Camp, 1812-13
Drawn from description and survey of Big Island.
perished on the bluff that bears his name, and
was twenty years earlier than the time that
Captain Bonneville visited the Scottsbluff
county and made mention of the famous
mountain.
The hut builded by these adventurers con-
sisted of cottonwood posts, over which were
fastened buffalo robes, making a wall that
kept out the sweeping blasts that came down
through Platte canyon, and roared over the
bleak, bare prairies. In true wild fashion, the
hole through which the smoke from the fires
escaped was in the center of their winter
home. Buffalo robes were piled upon the
ground for the beds. The old horse that had
done them such service in packing over the
mountains was turned loose to find food and
shelter in the primitive way.
There were two Canadians in the party, Val-
ler and LeClerc, who were relied upon to do
much of the hunting. And Robert McLellan,
who was with Wayne in the Indian wars east
of the Mississippi, was not of a temperament
for the confinement of a camp. The river was
frozen over, and the hunters went at will
among the south hills, or hunted sheep on the
mountain.
It is quite generally known these peculiar
creatures of the wild used to frequent the
most inaccessible cliffs of old Scotts Bluff, and
they could be seen standing out in bold relief
on the outermost pinnacles, surveying the bad
lands and the valley with proprietary dignity.
They would bound along the ledges that no
hunter would dare to follow, or would leap
over precipices when hard pressed striking
upon their horns fifty or one hundred feet be-
low, and recovering their feet, Would run
away unharmed.
The last of these animals in the Scotts
Bluff country were killed by Hardy Farns-
Worth and George Slonecker about 1888, and
the head and horns of that killed by Slonecker
weighed forty-seven pounds.
McLellan would often be out for several
days, and the worse the weather the better it
suited his wild nature. Like the stormy petrol,
he glorified in defying the tempests. Frequent-
ly his campfire beacons gleamed above the hills
in the direction of the landmarks of what
in after years became known as the "Hogback"
and "Wildcat Mountain."
Beaver were found along the river and the
hunters added a number of their pelts to their
store.
There was but little game upon the prairie,
the buffalo having retired to the mountains
or migrated southward. But occasionally great
droves of antelope could be seen in the open
or passing over some distant ridge. The tim-
bered hills to the southward afforded plenty
of blacktail deer, and when the hunters first
appeared among them they were too wild to be
scared. Upon the approach of the white man
they would bound out of the thicket only a
few feet away, and turn and stand looking
at one, with wide and wondering eyes.
Early in March, the ice went out of the
river, and on the eighth of the month, the
party embarked in their canoes, and proceed-
ed d.-iwn the turbulent stream. Only a few
miles below they encountered snags and sand
bars, obliging them to abandon their canoe
and continue their journey on foot. Near
the eastern extremity of Grand Island, they
met an Otte (Otoe) Indian, who directed
them to the camp of two white traders, who
were on their way into the wilderness. From
them they procured an elkhide boat and con-
tinued their journey to St. Louis by water.
These arc the men who made the' wonderful
and hazardous trip, without the loss of a man,
in the worst part of the year, who discovered
and traversed the most practical route across
the continental divide, and laid the founda-
tion for a great national, ocean to ocean high-
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
wey, and to whom a stone shall be raised that
will fittingly commemorate their achievements :
Robert Stuart, Ramsey Crooks, Robert Mc-
Clellan, Ben Jones, Joseph Miller, Francis Le-
Clerc and Andri Valler.
CHAPTER VI
JACQUES LARAMIE'S CARAVANS AND FLEETS
The romance of the hunter and trapper has
always appealed to boys. We have all had our
; s iins^ and there are few of us who have not,
at some time in our career, set steel traps in
the creeks and ponds around home, or impro-
vised a snare for wild game.
Many of the hunters and trappers of one
hundred years ago, took to the wilderness for
the love of the tiling, but there were some who
went into it for gain. Of such, not all were
destined to receive the profit which they hoped
would be theirs.
Of the former class John Day, with his six
feet two, and his manly upright bearing was a
type. It is true that like many another of his
kind, he died far away from civilization, and
wild animals gnawed at, and fought over his
bones. Too many of them shared this melan-
choly fate ; and too many of them shared the
fate of Manuel Lisa who put so much spirit
end energy into the fur enterprise. He was of
more than average intelligence and had much
practical knowledge of the business, but it did
not avail. The hazards were too great, and
he died absolutely insolvent.
Robert Stuart and Ramsey Crooks were
among the fortunate. They early became the
western lieutenants of the fur king, John
Jacob A si or. and in that capacity made money
not only for him but for themselves.
Early in the year 1814 word found way in-
to the mountains that the party of Astorians
had reached St. Louis by a much shorter route
than that usually taken, and devoid of many
of the dangers along the Missouri river route.
This fact naturally led to a shifting of free
trappers from tin more frequented fields into
tin- new and fresher territory along the Platte
and Sweetwater.
About 1815, tin competition among the big
companies operating in the mountain- reach-
ed such a stage that some of the partisans
seemed to think that robbery and murder were
duties oi faithful employees. This
caused peace loving men like Jacques Laramie
to leave the partisans of the trade, and engage
in free trapping. He held that the world was
large enough for all. The result was that a
large number who believed as he did, had
decided to let the partisans fight it out ; and
they had taken to the newer fields of enter-
prise, and had made a rendezvous at the junc-
tion of the Laramie Fork and the North Platte.
And from this point they loaded their packs of
beaver for St. Louis.
After the first year's experience, the his-
toric spot became an annual rendezvous — the
place of meeting to journey to civilization,
and point of dispersing into the wilderness.
History is somewhat of a desert as to the
free trapping fraternity. Their independence,
and for the most part illiteracy, combined to
condemn them to obscurity.
It was the manner of many of the half wild
people of the mountains to go with their pel-
tries into the city, and after disposing of them,
to spend the money royally, after which they
would repair to the wilderness for more. The
wild was a part of their lives.
The stormy petrol, — Robert McLellan —
who returned with Stuart to St. Louis through
the valley of the "Flat Water," in 1812-13,
never again returned to the mountains. But
civilization was not of his kind, and he died
less than two years thereafter.
Jacques Laramie was an unusual character
among the people of long ago. Too many of
the wilderness men were inclined to forget
their obligation. Expediency and the needs
of the moment were of vastly greater concern
to them than the vague uncomprehensive con-
tract signed with "his x mark" made to some
partisans of the fur trade.
Yet for the purpose of disposing of their
peltries, it was necessary for them to rely
upon some one to do the mathematical work,
and one who would not let the "wise ones" of
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
13
civilized trade, take their hides along with
the pelts of animals.
Laramie became a leader of free trappers —
the man whom all trusted — -and from year to
year the rendezvous at "Laramie's fork" grew,
as new men heard of the newer and safer
route to and from the base of supplies.
For five years after 1S15 the trappers met
in May of each year, and when conditions
were favorable, the peltries were loaded on the
bullboats, and Laramie with a party would
convey them down the river. Another party
would take horses to a point about four hun-
dred miles below to assist their return. Keel-
boats plying on the Missouri river, would take
Laramie "and his cargo from the mouth of the
Platte to St. Louis and return, and occasionally
keelboats could ascend the Platte as far as
Grand Island — then an unnamed island.
Ordinarily, however, the party were com-
pelled to use its bullboats up the Platte to the
meeting place. Sometimes traders would be
found at the island rendezvous, who would
take all their pelts, furnish them with supplies
and permit them to return. Pack horses were
invariably used on this return through western
Nebraska.
Here the supplies were distributed by the
just hand of Laramie, as had been ordered and
was required by each trapper or company of
trappers and all would then take to the prairies
or mountains, each announcing the portion of
the wild in which he proposed to operate for
the coming year.
Thus it transpired that from 1815 onward,
there were troops of horse, and fleets of bat-
teaux frequently traversing the great valley of
the North Platte.
There was always plenty of driftwood for
their small needs, as the trips were made
quickly. The boats traveled about seventy-
five miles per day, and the horses about thirty,
so that five or six days would take the boat to
the island rendezvous, and twelve or fifteen
would bring the horses back to Laramie's fork.
At this time of the year the Indians south
of the Platte, particularly the Arapahoes, were
following buffalo herds northward The Ogal-
lalas and Tetons who claimed the territory
north of the Platte always resisted the prog-
ress of the southern tribes into their hunting
grounds, and the river was the halting line.
Above the fork of the Laramie, that river
was the line of resistance.
Arapahoes were always distrustful of the
white people, and continued hostile until 1832,
when Captain Gant established a post on the
Arkansas, and won their friendship. The
Cheyennes, also south of the river, were of
the same unreliable nature, and about 1815,
they joined the Arapahoes, and operated with
them for several years.
On the other hand, the Tetons and Ogal-
lalas were always friendly up to this period.
Even in the later wars, Spotted Tail, the fam-
ous chief of the Ogallalas, was a peace loving
Indian, and regretted the necessity of fighting
the whites, but he could not do otherwise than
"throw in with his people," when the eloquence
of Red Cloud won them over to war.
So marked was this condition, that the trap-
pers who made the annual trips up and down
the Platte, found it better to keep on the
north side of the stream, particularly on the
return trip which was made in June. The
river made a natural barrier against their pre-
datory foes, and afforded comparative safety
to those of the caravans moving along the
valley during the high water period.
The greater number of the trappers went
north and west from the rendezvous for the
same reason. Those who took to the streams
on the south to gather beaver usually met with
disaster. Goshe was found dead in his cabin,
and Gonneville was killed on the creek that
bore his name for so many years, and even
that friend of the Indian, the gentle Jacques
Laramie, was not immune from the vicious
Arapahoes.
In 1820, he announced that he would trap
on Laramie fork the coming season, and when
the other trappers pointed out the dangers,
he said he would go alone. He did — and he
died alone, at the base of the great mountain
that bears his name. His body was found in
his cabin in 1821 by a party of trappers who
had gone in search of him.
He had failed to meet at the rendezvous as
agreed, but he had gone the way of brave
John Day, and of Hoback, Robinson, Rezner
and McLellan. into a stranger land — to a
Final Rendezvous in the Wilderness of Stars.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER VII
GENERAL WILLIAM H. ASHLEY'S TRAPPERS — DEATH OF HIRAM SCOTT
In 1823, General Ashley started with a pow-
erful party up the Missouri, but at the Ankara
villages they met with such hostilities that a
number of men were killed and others utterly
discouraged. Following the talk of mutiny, he
released all, and called for volunteers. Forty
men, most of them hardy mountaineers from
Kentucky, responded ; the others returning to
St. Louis. Among the forty was Hiram Scott,
a man of considerable education and romance.
With these men General Ashley returned to
the Platte and ascended the river to the moun-
tains. At the forks, he sent a small detach-
ment up the south river with instructions to
meet the main party on the Seeds-keedee, or
prairie-hen river, which had been called the
Spanish river for some time, and soon after
it was changed to Green river. With about
thirty men he crossed the south fork of the
Platte at the point where the city of North
Platte now lies, and the north fork at or near
the mouth of the Birdwood.
Closely crowding the river on the north side
were the sand hills, of which it was said:
"This remarkable region is composed of round-
ed hillrocks of sand, and blowouts, so similar
that one better be lost in the trackless forest
than to become confused in his bearings."
When opposite "the Needle," no doubt Chim-
ney Rock, they were halted three hours to allow
the buffalo to pass. Thousands of them were
coming out of the mountains, crossing the river,
and disappearing into the hills of the north.
General Ashley's party camped that night
at "an island of considerable proportions
which, seemed to be a rendezvous for wild
fowl." The description given tallies with Long
Island, occasionally designated as Hughes Is-
land, where wild geese nested in earlier days.
There was an old saying among the Indians
thai " Vbove the forks of the Platte, the grass
does not burn." In the shadowy first years
then- was very little grass in this country, and
the little that did spring up in the early season,
and much of the prairie was absolute-
ly ban- by the middle of July. Thus it occur-
red that when General Ashley reached "the
meadows," he rested for a few day. to let
his horses recup
"A mountain of considerable proportions
was nearly Opposite the camp," and one wild
soul remarked that when he died he hoped that
his body would be buried upon the top
minence as that. I have wondered if
the man who thus remarked was Hiram Scott,
and if, five years later, it was the memory of
this mountain that had inspired him onward
to die at its feet.
Somewhere in the mountains Mr. Scott met
Narcisse LeClerc. Francis LeClerc, who was
with Stuart in 1812, was a kinsman of Nar-
cisse, and had told him of the wonderful fur
resources in the mountains, and the former
was not long in finding his way into the
wilds.
General Ashlev had returned to St. Louis
Death of Hiriam Scott
in the autumn of 1823, and Scott had become
a free trapper, when he met LeClerc. (Fer-
ris says that Scott was clerk of the American
Fur Company, and that may have been true
at one time, but not in 1828.)
The competition among the companies had
driven the most enterprising men into the free
trapper fraternity, and the exactions of free
trappers drove the companies to consolidation.
The Northwest had become a part of the Hud-
son Bay, and in July, 1827, the American Fur
Company absorbed the Columbia. Free trap-
pers would undoubtedly receive less for their
peltries, and LeClerc and Scott determined to
organize a new company.
MrKenzie, manager of the post of the Am-
erican, was a special object of dislike. LeClerc
told Papin, a confrere, at a later date, that he
"would like nothing better, than puffing a
good cigar along side of McKenzie."
Now while the Northwest had been ab-
sorbed by the Hudson Bay, the name had a
traditional and commercial value, and LeClerc
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
15
and Scott decided upon "Northwest Fur Com-
pany," as the name for their new concern.
Thus it transpired that a considerable number
of free trappers were assembled under the
leadership of LeClerc, with Hiram Scott as
clerk and bookkeeper. And they were enroute
for St. Louis in 1828, to dispose of their first
collection of peltries, and formally launch
their company.
Chittendon says that this new company was
outfitted by Henry Shaw, but that was later
and after the death of Scott.
Just above Platte canyon, at the rock bot-
tom ford, Scott was taken ill, and left behind
with Roi and Bissonette, to be taken by a bull-
boat through the Platte canyon, and to over-
take the party at "the big bluff one hundred
miles down the river," where they would tar-
ry and trap. (People coming to Scotts Bluff
from the plain refer to it as a mountain, but
people from the mountains regularly called
it a bluff.)
The story of the naming of Scotts Bluff, as
told by Washington Irving in "Captain Bonne-
ville," needs only these few alterations and
embellishments, which I have garnered from
the notes of other brave men of the mountains,
to make it complete.
After a few days the boat was launched, but
was upset in the canyon, and all provisions
and ammunition were lost. The three men
reached the shore, however, and after some
difficulty reached Laramie's fork. While
searching for food, Roi and Bissonette came
upon the fresh trail of LeClerc and party, and
abandoned Scott in the wilderness. On reach-
ing the big bluff, they found that the others
had not waited as agreed, so they pushed on-
ward. When overtaking the party, they im-
provised the story that Scott had died from
exposure and fever.
The following year Bissonette, Gonneville
and Roubideaux were returning from civiliza-
tion, and they found a skeleton at the spring, on
the mountain, which the former declared was
that of Hiram Scott. He had walked or crawl-
ed seventy miles, before his resolute spirit took
its flight. The Bissonette here mentioned was
a son of Antoine Bissonette and one of his
many Indian wives. Antoine was with Man-
uel Lisa in 1807, and deserted. With Lisa's
order to retake him dead or alive, Drouillard
shot and mortally wounded him. The mongrel
son, who inherited his father's penchant for
deserting a companion, lived to a ripe old age,
and is mentioned by Francis Parkman, who
visited this village on Horse Creek in 1846.
He had married a squaw — several of them
in fact — and was the chief of a small band
when visited by Parkman. They were camp-
ed near the present site of La Grange, and were
miserably poor. Their principal food consisted
of choke berries crushed with stones and dried
on buffalo robes in the sun. They had journey-
ed in from the south, and on the trip had lived
for the most part on huge wingless grass-
hoppers, which clumsily fell about their moc-
casins as they walked.
History is singularly destitute relating to the
future movements of Roi, but Narcisse Le-
Clerc was a live wire for several years that
followed.
CHAPTER VIII
TOSHUA PILCHER AND FORTY-FIVE TRAPPERS
When Manuel Lisa died, in August, 1820,
Joshua Pilcher succeeded him as manager of
the Missouri Fur Company. Pilcher followed
the much used route up the Missouri river for
several years.
He was with Leavenworth and Ashley in the
Arikara fight which was participated in by
Hiram Scott and others familiar in Scotts Bluff
history. This little event on the Missouri and
subsequent bitterness between him and Colonel
Leavenworth, and the increased hostility of
the Arikaras after the Leavenworth fiasco,
caused the Platte river to lie selected for
Pilcher's operations.
For a while he confined himself to short
journeys up the river as far as Grand Island
where he met trappers coming from the moun-
tains, and up the Loup and other tributaries
trading with the Pawnees.
In September, 1827, he started from Coun-
cil Bluffs, where he had a trading station, with
a party of forty-five trappers for Salt Lake
Valley. This was the first recorded time of
his journeying above "the coast of the Platte,"
16
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
as the bluffs on either side of the river from
Kearney west were afterwards named.
The original Council Bluffs were on the
west side of the Missouri, and some twenty-five
miles up the river from the present site of the
modern city of that name. They were so
named because of a famous council held there
between the Indian tribes and Lewis and
Clarke. About twenty trading posts had been
established between these bluffs and the mouth
of the Platte.
Pilcher followed the usual method and di-
vided his party at the forks of the Platte, a
small detachment crossing both forks of the
river near that point, and going up the south
side of the "South River." with instructions
to join the main party in the vicinity of the
"Southern Pass."
With thirty men he proceeded up the north
side of the "North river," leaving the forks of
the river on September 25th.
On the 27th he passed the Birdwood, and
October 4th found them "opposite the low ly-
ing, fantastic bluffs, resembling citadels, castles,
towers, and other works of man."
"The Chimney" was passed the following
day. and so far as I have been able to find, this
is the first time it was called "chimney," by
early travelers. Two days after they crossed
the meadows, and camped opposite the "first
real mountain on the journey." At this time
Scotts Bluff had not received its name.
Buffalo herds were drifting southward, and
there were thousands of them. They were
being chased into the valley by friendly In-
dians from the north, who were laying in their
winter supply of meat. And the southern
tribes, hungry and hostile, were meeting them
a) tin- river, and chasing them over the hills to
the south. On the morning of October Sth, a
large herd was espied in the valley to the
westward, and the hunters experienced no dif-
ficult) in crossing the river, as it was at low
water stage. Several fat buffalo were slaugh-
tered in what later became known as Mitchell
valley. The robes and choicest cuts of the
meat, and the tallow were saved, and the bal-
ance left to the wolves.
The hard life of the trapper would indeed
have been mure serious had it not been for
the buffalo, They furnished much of the sub-
sistence required, and thereby the long jour-
neys through the prairie country to the moun-
tain- was quite as profitable to the trapping
fraternity as the time spent in the shadows
of the mountains.
Two days later the party passed the point
of rocks west of Morrill.' and on the 13th
crossed the Platte river above the mouth of
the Laramie. By October 15th the party was
well out of the part of the country of which
our story tells.
On reaching the Sweetwater, Pilcher had
his horses stolen. He cached his supplies and
went through the South Pass light. A num-
ber of his men, having arrived in the moun-
tains, deserted, and no doubt some of them
were with LeClerc the following year, when
Hiram Scott was left to die.
Pilcher had one of the most wonderful trips
ever made in the mountains, going with only
one companion for many hundreds of miles. He
returned to St. Louis in June, 1830, and after
the death of General Clarke in 1838, he became
Superintendent of Indian affairs, which posi-
tion he held for nine years. It was under his
regime that Andrew Drips became Indian
Agent at Fort Laramie at a later date, much to
the advantage of the American Fur Company,
then operating a trading post at that point.
In 1826, three of the "enterprising young
men," who accompanied General Ashley in
1823, organized a company and Ashley wishing
to retire from the fur trade, sold out to them.
Ashley was about $200,000 in debt at the time
he began operations, but he retired in 1826 with
a fortune of over $300,000.
The style of the new firm was Smith, Jack-
son & Sublette. The senior member, Jebediah
Smith, was a great, great uncle of Mrs. C. P.
Calhoun, who lived near the signal point seven
miles northeast of Scottsbluff, a few years ago.
One of the prettiest valleys in the mountains
and one of the most charming nature spots of
the west were named after Jackson — the Jack-
son holes and Jackson lake.
William Sublette was one of the characters
in history building in the western country for
several years, and it is right that more than
passing mention be made of him and his
achievements. He was born in 1799 and at
the age of nineteen started in business for him-
self by ope/iing a billiard hall at Saint Charles,
Missouri. He was a Kentuckian, and his fath-
er was said to be the man who killed Chief Te-
cumseh.
His first visit into this country was on the
trip up the valley with General Ashley in
1823, when Scott was one of the party.
Sublette had several brothers in the wilder-
ness, one of whom, Milton, died at Fort Lara-
mie in 1836. William was a thorough moun-
taineer, a man with a frank and open counte-
nance, very expressive ; was light complection-
ed and had blue eyes. He stood six feet two
in his moccasins.
In the years 1827-1828 and 1829, Sublette
was the member of the firm that conveyed pel-
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
17
tries to market and provisions and merchandise
into the mountains. He used pack horses and
mules for the most part, and followed the
trail of Jacques Laramie.
This partnership with Smith and Jackson
ended in 1831 upon the death of Smith. And
immediately thereafter he formed a partner-
ship with Robert Campbell, another of General
Ashley's "enterprising young men."
Going a little ahead of my story, Campbell,
in June, 1835, with thirteen men, began the
erection of a trading post about a mile from
the mouth of the Laramie river, and in honor
of William Sublette he named it Fort William.
This was the beginning of Fort Laramie.
The partnership was dissolved in 1842, when
Sublette retired from mountain trade, and in
July, 1845, while on his way to Washington
he was taken ill and died. The Sublette fam-
ily is now extinct.
William Sublette died independently weal-
thy, being one of the few fur traders who
made money, and kept any of it. He was mar-
ried March 21, 1844, to an Alabama lady nam-
ed Miss Frances Hereford, and Chittendon
tells this little romance which is not without its
human interest.
Miss Hereford had a prior attachment for
a younger brother, Solomon, but William had
the greater fortune, and it turned the scale in
his favor. Soon after his marriage he made
a will giving his fortune to her at his death
in case she did not change her name. He died
on the 2d of July, 1845, and the lady later
married her first love, Solomon, that probably
being the intention of William when he put
the provision in his will.
CHAPTER IX
FIRST WAGONS ON OVERLAND TRAILS
The valley of the "Flat W r ater" had become
well known as a highway for trappers. While
data of special trips are a little difficult to ob-
tain, yet mention is made frequently of the
movement of some voyageur, or pack caravan,
and it is stated that "they took the usual Platte
and Sweetwater route."
This valley is still relatively new as a thor-
oughfare. Some day in the not far distant fu-
ture there will be streaming east and west, long
strings of Pullmans as the Overland pants its
way from sea to sea ; and Transcontinental
tourists motoring east and west will be as
common as emigrants were on Oregon trail.
Away back yonder the trapper found it, and
it was new to him, but for generations the
aborigines had traveled up and down the val-
ley, and before their time wild animals trailed
along the banks of the Platte, ever looking for
that greener pasture a little farther on.
Wherever the foot of man goeth, there have
been others before. It seems a part of destiny.
The old world whirls on, blazing a trail across
the wilderness of space, yet probably the path
it moves along has been worn smooth by va-
grant worlds still moving on before.
Having traversed this part of the wilderness
with a pack horse several times, it was quite
natural that one should look for easier modes
of conveyance. Thus it was that in the early
spring of 1830 two years before Captain Bon-
neville made his journey up the Platte, Will-
iam Sublette set out with a party of trappers
from St. Louis.
He had ten wagons, each laden with about
a ton of merchandise and drawn by five mules,
two light vehicles drawn by one mule each, and
eighty men mounted on mules. With the cara-
van were twelve cattle, and one milch cow. The
cattle were for food until they should reach
the buffalo country.
They moved up the Missouri river to the
mouth of the Platte, and followed the north
bank of the Platte into the mountains.
It was in June that the first wagons on the
Overland Trail passed through the Scotts
Bluff country. They traveled at the rate of
about fifteen miles a day through the prairie
country, slowing down when reaching the
mountains.
About the middle of August the wagons
laden with peltries, returned through the val-
ley, and arrived at St. Louis early in October.
Speaking of this trip, Smith, Jackson and
18
I IIS TORN' OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
Sublette wrote a letter in October, 1830, to
Chouteau, which found its way into the Cong-
gressional Record. It covers a wide variety of
subjects. The feasibility of carrying on traffic
by wagon trains to the Columbia river country
comes in for a liberal share.
( Ine quotation of interest to the North "Platte
river is: "We began to fall in with the buf-
faloes on the Platte, about three hundred and
fifty miles from the white settlements; and
from that time on, lived on buffaloes, the
quantity being infinitely beyond what we
needed."
This directly refers to the country from Gar-
den county to the mountains. This letter is
found in Sen. Doc. 39, 21st Cong. 2d Ses.
The following spring another caravan was
made up, and proceeded along the identical
route, but on the return trip stopped at the
mouth of the Platte. And from this time for a
few years, the plan was to bring merchandise
by water up the Missouri to the Platte, then
by wagons into the mountains. Returning
parties brought wagons to the Missouri and
transferred the beaver to boats, letting the
mules rest while the journey was made to St.
Louis and return.
Thomas Forsyth in a letter to the Secretary
of War in October, 1831, called the river "The
Little Platte," and also outlined the route as
above given.
The rendezvous agreed upon in 1830 was
on what was then called "Wind river," but
which is now the "Popo Agie." for Sublette
speaks of the "Southern Pass," (no doubt
South Pass) and he said that wagons could
easily be taken this route through the moun-
tains. The average time of the 1300 mile
trip was thirteen miles per day. And between
June 5th and June 25th they made the trip
from the foiks of the Platte to "Laramie's
Rendezvous."
The death of Hiram Scott on the mountains
"i- bluff, bad at last given it a name, and
"Scott's Bluff" smm became known as a land-
mark by practically every trapper in the wild-
and H brought about a change in the
habits (if the fraternity in journeys up and
down the valley.
If there is one sentimenl in which the whole
human race is in accord, that sentiment is the
desire to \ isil a graveyard.
There is an indescribable thrill that stirs
' Of a soldier win. takes off his hat
at the grave of a comrade who has s h;
him the perils of war.
'I lure is an emotion that moves the slates-
man when he stands uncovered Inf., re the
mausoleum of another who has shared with
him the inspirations of nation building.
We, of the humbler walks of life, have ours,
beside the little mound where rests a brother
of toil with whom we have labored shoulder
to shoulder. The Indian passes the burial tree
as often as he conveniently can. So, with old
trappers. Could they conveniently pass the
grave of a comrade who had shared the joys
and tribulations of the wilderness, they would
have taken some additional hazard for the
privilege.
What old cowman of this country has not
yisited "Boot's Graveyard," at Sidney, where
sleep many of the comrades of the days of
Creighton, Snodgrass, Coad, Sheedy and Rob-
inson — cowboys who died with their boots
on, and were buried booted and spurred ready
for the long ride to the "Home Ranch?"
Trappers began to take the southside route
through Mitchell Pass by the Scottsbluff
spring, that they might do homage to the mem-
ory of Scott. Before buffalo and Arapahoes
reached the river in the annual movement to
the north, the route was comparatively free
from danger.
It was but a few years after the death
of Scott that Captain Gant won the friendship
of the Arapahoes, and their hostility to the
whites for the time ceased. About the same
time the hostile spirit of the Indians on the
Missouri river in Dakota began to percolate
through the tribes to the north. The Ogallalas
and Tetons became suspicious of white people
when they discovered them on friendly terms
with the Arapahoes, and the result was preda-
tory raids upon the Overland.
In April, 1831, seventy men under Zenas
Leonard for Gant & Blackwell, left St. Louis,
and on the first of August, arrived at the
forks of the Platte. The next month was
spent in the North river country between the
forks and the Laramie river. The slow prog-
ress was made because of side trips hunting
and trapping, on Gonneville creek, and over
on Blue Water, and to L'Eau qui court, and
in the chalk mountains from the present Court
House Rock to Signal Buttes.
At the Laramie, the party divided for the
fall trapping campaign. Many of them were
never heard from again, some found their way
to Santa Fe, and others to Gant & Blackwell's
fort on the Arkansas. Twenty-one men un-
der A. K. Stevens, a grandson of Daniel
Roone. worked up towards the Laramie moun-
tains. During the winter they lost all their
horses, and after an ineffectual attempt to
reach Santa Fe, returned to the Laramie ren-
dezvous in April, 1832. stripped of nearlv
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
19
everything of value, as they were on the line
of clashes between the northern and southern
tribes.
In the early summer of 1832, a general
i rendezvous of all the fur companies and trap-
pers had been arranged for at Pierre's Hole,
some six hundred miles to the northwest.
Fitzpatrick and Bridger were to be there
with supplies which William Sublette was to
bring from St. Louis. To hurry him along
Fitzpatrick took two of their fleetest horses
and went to meet him.
This was Sublette's third wagon caravan
and as usual he had the wagons loaded with
about a ton each and five mules to the wagon,
besides a number of mounts.
On the seventh of June, Fitzpatrick crossed
the Laramie river and started for Scotts Bluff
mountains. When opposite, and a little above
Signal Buttes, he espied the caravan on the
north side of the river, near the present site
of Morrill.
On the tenth of June, he crossed the river,
by swimming his horses, as the water was
high. The meeting of these two hardened
hunters — one from the mountains and the
other fresh from the white man's world, was
an event that called for liberal libations, and
much genialty.
Being admonished of the urgent need of
haste, Sublette left his famous old cow and
she was never seen again. Spurred onward,
he made the six hundred miles to Pierre's
Hole in thirty-two days.
The party picked up the remnant of Gant &
Blackwell's trappers at the Laramie, fording
the Platte at that point.
CHAPTER X
WYETH, OF "CAPE COD BAY," AND HIS "DOWN EASTERS'
When William Sublette was coming up the
Missouri river in the spring of ;1832, the
boat stopped at Independence and took on a
party of New Englanders. This party had
little to commend it to the mountains except
its purpose and the indomitable will of its
members. Otherwise they were wholly un-
fitted for mountain, adventure, by liack of
experience, equipment, knowledge of Indians,
habits of wild game, or even the use of fire-
arms.
This was Nathaniel J. Wyeth, of Boston
and his "down easters." Wyeth learned where
Sublette and party were bound, and with the
directness and frankness of the New England-
er character he told him his purpose and di-
lemma. Sublette readily agreed that the two
parties travel together. On the way across the
prairies. Sublette's experienced hunters had
taught the New Englanders how to hunt, and
much other necessary information of the wild-
erness, and by this time they were much bet-
ter equipped for the emergencies of the moun-
tains. Horses had been acquired at the mouth
of the Platte, and the party were all well
mounted and had plenty to pack their mer-
chandise.
Wyeth's definite purpose was to establish
posts on the Columbia, and supply them from
ships around "the Horn," using the ships to
convey the peltries back to market. The
plan was not successful. He always felt out
of his element in the mountains, and the full
force of the hardships fell heavily upon him.
He frequently wrote in a discouraging vein.
"I am sitting on a rock with plain dried buf-
falo as my entire meal." "I gave the boys
some alcohol, more than was good for the
peace of the party, and went on a good sized
spree myself," etc.
Wyeth raised the American flag over the
wilderness of Idaho, when he built Fort Hall,
and on the Columbia over the lost Astoria.
But in the end he sold his fort on Wappatoo
island to the Hudson Bay, and Fort Hall was
burned in a Blackfeet Indian raid, in which
the hardy mountaineers, Rezner and Robin-
son lost their lives.
In the later vigorous years of the formation
of Oregon territory when Senator Benton of
Missouri, was hammer and tongs after Ore-
gon recognition. New England was reluctant
to sustain the spirit of enterprise exemplified
by Nathaniel J. Wyeth.
Now at the time Fitzpatrick met Su'olette
and Wyeth near Morrill, another wagon train
20
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
was nearing the forks of the Platte river. The
party had left Fort Osage, on the first day of
May, with twenty wagons drawn by oxen, and
further consisted of a large number of horses
with one hundred and ten men under the
leadership of Captain B. L. E. Bonneville, and
his able lieutenants, M. S. Cerre and I. R.
Walker.
They had followed the Sante Fe trail to
White riume's agency, then blazed a new trail
in a northwesterly course, which has since
been followed by many thousands of emigrants
striking the Platte near Grand Island, then
called "Great Island."
Had they reached this point some ten days
earlier, they might have observed upon the
north side of the river the wagon train of Will-
iam Sublette, and the caravan of horses used
by Wyeth's party.
On arriving at the forks of the Platte, they
found the South fork impassible for fording
and proceeded two day's journey up the river
before affecting a crossing.
They then removed the wheels from their
wagons, and improvised boats by stretching
buffalo hides under the wagon boxes and
smearing them with a compound of ashes and
buffalo tallow. And on this identical day, June
13, 1832, William Sublette and Nathaniel J.
Wyeth were fording the North fork at the
point just above its junction with the "Lara-
mie."
It would be utterly impossible to improve
upon the language of Washington Irving in
describing this trip. And I would not vary
from it in the least, except that I want to
identify spots of interest by modern land-
marks, and include events connected with
Bonneville's experiences, which I have ob-
tained from other sources than Irving's nar-
rative.
Irving and Bonneville were less familiar
with the North Platte valley than are many of
our readers, or the trappers who for twenty
years had used the natural highway. Irving
says "Of the other [meaning the North River]
branch he knew nothing. Its sources might
lie among inaccessible cliffs, and tumble and
foam down rugged defiles and over craggy
precipices. But its direction was the true
course, and up this stream he determined to
prosecute his route."
The crossing of the South fork was effected
near the | siti of Sutherland, and "a
march of nine miles took them over the high
rolling prairie to tin- North fork."
"Skirting the North fork for a day or two,
I) annoyed by the misquitos, and buf-
falo gnats, they reached, on the evening of
June 17th, a -mall but beautiful grove, from
which issued the confused notes of singing
birds, the first they had heard since crossing the
boundary of Missouri." This is the ravine
that became historical as Ash Hollow.
"It was a beautiful sunset, and the sight of
the glowing rays, mantling the tree tops and
rustling of branches, gladdened every heart.
They pitched their camp in the grove, kindled
their fires, partook merrily of their rude fare,
and resigned themselves to the sweetest sleep
they had enjoyed since their outset upon the
prairies."
The country now became more rugged and
broken. High bluffs advanced upon the river
and forced the travelers to occasionally leave
its banks and wind their course into the in-
terior.
Captain Bonneville ascended the high cliffs
back of Chimney rock, and looked over the
valley. "As far as the eye could reach the
country seemed absolutely blackened with in-
numerable herds" of buffalo. "No language
could convey an adequate idea of the vast liv-
ing mass thus presented to the eye. He re-
marked that the bulls and the cows generally
congregated in separate herds."
Here they began to see blacktail deer, which
abounded in the hills, and were larger than the
"prairie species," or antelope.
In the gap back of Castle rock they discov-
ered the trail of four or five pedestrians, which
later proved to be Crow spies, who had dogged
the train in secret for several days, astonished
at wagons and oxen, and especially a cow and
a calf which were sedately following the cara-
van.
Crow Indians were not habitually along this
part of the Platte, their habitat being in the Big
Horn mountains and Basin. Had they been
familiar with; the valley, they might have
observed in the last two years, the wagons
in Sublette's several caravans.
The discovery of these moccasin tracks put
the party upon its guard, for "when you can
see no Indians is just the time to look out for
them." is a part of Jim Bridger's philosophy.
Inasmuch as Bridger came to the mountains
with General Ashley in 1823, and was guide
during the Indian wars as late as 1865, it may
be accepted that he ought to know.
"On the 21st," Bonneville's party "camped
amid the high and beetling cliffs of indurated
clay and sandstone, bearing the semblance of
towers, castles, churches, and fortified cities.
At a distance it is scarcely possible to persuade
one's self that the works of art were not
mingled with these fantastic freaks of nature."
Five years earlier Joshua Pilcher lias sim-
ilarlv remarked their formation.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER XI
NEZ PERCE AND CROW INDIANS — CROW CREEK NAMED
After arriving at the famous mountain,
Bonneville gives an abbreviated story of the
naming of "Scotts, Bluff" which has been
heretofore given in detail. The story then con-
tinues :
"Amid the wild and striking scenery, Cap-
tain Bonneville for the first time beheld flocks
of ahsahta or bighorn, an animal which fre-
quents the cliffs in great numbers. They ac-
cord with the nature of the scenery, and add
much to its romantic effect; bounding like
goats from crag to crag, often trooping along
the lofty shelves of the mountain under the
guide of some venerable patriarch, with horns
twisted lower than his muzzle, and sometimes
peering over the edge of a precipice, so high
that they appear scarce bigger than crows. In-
deed, it seems to be a pleasure to them to seek
the most rugged and frightful situations,
doubtless from the feeling of security."
On the 22nd of June, Captain Bonneville
negotiated the passage of the big gap in the
mountain, experiencing considerable difficulty.
Thus were wagons taken over this road for the
first time in history, and the gateway between
the mountains and the plain on the south side
of the river opened — a gateway through which
has since poured enough people to populate
an empire.
Before evening of this eventful day they
had reached the upper part of Mitchell valley,
and the following day crossed Horse creek
about the hour of noon.
In the evening of the 23rd they went into
camp on a small, but pretty meadow near the
present state line. As they were lighting their
campfires for preparation for their evening
meal, they were startled by seeing an elkskin
craft bearing four Indians shoot silently into
the stream from the overhanging cottonwoods
upon the north shore, and rapidly approach the
camp.
They proved to be the deputation of Nez
Perce Indians (meaning pierced nosed In-
dians) which had been sent from their nation
over on the Columbia to the White Fathers of
the east, to learn of the White Man's Book
and the Great Spirit of the White People.
Bonneville remarked they were far from
their native habitat, and while they had pre-
viously met the wagons of Sublette they were
greatly impressed with "wigwams on wheels,"
and the "long horned buffalo."
On the 24th, as the caravan was slowly trav-
ersing the Hunting Meadows, the scouts which
Captain Bonneville always kept on ahead, came
galloping back with the cry of "Indians."
Preparations were made for an attack, as
the Indians were reported to be Crows, and
believed to be warlike and crafty. Suddenly
out of the adjoining hills there burst, with all
the wildness and suddenness of a mountain
storm, sixty warriors in battle array, painted
and bedecked in all the colors and trappings
of aborigines, and they thundered down upon
the party, with many a wild and dexterous
evolution.
"Their mode of approach, to one not ac-
quainted with the tactics and ceremonies of
the rude chivalry of the wilderness, had an
air of direct hostility. They came galloping
forward in a body, as if about to make a fur-
ious charge, and when close at hand opened to
the right and left and wheeled in wide circles
around the travelers, whooping and yelling like
maniacs.
"This done their mock fury settled into a
calm, and the chief, approaching the captain,
who had remained warily drawn up, though
informed of the pacific nature of the maneuv-
er, extended to him the hand of friendship.
The pipe of peace was smoked and now all was
good fellowship.
"The Crows were in pursuit of a band of
Cheyennes, who had attacked their village in
the night, and killed one of their people. They
had been five and twenty days on the track of
the marauders, and were determined not to
return home until they had sated their re-
venge."
This was accomplished, some fifty or sixty
miles to the southward, where they surprised
their enemies. The maurauders believed that
they had passed out of the danger zone of pur-
suit, and had in a measure relaxed their vigi-
lance.
They lost three scalps in the engagement that
followed, which satisfied their pursuers. War
signs were left by the Crows, as a warning for-
ever to the Cheyennes ; and from this circum-
stance, Indians and whites who since have
visited the ravine south of Pine Bluffs, refer-
red to it as "Crow Creek," which name it bears
today. The cow and calf with Bonneville's
party came in for a full share of attention.
The Indians remarked their extreme docility,
and thought the calf must be "great Medicine,"
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
but their ideas were dashed when the men of-
fered to trade it for a pony.
The extreme friendliness of the Indians was
considerable of a nuisance to the members of
the party, but was endured, and after they had
gone upon their journey, they found many of
them had lost their hunting knives, which ex-
plained the motive of the Indian's caresses.
Some days later the war party returned to
the Platte, and followed Bonneville's trail until
overtaking the caravan, in order to exhibit
the scalps of their adversaries. They then pro-
ceeded toward the northwest "to appease the
manes of their comrades by proofs that his
death had been avenged, and they intended to
have scalp dances and other triumphal re-
joicings."
On the 26th, Bonneville's party camped at
Laramie's fork "a clear and beautiful stream
rising in the southwest, maintaing an average
width of twenty yards, and winding through
broad meadows, abounding in currants and
gooseberries, and adorned with groves and
clumps of trees.
Here Bonneville tells of his observations,
and Irving includes the story of the building
of Fort William. He tells also that in 1835,
Robert Campbell descended the river in boats,
thus proving what had always been in doubt,
that the river was navigable. Of course this
was Irving's opinion, but the facts have been
related that fleets of boats had for years been
descending the river, laden with peltries.
The boniface captain, the "bald chief." as
the Indians called him, is now passing out of
Scotts Bluff country, so w r e will not follow his
rambles in the wilderness.
In the spirit of fairness, one would think
that mention would have been made of wagons
on the trail before Bonneville's party, for
there must have been abundant evidences of
the existence of Sublette's caravan, which had
preceded them at the Laramie river only
thirteen days.
But Bonneville was of French extraction,
and the national characteristic is exaggeration
and boast fulness. He was likely to omit any-
thing that detracted from his glory. Bancroft
is exceedingly severe in his criticism of Bonne-
ville. Irving, who was Bonneville's chronicler
of events, was a novelist. And one who has
read Irving much is frequently amused at his
exaggerations of the character of his heroes.
Should his principal character, together with
others, go on a spree, his would always "main-
tain the dignity of a gentleman, although in-
toxicated," while the other would be "beastly
drunk."
Farther in the wilderness, over on the Green
river. Captain Bonneville accused Fontenelle
of taking from him some of his Delaware In-
dian guides, with promise of better wages. As
Fontenelle has much to do with Nebraska his-
tory in subsequent years, readers will become
acquainted with him, and they will find it hard
to believe that he ever took unfair advantage
of any one. In fact the Delawares were form-
erly of Fontenelle's party, and only attached
themselves to Bonneville to make their way
into the wilderness again, of which purpose
the captain was probably unaware.
Some two and a half years later, the rem-
nant of Bonneville's party came back over the
trail which he had traversed, and which later
became one of the most remarkable highways
in the history of the world.
CHAPTER Xll
.ITTI.K MOON LAKE — FAMOUS MISSIONARIES
June 22. 1X.i2, an elkskin boat bearing four
Indians came plunging out of the rapids at the
lower end of Platte canyon and pulled in upon
the shore, making camp at about the present
site of Guernsey. < >n the following day they
■ 1 down the river to a grove upon what
to be .hi island. To the right of it.
the waters rushed with increasing velocity, but
on the left were invitingly quiet,
They pulled in for their regular night's rest
upon a pretty lagoon, and found that its lower
extremity was banked by a beaver dam. These
animals had cut the trees and built a substan-
tial structure across what had been a channel
of the Platte. This lagoon is now known as
Little Moon Lake.
It was nearly nightfall, when they discov-
ered, upon the opposite bank of the river,
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
something that filled them with wonder and
amazement. Long horned buffalo were trail-
ing wigwams into a grass plot, where Captain
Bonneville and party were about to make
camp.
About noon the following day, the swift cur-
rent of the river carried the four strangers
"near the breast of a mountain on which they
could plainly see bighorns," and at night they
passed "the wigwam," no doubt referring to
Chimney rock.
Then there was the long journey through
prairies the like of which they had never
dreamed, and at the river mouth they were
taken on a keel-boat coming down the Mis-
souri.
General Clarke, a brother of the explorer,
was then superintendent of Indian affairs at
St. Louis, and when these Indians met him and
told him their mission, he was dumbfounded.
It seemed that Lewis and Clarke had left
some fragmentary knowledge of religion with
the tribe when they visited it in 1804, and this,
with rude fragments of Christianity that came
to them from French, had left the tribe with a
thirst for more knowledge of the Book of Life.
And these four "savages" had braved the
terrors of an unknown and perilous wilderness,
on a three thousand mile journey in search of
the Christ. They had "seen his Star in the
East."
General Clarke entertained and fed them
royally after the manner of white people, but
it was too much for their uneducated systems,
and the two elder members of the party died
from excesses. The others remained for some
time, being taken from one manner of white
man's amusements to another, and finally on
the announcement of their intention to return
to their people, they were given a farewell
banquet.
At this affair one of the guests of honor
arose at the request of General Clarke, and
this is the literal translation of the redman's
address :
"I come to you over a trail of many moons
from the setting sun. You were the friends
of my Fathers who have all gone the long
way. I came with an eye partly open for my
people, who sit in darkness. I go back with
both eyes closed. How can I go back to my
blind people? I made my way to you with
strong arms, through many enemies and
strange lands, that I might carry much back
to them. I go back with both arms broken
and empty.
"Two fathers came with us, and they were
the braves of many Winters and wars. We
leave them asleep by your great waters and
wigwams. They were tired in many moons
and the moccasins wore out. My people sent
me to get the white man's Book of Heaven.
You took me where they worship the Great
Spirit with candles, and the Book was not
there. You showed me images of the good
spirits, and the picture of the good land be-
yond, but the Book was not among them to
tell us the way.
"I am going back the long and sad trail
to my people in the dark land. You make
my feet heavy with gifts, and my moccasins
will grow old carrying them, yet the Book is
not among them. When I tell my poor blind
people, after one more snow, in the big council,
that I did not bring the Book, no word will be
spoken by our old men or our young braves.
One by one they will rise up in silence and
go out. My people will die in darkness, and
they will go the long way to other hunting
grounds. No white man will go with them,
and no white man's Book will be there to make
the way plain. I have no more words."
This Macedonian cry, "come over and help
us," given by this brave upon his departure on
the long journey home, was published in the
Christian Advocate, in March, 1833, and made
a profound sensation. It started missionaries
all over the west.
The two Lees, Jason and Daniel, were the
first to respond, and they went for the Metho-
dist church, in 1834. While their trip through
this country was without any startling inci-
dent, they became powers in the great north-
west, and founded the Methodist faith upon a
most enduring basis in the Puget Sound coun-
try, and on the Williamette river.
The Presbyterians, in 1835, sent Whitman
and Parker into Oregon. And what man with
one spark of patriot blood, does not know Mar-
cus Whitman? Whitman and his bride made
their wedding journey through the valley of
the "Flat Water." and perished as martyrs at
the hands of the people they went to save.
In 1840, Father Peter De Smet, went out
for the Catholics into the great inter-moun-
tain region. Some two hundred miles to the
northwest of Scottsbluff is an extinct crater
of a volcano, and the basin has filled with the
clear sweet water of the Big Horn mountains.
The lake, fed by everlasting springs, is named
Lake De Smet. ~
There were many other heroic bearers of
the Cross in the wilderness, but forever will
the names of Jason and Daniel Lee. Marcus
Whitman, Samuel Parker and Peter De Smet
be heard, for the dangers which they braved
and the foundations they laid for Christian re-
ligion in the mighty wilderness of the west.
24
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
About the first of June, 1833, two braves
of the Nez Perce tribe, carried their burdens
with meloncholy tread along the valley of
the "Flat Water," then beautiful in the ver-
dure of early summer. They reached the top
of a slight eminence beyond the thicket of
mountain ash. later described as "Ash Hollow."
and they heard the whistling of song birds,
and paused. The grove gave forth a multitude
of sounds. In the thrilling silence of the at-
mosphere, they heard the call of nature to their
souls. Their sagging spirits were being reno-
vated by the Great Spirit of the universe. In
the shimmering mirage of the west they saw
the silhouettes of mountains — the wigwam, and
far away the dim trembling outline of Scotts-
bluff.
And glad to see the beginning of their na-
tive element — the mountains — they sent rev-
erberating up to the silent sky, the shrill and
plaintive cry of the coast tribe Indians. They
broke into a run — down into and out past the
shadows of the grove, and on, until their
bronzed figures danced and shivered and shim-
mered in the glare of the setting sun.
A few days later Reuleau, a trapper, saw
one of them at the mouth of the Laramie, and
saw him depart onward into the west. What
happened to the other no one knows, and no
white man knows if this one ever reached his
people.
CHAPTER XIII
FORTS AT THE LARAMIE
We should remark more fully of Jebediah
Smith, the great, great uncle of Airs. C. P. Cal-
houn, as he passed through the Scotts Bluff
country in 1823, with General Ashley, in that
he and his party of wilderness men were the
first white men over the link of the Overland
Trail from Salt Lake valley to California. This
was accomplished in 1826.
While on the Santa Fe Trail in 1831, he was
killed by Comanches, and the firm of Smith
Jackson & Sublette was dissolved. It was then
that William Sublette and Robert Campbell
became partners in transportaion and fur en-
terprise.
In 1834. Mr. Campbell accompanied Sublette
to the mountains. The route taken was the
cut off from Fort Osage to "Great Island,"
which had become considerable in use in the
two years previous.
They determined upon building a trading
post at the junction of the Laramie and North
Platte rivers, for from this point there were
now two well established routes to St. Louis.
The trail opened by Robert Stuart was first
in use, but from the date of Bonneville's trip,
until the great Mormon pilgrimage, in 1847,
the southern route was mosl in use. After that
time for two or three years, "the Council Bluffs
route" held the big travel.
The first fort at the Laramie was begun in
June, 1834, and was built stockade plan, logs
about forteen feet long set on end, enclosing the
building of logs. This was after the pattern of
so many early structures, which served the
purpose of the wilderness men.
Previously to this date, the Indians had
learned to come to the rendezvous of free
trappers, and many hundred of them journeyed
annually to trade their peltries for the bright
shining trinkets and tinsel so dear to their
nature.
After naming the place "Fort William," it
occurred to Campbell that there were other
Fort Williams in the west, and to prevent con-
fusion in shipments, goods addressed to this
point were marked "Fort William on the Lara-
mie."
In 1836, Adams and Sabylle built another
stockade and trading post about a half-mile be-
low Fort William on the Laramie, which they
named "Fort John." after John P. Sarpy, who
is a well known character in the history of
Nebraska.
Jacques Laramie, whom we have had occa-
sion to mention heretofore, and who had by
his life and death given the river and the moun-
tains a name, was only incidentally responsible
for the rechristening of Fort William. How
"Fort Laramie" became a name in history was
told by Antoine Ladeau, an interpreter of half
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
25
a century ago, who accompanied General Con-
nor on his Powder river expedition.
Ladeau's father was a French-Creole and his
mother a Pawnee squaw. When a small boy he
was captured by the Sioux, by whom he was
brought up. He was born on the Platte river,
was an old timer at the Fort, and died about
thirty years ago. This is the story handed
down by John Hunton, now living at the old
fort and who located there in the sixties.
A mullet-headed shipping clerk in Campbell's
store at St. Louis had difficulty in remembering
names of the forts on the Laramie, and it
seemed hopelessly mixed regarding the identi-
ty of Fort William and Fort John.
(Later Chittendon was about as badly con-
fused, for he says Fort William was re-chris-
tened Fort John when it was rebuilt. The date
of the building of Fort John being identical
with that of the rebuilding of Fort William no
doubt led to this confusion.)
One day, there being no one handy of whom
this shipping clerk might inquire, he marked a
number of bales and boxes destined for "Fort
William on the Laramie," simply for "Fort
Laramie," remembering only the river on which
the fort was situated. Campbell, observing
this, liked the idea and he changed the name as
it would prevent confusion in future. This
incident occurred some time after Sublette and
Campbell had sold the fort, and while it was
the property of the American Fur Company,
who were extensive dealers at the Campbell
commissar}'.
It was in 1835 that Sublette and Campbell
sold Fort William to a syndicate of famous
trappers headed by Jim Bridger. And about
the same time Lucien Fontenelle, with a large
force of trappers for the American Fur Com-
pany dropped down from the Big Horn coun-
try, into the rich fields for beaver along the
North Platte and its tributaries.
Both he and Bridger had been too long in
the mountains not to know the ruinous effect
of stiff competition, and after some prelimin-
aries the fort became a part of the American
Fur Company, and Bridger and his associates
became members thereof. Fontenelle was
made general manager, and after that date
they had practically all the fur trade of Wy-
oming and western Nebraska.
In later years there were many smaller es-
tablishments that ran for a time, but the bulk
of the business went to the well established
American Fur Company.
Among these smaller concerns was Adams
and Sabylle who built Fort John in 1836, and
who later built another fort on what finally be-
came known as Sabylle creek. The latter fort
was burned by Indians in about 1863. Fort
Platte was built in 1842 by Pratt, Cabanne &
Company on the narrow tongue of land at the
point where the Platte and Laramie rivers
unite.
In 1836. the green stockade posts of Fort
Laramie, showing signs of decay, it was rebuilt.
There were at that time some Mexicans so-
journing in this part of the wilderness, and they
were employed to build it of adobe bricks. A
solid wall enclosed all the buildings, and at
the corners and over the gate were block, houses
for defense.
Under and around these walls for years
thereafter, camped the nomadic and migratory
thousands. Here the Indians came and loiter-
ed, and then wandered away into the wilder-
ness. Hundreds of trappers periodically ap-
peared, and from here some journeyed to civ-
ilization while others returned to the wilds.
Thousands and thousands came from the east,
and went on into the west ; some for homes
on the Williamette and the Columbia, others to
follow the trail of Jedediah Smith into the gold-
en mecca of California. Adventurers going
and coming across the continental divide drift-
ed with the moving tide ; and later came, unfet-
tered and free, the dauntless and undaunted
cowmen.
For the greater part of the year both rivers
were fordable at this point, and here the two
great trails from the east merged into one.
Even so early as the operations of Manuel
Lisa and Jacques Laramie the demoralizing
effect of fire water upon savages required fed-
eral intervention. Yet it was many years be-
fore control over the traffic was anything like
complete. Much liquor was smuggled in from
the Spanish possessions at Santa Fe and Taos.
Attaches of Fort John were extremely reck-
less in the use of liquor. Fontenelle had early
seen its demoralizing effect, changing good
beaver hunters to fanatics after drink, and he
determined to rid the North Platte valley of
the lawlessness if possible.
So when Joshua Pilcher became commission-
er of Indian affairs after the death of Gen-
eral Clarke, the influence of the American Fur
Company was such that they were able to
secure the appointment of Andrew Drips, an
employee of the company at Fort Laramie, as
resident agent. It raised quite a storm of
protest from the other traders, but the depart-
ment soon became fully advised that it was only
because he enforced on other traders the same
strict observances of liquor laws, that the
American Fur Company had observed for
years.
Renegades from the Spanish domain found
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
the hazards too great to be inviting, but con-
tinued intermittent attempts to get liquor
through to the North Platte valley.
Finding the caches and destroying the liq-
uors in the vicinity of the fort were so frequent
that the traffic was soon practically abandoned.
One outlaw, a squawman by name of Rich-
ards, continued, however, and built a small
stockade about six miles east of the fort on
the south side of the river. He is mentioned
by Francis Parkman, who visited him in 1847.
This man Richards gave the federal authorities
no little trouble, but in resisting a detachment
from Fort Laramie, which had been seent out
to destroy the quantity of liquor which he
had brought in from the south, he was killed
about 1850.
CHAPTER XIV
ROBIDEAUX OF ST. GENEVIEVE — KIOWA RAID BY RED CLOUD
Sources of information in matters of his-
tory are often widely scattered, and the stories
themselves are made from putting together lit-
tle fragments gathered here and there ; some
from records, and others from ptrsonal en-
counters with people having fragmentary
knowledge of the events which one is trying
to assemble.
The stories herein contained, of Count Ger-
main, of Basil Robideaux, and of Kiowa creek
come to us through many sources. D'Adel-
bert, Diderot, Chittendon, Bancroft, Parkman,
Coutant, and other chroniclers of the past
have each yielded up a portion, but perhaps
the most valuable information we have in this
connection comes from old timers living and
dead who were of later generations here.
There was Frank Vallet, a Frenchman;
Hank Wise, the cross-eyed cowpuncher,
both from old St. Genevieve ; and there was
Nick Genice, a well known squawman living
at the old Spotted Tail Agency which used to
be upon the ground now occupied by the upper
PF ranch.
(For those who care to know, the exact lo-
cation was where the spring house is now
situated, just southeast of the big spring.)
Last, but not least, there was old "Buck-
skin Charley" White, the intrepid government
scout.
From these, and partly through the kindly
offices of Perry Braziel, Runey Campbell and
John Peters, I am able to patch together an
interesting tale, which otherwise would likely
have remained in obscurity, and forever lost.
The story I feel is so nearly correct, that it
can be vouched for as to accuracy, comparable
with most history.
"When wilderness was king" hereabout, the
great center of commerce for mountain and
plain was St. Louis.
When Mallet Brothers penetrated the Scotts-
bluff country, this was claimed as French
territory. Cardinal Fluery, who was respon-
sible for the Mallet expedition, died in 1742,
and the prime minister of France who succeed-
ed him, had less conception, or inspiration
perhaps it should be called, of the coming em-
pire.
In 1748, Count Germain, one of the mys-
terious characters of French history appeared.
Who he was, where he came from, and how he
obtained admittance to the exclusive French
Court of the time, no history reveals. He
claimed to be an alchemist, avowing to have
discovered formulas for defying the ravages
of time and age, and also of turning baser
metals to gold. He said he was born 300 B.
C. and expected to live forever. He was not
an adventurer, for he had independent means,
although the sources thereof were unknown.
He was wonderfully informed, and talked in-
telligently of conversations he claimed to have
had with Christ, the Apostles, Pliny, Nero, and
other people of the past.
He became a favorite with Marchioness Le
Pompadour, and was consulted upon many
matters of state. Among other things he said
that destiny required the disposition of French
American territory to Spain.
In 1762, the degenerate king made a secret
sale of Louisiana territory to the Spanish
Crown. And the sale has proven of especial
significance to western Nebraska, for upon
Spanish sovereignty, where the doctrine of
appropriation of water for useful purposes
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
had been in force for centuries, is based a
court decision in Nebraska, which is the foun-
dation of all our irrigation appropriations.
Francis G. Hamer, now upon the Supreme
bench, is the man who contested for this de-
cision, and won against the old English com-
mon law of riparian rights.
While the Spanish flag floated over the city
of St. Louis, until Napoleon, with his tre-
mendous energy appeared to change the maps
of the world, the population of the city was
largely French, and the voyageurs who allied
with trapping, hunting and exploring expe-
ditions, were largely of French extraction.
Readers will note the preponderance of French
names appearing in these stories. St. Gene-
vieve, near St. Louis, was formerly one of
the points much connected with this particu-
lar territory. Many of these buoyant, laugh-
ing, singing, industrious people, had to do
with the taming of the wilderness about us.
Partizans, as the leaders of trapping ex-
peditions were called, found that French-Cre-
oles were much better men for the routine
camp work, and for knowing the habits of
wild game. But when it came to time of pri-
vation, stress, or danger, one Kentucky rifle-
man was worth several of them. Under such
conditions almost invariably, the French voy-
ager would revert quickly to animal type, with
sly and brutish instincts. Trappers had rea-
son to believe that in many cases of hunger,
they had resorted to cannibalism, perhaps cast-
ing lots to see who should be the victim.
Among the people from St. Genevieve, in
1836, came one by the name of Basil Robi-
deaux. This was not the Robideaux who
formed a partnership with Papin, Chouteau
and Berthold in 1819, or who built the posts
at Rattlesnake Bluffs (now St. Joseph, Mis-
souri) or on the Gunnison, or on the Unitah,
but a humble kinsman, of a later generation.
For a number of years, Basil Robideaux led
a hard life in the wilderness. He had the
smallpox in 1838 which swept with such viru-
lence over the plains, and depopulated Indian
tribes. And at this time, the instinct of self
preservation caused his compaions to desert
him, as they thought, to die. This was on the
south bank of the river, a few miles east of
Scotts Bluff mountain.
Alone in the wilderness, sick unto death,
and among hostile tribes, Robideaux looked up
into the blue vault, thickly studded with
eternal stars and counted the hours away. In
the morning a Sioux medicine man found him,
and treated him in the crude fashion of In-
dians and he recovered. After that, he lived
among the Sioux, and whenever he met one of
the men who had left him, in his hour of sick-
ness, he gave him an unmerciful drubbing.
But with him the years went by with a suc-
cession of disasters, and he suffered incredible
hardships. His life tides ebbed low in melan-
choly and misery. He became sullen and
morose. After days of hunger he would fall
in with the fortune to kill a deer, wolf or
buffalo. All indifferent to its kind, indis-
criminate as to its quality, he would greedily
fill of its carcass bloodraw ; and striking a fire
to keep away creatures that were a little more
wild than he, he would lie down by the rem-
nants of the half eaten carcass to sleep the
fitful sleep of the jungle man ; while around
him from the wilderness dark, two by two,
burned luminous eyes of firewild hungry
beasts.
When the great tides of humankind started
on the overland trail, in the early forties, Robi-
deaux remembered his old trade as a black-
smith, and took up his abode at Ft. Laramie,
where he served the travelers by fixing their
wagons, for enormous compensations, and by
shoeing horses, mules and oxen, with hand
forged shoes at the mild figure of three dol-
lars per shoe.
By the spring of 1848, he had accumulated
enough to lay in a supply of traders goods,
and removed to "Scotts Bluff Hills." Scotts
Bluffs were originally designated in the plural,
and extended along the range, intersecting with
the main Chalk mountains to the south and
southwest.
Robideaux built a small trading station near
the springs near the head of a canyon, and
put up a blacksmith shop to continue his
trade. John Evans Brown mentions him as
"Rebedere," and says, "it was at that well
known springs in the Scotts Bluffs." The
springs referred to are those just above Wool-
ridge's place. Brown was a forty-niner. Lat-
er he moved farther from the hills apparently
to avoid danger from Arapahoe raids.
Some years later, Robideaux returned to his
native city, St. Genevieve, old, browned and
hardened, but with abundant means to put
in the rest of his life without fear of poverty.
History connects the naming of Kiowa creek
with Robideaux, in that the same raiders from
the souih who burned the trading post were
the following morning completely wiped out
on the creek.
The regular hunting ground of the Kiowas
is south of the Arkansas, and east of the Pur-
gatory. As a tribe they are more often men-
tioned as Comanches, by early writers. They
wen- very warlike and treacherous, ami often
engaged in raids upon emigrants along the
28
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
Santa Fe trail. On occasions, bands would
reach the Platte, but not very frequently were
they as far as the North river.
About 1852 one of the predatory raids to
the north was made, and a band of some fifty
warriors and their families reached Indian
Springs in the hills south of Gonneville or
Pumpkin creek.
Here they loitered for a short time, and
then decided to move to the valley of the Flat
Water. They followed the well known trail
obliquely across the Gonneville valley, and up
into the "V" north of Wildcat mountain.
Emerging from the hills through Cedar can-
yon, they struck west and destroyed the aban-
doned Robideaux post.
Crossing the hills, they stopped at a spring
leading down to the northwest. Here they
rested after their pillaging of the old post.
At this time a dashing young Sioux warrior,
with a small band of young braves, came
down from the north, thinking perhaps to
meet some of their ancient enemies, the Ara-
pahoes. His spies discovering the camp of
Kiowas, and being somewhat indiscriminate
as to who should be his victims, he attacked
the Kiowa camp.
The attack was well planned, being made at
dawn, and although a much smaller number,
they made up for it in fire and youth. The
Kiowas were utterly annihilated. In the ex-
ultation of victory, the Sioux scoured the hills
for refugees. A young squaw was found
stolidly beside her dead brave, and was quick-
ly sent to the shades to join her companion,
after the manner of Indians. The leader of
this band was Red Cloud.
CHAPTER XV
THE STEAMBOAT EL PASO HERE — REULEAU, THE TRAPPER
Several persons have mentioned of having
seen in Morton's History of Nebraska, and
elsewhere, references to ruins of old adobe,
where formerly stood a city or station of con-
siderable proportions, including a blacksmith
shop, as being upon "the east slope of Scotts
Bluff," along the old Overland Trail. This
reference is no doubt to old Robideaux, as no
other such ruins exist, or is there any memory
of them among old timers. And there are
none on the line of the trail that leads through
Mitchell Gap.
The naming of several gaps in the bluffs is
clear. Robideaux station doubtless led to the
naming of the pass of that name, and the pas-
sage through the hills to the north of the old
post, toward Fort Mitchell (the pass south
of A. C. Morrison's place) was formerly call-
id Scotts Bluff Pass. After the passing of
old Robideaux, the old Mitchell Pass fell into
disuse, and in fact it was never much in use.
and except for horses and footmen, is now
entirely abandoned. Then the big gap in
Scotts Bluff, through which the daily travel
had reached hundreds, came into general con-
versation and knowledge at Mitchell Gap, or
Mitchell 1'ass, be. ,ni r hi Kurt Mitchell. .And
through this pass the streams of humankind
poured in the years which followed.
Early in June, 1852, an event of more than
passing moment came to the existence of Fort
Mitchell. The wilderness about it, and the
people at the fort, were startled by the scream
of a steam whistle, and so far, as was within
the knowledge of man here, there was no
such thing nearer than the Missouri river.
The winter previous had 'been one of con-
siderable severity and much snow had fallen in
the mountains. The spring had turned off
bright and warm, and the river presented
much the same aspect as it did in June, 1908,
when it will be remembered, it was full from
bank to bank.
From the lookout of the fort, the first and
only steamboat that was ever in the Scotts Bluff
country, could be seen ascending the river.
The El Paso, as it proved to be pulled into
the bank below the fort, where now R. S.
Hunt's stock go down to water, and made
fast for the night. The next day the El Paso
continued its journey up the Platte, and con-
tinued to the mouth of the Platte canyon,
where the current proved too strong for it to
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
29
proceed farther, and the return journey was
commenced.
The advance up the river was made at the
rate of about thirty-five miles per day, below
the junction of the rivers, and from that
point to Platte canyon the average was about
twenty-five miles. On the return the boat trav-
elled from seventy-five to ninety miles per
day.
On the trip both ways it was also found ne-
cessary at times to use green cottonwood and
ash for fuel, and to keep the fires burning re-
quired liberal quantities of rosin and tar.
The profound student, Edward Everett
Hale, published a book in 1854, on Kansas and
Nebraska, and refers to navigation of the
Platte. He speaks of the El Paso in ascend-
ing the Platte for five hundred miles, as an
achievement which was never surpassed by
a boat of its class. And that in early days,
boats distinguishing themselves as did this
craft, were entitled to wear a pair of elk's ant-
lers, until another surpassed it. There has been
none to surpass the El Paso and she still
"wears the horns."
Hale's book states that trappers occasional-
ly descended the Platte in canoes and batteaux,
but that it was exceedingly intricate and dan-
gerous. The boats frequently run aground,
and it was generally considered as a last re-
sort for the transfer of goods. Boats of elk-
hide and buffalo skin proved the most service-
able, for they yielded when striking the sand
bars, and slid over them with less difficulty,
than boats of wood.
Among the few passengers alighting at Fort
Mitchell from the El Paso was Reuleau, the
trapper, who has a history. He is first men-
tioned in 1833, when he met the lone Nez Perce
brave on his journey into the west, after the
futile visit to St. Louis. Francis Parkman
mentions him at Fort Laramie in 1847. Pre-
vious to the latter date, he had had the mis-
fortune to freeze off the fore part of both
feet, leaving but stubs. Yet he was the same
blithe, lithe spirit as before.
Reuleau had then told lightly of "two more
gone. One murdered in his cabin, and the
other shot with his own gun." "Next time it
will be one of us. I tell you it is getting too
hot for me. I am going one more season,"
said he, "My squaw wants a red dress with
the bright buttons, and a pacing pony, and
then she will be satisfied for me to settle down
and farm."
Poor Reuleau ! This was six years after,
and he was still at it. But for him the trail
was near its end. This was the last time he
ever came to light. He sleeps somewhere in
the wilderness about us, but where, no one
knows.
I am glad that my own father met him once
at Fort Mitchell in 1850, when he made his
first journey to California. For it was from
Reuleau that father learned much that was of
value regarding Indian strategy, and the dan-
gers of the trail and mountains.
One bright moonlight night at old Fort
Mitchell, when my father and party were
camped outside the Palisades, Reuleau and my
father fell to conversation, and Reuleau asked
if he had ever seen the beaver and otter play.
Father replied in the negative and Reuleau
volunteered to pilot him to a spot where he
could "watch them slide."
He took him north about two and a half
miles, where the beaver had built a dam be-
tween the shore and an island. This place is
now off the shore between the Johnny Boyle
ranch and Chris Kronberg's. Approaching
warily they hid in the brush and timber near
at hand. After a time, they saw beaver come
out upon the bank, and slide down in a manner
similar to boys at the old swimming hole.
Their number grew until there were a half
dozen or more at play, chasing each other
down the slide, and swimming away sput-
tering, and slapping as they went about it.
Then an otter appeared, and he quietly
ascended the bank, to the top of the slide. He
would take the slide in the manner that the
beaver did, but upon striking the water, would
go under and remain for a distance of forty
or fifty feet, before the ripples would show his
rising to the surface.
There are two of these slides that are known
by location to the writer. The one described,
and another mentioned by Eugene Ware, at a
point a little east of the North Platte.
Ware described the habits of the beaver and
otter in the identical manner, but he adds one
of the stories of the wild, handed down from
the red man, who was then his companion. It
appears that of a sudden the animals quit
their playing, and the Indian saw or claimed
he could see the outline of an elk in the bushes
upon the other bank of the improvised lagoon.
He said the elk had given the water animals
some warning of the near approach of men.
He claimed that there was a language of the
animal kingdom, which all animals understood
— the language of danger, by which one speci-
men could signal others. Ware said he wanted
to wait until the animals came out to play
again, but the guide said "no, they will play
no more tonight."
30
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER XVI
GOVERNMENT BUYS FORT LARAMIE — FT. FONTENELLE IS BUILT
The ramifications of the American Fur Com-
pany include many subordinate institutions.
Each was an entity unto itself, like the company
organized to take over Fort Laramie, which in-
cluded Bridger and others not interested in oth-
er parts of the main institution. "Vanderburg
and Dripps" was the immediate branch that
connected up at the old fort. In 1845, when a
number of posts had been built around Fort
Laramie, cutting off the travelers before they
reached the central and larger institution, they
builded two other subsidiary posts. One was
on the north bank of the Platte opposite the
mouth of the Laramie river, that remained
there until after the gold excitement in Cali-
fornia, and the other was a little north of the
present site of Wheatland, which was placed
in charge of Bordeaux, of whom we will later
speak.
In the winter of 1843-44, Marcus Whitman,
in behalf of the people of Oregon, made a trip
through the rigorous winter of the Rocky
Mountains, and appeared in Washington. His
feet were frozen in this terrible journey, but
he appeared in the national capital and plead
for Oregon.
Upon request, he presented a written state-
ment in which he said he himself had piloted
more than two hundred families, consisting of
one thousand people, with 120 wagons, 694
oxen, and 773 loose cattle, across the moun-
tains to homes in Oregon, in the previous two
years.
He also recommended the establishment of
government posts along the route. One sug-
gested was where Fort Sedgewick was later
established (near Big Springs), and another
"on Horseshoe creek, about forty miles west
of Fort Laramie in the Black Hills." At this
time the mountains around Hartville and ex-
tending southwest, including Laramie Peak,
were called the Black Hills.
Horseshoe creek was not Horse creek, as
will be seen from the designated location, al-
though from the numerous diaries published
from time to time, many of the travelers must
have had the two confused.
John C. Fremont, who under the auspices of
the government, visited Fort Laramie, to treat
with the Indians, and to continue on a voyage
uf exploration, recommended that the govern-
ment purchase Fort Laramie, as he had been
lead to think that the American Fur Company
wished to retire and would sell at a reasonable
figure.
Negotiations followed, and, in 1846, Congress
appropriated $3,000, the agreed price for the
purchase. Bruce Husband, then in charge of
Fort Laramie, surprised the government offi-
cials by the announcement that he selected an-
other site, and he would build another fort at
Scotts Bluff.
This post was commenced at once, and its
location was upon the west bank of the Platte
just south of the west end of the bridge be-
tween the city of Scottsbluff and Mitchell val-
ley. Anyone who has visited this historic spot,
can see the advantage of location. It com-
mands an excellent view of the valley in all
directions, yet is far enough away from the
bluff to be out of range of any fire from that
eminence.
The fort was made on the usual stockade
plan, about three hundred feet square, with all
the buildings in the enclosure.
When completed, Husband named it Fort
Fontenelle, after Lucien Fontenelle, one of his
partners. The old members of the company
were frequently complimenting some other
member by naming a trading post in his honor.
Thus it happens there are several Fort Will-
iams named after William Sublette. And there
were no less than two Fort Mitchells at one
time within the confines of Nebraska, and both
were named after David D. Mitchell.
Soon after the establishment of Fort Fon-
tenelle, Bruce Husband retired, and Lucien
Fontenelle was placed in charge. This seems
strange, in consideration of the fact that sev-
eral historians had Fontenelle commit suicide
at Fort Laramie some dozen years before this
fort was built.
The report referred to did not have the
element of fact, for it is certain that Fontenelle
was alive as late as 1852, when my father met
him at Fort Mitchell.
Lucien Fontenelle had a remarkable history.
He was of direct royal lineage, and his par-
ents, Francois and Moreonise Fontenelle. came
from Marseilles. France, and Lucien and his
sister were born in the early part of the cen-
tury at New Orleans. His parents perished in
a storm, and the children were made orphans
about 1820. They lived with relatives and at
the age of fifteen, Lucien ran away.
Some six or seven years after he was sup-
posed to have committed suicide, or in 1842,
lie returned to his old home. His sister had
married well, (or wealthy), and she refused
to own the weather-beaten mountaineer, al-
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
31
though he was recognized by an old nurse, who
also identified him by a birthmark.
He returned to the wilderness life and was
married by Father Peter DeSmet to a woman
of the Omaha tribe. Logan Fontenelle and
others of the name in Nebraska history are
among the descendants of the famous trapper.
Thus it transpired that Lucien Fontenelle,
having for so many years braved the dangers
of the wilderness, being a veteran of the moun-
tains, now that he had attained the age of
about forty-five years, should be relieved of
some of the activities and -stress of a hunter,
the new fort at Scotts Bluff offered the retreat.
For a time it was called Fort Fontenelle, but
the partizan's native modesty, and his friend-
ship for David D. Mitchell, caused him to
change its name.
Fontenelle, having an Indian wife, and being
well known among the Indians as a fair man,
and a man who would fight if need be, was
of great value in preventing depredations along
the trail and commanders at Fort Laramie
found that he prevented friction almost entire-
ly in the country east of one hundred miles.
For a number of years after the establish-
ment of this fort, during the months of May,
June and July, there was a ceaseless caravan
moving westward through the North Platte val-
ley. It can be stated with comparative cer-
tainty of truth that during those months of the
first five or six years of the existence of Fort
Fontenelle, or Mitchell, there were emigrants
within sight at all times. In fact, during day-
light hours an average of one emigrant wagon
passed each five minutes, for one hundred days
of each year. An almost continuous stream of
wagons stretched for five hundred miles, along
the great highways over the mountains.
Is it any wonder that the Indians who came
down to Fort Laramie with Peter DeSmet in
1852, when they looked upon the great wide
bare trail, should imagine that there must be a
great void in the east, and could not compre-
hend that this was only a small fragment of
the white race? Is it any wonder that the
Sioux bands that came for the first time to
Fort Mitchell should ask if the whole white
village was moving to the west? Is it any
wonder that they contemplated taking the back
trail of the Great White Medicine Road, with
a view of locating in the valley that they
thought must be deserted in the east? And
this travel continued and grew. It gave rise
to the pony express and the overland stage,
which modes of travel and transportation con-
tinued until the Union Pacific builded up the
Lodgepole valley and became the rapid tran-
sit across the mountains.
And now Fort Mitchell had become the ren-
dezvous for trappers, as well as a halting place
for overland travelers. It was here that trap-
ping parties disbanded and went their several
ways, and it was here they met to journey to
the white settlements.
When a number had made ready for the
trip eastward they would take boats or horses,
and with the voice of the wilderness, and with
the yodling calls of the mountains, they would
make the rocks and cliffs of old Scotts Bluff
reverberate, and then, they were away.
Upon arrival at their destination, they would
vanish from sight for two or three hours ; then
shaved, bathed, and clad in garments of civ-
ilization, they would appear in the marts of
trade.
The mystery of the wilderness was about
them, the brown of the western winds upon
their brows, and wherever they went they were
objects of consideration and interest. After a
time the sameness of the city grew tiresome,
and when another trapper outfit was preparing
for the west, the most of them would be ready
to come back to the life that was life to them.
The joy of returning to the haunts of the
mountains was theirs, and happiness beamed
from the countenances, as they danced, capered
and sang about the camp getting ready for
the journey. And here at old Fort Mitchell,
they were ready once more for the perils and
pleasures of the profession.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER XVII
BRADY ISLAND TRAGEDY — FRENCH BOAT SONG— TIM BRIDGER MEETS
SIR GEORGE GORE
The men who manned the boats that navi-
gated the shallow and dangerous western wat-
ers were, like the campers, almost invariably
French-Creoles, and emotional, romantic char-
acters added to the picturesqueness of events,
making trapper history distinctive. It was an
epoch in the taming of the wilderness.
In the spring high waters, occasionally a
fleet of boats were made ready at old Fort
Mitchell, as formerly at Ft. Laramie for the
journey to the white settlements. The boats
were loaded with two or three packs of beaver
each, and usually manned by two men each.
French language was much in use by the
Americans, who in the main disdained the hap-
py-go-lucky French camp attaches. They were
frequently referred to as "Le Foux" or the
fools, but laughter and song were unyield-
ing to the shafts of ridicule, and whenever a
fleet of boats cast off from the old fort, the
splash of paddle, or the movement of poles
were to the rhythm of French boat songs with
which the air was filled. The following is giv-
en by Chittendon as one of the favorites :
"Dans mon cherin J'ai rencontre'
Trois cavalieres bien monte'es
L'on ton laridon dan'e
L'on ton laridon dai.
Trois cavalieres bein monte'es
L'une a chevel l'autre a pi ed
L'on ton laridon dan'e
L'on ton laridon dai.
And thus the buoyant, singing people would
away to civilization. One could not tell, how-
ever, which of them would reach the white
settlement, for if occasion or expediency re-
quired one of the two boatsmen would be "acci-
dentally" killed en route.
It was in 1833, so says Rufus Sage, that a
party were descending the river, and they stop-
ped upon an island some distance below the
junction of the two branches of the Platte.
A man named Brady and his French compan-
ion bad quarrelled.
Tin- others of the party had gone out to
hunt, and. upon returning they found Brady
dead. 1 lis companion said it was by accidental
discharge of his own weapon. Although the
others did not believe the story, they had no
evidence to the contrary.
Shallow water made the travelers abandon
their boats a short distance below. They di-
vided their packs, but our Frenchman held to
the portion that formerly belonged to Brady.
The night after, he was trying to light a
fire by the discharge of his pistol, the story
goes, and shot himself in the thigh. He laid
their six days and was picked up by the Paw-
nees, but he died a few days later, and before
he died, he confessed the murder of Brady.
No one has ever confessed the murder pf
the Frenchman, but it seemed that providence
had a way in dealing with murderers in the
wilderness. It is generally believed that provi-
dence used in most cases, the hand of some
friend of the murdered man.
The death of Brady gave name to Brady
Island, which name time has never effaced.
One of the most distinguished caravans to
visit the famous station of Fort Mitchell, ar-
rived in June, 1854, when the Sir George Gore,
a real lord from Sligo, Ireland, appeared.
Henry Chattillon, already famous as a guide,
had been pressed into service and had piloted
the party from St. Louis.
The outfit consisted of several wagons and
many carts, a number of yoke of oxen, and a
hundred horses, a large retinue of servants, a
lot of thoroughbred dogs, and was also equip-
ped with firearms, accessories, and provisions
for a two year's trip.
Chattillon was to guide the party to Fort
Laramie where his service was to end. At Fort
Mitchell Gore made inquiries as to the best
country for big game, and was making a pre-
liminary quest for a mountain guide. All in-
quiries of the latter nature led him to Jim
Bridger, who was at Fort Laramie at that time.
The meeting was mutually interesting to the
principals, and to the spectators. Gore was ac-
customed to command, and he had all the im-
perial instincts of his nativity. On the other
hand, Bridger cared absolutely nothing for rank
or station. In the mountains all men were to
him the same. If they could be relied upon
"they were square." and if not to be reljed
upon, "they were Blackfeet," (an unreliable
Indian).
Negotiations entered upon with diplomacy by
the Irish lord, were cut short by the moun-
taineer, who named his price, terms and con-
ditions, and wages to commence at once. This
unusual abruptness made a hit with the Irish-
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
33
man, and in the two years that followed Sir
Geo. Gore and Jim Bridger were companions
inseparable.
During these years Sir George held to his
traditions. He would not rise until ten in
the morning, and then with deliberation he
had his bath and made his toilet. After break-
fast "at noon" he would hunt or travel as he
then decided. Along about ten o'clock at
night, his "dinner" must be served, and it was
full dinner dress for him.
At the evening function, he usually had
Bridger join, but no evening costume for Jim.
After dinner, he would read to Bridger from
Shakespeare or Munchausen. Of the former
Bridger "lowed it was too highfalutin fer
him, and he did not like that Pullstuff any-
way ; he thought too much of lager beer."
Munchausen's stories struck him as "a leetle
too big," but when his own stories were re-
peated to him, he said, "well, maybe they air
too big too," with a twinkle in his eye. These
and similar discussions continued while the
two remained in the mountains, and after the
two years the only genuine affection by the
lord at parting from his hunting companions,
was shown as he bade farewell to old Jim
Bridger.
The period of the trapper was passing fast.
The beaver had lost his prestige in the world
of fashion and silk had taken its place, the
prices of ermine and otter had fallen. The
big migration which at this time was pouring
through the valley of the Flat Water, changed
the habit but not the vocation of the class.
Thousands of buffalo fell before the trapper
and thousands of hides were shipped annually
to St. Louis. In one year, 1847, the American
Fur Company shipped from Fort Mitchell,
then just being established as Fort Fontenelle,
and from Fort Laramie, then soon to be trans-
ferred to the government, forty-seven thousand
buffalo robes.
Fort Mitchell was the last trading post of
the American Fur Company, and remained
their property until 1864, when it was sold to
the Northwest Fur Company, of St. Paul.
This company was organized by J. B. Hubbell
and associates.
There seems to be no record in the war de-
partment showing any establishment or occu-
pation of Fort Mitchell by the government or
any date of its abandonment, but it was used
by the government from 1865 to 1869 as a
sub-station of Fort Laramie; I have this from
the Adjutant General's office.
And with the abandonment of Fort Mitchell
the "Commerce of the Plains," in the old sense
passed away.
PART II
INDIAN WARS AND LEGENDS
CHAPTER I
INDIAN MIGRATION ACROSS THE PLATTE
Hyde tells us that from his best information
the Comanches or "Paducas" were on the
north side of the North Platte river up to
about the year 1800. Perrin de lac in his book,
1802. puts on his map "Ancient Village of
the Paducas," on the upper Niobrara near
Rawhide Buttes. Robert Harvey, when doing
some surveying in Sioux county, about forty
years ago, came upon "old ruins" northwest of
Agate. An early map of Nebraska indicates
"ancient ruins" across the river and some dis-
tance north of the present site of Bridgeport.
These were likely the former establishments
of "Paducas," and date back to about the be-
ginning of the last century.
Major Long, in 1820, says that during the
life of Chief Blackbird, about 1780 or 1790,
the Paducas came and attacked an Omaha vil-
lage on the Missouri river near the mouth of
the Niobrara.
Tradition has it among the Indians that the
Cheyennes came and drove the Comanches
from the Rawhide Butte region, and that later
the Sioux came and drove out the Cheyennes.
Major Long also stated that in 1820 the
Cheyennes, "on the Cheyenne river" secured
goods from the British -traders through the
Sioux and they would bring them to the Platte
where at "distant periods" evidently meaning
long intervals, a sort of an Indian trading fair
is held, usually on "Grand Camp creek," by the
Cheyennes. Arapahoes, Kiowas, and Coman-
ches. Tin's may have been as far up the river
as tin- present Grand Encampment, but I doubt
if any of ihe creeks had their present names so
early as that date. The Arapahoes carried on
this sort of trade before the Cheyennes took it
up, but the Arapahoes seem to have been pre-
vented by the Sioux from securing goods from
the Missouri, and the Cheyennes took up the
trade. The intertribal trade between the Indians
appears to have been of a very early origin, and
Hyde thinks that it was started by the Co-
manches when they were north of the Platte.
When they were driven south of the river, the
Kiowas took it up, and when they were
driven south the Arapahoes assumed charge of
the trade, and they in turn were compelled to
move south and it then fell into the hands of
the Cheyennes. The Sioux would have un-
doubtedly followed the business had it not
been for the interference of the white trader,
who took it over entirely.
In 1814-15 the Sioux and Kiowas were at
war, and a decisive battle was fought on Kiowa
creek in the west part of the present Scotts
Bluff county. Here the Kiowas w r ere beaten
and retired into the mountains. They later
went south and joined the Comanches and
have thoroughly amalgamated therewith. Their
last raid into the "North River" country was
when they burned the trading post in Robi-
deaux Gap.
A story going back to 1730, tells of the
Cheyennes. Originally they were far away,
west of the great lakes. In the course of their
migrations, driven ahead of the Sioux, they
built a village on the banks of the Cheyenne
river. This river rises in Wyoming and runs
eastward, skirting the south border of Black
Hills from Edgemont to the Missouri.
At this time the Cheyennes had built mud
huts and their habitations had a sense of per-
manency. Possibly they seized and occupied
the "Paduca" villages. One day, the entire
village, with the exception of one old woman
who was too old to travel, went on a buffalo
hunt. These hunts often extended for several
days, and it was during their absence that their
old enemies, the Assinaboines, whose habitat is
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
35
now in northern Montana, raided their village.
They attacked at night, and at their sudden
approach the old woman, who was grinding
bones in an improvised mortar, and had a torch
of pitch pine stuck down her back, with the
upper end alight, started to run toward the
river. The village was situated upon a bluff.
As she approached its precipitous shore with
the Assinaboines in close pursuit, she took the
torch from her back and threw it far out over
the cliff, and she herself hid by the pathway
that led down to the water. In the darkness,
the Assinaboines, thinking that she had run on,
followed the flight of the torch over the cliff,
and all perished. The Cheyennes, the story
goes, then used dogs for pack animals, hitch-
ing them between thills, and having them drag
the packs after the manner later adopted in
connection with ponies and mustangs.
In 1840-1841 the Sioux made peace with the
Cheyennes, probably the Southern tribes, for
they were at peace with the Northern Chey-
ennes long before 1840. The Southern tribe
whose habitat was on the Platte and Laramie,
had among them a very old man by the name
of Red Cloud. He was a cousin of the Sioux
Red Cloud of history. Sioux Red Cloud's
father had a brother who married a Northern
Cheyenne woman about 1820, and the Cheyenne
Red Cloud was their son. This indicates that
the Northern Cheyennes and Ogallala Sioux
were at peace and intermarrying at that time.
This Red Cloud, half Sioux and half Northern
Cheyenne, married a Southern Cheyenne wo-
man, and lived with the Southern tribe. This
would indicate peaceful and intermarrying re-
lations between the north and south branches
existed about 1840 or a little later. It might
have been after the peace of 1840-1841.
This peace was brought about by Red Arm
for the Cheyennes and Lone Horn for the
Min-ne-con-jou Sioux (or the tribe of "shoot-
ers in the mist"). The Sioux and Arapahoes
remained hostile for some time thereafter.
Among the oldest of the Cheyennes now liv-
ing there are found those who say that Lone
Horn was the first of all the Sioux to bring
his band to the Platte river, and he did not live
here. He came down to hunt, and to run the
mustangs, for wild horses abounded in the val-
ley of the North Platte river and adjoining ter-
ritory.
Volume I of Wyoming historical publica-
tions, in an article on Fort Laramie says in
1835 two men were sent to the Black Hills to
induce Bull Bear's Ogallalas to come to the
Platte to live, and that this was the first Sioux
band to come near Fort Laramie to trade.
There was no Fort Laramie then, and the
Fort William that was the antecedent of the
historic fort was builded 1835. Lone Horn's
hunting trips must have antedated that event
by at least a score of years. The Sioux were
here in numbers as early as 1815, for the battle
of Kiowa with the Kiowas, and the Battle
of Round House Rock, with the Pawnees, were
about 1815. If Lone Horn was the first of the
Sioux to reach the Platte river, he must have
been quite young at the time, or else he was
quite old at the time of the conclusion of peace
between his people and the Cheyennes.
The migrations of the several tribes across
the Platte must have been in rapid succession,
the Comanches were presumed to be north of
the river about 1800, and ten or fifteen years
thereafter the Sioux were here. In the mean-
time, came and passed, the Kiowas, the Arapa-.
hoes imd the Cheyennes. The North Platte
river was the dividing line, in the days of the
trappers, although the Sioux were sometimes
found south of the line. _i3/2386
In 1850 the scourge of cholera swept along
the trail, and spread among the Indians east
of and around Scotts Bluff, and its vital effect
drove all else out of mind for a time. Stans-
bury found five lodges full of Sioux, all dead
of cholera, at Ash Hollow, and cholera was
raging in a village of two hundred and fifty
lodges farther up the Platte.
The Sioux at that time seemed to have prac-
tically the undisputed possession of the Platte
except the challenge of authority thereover
made by white people along the Great White
Medicine Road. The river for a time had been
the dividing line between the Sioux and the
southern tribes, but the southern resistance to
the northern pressure was gradually giving
way, and soon after the Sioux took possession
of the land south to the "South River" and
some distance beyond.
Samuel Parker, the missionary, when pass-
ing through the North River land in the early
thirties, tells of a thousand Pawnees in a vil-
lage in Mitchell valley, and from 1845 to 1855
the Indians held their pow-wows in Horse
creek where Crows and Snakes met the Arap-
ahoes, Cheyennes and Sioux, and presents were
distributed among them. This was in line with
the promises of Colonel Kearney at Fort Lar-
amie in 1845, where he warned twelve hundred
Sioux that they must not try to close the Great
White Medicine Road, "for it was used by the
people who with their wives and their children
and the cattle, were moving to the other side
of the mountains, to bury their bones there,
and to never return." Colonel Kearney said
in address : "Sioux, you have enemies about
you. but the greatest of them all is whiskey. I
36
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
learn that some bad men from Taos bring it
here and sell it to you. Open your ears and
listen to me. It is contrary to the wishes of
the Great Father that . whiskey should be
brought here, and I advise you, whenever you
find it in your country, no matter in whose pos-
session, to spill it all on the ground. The
ground may drink it without injury, but you
cannot."
Tall Bull and another Sioux spoke very cor-
dially, and then presents were distributed. Tall
Bull was the principal chief present for the
Sioux.
About 1870 Tall Bull was killed by Buffalo
Bill in the Battle of Summit Springs. The kill-
ing took place in a dry run leading down to
the Platte, and the widowed squaw seemed
.quite proud of the fact that it took so dis-
tinguished a man as Colonel W. F. Cody to
kill her man and chief.
Captain Clark, who later figured conspicu-
ously in western Nebraska history, says that
Whirlwind told him that the dates of the Horse
Creek Councils marked the division of the
Cheyenne and the Sioux, but there had been
earlier troubles of which he perhaps was un-
aware.
The number four seems to run to the
Cheyennes, which perhaps some mystic may be
able to explain. They had four chiefs, four
halts before they charged into the preliminary
march of the Sun dance, four times is the
covering of the medicine sweat house raised,
four winters they starved, etc.
After the Laramie conference, Colonel
Kearney visited a village of about thirty lodges
on the Chugwater, and went on south to the
Arkansas. Dunn says that he sought to give
the Indians an impression of power or author-
ity, or to scare them, by sending up rockets,
but there seems to have been no foundation
for the story, in the official reports.
CHAPTER II
INDIAN WAR AND LEGEND — THE STORY TELLER
Years ago, on the banks of the White river,
an old Indian story teller sat by the fire, tell-
ing his midnight tales. And he said: "My
story winds as winds a river, sometimes on
one side of the valley, and sometimes on the
other side, and sometimes turning backward
for a distance, then turning again to continue
its journey onward to the Big Water." So,
while these events, and the chronicles thereof,
move steadily forward with the years, they will
occasionally hark back to earlier dates.
No matter what the hour of the night, a
story teller always has his audience huddled
around the fire ; and his stories range from ad-
venture full of action, to the wierd mythology
of the tribe. Night is the time when all man-
kind is stirred by vagaries of the dark, and
receptive brains absorb the stories heard or
read.
This story teller assured us, there in the
shadow of the pines, the glow of the campfire
illumining his face, and not so brilliantly the
faces of his listeners, that, when the moon was
full, the evil spirits began to eat it, and they
never ceased until it was entirely devoured.
Then the Great Spirit knowing it was not well
to let evil spirits run about at all times of the
night, and that they shunned the light as much
as possible, began making a new moon. This
he worked upon night after night until he had
it complete. Hanging it in the sky, he went
about his business, and then it would be again
attacked and devoured by the evil ones.
Part of the stories of Indians are supposed
to be Indian history and tradition, but they are
all about as full of child-like vagaries as the
above conception of the changing moon. There
are many Indian stories, of which I shall re-
produce a few that may relate to this particu-
lar part of the country, and shall give some
extracts of their translated songs.
An inside knowledge of Indian life yields
the information that their sentiments, their ro-
mance, their poetry, their natural human in-
clinations are not far different from those of
their white brothers. The "Indian in a man"
has been referred to in many ways — wild na-
ture, vindictiveness, treachery, and is more fre-
quently used to indicate cruel or evil charac-
teristics.
That is because the side of Indian life that
has been most dwelt upon by writers, and that
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
37
has come in contact with the advance of civili-
zation, has been the cruel and savage side. We
seldom heard of the great peace advocates of
the red race, because the more virulent advo-
cates of war kept them and us busy. The same
inspirations that provoked the flower of knight-
hood in the middle ages, were in the Indian
tribes. The young men were taught valor and
inspiration, and that honor came through the
slaughter of hereditary or other foes.
Even in peace, war songs kept alive the mili-
tant tendencies of mind and heart. Here is a
fragment of one song often sung to inspire
young braves to deeds of war and blood:
"The Eagles.
The eagles scream on high
They whet their forked beaks.
Raise — raise the battle cry,
'Tis fame your leader seeks."
This song of the Sioux stirs the red blood
just as did the recent songs on the battle fields
of the old world.
Fatalism is a part and parcel of the moun-
tain and plain, and the greater frontier, as we
well know, and we presume it is the same of
war. The belief that "a man who is born to
be hung will never be drowned," is old as the
hills. In the remote periods of ancient India,
Sanjoya sang the battle song of fatalism. But
old chief Wau-bo-jeg, who once loved and
roamed over the land of western Nebraska,
sang his songs in the middle of the night. When
the dark shadows fell over Wildcat and Sixty-
six mountains, over Crow Butttes and the
Pine ridge, he would sit by his fire, and tell
stories, and listen to others. When some story
of battle prowess stirred those about the fire,
he would sing, and this was one of his songs :
''On that day when our heroes lay
low — lay low,
On that day when our heroes lay low ;
I fought by their side.
And I thought 'ere I died,
Just for vengeance I'd take one more
foe."
There are several verses that tell of defeat
and death, and then a verse on preparedness,
that ran thus :
"Five winters in hunting we'll spend
— we'll spend
Five winters in hunting we'll spend.
When youths grown to men,
We'll to war lead again,
And our davs like our fathers' will end."
The last line indicates the fatalistic resigna-
tion.
Thus the teachings went on from one gen-
eration to another, and the glories of war were
forever dangled before the eyes of the young
braves. He who cautiously dared to plead for
peace was contemptuously dubbed a squaw.
Woman life among the nomads of the plains
has another side. Conflict was forced upon
her and not of her nature. Subdued by long
years of motherhood and slaughtered children,
her ambitions were for the more humble do-
mesticity. Like her white sister, she admired
the brave, but feared the dread consequences
of conflict. Whenever her man left home, she
knew not that he would ever return.
Captain Hobbs tells the pathetic story of his
Indian wife, "The Spotted Fawn."
When he bade her and their half-breed son
"good-by," to return to the settlements, he
promised to come back, but she feared he
would never do so. She tried every wile
known to a woman's heart to get him to give
up his intended journey, she held their little
brown baby up to be kissed, and then clung to
him pleading with him. But when she knew
that it was useless to plead longer, she hugged
her child to her bosom and ran shrieking into
the night. Their second son, soon to be, was
prematurely born, as the result of the intensity
of her emotion.
Two years later Captain Hobbs did come
back, and her joy was wonderfully manifest.
The boy was as wild as a deer, and it was a
long time before he would come near his
father.
Yet with all the wealth of affection which
many a squaw bestowed upon her husband, she
had nothing to say in the matter of selection of
a mate. All these details were arranged by the
sire, who usually traded his promising young
girls for ponies. Occasionally there were at-
tachments, which were stronger than filial man-
dates.
Along the old stage road, south of Harris-
burg, and over on the White river, there are
two rocks, similarly named, and which obtained
the name from similar circumstances. In each
case a Sioux father had sold his daughter to
a young Ogallala brave, but in each case that
Indian maiden had a sweetheart of her own.
The story of the Banner county episode is this :
The village was situated on the little table-
land where in 1885 Vance Cross homesteaded,
just south of Long Springs branch, then un-
named, and the Ogallala had brought his
ponies. On the morrow he was to claim his
bride. She secretly left her lodge and found
her sweetheart and they were making away
38
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
when discovered. Her irate father, the chief,
had her whipped and her lover was put to
death.
The next morning in the bright sunrise, she
donned her finery and went humming a song
through the village, wending her way to the
south. Young braves looked admiringly upon
her as she passed and wished that they were
so fortunate as the Ogallala. He, too, looked
in fond admiration and anticipation. She was
observed to ascend the slope of Table mount-
tain, and she paused on its eastmost extremity,
where the countless ages of wind-erosion have
made a perpendicular cliff.
Here she raised her arms towards the sun
and commenced to sing. The music, as it
came to the village, all the inhabitants of which
were now watching her, sounded weird and
sweet, but was instantly recognized as the song
of death. A dozen braves ran to save her, but
in vain.
They had almost reached her when she
threw aside her blanket and as a statue of
bronze stood for a moment in the morning sun,
then with a cry that she would meet her lover
in the Shades, she went over the cliff, and was
crushed to death at the feet of "Lover's Leap."
Hers was the song of death, but there are
other songs, songs of life and of seasons.
Among the tribes, each season has its song,
and each great event is immortalized in poetry,
and folklore tales. We all know the habits of
the frog, and how it makes its presence known
in the first wet spells of spring, yet it remained
for an Indian to give the harbinger of season,
a place in the songs of the world. "O-ka-gis,"
or the "Frog Song," or the "Frog in the
Spring," as it is generally called, runs thus :
"O-ka-gis"
"Then we shall cheerfully, praisingly sing,
O-ka-gis, (the frogs) the heralds of Spring,
First to renounce the Winter bound ball ;
Hail sunshine and verdure and gladness for
all."
And they have a "Winter Song," a song of
pleasing defiance to Par-kab-il-on-ac-ca, the
god of winter. This thing with such a dread-
ful name, had decided to drive all the people
south wiili the buffalo, so he himself could
rule the north. But he met a Tartar, who
turned the tide, anil maintained his right and
his tnlic's privilege to remain in the north.
So when old Par-K. shook the kinks out
"I boreas, and ripped and tore in mad and
Stormy glee, he found (he red people sitting
by their meagre fires on tin- Niobrara and the
Blue Water, and under the beetling crags of
Scottsbluff, Wildcat and Bighorn mountains,
cheerfuly singing "The Song of Singabiss."
"Windy god, I know your plan,
You are but my fellowman,
Blow, you may, your coldest breeze,
Sing-a-biss you cannot freeze.
"Sweep the strongest breeze you can,
Sing-a-biss is still your man ;
Heigh for life, and ho for bliss,
Who so free as Sing-a-biss."
The Indian language and poetry, when trans-
lated, seems to grip one. Their expression
seems to get at the very essence of things.
They touch the heart of that which they seek to
express, in simple language, while we stumble
through the phraseology of mythology and ages
and leave a sentiment so buried in verbiage
that it is all but lost. It must be the com-
munion and mutual understanding which is
given by living close to nature. The common
language of the birds and beasts and redmen,
where all are attuned. A little extract from
the "Song of the Falcon," will serve to illus-
trate :
"Birds, ye wild birds, whom the high gods
made,
And gifted with powers of wonderous
kind,
Why turn ye so fearfully shy and dis-
mayed,
To gaze on the heavens you're leaving be-
hind?"
Have you ever stood in the old orchard or
leafy grove, and seen the wild scurry and flut-
ter of birds to hide in the grass or the leafy
bower? The sun may be shining, and no sign
of tumult or danger anywhere, except a stam-
pede among the little feathered families. Yet,
far up in the azure blue floats in tranquil cir-
cles, one, and perhaps two, of the keen eyed
enemies of the little birds. No word picture
in the classics has so vividly described this com-
mon incident in nature.
Indians educated at Carlisle return to their
tribes and the education gives them no better
expression. Neither are they improved in arts,
their work on the canvass with the single ex-
ception of landscape work is as crude as that
of native ochre painted on the mountain sides.
Their minds for the most part are as imma-
ture as children, and the love of the recondite
runs through all their lives.
It is said that civilization touches barbarism,
and barbarism recoils like a burnt child from
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
39
the fire. So back from the schools to the blan-
ket and the tepee, spoiled as Indians, but not
capable of competing and combatting with the
whites in the busy marts of the world.
I saw some Pine Ridge boys going through
Washington, some time ago, and in their
rounds they were conducted through the som-
ber grandeur of the National Capitol building,
and the wonderful glory of the National Li-
brary. On each occasion the Babylonian splen-
dors struck them and they cried out: "Wash-
tay, lela-wash-tay, lela-wash-tay te-pee," (fine,
very fine, very fine houses) which was the
limit of their expression; but, back in their
wigwams, if unspoiled by education, they can
tell the folklore stories of their people, as won-
derful as Arabian Nights, yet in words and
symbols of simple comprehension.
The younger years of the mountains and
plains people were not devoid of their amuse-
ments, and primitive joys. Young squaws fes-
tooned their hair with wild flowers, and bucks
adorned themselves with gay feathers.
The ceremonies among the corn raisers are
similar to the Arcadian joys of country lads
and lassies in ye olden time. You will recog-
nize resemblance to the old husking bees.
When a brave found a perfect red ear he
carried it in due form to his favorite squaw,
and left it as a tribute of his affection, and
when a squaw found one, she hid it until op-
portunity permitted her to yield it to her fav-
orite brave. If discovered, any brave might
claim her as his own. Sometimes the popular
belle would pretend to find one, for the joy of
the simultaneous rush towards her by her many
admirers.
But if one found a red ear that was not well
filled, or was crooked or tapering, all would
shout with glee and sing the song "Wa-ge-nim,"
"Wa-ge-nim.
Wa-ge-nim, crooked ear,
Walker of night,
Stop, little old man.
And take not to flight.
Crooked ear, crooked ear,
Stand up strong,
Little crooked old man,
I'll give you a song."
The crooked and tapering ears were consid-
ered the image of "Old Man Thief." And here
is another of the simple symbolic expressions.
This crooked, incomplete, unfinished ear of
corn is like "Old Man Thief," because it has
taken the toil in raising, and raised the expec-
tations of the grower, and yet but partially ful-
filled them.
There is much other Indian matter, tradi-
tions and the like, that come in their turn, but
now the "river winds" to other scenes.
CHAPTER III
THE PAWNEE PILGRIMAGE — THE SPOTTED ROBE — TI-WA-RA, THE GOD
OF COURT HOUSE ROCK — BATTLE OF ASH HOLLOW
Many, many moons ago; many moons and
many winters, the Pawnees came up the river
from the ruins of Quivera.
The underground people of pre-historic Ne-
braska, and the corn raisers of hundreds of
years ago, had left their "wallows." in the
sands of the eastern part of the state, and had
joined "the innumerable caravan that moves
to the pale realm of shade," and the Pawnees,
naturally nomadic, had for a time tarried, and
were growing corn and "pompons" on the
ruins of the past.
The introduction of "pompon" among the
Indians dates back more than a century, for
there are letters of Manuel Lisa, over a hun-
dred years old, which tell of his way of win-
ning and retaining the friendship of the In-
dians, and thereby turning into the markets
so much rich fur.
I will digress sufficiently to tell a little of
Lisa, as it was my privilege to examine some
of these old letters recently. It was Lisa's
boat which Roi and Dornin traded to Robert
Stuart and party, at Great Island in the spring
of 1813. This boat had a skeleton fn.me made
of wood four feet wide, twenty feet long, and
eighteen inches deep, and it took five elk hides
to cover it.
As Lisa says : he put great activity into his
operations, and went long distances alone into
40
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
the wilderness, and for long periods he was
buried in the forest, or wandered about upon
the plains. He introduced the "mammoth pom-
pon," "the large bean." "the potato," and "the
turnip." He loaned traps to the Indians, and
tools, and made his habitations the refuge of
those too old to follow the tribe.
"The Pompon," which he introduced flour-
ished in the wilderness, and sometimes grew to
the enormous size of one hundred and sixty
pounds, but in these higher and drier alti-
tudes its size was much less. The Pawnees
planted it in the valley of Gonneville creek a
hundred years ago, and the run out species are
now called "wild pumpkins." The cowmen
found them there and named the creek
"Pumpkinseed creek," which they afterward
shortened to the "Pumpkin creek, of song
and story.
One large Pawnee village had heard of the
fine buffalo ranges of western Nebraska, and
after much "fuss and feathers" it was deter-
mined to move westward into the land of the
Sioux. They knew that such a movement
would entail conflicts with their hereditary en-
emy, hence no village of small proportions
would hazard the undertaking.
In the village was one very old and neglect-
ed squaw, who, by silent consent and the cus-
tom of the tribe, was to be left behind. What
cruel purpose or tradition originated this cus-
tom, I know not, but frequently the old and
infirm, particularly squaws, were left behind,
when villages moved, and when the meagre
supply of food left them was exhausted, they
generally died of starvation.
In this case, the withered and crippled Paw-
nee squaw had a grandson who was one of
the promising young braves of the tribe.
Heeding not the names and jibes of his fellow
braves and refusing to revere the ancient and
wicked custom, he returned to the fragile lodge
of his maternal ancestor, and assisted her to
pack and follow. They plodded along behind
the main caravan, frequently living on the re-
fuse left by the well-provisioned people, and
one day they came upon a horse. It, too, was
crippled and stiff and old, was dun of color and
its back was sore, and it was very poor.
Partly because of compassion and not washing
to leave the old horse to the mercy of prowl-
ing, camp-following beasts, and partly because
Ik- wanted oik- horse, however poor, the young
brave took the half-starved animal along, and
found it of much service in carrying their
After many days they reached the base of
the eminence now known as Court House
Rock, and just east and north thereof a little
south of the present site of Bridgeport, the
Pawnee village settled down, for in the land
about them there were many signs of buffalo,
and into the village came out-runners who re-
ported a large herd of buffalo only four miles
south, and in the herd was a spotted calf.
A Spotted Robe was Big Medicine among
the Pawnees, and the chief sent a crier through
the village announcing that a charge should
be made from the village, and the brave who
brought back the spotted robe might marry
his beautiful daughter.
And the young brave mounted his old dun
horse to take part in the race, but the others
laughed at him and he drew aside. Then to
his surprise the horse turned his head and
spoke: "Take me to the stream and plaster
me with mud ; my legs, my head and my back,"
and to the creek that flowed hard by he went
and did as he was directed.
At the cry "Loo-ah" (go) they were away.
The old dun horse covered with mud seemed
rejuvenated. He sped away so fast that to
some of the others he seemed to fly, and when
the advanced portion of the charge reached
the scene where the herd had been they
found the young brave skinning the spotted
calf, and he had also killed a fine fat cow.
One by one the other braves came back to
the village, and as they came, they rode by
the lodge of the boy's grandmother to tell her
of his good fortune, but she thought they
were jesting and answered them angrily. When
the young brave came up with the old dun
horse snorting and prancing, laden with buf-
falo meat and a great robe, for her, and the
spotted robe which he retained for himself,
she could hardly believe her senses. But in the
frail tepee there was joy that night.
The rejuvenated horse again spoke to the
young brave. "The Sioux war parties are
coming; they are now near the wigwam," in-
dicating Chimney rock ; "Tomorrow they will
come, and our people will meet them about
half way. When we meet, ride me among
them and kill their chief, and return. Then
again, ride me among them and kill another
chief and return. Do this again, and again,
four times only, for if you go the fifth time,
some disaster will befall you or me."
So the next day was a great battle between
the Pawnees and Sioux at a point nearly op-
posite the opening in the hills now known as
Round House or Reddington Gap.
The young brave and the old horse were
there, and they charged into the thick of the
conflict. As he rode in among the Sioux, the
air was thick with arrows, but he found the
chief and slew him, and returned untouched.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
41
Twice, thrice, four times he rode, and four
chiefs he killed, and each time they came
back unharmed.
Still the battle raged, and the impetuous
youth disregarded his instructions, and for
the fifth time plunged into the fray. His horse
was shot from under him, and cut to pieces,
for the Sioux declared that he had more than
horse endowments, which if the Pawnee folk-
lore tales are true, cannot be denied.
The brave, with great valor, fought his way
free of his adversaries, and returned to his
own people unharmed. The battle was soon
over and the Sioux were routed. Across the
river with great tumult and splashing, they
were driven, and up one of the arroyos to the
north, and because of the many relics of the
battle found in this vicinity, that arroyo and
the water that flows down therefrom is known
today as Indian Creek.
The young brave mourned the loss of his
now famous dun horse, and after the battle, he
went out on the field and gathered up the
pieces and piled them together. Then he went
up on the rim of the overhanging rock to
mourn, nor would he return to the village to
celebrate with the others over their triumph.
Night came and still he sat and looked down
on his Armageddon.
There came a storm, a roaring mountain
storm, the lightning flashed, and there was
thunder and a deluge of rain. Two black arms
reached down from the overhanging clouds to
the field of battle. Then the storm passed and
the young brave saw something had taken
shape upon the battle field. Then came an-
other storm alike but fiercer than the first, and
when it passed he saw the form of a horse.
Then came a third storm, more terrible than
the others, and when it passed he went down
upon the field of battle and there he found
his old dun horse, sore of back, and crippled
and poor as when he had first found him. And
the brave was sad for he knew that it Was his
disobedience and impetuosity that had brought
about the disaster.
The horse did not upbraid him, but said,
"Ti-wa-ra (the god of Court House Rock) has
let me return, and for your filial devotion to
your grandmother, and for your kind treat-
ment of a crippled and worn-out horse, and
because of your sorrow, I am here ; but here-
after, do just that which I tell you, no more,
no less.
"Now lead me away through yonder gap
to the other valley and leave me there. Re-
turn alone tomorrow, and tomorrow, and for
ten tomorrows."
He followed the directions, and on the mor-
row he returned, and found his old dun horse
and a beautiful white gelding. This he took
to the village and it was better than the horses
ridden by other Pawnee braves. The next to-
morrow, he rode home a coal black steed, and
so each succeeding day he rode another horse
of another color into the village, grey, roan,
pinto, bay, etc., and each was finer than the
ponies ridden by other braves.
Now, he was rich, and the chief, reminded
of his pledge gave him his beautiful daughter,
and the young brave spread out before her, as
a tribute to his affection, the Spotted Robe.
The old dun horse was then brought to the
village, and well taken care of for the rest of
his days. And for many years the Pawnees
claimed the beautiful land.
It was about the time of the building of the
first stockades at Fort Laramie, that the Sioux
began again to crowd down upon the Pawnees
in the valley of the North Platte. And at the
same time our young brave met with the great
common sorrow of the world. Death entered
his domestic household and took therefrom his
little son, and when he laid him away, swing-
ing on the limb of a cottonwood tree, they
rolled his body in the Spotted Robe. Then
the old dun horse died, and disasters fell thick
and fast upon the Pawnees.
The Sioux made it so uncomfortable that
the Pawnees decided to retire some distance
down the river, having no particular objective,
and to cover their retreat, they left a number
of the braves to keep the Sioux engaged while
the main village was moving. And these were
attacked by the Sioux with such fierceness
of purpose that they were driven to the top of
Court House Rock for refuge.
About the base of the rock camped a number
of the Sioux, w,ith the evident intention of
starving them to come down, or to their death.
Meanwhile the main Sioux bodies hurried
on after the retreating village. This they
overtook, and engaged in the final struggle
for possession of the upper Platte river, at
Ash Hollow, in about the year 1835. It was
the fiercest of all their engagements.
The battle raged all day, beginning with the
dawn. In the early part of the conflict, the
air was filled with arrows. Then after all their
ammunition was gone, they fought on hand to
hand, with battle axes and tomahawks until
darkness settled over the land. The Sioux
were victorious in the end, but at such cost,
such frightful loss, that they were willing to
let their hereditary enemy depart without fur-
ther engagement.
Under the stars and moon forty-six Sioux
and sixty Pawnees were cold in death, and
42
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
many another nursed his wounds. The Paw-
nees were so humiliated and discouraged, that
they retired three hundred miles farther down
the river, and gave up their claim to the North
Platte valley. In the new land they have work-
ed out the fulfillment of their destiny, and their
merging into the races of civilized mankind
takes place through the medium of the school at
Genoa.
This is the only "Battle of Ash Hollow"
known in history, that really took place on the
geographical location.
Meanwhile the young chief left with the
braves to the defense of the rear were maroon-
ed on the top of Court House Rock and the
situation was very desperate. He went out
alone at night and plead with the god Ti-wa-ra
to show him some avenue of escape, and the
answer came. He went near the edge of the
rock and found one of the perforations that
extended downward into darkness. He tied
his lariat and the lariats of others together,
and fastened the upper end to a jutting rock
point, and let himself down into the hole or
"well" as it is called. At its bottom he found
an opening large enough for a man to crawl
through, and it was unguarded. He climbed
back up the rope to await the following night.
When the darkness came over the land he
called his men together, and told them of his
plan for escape, and they all crawled to the
edge where the perforation in the brule rocks
made the well. One by one they went down
the rope, and crawled out through the hole at
the bottom and away in the darkness. And the
last to go was the young chief.
If you will go to the top of Court House
Rock any night, even to this time, you can feel
the presence of Ti-wa-ra, and if you will listen
after the shadows of night have fallen, you
can hear the Sioux watchers moving about at
the base, waiting for the Pawnees to come
down, and you can hear them as they pass
one another in the darkness, whispering-whis-
pering-whispering.
CHAPTER IV
THE LEGEND OF THE WHITE HAWK — OLD BULL TAIL'S DAUGHTER
Some years ago I met Col. W. F. Cody,
"Buffalo Bill," at Washington. We were
talking of Indian mythology and he told me
this story which he said was sometimes told of
the Chadron Plains, sometimes of the valley
north and east of Scotts Bluff mountain, and
sometimes of the high divide known as the
Flowerfield Swell.
Algon, a Sioux hunter, had chased a deer
out upon the prairie, until its trail led to a
circle where all the grass was trodden down,
but from the circle never a trail led on.
While marvelling, he heard strange music,
and it seemed to come from above. Looking
up. he could see far into the sky a very small
speck, and as he looked, it seemed to grow
larger and larger until he made out that it
was something descending to the earth. He
fell hack from the circle and concealed him-
Self in the .ura-s.
Larger and larger it grew, and louder and
more distinct became tin- music. Finally it
settled down in the center of the circle, and
hi pi rceived that it was a basket and in the
basket were twelve maidens, and as the basket
came down the maidens sang. After it had
alighted they all jumped out and began to
dance in the circle and sing as they danced.
One of them was very beautiful, and it
seemed to the young brave that he must have
her for his very own. Watching as she came
to the side of the circle where he was conceal-
ed, he leapt out and tried to catch her, but
quick as he was, they were the quicker, and
all leapt into the basket singing and the basket
went up into the sky.
The young brave reached up, and shouted
his love until long after he knew that they
were out of hearing, and prehaps it was im-
agination, but he thought he saw the one head
leaning over and looking down, until it passed
from the range of his vision.
The next day he came and the next day,
and each day the basket came down and the
maidens danced, and each day he tried to
catch the one of his attachment, but in vain.
Finally he made him a covering of deer hide
with head and all, and he ran into the circle,
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
43
and leaped into the basket. Immediately all
the maidens vanished and twelve deer bound-
ed over the prairie toward the pine clad hills.
After a time he left the basket, and the cir-
cle ; and the deer came running back, and they
disappeared, and twelve maidens jumped out
of the grass and into the basket and were gone.
The next day, disguised as a deer, he ran
into the circle, and throwing off the disguise,
he seized the maiden of his choice, and the
others sprang into the basket and only eleven
were wafted to the skies.
He carried his captive tenderly to his lodge,
and while she mourned and wanted to return to
the stars, she appreciated his great tenderness
and consideration.
By and by, there came a little brown boy to
add to their happiness and she seemed to have
forgotten about her home in the skies. Seem-
ed, I say, for all unknown to Algon, she worked
upon and made a wicker basket. And one
day he returned from the hunt and found she
and the baby were gone. Someone had seen
her going to the Magic Circle, on the prairie.
He hurried out, but was too late, for as he
neared the spot he heard her sing, and saw the
wicker basket going up. Her song was of
her happiness, but it was a dirge of his hopes.
Par-kab-il-on-ac-ca, the god of winter came,
and the young chief and his tribe sat sing-
ing the Song of Sing-a-biss, until the time for
"O-ka-gis, the Frogs," and then a summer
passed. And still there was no joy for him
in the chase.
And meantime his wife, in her starry home,
had almost forgotten him in the blissful en-
joyment of her environment. But her son,
true to his race, had a memory of a very brave
and fine looking father, and with these mem-
ories he told his great sire and asked if he
would ever see him again.
His entreaties won the heart of the grand-
father, who told his daughter to take her
young son, and return to the tepee of his fath-
er, and ask him to come, and to bring with
him a specimen of every bird and animal he
had ever killed in the chase.
Algon, who ever hovered near the enchanted
spot, heard her song before he could even see
a speck in the far blue. She seemed to come
so slow, but at last he had her in his arms.
And that night, while the boy slept, she gave
him the message from the stars.
Now he hunted with great activity, and of
the things he killed he kept a token, if only
a foot, a claw, a wing, or a tail, and finally
with all he had collected, with his wife and
his boy, he was taken to the starry realm, by
the magic and power of the voice of his sing-
ing wife.
Then the great chief there called his people
together for a feast. After the feast, he gave
to each a trophy of Algon's chase. A scene of
strange confusion followed. One chose a wing,
another a foot, another a tail and another a
claw, until all the guests had chosen something.
And those who chose a foot or tail became ani-
mals and ran off, those who chose a wing or
claw became birds and flew away. Algon him-
self had chosen a white hawk's feather, and his
wife and boy had done the same. Immediately
they became white hawks, and flew down upon
the earth, and from that day, the white hawk
became the boldest of birds.
After the advent of unscrupulous white
traders, who poisoned the Indian imagination
with liquor, there were no more strange and
mysterious folk-lore tales, invented or conceiv-
ed. Before the Taos traders came into the
North Platte valley, each new or startling event
was crowned with mystery, and some Indian
mystic would weave into the mythology of the
tribe. A new bird appearing, or a stranger in
the animal kingdom, in unfrequented localities,
called for an explanation, like that of the Leg-
end, The White Hawk.
Liquor created havoc in other ways :
In November, 1855, there was located on the
Chugwater an Indian village of considerable
proportions and the band had been quite suc-
cessful in gathering fur, which was being held
for better trades.
The Chugwater came by its name because
of a rock along its course, which stands ab-
ruptly out of the level valley and resembles a
chimney, and "chug" is an Indian name for
chimney. Hence Chimney creek, or Chug-
water.
The traders at Fort Laramie became impa-
tient for the fur of the Indians and sent over
with the complaint a "hollow wood" (keg) of
firewater. In the succeeding debauch a drunk-
en fight occurred, and Bull Bear, Yellow Lodge,
and six of their personal friends were killed.
The traders of the American Fur Company
became known all over the west as Long
Knives, because the ramifications of their busi-
ness extended over such an extent of country.
At the station of this company that once stood
near the mouth of Mollie's' Fork, Old Bull
Tail appeared with his beautiful daughter,
Chintzille. She was indeed an attractive Indian
maiden, but the trader observed that she had
been weeping.
Long Knife, the trader, quickly discerned
44
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
what was the matter, for Old Bull Tail com-
menced with a diplomatic suggestion that it
was not well for Long Knife to live alone.
For several days previously the old scoundrel
had been a visitor at the post, offering furs
and ponies and the beads and blankets off his
back for a hollow wood of firewater. This in-
timation that single blessedness was not well
for him, and Chintzille's nervousness had seen
what was coming.
After some sparring for an opening, which
was cleverly avoided, the old villain came out
plainly and wanted to trade his beautiful
daughter for a keg of whiskey.
"But," says Long Knife, "while Chintzille is
very beautiful, she does not want me." Old
Bull tail argued that such a condition was not
infrequent, and that Chintzille was a dutiful
daughter of her race, and would learn to
shower the wealth of her affection upon Long
Knife, and he would be proud of her.
The diplomacy of refusing the daughter of a
chief is a very difficult matter, but Long Knife
succeeded in impressing the old fellow that the
alliance Was impossible, and that he could un-
der no circumstances let him have the hollow
wood of firewater.
He left in high dudgeon.
In one of these affairs, where a trader of
less principle than Long Knife, sold some liq-
uor to the Indians about the fort, there fol-
lowed a drunken brawl and Susa-chiecha was
killed, and around the body of their chief that
night the Indians revelled in their frightful
orgies.
L T ntil Captain Bonneville went into the moun-
tains, and for some time afterward, the Chey-
ennes were totally averse to drinking, but, says
the Missionary Merrill in his diary, April 14,
1837: "A trader named Gant sweetened the
liquor and made them fond of it, and now
they are a nation of drunkards."
This reference was made no doubt to the
band of Cheyennes, that traded at Fort Lara-
mie, and mingled with a similar band of Ogal-
lalas, known as the "Laramie Loafers."
Gant was one of the unprincipled traders
from New Mexico and he had a trading post
in the Arkansas Valley, coming into the north
only on occasional trips.
CHAPTER V
BELDEN, BRIDGER AND BAKER EPISODES
INDIANS
EARLY CONFERENCES WITH
One of the more famous of western char-
acters, was James P. Belden, because he volun-
tarily went among the Indians and married a
squaw, two of them in fact, and lived with the
savages for a great many years. Yet in the
struggles that later took place between the
people of his tribe, and the people of his race,
he sometimes was on one side and sometimes
on the other. More often, his blood asserted
itself, and on many occasions where he fought
hard in a losing battle, where all his compan-
ions were killed. The Indians would single
him out and spare him, and they seemed to
understand and respect his position.
Belden was well educated, but of course lost
considerable of his polish in his long years on
the plains. About the first book of adventure
that I remember was "Belden, The White
Chief," and it I read and re-read.
i in one occasion, when Belden "met up" with
a missionary, Jim Bridger told the gentleman
that the frontiersman was a poet, which state-
ment was received with some doubt. Bridger
told Belden of the doubting Thomas and that
gentleman returned within his tent.
After a time he came out with verses he had
just written, and while long and somewhat
crude, we repeat the production here because
of its local color, and the references to dis-
tinguished characters of the west, none of
which, I think, is now living.
Ben Harding was a scout and was the sub-
ject, and his many narrow escapes, had given
him the sobriquet "Slippery Ben :"
Slippen,' Ben
Shake ! Darn my buttons, I'm mighty glad,
To meet so many old chums.
Dick and I have been lyin' round here
'Till we're gettin' tired of whiskey and beer,
And we've made up our minds to go trappin'
this year,
So we don't get on 'the hard bums.'
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
45
Bless my eyes, if there aint Jack Grey,
You darned, infernal old cuss.
I smelled you, I did, though I didn't see
You're tarnal old carcass behind that tree,
I'll bet ye a tenner you can't hide from me,
You darned old polecat, or wuss.
Where's your hoss? right there; yes, you're
right,
Tied up to a cottonwood tree.
Well, you're going along with us on this tramp,
None of your lyin' you bully old scamp,
You are. How that's said. Suppose we all
damp
To success to Jack Grey's company.
Why, dang it, it's more than a year since we
met
At the foot of old Court House Rock,
And if memory don't fail, I reckon that then
Another was with us to make up ten
That tall gawky cuss — you know — Slippery
Ben,
W 7 ho wore the long fringe on his frock.
Does anyone know what became of the boy?
You do, well let us all know.
For he gave us his word on this very day,
He'd meet us all here, by the Old Moun-
tain Way,
If nothing should happen to cause his delay,
Such as lightning, or Injuns, or snow.
Dead ! died in your house ? the devil you say !
You can't shove down any such chaff.
Now, tell us the truth — let up on the lies —
Why, what the blazes got into my eyes ?
It stings so darn bad ; it almost makes me cry,
When I said at that joke take a laugh.
Well, no more of this, you're blubberin', Grey,
A pretty frontiersman you are.
Not a man in this crowd but has his day,
Wrapped up in his blanket and laid away
Some long tried friend, and no one to say
A scriptural verse or a prayer.
But Slippery Ben, I can hardly believe
Has give life the slip in this way.
For everyone knows he was confounded tough,
With a great kind heart, though his manner
was rough,
Well, well, now, I do fell queer, sure enough,
But death, you see, must have his way.
Jack, please call the roll; see if any more's The ten names are among the characters ot
gone the old west, and Buffalo Bill. I believe, was
The way Slippery Ben has done. the last to pass over to the rendezvous of an-
Then we'll mount and away for another year, other Court House Rock.
On the prairies green, in the mountains drear,
To trap the beaver,, and hunt the deer,
From Arkansas to Yellowstone.
Jim Bridger is one, John Nelson's another,
And Gilman, he's two by himself,
And we'll count him the third ; then Dick, and
me,
Jack Jones, Jack Morrow, Jack Grey —
Jacks three,
A good poker hand, but by yonder tree,
Is a flush — Bill Cody — himself.
Nine in all — ■ only nine. Oh, how I do wish,
Slippery Ben could have bluffed death a year.
But what's done is did, we can't bring him back,
So catch us your horses, and hurry and pack,
And we'll push on ahead in the same old track
We have followed so oft without fear.
You are ready I see, Well, move on ahead,
While Dick and I stop awhile.
For something is raising a dust back behind,
And if it is Indians, we will soon make them
find
They have no business here, when we go it
blind,
And must take tother road, or strike ile.
Why there's only one — a horseman at that,
Dick, us two can get off with him,
Easy enough, can't we, be he friend or foe,
For there's no two men have better rifles,
you know.
Don't appear to you though, that he's comin'
darned slow;
That horse and his rider so slim.
Gimme your coat tail to wipe out my eyes,
For I swear I can't make out a thing;
There now, I see better ; Hello ! I say, men,
Come back here, for dang it, here's Slippery
Ben,
Or his ghost and his horse ; I knew them sure,
when
I saw those long, gawky legs swing.
Welcome, old boy, by your absence, you've
made
Many old chums' hearts to bleed.
But ghost or flesh, 'tis the same to the men,
Who have rode side by side through forest
and glen.
So again, we are ten, countin' Slippery Ben,
Ghost Ben and his shadowy steed.
46
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
One day Jim Bridger and Jim Baker were
hunting together in the wilds a little west of
here, when they came upon a mother grizzly
bear and two half grown cubs. A lucky shot
finished the old one and Baker proposed that
they waste no more ammunition. That each
take one of the cubs, and "kill and sculp them
with our butcher knives," which proposition no
real mountaineer would reject.
After a goodly fight. Baker succeeded in
getting the better of his bear, but the bear
that Bridger attacked seemed to be worsting
him. Bridger called for help, but Baker an-
swered that he "didn't want ter interfere in
another man's ba'r fight," but he finally "lit
into it," and Bridger immediately retired,
leaving him to fight alone. Baker was again
victorious, but angry at Bridger and demand-
ed an explanation. Bridger explained thus :
"Ye tarnal fool, Jim, ye got me into this
scrape, and I got myself out. I wanted to
shoot mine, but you wanted to kill and sculp
'em with butcher knives. So as the ba'r fight
were yourn, I thought I wouldn't interfere, and
let ye have it plenty."
After some reflection. Baker answered :
"Dod rot it, Jim, if ye aint right, but I'll
never fight nary another grizzly, without a
good shootin' iron in my paws."
These old, rough characters had their phil-
osophy and ideas of humor.
It would seem that before the time of Mar-
cus Whitman, and even before the trappers
built the first fort at the junction of the Lara-
mie and Platte, Col. Dodge had conferences
with the Indians with the hope when the
whites came on into the west, conflicts would
be avoided. But the Indians, even so early
as that, had doubt in the white man's pre-
tentions.
These councils occurred during the years
1832 to 1835. On June 23, 1832, there was a
Grand Council of the Chiefs of the lodge of
Angry Man. On July 5. 1835, Col. Dodge
held a council at a point about twenty miles
above the forks of the Platte, which was at-
tended by Angry Man, Two Axe, Little Chief;
Mole in the Face, Bloddy Hand, Two Bulls,
Big Head or Star. Mole in the Face was
chief spokeman, and the years of wandering
had been lean ones, so that these Indians want-
ed land to settle upon "like the Pawnees."
A treaty in 1833 provided for a Pawnee
reserve in the Loup river country.
In one of these conferences, Little Moon
spoke so self-deprecatory, that it was tinged
with irony.
"The white people are all good, there is
nothing bad about them."
Little Moon was a chieftain of much im-
portance, and his habitat was near the state
line, at the west border of Scotts Bluff coun-
ty. People of the present generation are fa-
miliar with Little Moon Lake which is a
pleasant place to spend a few days camping.
And the people of a generation ago knew of
Little Moon Post-office, at the crossing of the
Pony Express on Horse Creek, which site is
now ( 1919) owned by L. J. Wyman.
In his reports of 1835, Col. Dodge makes
no mention of travel on the trail, but ten
years later Col. Kearney tells a different story.
The latter also tells of a thousand Indians
at Fort Laramie, and he also advised the gov-
ernment against the puchase of the post.
The treaty of Fort Laramie, September 17,
1851, gave the whites the territory from the
forks of the Platte to Red Buttes. The In-
dians never ratified the treaty, but the white
people have the land.
In 1846, the Sioux were run down and dis-
couraged, and they had assembled at Fort
Laramie and were making great demonstra-
tions. These were doubtless the Indians re-
ferred to by Col. Kearney. The Whirlwind
had assembled them for war against the
Snakes. Before they departed upon their pro-
posed conquest and slaughter, the buffalo
came north, and the whole expedition turned
into a buffalo hunt. With full stomachs the
Indians relented their purpose, and settled
upon the land. The following year Fort Lara-
mie was sold to the government, and shortly
thereafter Fort Fontenelle was built at Scotts
Bluff by the fur traders.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER VI
SONGS OF PARKER AND MINTO
About the time the conferences were be-
ing held by Colonel Dodge, the Presbyterian
Church sent out Samuel Parker and his bride,
in answer to the call of the Nez Perce Indians,
and they made their "honeymoon journey" in-
to the west, which journey ended in their death
at the hands of "praying Indians." Their
melancholy fate has been laid to the door of
commercialism, and the Hudson Bay Company
was accused of instigating the massacre on
the far shores of the Columbia.
But while traversing the wilderness of west-
ern Nebraska, their hearts sang with the joys
of early married life, and they sang hymns and
read and talked to the Indians, telling of the
Promised Land "where the trail ends."
The Indians of this vicinity were very much
interested in the Parkers, and especially their
singing. It w,as so different from the wild
cries which they had learned from the coyote
and the eagle, and they came again and again,
and asked them to sing.
Parker's map, made in 1838, included every-
thing from the mouth of the Platte as Oregon.
The law of the early forties, that gave to
each emigrant, who found his way to Oregon,
a section of land, might have been legally ap-
plicable to the sand hills of Nebraska, sixty
years before the achievement of Wm. Neville
and M. P. Kinkaid was upon the statutes. The
territory of Nebraska was unorganized for
many years after the passage of the Oregon
homestead act, and in Idaho the Oregon
statute was made to apply after Idaho became
a state, because the act had not been repealed.
Parker speaks of the large quantities of
game, and says the prairies abound with "badg-
ers," probably prairie dogs. It was on the
21st of July that they arrived "opposite Court
House Rock," which he describes thus :
"It has at the distance the appearance of an
old enormous building, somewhat dilapidated ;
but still you see the standing walls, the roof,
turrets and embrasures, the dome and almost
the very windows — and a large guard house
standing some distance in front of the main
building. You unconsciously look around for
the enclosures — but they are all swept away
by the lapse of time — for the inhabitants they
have all disappeared. All is silent and soli-
tary. You are excited to know who has built
this fabric — what has become of the bygone
generations ?"
The following day they camped "opposite"
another of nature's wonders, called "The
Chimney, but I should say it ought to be
called Beacon Hill from its resemblance to
that famous land mark of Boston." "I crossed
the river to get a nearer view with one assist-
ant. When some distance from the river, we
heard and then saw the stampeding of buffalo.
We rode for the river to get out of their
line of progress. They probably would have
failed had not some horseman rounded their
left flank and slightly altered their course."
These parties proved to be Lucien Fon-
tenelle and a number of his hunters, and two
herds of buffalo, each numbering six hundred
to eight hundred were charging down the river,
when Mr. Fontenelle alarmed for their safe-
ty at first, now remained to chat with them,
as they were fresh from the settlements.
From descriptions only do we obtain that
the Parker party all crossed to the south side
of the river at this point, for the following
day, they undoubtedly passed through the gap
in Scotts Bluff mountain.
In Mitchell valley Parker found two thou-
sand Pawnees, of which he said : "Their lodges
were comfortable and easily transportable, and
they moved from place to place as occasion
dictated. They were constructed of eight or
ten poles about eighteen feet long, set circu-
lar and the small ends fastened together and
the large ends about twenty feet apart. This
frame was covered with skins of elk and buf-
falo. Fire is made in the center with the
hole at the top for smoke. The men were tall
and well proportioned, the women well formed
— ■ less pendulous than usual, well dressed and
cleanly."
On Sunday, July 26, 1835, they remained
on the Banks of the Laramie, where the "In-
dians came in numbers" to meet them, and
hear them read and sing. It was hot, very
hot, but they held almost constant service from
the forenoon until late into the night.
Then the next day, they went on towards
the end of the trail, riding in their "tepees on
wheels."
Marcus Whitman was the pilot of all to
Oregon and about 1844 was at the zenith of
his living glory. Whitman's glory will never
fade, even though the "praying Indians," cut
his living usefulness short in its splendid ca-
reer. On the journeys to Oregon he preached,
he exhorted, he enthused. He officiated at
births, weddings and deaths. A wagon would
48
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
drop out of line, and a fire would be hastily kin-
dled, and at night the wagon would come along
and join the caravan, and the cheerful face of
the doctor would tell to all the anxious matrons
who might expect a similar event before the
journey's end. that all was well, and that the
mother and child were both doing nicely. He
ministered to the failing, and said the last sad
rites over the improvised caskets, or the graves
of the departed that were left along the Over-
land.
Sometimes there were courting on the
prairies, the same as now — the same old moon
shown for the young then as it does now, and
a young Oregonian and his chosen one would
seek out the same fine old doctor, and Mar-
cus Whitman would say the words that made
them man and wife. These weddings on the
prairie were close to nature's heart, and yet,
the pranks of the young were not different
from those prevailing in the settlements. At
night when the newly-weds would retire to
their own wagon, the golden chariot that would
be forever theirs, not infrequently did the
youngsters serenade, or oftener still, run the
wagon in the ditch, or creek or river.
Among the chroniclers of events along the
old trail, occasionally one indulged in classical
poetic expression. It was John Minto, I think,
who tells of the prosaic activities of a cow-
caravan, in a way to hold interest, and it
was he who therein contributed the following
stanzas to the plodding oxen, which for the
moment felt the exultant thrill of their fore-
bears in the years when the world was
young.
"And now, your western course is led
Where grassy pampas spread and spread —
The pastures of the buffalo.
And like a sudden lash of spray,
When tropic tempest hits the sea.
The masts are stript to ward the blow.
"A ragged whirl of dust, descried
Upon the prairie's sloping side,
Protends, as swift and free, a storm.
And lo ! the herds, they come, they come,
A sweeping thunder-cloud of life,
Loud as Niagara, and grand
As they who rode with plume and brand
On Waterloo's red slope of strife,
Wild as the rush of tidal waves
That roar among the crags and caves,
The trampling besom hurls along;
A black and bounding fiery mass
That withers as with flame the grass,
Oh, terrible ! ten thousand strong.
Meanwhile, the dusty teams are stopt
The wagon tongues are deftly dropt,
The drivers, by their oxen stand
To sooth them with soft speech and hand.
And yet with horns tossed free, and eyes
Ablaze with purple depths of ire,
A thousand servile years expire,
And flashes of old nature rise,
As if a sudden spirit woke
That would not brook the chain and yoke.
"And then, the stormy pageant past,
They bow their callow necks at last,
And with a heavy stride, and slow,
The dreams of liberty forego."
There Were thousands of buffalo and much
other game on the meadows where the city of
North Platte now stands, and it was remarked
that this was the best game park in the world.
One can well believe the hail storms are
nothing new to western Nebraska, but the first
record that we have seen was on July 21, 1844,
the, Minto party were on the high divide be-
tween the Plattes, near Ash Hollow, when
there came a sudden storm, and the people and
the stock suffered from a severe pelting by
hail, "some of the hailstones being as large as
hen's eggs." In the storm the cattle drifted
and according to "Black Harris" the guide, the
party came down into the valley about twelve
miles west of Ash Hollow.
But you and I, and Minto and others by the
millions have each felt that call of the wilder-
ness, the storms of the highlands, that for the
moment invaded the storm tossed sprrit of the
plodding oxen. Out in the altitudes where
the horizon is the sky, we have each felt as
St. George Cooke felt when he reached the
summit of Robideaux Pass, when he saw
stretched out before him the wide meadows or
Horse Creek bottom, the billowy hills beyond,
the treeless plains for miles on miles, then the
mountains, "and Laramie mountain towering,
at eighty miles." This is what he said: "Let
the wide arch of the ranged empires fall. This
is my space."
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
49
CHAPTER VII
RED CLOUD AND SPOTTED TAIL — MASSACRE OF COTTONWOOD CANYON
In the account of the burning of old Fort
Robideaux mention was made of the Sioux
triumph over the Kiowas the following day,
Red Cloud was called the young chief, which
was true only by comparison.
Red Cloud ( Marpiya Luta) was born on the
Blue Water, in what is now Garden county,
in May 1821, which made him about thirty
years of age at the time of the Kiowa raid.
You were also told that the conflict then
named Kiowa creek, but I find a reference
made to another battle, about 1815, in some
notes from Geo. S. Hyde, of Omaha, in which
with Bull Bear, a Sioux chief, which resulted
in the latter moving to the Happy Hunting
Ground. Red Cloud's distinction as a leader
had already been increased by encounters with
and victories over Pawnees, Crows, Shoshones
and Kiowas from time to time. He now
became the fighting chief of the Ogallala
Sioux, and was the main leader in the wars of
1864 to 1869. It was he who planned and exe-
cuted the Fetterman massacre, in which Cap-
tain Fetterman and ninety-six of his command
were ambushed and left dead on the stark and
barren Massacre Hill, near Old Piney.
Jed Cloud's Daughter, Fort Laramie, Wyoming
he states the Sioux worsted their ancient en-
emies the Kiowas. This battle, he asserts,
gave the creek its name. No details of the
battle have I ever been able to obtain.
At sixteen years of age, the young brave
who was born on the banks of the Blue Water,
went out with a war party, and because of his
achievements in a fight where the sun shone
red upon him, he was named Red Cloud.
One can imagine the impetuous youth of six-
teen, with the love of color and action, and
indifference to consequence, riding like a
whirlwind, silhouetted against the golden red
of the sunset sky, and his sire seeing in him
the Red Cloud of Destiny, prophetically cried
out, "Marpiya Luta, Marpiya Luta." Ah!
that was a name for an Indian.
At twenty-five Red Cloud had a difficulty
Red Cloud was war chief, but Spotted Tail
was his opposite by nature.
Spotted Tail, whose Indian name was Sin-ta-
ga-las-ca, spelled variously from Sentegaleska
to Shantagolisk, came up from the ranks, and
attained the greatest distinction recorded in the
annals of red men. He was born near Fort
Laramie in 1833, or a year or so before the
first rude stockade was built.
At the age of eighteen years he engaged a
sub-chief in mortal combat, but he is said to
have no reputation for provoking conflicts.
While nominally the head of all the Sioux dur-
ing the great wars along the Trail, the ac-
tivities were largely in the hands of the war
loving members of the tribe, who with their
independent bands moved without orders from
the supreme head.
50
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
The experience of the United States at the
close of the Black Hawk wars in the valley
of the Mississippi, was so successful, that the
same plan was followed with Spotted Tail. In
1872, he was taken to Washington by our mili-
tary, and there he met General Grant, who was
then President of the United States.
He was convinced of the uselessness of com-
batting the white people, and he told his people
that they were as numerous as the sands of the
prairie, and to emphasize the comparative
strength of his people with the whites, he cast
a handful of sand into the original bank from
which it came.
In 1876, General Crook crowned him "King
of All the Sioux," which title he maintained
with dignity until 1881, when he was killed at
the Rosebud Agency, by Crow Dog, one of his
sub-chiefs.
Names in Indian life are certainly an indi-
cation of character, for one naturally expects
the assassin of a truly great Indian, to bear
some such cognomen as "Crow Dog."
While Spotted Tail was inclined to peace,
while he would rather take his people to the
hunting grounds at the head of Spotted Tail
creek, or over on the Blue Water ( Snake
creek) and there lay in a winter's supply of
jerked buffalo meat, he participated in many
conflicts and personally led in the massacre of
Cottonwood canyon, just a few miles east of
North Platte.
Cottonwood Camp has been built by
Eugene Ware in 1864, at the mouth of this
canyon of the same name, and here a com-
pany of soldiers were kept. Smallpox had
been on one of its periodical raids more deadly
than Indians along The Trail. Captain Mitch-
ell, and parties of the military named Bentz,
Anderson and Cramer, and a number of con-
valescent soldiers went up the canyon, in the
autumn of 1865 to gather wild plums. There
had been no signs of hostiles for sometime and
they felt secure. Mitchell and Anderson w T ere
the only two to carry arms.
As they started to return on that beautiful
autumn afternoon, the Indians were observed
pouring into the canyon to head them off. Mr.
Bentz, who was mounted on a fine black
horse, rode ahead with such surprising rapidi-
ty and suddenness, that he passed the closing
gap of Indians, and escaped unharmed amid
a fusilade of bullets and flying arrows.
Captain Mitchell saw that the slower moving
ambulance could not hope to escape in this
manner, and be ordered the driver to turn
sharply up the sloping bank of the canyon,
hoping to reach the tableland over its rim. and
then it would be a running fight in the open to-
wards the camp.
The horses had nearly reached the top, when
the nigh wheeler balked, and for the moment
they seemed at the mercy of the savages. Then
a yell from the Indians so frightened the horses
that they went flying up over the ridge, and
were headed for camp at the rate of ten or
twelve miles an hour.
The Indians pursued, and the driver was
shot from his seat. Anderson seized the reins
and held them until Cramer could come for-
ward, then he returned to the use of his rifle.
The horses with the heavy ambulance could
not keep pace with the light-footed Indian mus-
tangs, and it soon became evident that the In-
dians would close around them. Captain
Mitchell and Anderson Were shooting, but the
roughness of the prairie, and the shaking of the
ambulance, made the aim uncertain. The Cap-
tain finally determined to stop upon an emi-
nence ahead and fight it out, or stand off the
Indians until Bentz could return with assist-
ance.
Cramer, the driver, had lost his head ; he dis-
obeyed, and kept on lashing the horses past
the strategic point. Anderson sprang forward
to jam his foot upon the brake, but a sudden
lurch sent him rolling upon the prairie. Then
Captain Mitchell assayed to reach the driver's
seat, but another jolt sent him to the ground
and the undefended ambulance, with its wild
driver and sick soldier went lumbering on.
Mitchell rolled into a gully near where he
fell, and as he did so, saw Anderson hide in a
clump of scrub brush. The Indians im-
mediately following came to the ridge and
stopped, for it was plain that those ahead were
closing in on the luckless ambulance, and its
occupants.
One Indian dismounted and looked long and
intently on the ground. He wore a spotted
head dress of wild turkey feathers gayly col-
ored, and reaching nearly to the ground. Cap-
tain Mitchell knew him to be none other than
the famous Spotted Tail, and there he stood a
good mark, not more than thirty yards distant.
The death of this chief would have a de-
moralizing effect upon the Indians, and the
Captain later asserted that he thought would
more than compensate for the loss of twenty
captains. He. was directing his pistols in the
direction of the breast of the famous warrior,
when a shout arose, and the chief disappeared
behind the breast of jutting rock. One of
the tribesmen had detected a movement in the
brush where Anderson was hidden, and all
had found shelter.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
51
A general movement toward Anderson was
begun, and his rifle cracked. One Indian quit
moving. Another shot and another Indian
stopped, but there were now returning shots.
A sudden rush was made by a dozen or more
of the Indians, but three shots in quick suc-
cession sent them back dragging with them
three companions. That deadly aim was dis-
concerting.
Captain Mitchell says he determined it was
time for him to take a part, as he saw some
thirty Indians preparing to make a rush. It
was then he heard the voice of Anderson.
"My arm is broken. Keep quiet. Can't
work the Spencer any more."
From this it would appear that Anderson
thought it would be useless to bring Mitchell
into the fight, but I have never given Mitchell
credit for sufficient courage to enter the fray.
When I first heard the story, as it was told by
Belden, the White Chief, the thought occur-
red to me that a few shots fired from another
point, just as these thirty warriors were pre-
paring to rush, would have turned the tide of
the battle and saved brave Anderson's life. The
Indians could not have known how many might
be concealed about them, and the delay and in-
certainty would have given time and the pos-
sibility of Bentz returning with assistance.
But Mitchell remained quiet and the Indians
made the rush. Notwithstanding his disabled
condition, Anderson did work the Spencer to
the effect that four more Indians bit the dust
before they dragged him from the brush and
killed him. He was laid upon his back, and
nine slashes made across his breast, one for
each of the nine Indians he had killed.
Captain Mitchell lived and told the story to
Bentz and his party that soon arrived, but the
dead Indians told it better, and we have never
heard that the valor of the captain ever ad-
vanced him in rank among his brothers mili-
tary. If one soldier, especially an officer, could
lay quietly and see another who was making
a heroic fight, dragged out, killed, and mangled,
it is no surprise that the old time frontiersman
held the soldiers in contempt.
CHAPTER VIII
SUNSET ON THE PLATTE — THE GIBRALTER OF NEBRASKA -
SON BELLECHUG WATER
CHEYENNE
There are incidents occasionally that con-
nect the past with the present, and ties one gen-
eration to another in mysterious manner, other
than by the usual laws of consanguinity. Simi-
lar circumstances and environment will awaken
in one the same line of thought that may have
once been alive, but has been buried for gener-
ations.
It was back in 1889 that the writer, then a
budding young poet (as he thought), visited
Gering, on the Fourth of July. The party
consisted of Miss Ida Eckerson, now Mrs. A.
E. Scott of this city, Miss Minnie Shumway,
now Mae Shumway Enderly of Los Angeles,
William Wallace White of Gering, and the
writer. We crossed the old bridge that had
then but recently been built, and as we crossed
the sun went down. Miss Eckerson, knowing
of my poetical ambitions, said to me: "If I
was a poet, I would now write something to
The Sunset on Scottsbluff."
I looked, and as I looked I saw the glory of
the scene, and asked Mr. White to drive slowly.
With an envelope and scrap paper in the mov-
ing vehicle, I labored with the following result :
SUNSET ON THE PLATTE
Upon the bridge, above the flowing river,
There we admitted the fast declining day ;
Like those dark waters, moving on forever,
Each heart was borne in ecstacy, away.
The sun sank low behind the horizon.
It lighted upon the fleecy western sky ;
A symbol of the great, now dead and gone,
Who leave a brilliant lustre when they die.
The sky back of the stream, reflecting, cast
Resplendent lights of purple and of gold,
And all the rainbow colors, changing fast,
From lurid red, 'till fading grey turns cold.
But here and there, the shimmering surface
mars,
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
Its glossy face by interceding bars,
And where the elements each other wars
The foamed-flecked sand shone like bright
glittering stars.
A pine root clinging to some shoal here
Reached forth its various prongs and sep-
arate,
Resembling the antlers of a deer
With form beneath the stream, inanimate.
Far to the southwest rears a silent tower,
A temple wherein man has never trod ;
Erected by an Omniptent Power,
To man was given, a symbol of his God.
An intervening gap, and then another,
Great edifice, its head to Heaven doth rear,
In silent memory' of an earlier brother,
Who used it in defense of country dear.
Time's traces on its crest are visible,
The walls are slowly crumbling to decay,
Yet, grim and earlier relic, doth it tell
Its history in its own inspiring way.
But from the crag of noble grandeur leaping
Our vision falls upon the level plain,
Swift over it, the evening shadows creeping
Leaves a dull dreary waste upon the main.
Beneath the plain a wall of dingy brown,
Obscured the last faint rays of waning light.
The lark's last note sounds through the twilight
gloom
As monitory of the coming night.
Along the surface of the shining river,
A sleepy swallow skims the water's brim,
So close it makes the shimmering surface
shiver,
The light, translucent, flashing through the
dim.
One lovely islet, decked with foliage green,
Breaks this bright scene stretching from
shore to shore ;
Tranquil she reigns, an Oriental queen,
In majesty and silence wields her power.
We gaze upon the fine artistic work
By nature drawn, and painted on the sky,
On island, and on shore that's growing dark,
And on the turbid waters flowing by.
It fades ! The picture was too rare a kind,
To linger long, and gladden mortal sight.
Like every earthly pleasure, leaves behind
Dark shadows, creeping on to darker night.
Now here, new scenes on the then new
bridge, and we were the new people. Ah !
surely here was an original poem, something
of a descriptive nature that people would like,
and the like of which I felt had never before
been written.
And for over twenty years I lived in the
thought that I was the only "poet" who had
dedicated Scottsbluff in "immortal rhyme."
A few years ago, I was "looking up the
trail" of an interesting event in this country,
and I found the name of "Cooke." Who was
Cooke ? Into the index of the National Library
I went and found that St. George P. Cooke
had written a book of the west, and I went
after it. Now here is a story.
On June 9th. 1845, he met Rufus Sage, with
a fleet of boats descending the Platte river
from Fort Laramie, and the meeting was a
little below Court House Rock. Tremendous
rains had deluged the party at Chimney Rock.
The hills were like the palisades of the Hud-
son, with here and there a pilaster of silvery
white. Ascending the hills to the east the pres-
ent site of Gering, he saw Scottsbluff, "lifting
her awful form, above the clouds, and midway
leaves the storm," and some one in the party
shouted : "The Gibraltar of Nebraska."
A heavy storm was approaching from the
west, and the party went into camp on the
summit of the hill. "A thousand Sioux were
in the vast amphitheatre just east of Scotts-
bluff." They were breaking camp in great
excitement, having determined to cross the
river before the storm came upon them. The
braves were galloping about, the dogs and chil-
dren were scurrying to and fro, and the wo-
men with hurried system were packing their
belongings on the poles dragged by ponies ;
and away they went, crossing the river with
great shouting and splashing. Cooke says, as
he sits at the door of his tent :
"This Scott's Bluff is a wonderful mountain.
We are miles off, yet to the last moment of
light there was some chamaleon change of
color, and the sentinels are still standing."
The storm had passed, and Castle Rock was
described as the "Pillar of Pale Rock," and
Scottsbluff "resembled Sterling Castle." Cooke
looked back over the trail he had come, and
saw the black wreck of the receding storm
passing on to the east, and "lo ! Chimney Rock
stood alone like a pillar of fire struck by the
setting sun."
Then my eye fell upon these words :
"The sun set in the clouds ; but the glorious
day,
Parts not in gloom ; the thick veil is riven —
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
53
The river and the sky in lovely array
Are radiant now, with the light of Heaven.
"Like an aurora, or the flashing trace,
Of Angel's flight to the utmost north,
The glory shines ; unwilling to deface
The beautiful, Night hovers o'er the earth.
"Gently, the chameleon colors fade, —
Slowly ascending to the zenith's height,
'Till lingering darkness buries all in shade,
And Light and Beauty bid the world, 'good
night.' "
Thus my beautiful dream of being the only
and original poet of the Scotts Bluff country
disappeared, for out of the past, some twenty
years before I was born, and forty-four years
before the old Gering bridge was built, one had
seen it all and said it better than I. But the
poet Cooke offers beautiful philosophy to us
of the middle age, so that my disappointment is
not so keen. I really wonder if this voice of
eighteen forty-five was not reechoed from
mountain and sky, while we were driving over
the bridge in eighteen eighty-nine. At any
rate, Cooke's advice to on peevish couple on
this occasion will bear repeating now, as a
solace to any regrets that one may have.
"Now, for the love of Love, and her soft
bowers,
Let's not confound the time with confer-
ence harsh.
There's not a minute of our lives should stretch
Without some pleasure, now."
Up on the Chugwater, Cooke's party met a
party of Cheyennes and a number of the belles
of the Indian village came out to meet the
white people, for by this time nearly all the
more ambitious of the young Indian maidens
decked themselves up in wild flowers and tin-
sel to attract some white beau brummel. To
marry a white renegade was considered higher
social caste than to win the better of the Indian
braves.
When the Cheyenne belles came among them
they beheld a captain who wore glasses, and
they screamed and rushed wildly to their vil-
lage tents, nor could they be induced to come
out so long as the captain was in sight. It was
very embarrassing to him, for how could he
know that they had been told that with glasses
one could see through opaque substances and
their gayly colored calico gowns were no pro-
tection against the vision of "four eyes."
CHAPTER IX
IN THE SHADOWS-
THE FIRE FLYSONG — CACHED FURS — OLD LAND
MARKS — TRAPPER'S ROCK
Not death, but darkness. What is there
about shadows and darkness that thrills and
terrifies the young. I do not recall that any-
one ever frightened me with stories of Things
out in the dark, yet I always felt that they were
there. What, I did not know, but surely it was
some fearful menace. Coming in from the
night, I could maintain control of myself until
I opened the door, and the candle light shone
in my eyes. Then, behind me the darkness be-
came a black abyss filled with horrible Things.
The point of a terrible blade, the fangs of some
frightful beast was ever close — so close that I
would leap into the circle of candle light, bang
the door, and shiver with relief and safety.
Then at night in the low-ceilinged room with
its sloping sides, close under the shingles where
my mother put me to bed. How I did dread
to see her carry out the candle. How I hoped
she would leave the "middle room" ajar, for
the few moments respite from the dark. What
a comfort to hear her moving about, and to
know that as long as she was there the gob-
lins of the dark would not come out. But when
she had gone downstairs, the invisible, menac-
ing creatures were about me. What a thrill
when a mouse rattled in the wall, or a branch
from a maple tree would touch the roof.
You have had these experiences, and you,
and you, with slight variations.
And the little red children of the prairie had
their similar fears, and the maidens would sing
54
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
songs at night, expressing their fear of the un-
known Dwellers of the Darkness. Their Fire
Fly Song, is one of this character:
"Fire fly — fire fly — bright little thing,
Light me to bed while my songs I sing.
Give me your light as you fly o'er my head
That I may merrily go to bed.
Give me your light o'er the grass as you creep
That I may joyfully go to my sleep."
They could merrily go to bed, and joyfully
go to sleep if the little fire fly would only give
the safety of its feeble light.
The young trappers and boy scouts, if they
look, may find some evidences of the cache of
furs that the American Fur Company once had
in the bad lands at the foot of Scotts Bluff
mountain. It was during the spring freshet of
June, 1842, that fourteen trappers from Fort
Laramie left with boats laden with furs for
St. Louis.
When they reached Scotts Bluff, which they
accomplished very easily, the river spread out,
and they were compelled to unload a number of
their packs from each boat. They made a
cave of a blowout in the bad lands, and there-
in hid the furs they could no longer carry ; they
left some men to guard the cave, but these
soon wearied, and being anxious for civil-
ization they went on foot toward the land of
the rising sun.
John C. Fremont, then on his way to the
mountains, met both the boat party and the
footmen, and reported back to Fort Laramie,
the fact that the furs had been left at Scotts-
bluff. He met them about two weeks after
the unloading, and the men were in consider-
able distress as their tobacco had given out. A
limited supply was given them, to last until
they should reach the settlements.
Next to Scotts Bluff mountain Court House
Rock and Chimney Rock were the more fam-
ous land marks of the Trail in western Ne-
braska. And every chronicler had a different
name or suggestion as to the proper name for
each.
Samuel Parker said Chimney Rock looked
like Beacon Hill of Boston, and Kelly, the
Englishman says it "looks like a Wellington
Testimonial on a Danish fort." He adds that
"it is fast chipping away, and no doubt would
be gone in another fifty years." After this lapse
of seventy years he would no doubt be sur-
prised to learn thai it looks fair for another
century or two, although fragments have re-
cently fallen away ( 1919).
Kelly was on his way to California in forty-
nine, and wrote as he sat "at the country resi-
dence of Mr. Robideaux," May 25th, that he
Would not be surprised if they were traveling
over gold here. He little dreamed of the man-
ner in which the soil and the sunshine and the
vagrant river would be by the later genius of
man converted into the acres of diamonds, or
transmuted into untold riches.
In the vicinity of Chimney Rock there came
up one of the heavy rains, for which that spot
seemed famous, and for three days the down-
pour continued and thoroughly soaked the par-
ty. On the third day as they were slowly mov-
ing to the west, they ascended the hill to the
west of Creighton valley, Scotts Bluff mountain
suddenly loomed distinct and clear above the
fog that enveloped its base, and the excited pil-
grims cried : "Mount Araratt, Mount Araratt."
The "Nut brown Sioux girls" greatly in-
fatuated the langorous Englishman, and to one
he gave a small hand looking glass, which so
pleased her that she fastened a bracelet on his
wrist, and he said the touch of her hands was
very pleasing to the senses.
Of bidding farewell to her, Kelly writes:
"Maid of Athens, 'ere we part,
Give, oh, give me back my heart."
West of the Robideaux Pass they met a lone
French trapper, who was out of tobacco. This
want supplied, he went away again toward the
head of Gonneville creek.
Kelly's "vision" had pictured Fort Laramie
as a fortress, but in realization it proved "a
cracked, dilapidated adobe quadrangular en-
closure." "No wonder it was sold to the gov-
ernment." Bruce Husband was then in charge,
and Fort Fontenelle Was in course of construc-
tion or almost completed.
A short distance above Julesburg, at a point
off to Mud Springs there stands a solitary
rock which bears the name of Trapper's Rock
because of the awful tragedies of the plains.
Two men, and the sister of one of them, had
come together into the west, and after a year
one of them wanted to return. The other who
was the brother of the girl had not yet his
fill of the wilderness, although the sister wished
to return to the settlements. The men were
boyhood chums and each had absolute confi-
dence in the other. Therefore the brother took
the vow of the other that he would see the sis-
ter safely into the hands of the white people,
and let them depart. Later the companion re-
turned, and the two partners went on as before.
One day they met another who knew them,
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
55
and when he had an opportunity, he told of
the sad fate of his sister. The vow of his part-
ner had been broken, and the condition of
the girl was such that she could not return
to the same circle of friends she had left. A
short time after she had died.
The brother said nothing of his horrible dis-
covery, and together they made their way
working toward the east. At the point indi-
cated, the brother set upon and tied the other
fast. He took him in this condition to the
rock, and bound him fast thereon. Then he
coolly built a fire, cooked his supper and ate it.
Then laid by the fire and slept. In the morning
he prepared his breakfast and ate it in the
same manner, and never offered a morsel to the
man upon the rock. For nine days he camped
there, cooking, eating, and sleeping, and high
overhead, up in the blue sky the buzzards sail-
ed round and round and round and looked
down and at night the wolves howled from the
hillsides. On the ninth day the man on the
rock died of starvation and was left for the
vultures or the wolves. The brother of the
girl moved on into the east, satisfied with his
fiendish revenge.
When he reached St. Louis he found that
his brother had tried to make all amends, that
he had sought and plead with the girl to marry
him, but an old aunt had persuaded her to have
nothing to do with him. Failing in that, he
made a will giving her all his property, which
was considerable, at the time of his death.
CHAPTER X
STAGE DRIVERS — ROAD AGENTS — PONY EXPRESS RIDERS— CHAS. CLIFF'S
ADVENTURES — JULES AND SLADE FEUD — CREIGHTON'S
QUICK FORTUNE
Following the discovery of gold, and insti-
tution of stage service to the golden coast, the
country filled up with road agents and white
renegades, who preyed upon the pilgrims, and
robbed the stages with great regularity. In this
country there are said to be several caches of
gold hidden by gangs that either were later
exterminated, or never came back to find them.
One of these is supposed to be on Kiowa creek,
a certain distance from a certain cedar tree
of great dimensions. And another is on the
east side of Wildcat mountains. Much soil
has been worked over with the hope of finding
something, but the direction and the distance
from the landmarks are indefinite.
The operations of the road agents became so
bad that the Overland stage traffic came near
being abandoned, soon after its institution.
The first Overland stage to California was
put in service in 1859. and shortly after the
pony express was inaugurated. The time for
mail from New York to Sacramento, by the
"Butterfield Stage Route," was twenty-one
days, and the pony express shortened it to ten
days. As early as 1851 a monthly service by
stage was put on to Salt Lake City. Letters
were written on the thinnest of paper, for it
cost five dollars for a half ounce communica-
tion to be delivered at the Golden Gate by Pony
Express.
Old Stage and Pony Express stations, be-
tween Julesburg and Fort Laramie, were Mud
Springs, Chimney Rock, Scotts Bluff, Horse
Creek, Sand Hills, Bordeaux. Sometimes they
crossed the river at Horse Creek and back at
Fort Laramie. These were north side stations
used. One at Rock Bottom Ford, and another
was near the old Wyncote station. Sub-sta-
tions at intervals of about ten miles were made.
President Lincoln's inaugural address was
started from the Missouri river, March 4, 1861,
and in just seven days and seventeen hours it
was delivered at Sacramento. It then became
a regular schedule of eight days to travel the
two thousand miles, or two hundred and fifty
miles each twentv-four hours.
On April 3, 1860, the first start of the Pony
Express was made, and on the eleventh there
was a crowd waiting at each end that broke in-
to wild cheers as the rider hove in sight.
The first rider from Julesburg west, was Jim
Moore, and he rode to Scottsbluff station,
which is the old soddy later used as a ranch
by Mark M. Coad.
Jim Moore made one of the most famous
rides in the history of the Pony Express, on
56
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
June eighth, of 1860, when he rode from Mid-
why to Julesburg and return, a distance of two
hundred and forty miles, in fourteen hours and
forty-six minutes. He stopped only seven
minutes for lunch.
Colonel W. F. Cody rode the Pony Express,
and he was first hired by Jules Reni and put in
'"Bill Trotter's division." He was the youngest
rider on the entire two thousand miles of the
road. He quit the prairie and went to the
mountains in the summer, and met Joe Slade
at Horseshoe station, where he offered his
services, but Joe Slade said he was too young.
Cody then gave him a letter from Trotter, and
he was immediately employed. Slade always
told Cody when he started on a trip to "look-
out for your scalp."
One of the dare-devils of the road was
Chas. Cliff, who rode a division from Scotts-
bluff station west through to Sand Hill sta-
tion. On his return trip once he was attacked
by the Indians in Mitchell Gap, and when he
arrived at Scottsbluff station and was taken
from his horse, he had three bullets in his body
and twenty-seven through his clothes.
Joseph A. Slade was something of a green
but vicious looking fellow when he applied for
service with the Overland stage people. Mark
Twain tells that few were asked for references
or credentials in the west for this employment,
but they did ask Slade if he had ever been at
St. Louis or New Orleans, and Slade replied :
"No, I haint never been at Horleans, but
I'll tell you where I have been. I've been
mighty nigh all over three counties in Illinois."
Slade's seemed to have been a wonderful
nerve, for he drove stage through the wildest
part of the road and shot down the road agents
on sight. It was something different. Here-
tofore at the sight of desperadoes, the drivers
would whip their horses into a fury of getting
away, but now Slade would simply slow down
and the first man within range would "get his."
When H. M. Inghram was hired by Slade,
he was asked if he could drive, which of course
"I tank" could do, and Slade said: "Well, damn
ye. drive then, and if you don't, I'll kill ye."
and [nghram drove on the route between North
Platte and Denver.
Apparently he was satisfied with Inghram
for after a few trips he gave him a sawed off
double barrelled shotgun loaded with buck-
shot, and a position as guard, with instructions
to "shoot to get 'em."
Slide would always take any advantage that
cunning quick action or a quick wit would
give, and on one occasion when the gentleman
with whom he had had a dispute appeared to
he the nimblest artist, Slade quickly said that
it was useless for life to be wasted over such
a small matter, and proposed that they throw
their guns on the ground and fight it out with
their fists. The other party agreed and threw
his gun down, whereupon Slade laughed at his
simplicity, and shot him on the spot.
Such conduct made him both hated and
feared.
I am not in possession of the facts that orig-
inated the Jules-Slade feud, but it was no doubt
some trivial affair, and the enemies of each as-
sisted in keeping it alive, with the hope that
one or the other or both would be wiped off
the earth.
It was at the Rock Ranch station that Jules
finally got the drop on Slade. Jules was told
that Slade was out back and he fired thirteen
buckshot into him. Slade dropped and Jules
satisfied that he was as good as dead, told some
of the fellows to put him in a dry-goods box
and bur>' him. Slade retorted that he would
live long enough to wear one of Jules' ears on
his watch guard.
Just at that time the stage came along, and
the superintendent happened to be on board.
He ordered Jules' arrest, and they proceeded
to hang him. He was strangled until black in
the face, and then was let go on the promise
that he would forever leave this part of the
country. This promise was kept — for a time.
Slade was taken to St. Louis where seven of
the buckshot were cut out of him and the
other six remained in his body until his death.
After a time, they were both back in the
Scotts Bluff country, and each with the threat
to kill the other on sight. Slade laid the mat-
ter before the officers at Fort Laramie, and
promised to take their advice. They decided
that Jules must be captured or killed, and Slade
had four men sent to Bordeaux, then on
Chausen's ranch, the first station east of the
fort, where Jules was said to be located.
They captured him with little opposition
says Coutant, and bound him hand and foot.
When Slade reached Bordeaux, this was the
condition in which he found him. He went up
to the helpless man, deliberately shot him twice,
killing him instantly. He then returned to Fort
Laramie, and went through the farce of giving
himself up, and was discharged. This was in
1862. It is believed that there was no mutila-
tion, and that this was just an exaggeration of
partisans growing out of the threat of some
time before.
In 1860, the United States government
granted a subsidy of forty thousand dollars to
the first company that would build a telegraph
line across the continent. Ed. Creighton, for
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
57
the Western Union Company had eleven hun-
dred miles to build, and the California tele-
graph company was to build from the west and
the twb were to meet and join at Salt Lake
City. A special prize was given to the one that
first reached Salt Lake City.
Creighton built his line up the Platte to
Julesburg, then across to Mud Springs and
through Mitchell Gap on into the west. He had
the line completed to Salt Lake City on the
17th of October and on the 24th of the same
month the California company reached the
City on the Lake. Creighton had bought dur-
ing the summer one hundred thousand dollars
of Western Union stock for $18,000.00 and
when the project was completed, he was given
three shares for one. And shortly afterwards
he sold his one-third of his holdings for
$85,000.00. It took a little less than six
months to build the line, that made Creighton
over a quarter of a million dollars.
Creighton became one of the great figures of
this section and of Nebraska, and he died in
1874, at Omaha.
CHAPTER XI
SACRIFICE OF FRONTIER WOMEN — INDIAN EXECUTION AT FT. LARAMIE
Woman on the frontier has always had a
hard time of it, but like woman always, when
a crisis arises, she arises and meets it half way.
The experiences of some of the frontier wo-
men was such that it left a saddened or changed
person after the crisis, and others met heroic-
ally the test. In some cases it left no hope
and they became derelicts that lived about in
the sod shanties on the outskirts of army posts,
or ranches, like "Dirty Woman's Ranch," near
old Wellsville and Camp Clarke. Calamity Jane
became a combination of courage and vice.
Virginia Dale, attached to the notorious
character Slade, had a certain strength of per-
sonality that forced a degree of respect. Jos-
eph A. Slade never had a friend that staid
true to colors like Virginia Dale Slade, his wife.
Virginia City, Montana, was named for the
daring and pretty Mrs. Slade, and she was
the regal queen for the period of its greatest
importance. When the "Vigilantes," (and
what atrocious deeds their activities cover)
hung Slade in Montana, the yellow in him
came to the surface. He wlas not the cool,
daring assassin of his reputation, but a coward
in the face of death. He begged and bel-
lowed, but to no avail. They hung him just as
they did those of better nerve.
Mrs. Slade had been sent for by friends, but
she arrived too late, and he was dead. It
broke her heart, and she heaped curses upon
the perpetrators of the deed, and she cursed
the silent friends of Slade, many of whom had
witnessed the tragedy, demanding to know why
one of them had not shot her husband, and
saved him from the "dog's death." She told
the leaders of the vigilantes to beware, that
death was upon their trail, and that everyone
of them was marked. In the main, this proph-
esy came true, and the assassins of Slade were
met with assassination until practically extermr
inated. Slade was hung in 1863.
Hugo Koch, who whacked bulls through the
old Mitchell Pass many a time, and who now
(1919) lives at Lander, Wyoming, came to
this country in 1858, and he tells us that Slade
was about thirty years old at that time, and
was "under medium size," and of dark com-
plexion. He weighed about one hundred and
sixty pounds, and his wife was good looking
and was about the same size, age and com-
plexion, and often interfered in his business,
and was generally a trouble maker.
Virginia Dale, one of the stage stations west
of here, was named for her.
Much is said of the noted characters like
Jules and Slade, but not as much of their
wives.
A short time ago there lived in Nebraska
City, an elderly lady of French descent, by the
name of Ellen Bcckstead. Possibly she yet
lives there. She was once one of the woman
characters of the western Nebraska.
Along about 1858, when only thirteen years
of age, she and her husband Jules Beni ar-
rived at his ranch at Cottonwood, near the
forks of the Platte, and being young, and full
of the French fire of adventure, the wild life
of "Jules," appealed to her fancy. But her
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
story of the death of Jules is entirely different
from that of the record of history.
She says that Slade shot Jules while the
latter was kneeling at the "Cold Spring" near
the old Jack Morrow ranch, a little west of the
present site of North Platte. Jules was getting
a drink, when the treacherous Slade shot him.
Aiter wounding him he tied him to a post and
shot off his ears.
All stories of history, and of one of Slade's
old drivers, H. M. Inghram, now living at
Scottsbluff, indicate that Jules' demise was at
Bordeaux, (near Cold Springs) fifteen miles
east of Fort Laramie. It would seem when
Jules was killed that his friends did not cor-
rectly relate to the widow all the details of the
tragedy; they probably thought to temper the
grief and colored the story, or possibly, in the
years that have followed, she has lost track of
it, and her memory is not good. I believe
Beckstead was the fourth husband of the little
French bride of Jules Beni, and that would
indicate her grief was not deep-seated, and that
the buoyant blood of her race asserted itself
in quick revival of spirits.
In the Mormon Hand Cart expedition was
perhaps as tragic and heroic a case of fidelity
to the religious fervor, as ever struck home to
any part of the human race, and the women
were no small part of it. From the Missouri
river to Great Salt Lake, pushing all their per-
sonal effects and smaller children in hand carts,
is something of an undertaking. Often one
hears people, men and women, complaining of
the dreariness and monotony of the trip in
the Pullmans, and they chafe under the delay
of a few hours because of a wreck, or heavy
railroading. They suffer from the heat of the.
summer or the cold of winter. If they could
reconstruct that other expedition, where
mothers put their babies into carts, with their
meagre personal belongings, and pushed them
on and on, over the hundreds and hundreds of
miles of prairie, of sand, of sagebrush, up hill
and down, fording streams and traveling long
stretches without water under a superheated
sun and burnished sky. they might have a con-
ception of what sacrifice and suffering in travel
really entailed. This expedition was in 1856,
and just seventy-five per cent of those who
started, reached the Mecca, and one-fourth died
of the hardships and privations enroute.
In 1916 T. 1). Deutsch found a skull of a
woman, in excavating for Tub Springs drain-
age canal. That it was of one of the Hand
Cart Expedition, is probable.
Tlllv SKULL
This ruin once was the retreat
Of thought, and the mysterious seat
Of mind and soul of other age.
Her generation now is dead,
But one can read the silent head
Like printed page.
Within the cavern, once brain teemed
With lucid light of the redeemed.
And with the profoundest self respect,
Her natural impulses inclined
Toward the lord of humankind —
Toward her own elect.
Mysterious motherhood is there,
And love of children chastened her,
And made her life calm and serene.
For they, and not for wanderlust,
Part of "the Overland," she crossed
Before the "closing scene."
Within these caverns two, her eyes
Looked up toward her Paradise,
Or burned with earth's eternal flame.
And in the ivory cavern hung,
The marvel of a human tongue
That whispered low one name.
With lips of earth's celestial fire.
With voice and glances that inspire,
She strove, but fell beside the way. —
A shallow grave in shifting sand,
Along the tragic "Overland,"
A spirit gone away.
Another tragedy involved the Brown girls.
They were happy in the wilderness on a ranch,
and one day the scourges of the South came.
The Comanches killed their parents, and took
them away. They were recaptured, or rather
purchased by Bent in 1839. They were then
eighteen and twenty-one years of age respec-
tively, and the older was widowed. Each had
become the enforced wife of an Indian. The
younger, whose brave still lived, said a few
days later that she was going to return to the
tent, because she was no longer fit to live with
white people. Perhaps some mother can tell
us whether that was the real reason she went
back to the tribe. For back there in the wig-
wam of its father was a tiny little half-breed
son, whose mute arms stretched through the
desert night and whose wail and murmur in its
sleep was of its mother.
There is still another tragedy that came to
our very doors. When the Indian raids, in
August, 1865, struck terror among the Over-
land and Denver trails. Mr. and Mrs. Eubanks,
their four children, a visiting lady named Miss
Laura Roper, and a hired domestic were living
happily in a rude log domicile on the Little
Blue. It was always scrupulously clean, and
Mrs. Eubanks sang happily at her labor.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
59
The Indians came, and when they passed,
Eubanks was dead and horribly mutilated.
Three of the children lay where the savages
had thrown them, after having first taken them
by the heels and battering their heads against
the logs. The hired girl was stripped naked
and left dead, tied standing to a post and shot
with a dozen arrows. The cabin was in ruins
and Mrs. Eubanks and one child and her friend
Miss Roper were carried away prisoners.
The following January Two Face, with Mrs.
Eubanks and child were captured near the
present site of the Rawhide ranch, and Black-
foot with Miss Roper on Snake Creek, nearly
due north of Scottsbluff. The prisoners were
in terrible condition.
Their freshness and lustre had faded, and
the women's hair was streaked with grey, and
their backs were masses of sores from the
beatings they had received. Every indignity of
horrible consequence was theirs, and they
were nearly lunatics. A few hundred dollars
in greenbacks was found on their captors. This
was turned over to the women, and they were
given safe conduct as far as Kearney. Mrs.
Eubanks and the child faded into the obscurity
of the east, and Miss Roper to her people at
Beatrice, where she was later married.
Colonel Moonlight was at Fort Laramie at
the time, and when Two Face, Black Foot and
Black Crow boasted of their brutility, and
dared him to punish them, he gave orders to
have "their necks tied to cross beams, with
nothing to support their feet, and left sus-
pended for the crows to eat."
This summary execution brought much criti-
cism, and the easterners whose sob squad had
been after the scalp of Colonel Moonlight and
others of his strong kind, sent up a howl that
was heard as far as Washington, and one
mountaineer and trader said it would center the
Indians at Fort Laramie for revenge, and "we
will all be masscred," he declared. Colonel
Moonlight's answer was that perhaps such
would be the case, but if so, there would be
three mighty bad Indians that would not be
there to participate in the massacre.
The sentimentalists finally secured Colonel
Moonlight's scalp, but there are those who still
approve of him and his way of fighting Indians.
The methods employed by the people of the
west were ofttimes severe, and really shocking
to the senses, but the lessons were measurably
necessary to bring home a realization to the
savages. While the boasting of an Indian, as
to what he intends to do, is not meet offense
for a severe penalty, these three who boasted
to Colonel Moonlight, had a record, and it was
a record of taking children by the heels and
beating their brains out against logs and stones,
and it was a record of horrible torture to west-
ern women, and they boasted of this and said
they would do more, and dared the penalty.
I am not surprised that General Harney ob-
tained the name "squaw killer," at the battle of
Blue Water, for at that time it seemed that the
extermination of the Indian race was the best
solution of a bad problem. And it is no won-
der that Qister said, when they accused him of
throwing papooses into the South Platte river.
after he had destroyed an Indian village, "if
you kill the nits there will be no lice."
CHAPTER Nil
THE GRATTAN MASSACRE— SPOTTED TAIL'S DRAMATIC DEED
In 1851 there was a grand council of the
Ogallalas and Brules on Horse Creek in the
west part of Scotts Bluff county and across
the state line. Here all the tribes agreed to
a division of the land, and all the hunting
grounds between the Missouri and the Rocky
Mountains were divided among them. In the
treaty the United States confirmed to each
tribe the land it was to occupy.
Surveying parties, which always were viewed
with suspicion by Indians, were taken off for
the time.
All the Indians agreed that "the great Road"
along the Platte, and across the mountains
should be free and open for white people, and
the United States agreed to pay the Indians
fifty thousand dollars a year in goods, for
the use of the road through their country. The
Indians agreed not to rob or attack the white
people on this road, and the United States
agreed to keep the white people from going
elsewhere into the Indian country.
When the treaty was sent to Washington
the United States senate changed the period
60
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
of the contract from fifty years to ten years.
The Indians never agreed to this change, but
one can always expect the dear old conserva-
tive United States senate to "ball things up."
Neither Red Cloud nor Spotted Tail were
then chiefs of importance and their names are
not upon this treaty. The United States con-
tinued to use the great road, and to send an-
nually the fifty thosuand dollars in goods to
the Indians. And it was for the first annual
distribution that they were assembled near
Fort Laramie at the time of the Grattan Mas-
sacre.
The event that led to it was a trifling affair,
but dull life about the fort and idleness of the
men there and perhaps ambitions that could
not find outlet in the common routine of mili-
tary duty each contributed a part to the fright-
ful carnage of succeeding years.
The grave of Rebecca Winters, on the Bur-
lington right-of-way in the east part of Scotts-
bluff City, is one of the land marks on the
Old Overland Trails. The original mark was
only a wagon tire set half in the ground with
her name, and a few important facts chiseled
thereon. The buffalo and then the range cat-
tle found it a convenient rubbing place, and
it was always kept bright and shining by their
constant wear.
Many Mormon parties followed during the
succeeding years. According to Coutant on
the 19th of August, 1S54, one of the almost
destitute parties went into camp ten or twelve
miles from the Fort. They complained that
the day before some Indians under Chief Met-
-to-i-o-way, ( Startling Bear) had driven off
and killed a cow belonging to them.
At that time the soldiers at the fort had
little to do, and as a result had tried to liven
things up a bit by liberal quantities of liquor.
Commander Fleming was in charge of the
post, and dispatched Lieutenant Grattan with
thirty men and two mountain howitzers to
bring in the guilty men.
Grattan was a new arrival from West Point,
and was utterly unfamiliar with Indian war-
fare and character. But flushed with ambition
and perhaps firewater, he felt equal to any
task.
< Mi arrival at the Indian lodges, he demanded
of a sub-chief "Bear," the guilty parties. Bear
informed him that the chief had already gone
to the fort to apologize and make amends. Such
a tame conclusion would reflect but little glory
>" 1 a Wesl Pointer, and Grattan determined
thai the guilty man must be produced. Bear
again told him that he did not consider the
matter very serious. The cow was dead be-
fore the chief had knowledge of it. and that
many had partaken of the meat. Several mules
had been offered the Mormons to repay them,
and he would not submit to arrest. But as
they were journeying towards the fort, they
would continue in that direction with the de-
tachment of soldiers. They wanted to "bury"
the matter.
The lieutenant advanced, determined to
make a demonstration, and as the Indians
gathered around him, he ordered the soldiers
to fire, which they did, killing three Indians
and the chief. Battiste Good says the chief's
name was Mato-Wahyui, "Mato" signifying
"Bear" and "Wahyui" means to "arouse or
startle." Spotted Tail, the young warrior, then
took a prominent part, and the Indians, infuri-
ated, turned in with clubs and tomahawks, and
destroyed the entire detachment, save one, who,
though wounded, reached the fort. Richards,
a squaw man, is said to have aided in the
escape of this one, although Hugo Koch says
it was "Old Joe," a big Sioux Indian. In the
melee, the mountain howitzers were discharg-
ed, but the missies of death went over the
heads of the Indians.
For the first time in its history, the stability
of Fort Laramie was threatened. The Indians
began attacking and destroying the trading
stations thereabout, including those of Bor-
deaux and Choteau & Company, which were
under the very doors of the fort.
A messenger was sent on the dangerous
journey to Fort Kearney, and a part of the
detachment was sent to the relief. Fleming,
in the meantime, martialed all the available
men about the fort, which were maintained
strictly on the defense of the station without
any journeys or sallies out to assist the emi-
grants.
A mail stage was stopped a little west of
the Horse creek station and the driver and all
the guards murdered. This was done under
the supposed leadership of Spotted Tail. And
it was for "the murder of the mail party,"
that General Harney demanded the surrender
of the murderers.
The Indians had boldly declared they would
kill every white person they could, and would
destroy the trains of emigrants going into the
west.
This was the condition of ferment when my
father and uncle arrived at Fort Laramie with
five wagons and one hundred head of cattle.
By some miracle it seems they had been un-
molested, although at a point about fifty miles
down the river, which my father has identified
as the hill northeast of Bald Knob, they saw
a lone footman run out of the breaks toward
the river. He was pursued by Indians, and
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
61
killed in plain view of the caravan, but the
river separated them, and they were powerless
to aid him. After the murder, and some
threatening demonstrations toward my father's
party, the Indians retired in the direction of
Sixty-six mountain. The event made a power-
ful impression upon the party, especially the
women, who for the first time had witnessed
a tragedy of this sort.
I have never been able to ascertain the iden-
tity of this unfortunate party, but it was prob-
ably a lone trapper.
On arrival at the fort, they found that it
was impossible to secure an escort, such as
they had expected to go with them through
"the Black Hills" to the next garrison west.
They waited several days on the meadows
north of the river, and then as no further emi-
grants arrived, and they had seen few Indians
about, they determined to undertake the jour-
ney without escort.
The morning of the second day out they as-
cended a slight ridge and were about to de-
scend into the valley of Mollie's Fork when
immediately before them at the foot of the
hill lay about two (hundred Indian lodges,
scattered through the cottonwoods on the bank
of the spring branch.
It was crucial and an excruciating moment,
but after a brief consultation it was decided
that the only plan of action was one of cour-
age, of assurance, without evident fear, and
not in the least offensive. The event of the
Bald Knob tragedy being of so recent date,
the women became hysterical, and began to cry
and sob, but retreat meant certain disaster be-
fore they could possibly reach the fort. The
party proceeded without undue haste or hesi-
tation down the hill and through the smoky
city of tepees, and as slowly and unconcerned-
ly climbed the hill farther on. The Indians
made some demonstrations of hostility, but
never fired a gun, or shot an arrow. The dis-
play of courage may have made them think
that it was a trap into which they were ex-
pected to be inveigled, and they were not to be
thus caught. Whether they followed with
spies or not was never known, but it is assured
that the party was not molested, which, con-
sidering the state of hostilities then existing, is
a matter of sincere congratulation.
The Grattan Massacre was the beginning of
a series of bloody affairs, which with seldom a
brief respite, continued for a period of fifteen
years, with tremendous loss of property, and
probably more than a thousand lives.
The victims were buried where they fell, in
a shallow trench and covered with earth and
a pile of loose stones. This pile was about
eight miles east of the fort, and unless it has
been obliterated, is still there, the only monu-
ment that marks the spot of this, the really
first military tragedy in the North Platte val-
ley.
When General Harney demanded the sur-
render of the murderers of the Horse Creek
mail party, Spotted Tail with a number of the
other so-called murderers marched into the
fort in full war dress, singing their death songs,
and gave themselves up. It was supposed that
they would be put to death, and they were sac-
rificing themselves for their tribe.
But General Harney had them sent to Fort
Kearney, where they lived under guard until
1858. On rejoining the Brules soon after,
Spotted Tail became a popular hero, and some-
time after that he was exalted to the position
of chief of the Brules. This date is a little
indefinite, but Geo. S. Hyde tells me that one
authority dates it at the death of the old chief
Little Thunder. As Little Thunder died in
1865, perhaps Spotted Tail's ascendancy to the
chief-ship dates from that year.
Ware says that he attended two of the coun-
cils at Camp Cottonwood in 1865, or the year
following the date of Spotted Tail's leading
in the Massacre of Cottonwood Canyon.
After these councils, he moved with his band
to the head of Spotted Tail creek, and rambled
the country over for miles thereabout. He
wanted peace, but he could not hold the young
men, and when a peaceful man goes to war he
is about the worst (or best) warrior of them
all. His activities covered a wide range as
will be seen later.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER XIV
BUTLER'S STORY OF THE COW WAR — HARNEY THE SQUAW KIELER— AN-
OTHER ASH HOLLOW BATTLE
A letter from D. W. Butler, of Washington,
gives a version of the Grattan Massacre, or the
beginning of the "Cow War" different from
most of the stories of history.
"The Grattan affair" was an unfortunate
one. A small matter at the beginning, it was
treated seriously by the officer in command at
Fort Laramie, who was without experience.
The attempt at arrest was made by a man who
had contempt for Indians as fighters, and knew
nothing of the characteristics of the race.
Every effort seemed to have been made by the
chief of the Brules to effect a peaceful settle-
ment of the affair. He offered a mule to Grat-
tan, as a recompense for the loss of the cow,
but Grattan effected to think that it was offered
to him personally as a bribe.
Man-afraid-of-his-horse, the chief of the
Ogallala band, was earnest in his efforts to set-
tle the matter peacefully.
The Indians were strung out along the banks
of the Platte for a distance of six miles from
Fort Laramie, awaiting the arrival of the In-
dian agent for the distribution of government
annuities, stored at Chouteau's American Fur
Company's store. The band of Ogallalas were
nearest the fort and the Brules were just be-
yond. One letter ventures to give the number
of lodges in the camp at 600, which I think is
too high. A Mormon emigrant train passed
the camp headed for the fort. A Mormon
brought up the rear driving a lame cow. The
Mormon, terribly afraid of the Indians, headed
for the fort, when the cow, frightened, ran to-
ward the Indian camp. He reported himself
fired upon and the cow captured.
A Minneconjou, "shooters of the mist," a
stranger camped among the Brules, killed the
cow, and it was eaten.
On the 19th, Grattan with his twenty-nine
men and an interpreter, (a hanger on around
forts and camps, a hard drinker, and very
boastful) with two cannon, a twelve pound
howitzer, and a mountain howitzer, arrived
aboul three I'. M. to arrest the Minneconjou.
Grattan took a position in the Brule camp
about CO yards from the lodge of the Minne-
conjou, and demanded his surrender.
The braves, estimated at one thousand fight-
ing men, crowded around between the whites
and the lodge of the Indian wanted. Tile chief
of the Brules asked him to surrender, but he
refused, saying he was ready In die and would
die in camp (very natural for one who under-
stood the Indian character and his views on
arrest).
The Brule chief renewed his offer to pay for
the cow if the officer would retire. Man-afraid-
of-his-horse went twice from the lodge of the
Minneconjou to Grattan, and begged the officer
to retire and the cow would be paid for. From
Bordeaux's testimony, Grattan felt his posi-
tion would be ridiculous if he left camp with-
out the prisoner. So he ordered his men to
fire on the lodge. One Indian was wounded.
The Indians started to rush him then, and he
fired his cannon and muskets in a volley. The
Bear and a few Indians fell, the Bear mortally
wounded.
Grattan and five men were killed around the
cannon, and the rest were all cut down within
a mile of camp. One soldier, terribly wounded,
was picked up by one of the sub-chiefs and
kept in his lodge over night, and the next day
taken to Bordeaux's trading store and later to
the fort, where he died in three or four days.
The Indians then looted Bordeaux's store,
and went to Choteau, Jr.'s American Fur Com-
pany's store and took the annuity goods. Then
they threatened to attack the fort. Soldiers
were rushed to reinforce Fort Laramie.
For the rash lieutenant the affair was at an
end, but for the unfortunate Brules it had just
commenced.
Mato-i-o-way signifies, "Bear who hunts
alone," according to some authorities. He was
at the time recognized by the government, as
the head of the Brules. Father DeSmet knew
him well, and spoke of him as a man of in-
telligence and courage.
After the looting of Bordeaux and Chouteau
trading posts, the Indians took the body of
their dead chief, and went over on the Nio-
brara, where he was wrapped in rich robes and
put in a burial tree.
Activities of Spotted Tail .and Little Thun-
der, after the Grattan Massacre, brought Gen-
eral Harney to Fort Laramie with re-inforce-
ments from Fort Kearney.
Little Thunder became the nominal chief
after the death of Mato-i-o-way, with Spotted
Tail second in command. Harney heard that
the Indians under Little Thunder were com-
mitting depreciations along the river, and while
there was some foundation for the reports, it
was also an opportunity for him to distinguish
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
63
himself. He therefore proceeded to Ash Hol-
low to settle the score.
Details of battles, of which generally only a
brief sketch is given, make them the more in-
teresting. In the battle of Ash Hollow, which
really occurred on the Blue, in Garden county,
there were Philip St. George Cooke, the inter-
esting chronicler, and Alexander Schlegel, the
surveyor, who later served in the interior de-
partment at Washington, and who but recently
returned to Lincoln where he resides (1919).
From Cooke's writings and from Schlegel per-
sonally I was told the story of the battle. D.
W. Butler of Washington, D. C, has also writ-
ten an extensive letter concerning it.
Little Thunder was in charge at the time
General Harney with his powerful force, came
into the North River country. Little Thunder
was not anxious to fight, and wished to parley.
He had with him on the Blue, forty-one lodges
of Brules (or Burnt Thighs), and eleven lodges
of Ogallalas, (or Dust Throwers). According
to regular count this would indicate 326 Brules,
of which 65 were braves, and 88 Ogallalas, of
which seventeen would be braves. Harney had
1200 troops, infantry, cavalry and some artil-
lery.
General Harney stationed his main force
under Major Cady in the low, sandy hills
near the lower end of the Blue Water valley,
and engaged the Indians in a sort of parley,
while the cavalry under St. George Cooke,
were to go up the valley and behind the In-
dians in the darkness. The parleying did not
close until after night fall, and was to be re-
sumed the following day. The cavalry pro-
ceeded up the east side of the Blue, across some
marshes, that are now a part of the hay
meadow of S. P. DeLatour, and crossing the
river two or three miles farther up, proceeded
some distance too far to the west. It was not
intended that the Indians should be allowed to
escape, and he was returning to the proper
position when a squaw, who was out picketing
a pony for her brave who was belated in arriv-
ing in camp that night, heard the sound of the
creaking saddles in the darkness and gave the
alarm. The Ogalallas rushed out of their tents
and the cavalary charged. The Indians fought
desperately, and reached the top of the flat top
butte that stands on the west side of the val-
ley. Here they made a stand until dawn, but
being driven therefrom they retreated across
the small tributary of Blue Water, then called
Beaver creek. Down the valley the cry of
alarm had gone, and through the camp of the
Brules there arose the tumult of war. The
soldiers at the lower end of the valley heard
it, and the battle was on. The retreating Brules
and Ogallalas met and joined in an effort to
escape across the stream to the northeast. Part
of the Indians had taken refuge in the rocks
on the east side of the valley, a mile or more
south of DeLatour's ranch. Into the rocks Gen-
eral Drum directed their fire. A scream arose
out of the rocks and it was the scream of a
woman.
An order was issued to cease firing, and the
Indian braves, taking advantage of the re-
spite, dodged out of the rocks and ran away
into the hills. Then to the rocks the soldiers
went, and they found that a bullet had struck
a woman sitting upon a rock. She had been
holding a papoose, with its little feet between
her legs. The bullet had passed through both
her thighs and shattered both ankles of her
baby.
They took her into camp, and it was found
necessary to amputate the feet of the child,
which died before the rising of another sun.
The mother lost consciousness while carrying
her to the valley, an unusual affair for a
«quaw, and someone remarked her regular
feaures and lack of resemblance to any Indian.
One suggested that she might be a half-breed
or quarter-blood, and General Drum said if
she were of amalgamated blood it would show
on her back bone. This did not show the ex-
pected darker color, even after washing the
spine.
She was taken to Denver and carefully cared
for and recovered. The story came out that
she was not Indian, but was a white girl cap-
tured by the Indians at the age of four years,
and had always been as one of them. Know-
ing no other life, she returned to the tribe after
her recovery and liberation.
On the battle field of the dead a cavalry-
man was riding across it when he saw an In-
dian move, and turned his horse that way.
The battle was over, and he no doubt intended
to see what could be done for the wounded
man. But the Indian raised his arm, and
with his pistol shot the cavalryman from his
horse. Another rushed up to sabre the In-
dian, but broke his sabre, both parts of which
fell near the prostrate Indian. A third horse-
man rushed, and succeeded in ending the red-
man, but not until he had taken a broken por-
tion of the sabre beside him, and severed a foot
from the horse and damaged the man.
On the succeeding days the army crossed
the river to Ash Hollow. On the bank of the
river, was built a large sod house, which was
named "Fort Grattan." This structure will
be remembered by a few of the older people
of the valley, but at the time I saw it, the
roof had been removed, and the sod walls with
64
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
the square port holes were all that remained. It
was about twenty feet north and south by
forty east and west.
After this battle, and Harney had passed on
to Fort Laramie and Fort Pierre, he under-
took to show the Indians what a superior man
he was, by chloroforming a dog. He told them
that he could kill a dog, and then bring it
back to life. Accordingly he administered the
chloroform, and the dog went to sleep. Then
he undertook to revive it, but the dog was
too dead for that and the Indians had the laugh
Be that as it may, Harney obtained from the
affair the title of "squaw killer," which was
never effaced.
Among the prisoners taken were five Ogal-
lalas, the wife and four children of Chau-te-
pe-tan-ya (pronounced Changta-Petang) or
"Fire-Heart." There is little said of Fire-
Heart, as to just who he was, but the name
certainly sounds like a good Indian cognomen.
Butler says, it was after Harney left Fort
Laramie, and had gone to Pierre for a grand
council, a number of Indians obtained permis-
Camping Ground op
Hostiles. over 4000 Teepies, Dec, 1890.
on him, declaring "white man's medicine too
strong."
Doane Robinson, historian of South Da-
kota, says "though hailed as a great victory,
and an additional plume in Harney's crest of
fame, Ash Hollow was a shameful affair,
unworthy of American arms, and a disgrace
to the officer who planned and executed it. It
was a massacre as heedless and as barbarous
as any which the Dakotas have at any time
visited upon the white people." I am led to
believe, however, that the battle was precipi-
tated by the alarm of the squaw, and the hys-
teria of the Indians who imagined they were
about to be attacked, when in fact the pur-
pose may have been only to prevent escape.
sion to camp near the fort. One morning Red
Leaf and Long Chin, two brothers of Ma-to-i-
o-wa, together with Spotted Tail rode into the
fort in full war paint, and surrendered them-
selves as hostages for the killing of the Grat-
tan party, and the murder of the mail party.
Red-Plume and Spotted Elk soon followed the
example. All with their squaws were sent
to Kearney, and then to Leavenworth, but
how long they were kept is not known, or given
out.
Butler says that Spotted Tail was not a chief
until made so by the whites, but if not, he was
a leader of great influence, and functioned the
same as a chief, so wherein is the difference?
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER XV
MURDER OF SPOTTED TAIL — CROW DOG'S PUNISHMENT
SCOTTSBLUFF MOUNTAIN PASS
BATTLE IN
Eastman, in the Outlook, says that Spotted
Tail was killed because he betrayed the Brules
to the whites, and Crow Dog's killing him was
the result of a pact made thirty years before
by the Brules, that Spotted Tail should die if
it were ever proved that he had played false
to his tribe. This sounds like an apology for
the murder of the great Indian, and the thought
has probably been fostered by the friends of
"the old man with a withered arm." No
doubt there are those among the Indians who
hated "the King of all the Sioux," through
all the years, and were glad when he was final-
ly assassinated.
After Spotted Tail was taken to Washing-
ton, he lost control of a good many of the
young men of the tribe who wanted war. Big
Mouth was the leader of the war party. One
day in 1873, Spotted Tail called him out of
his lodge. As he came out two of Spotted
Tail's friends grabbed his arms, and Spotted
Tail walked up to him and shot him dead.
It was eight years later that Crow Dog
started trouble among the young braves, and
some say that Spotted Tail was arranging to
shoot him as he had shot Big Mouth. Crow
Dog did not wait. In the terse language of
the West he "beat him to it," and Spotted Tail
was the one to die.
Father DeSmet speaks of Crow Dog as a
man of courage and with a withered arm.
This was forty years before Spotted Tail's
death, and disagrees with the statement of
Hyde that Crow Dog was "a young leader."
Mrs. A. R. Honnold, wife of the attorney
at Scottsbluff, tells an interesting story, that
came to her from her mother, Mrs. E. Van
Horn, who was an almost first citizen of Belle
Fourche. Crow Dog had been tried at Sidney
and sentenced to imprisonment at Deadwood.
Mrs. Van Horn, then a girl of sixteen years,
was on the stage from Sidney to Deadwood,
in which the prisoner, in charge of two officers,
was being conveyed. Crow Dog was held at
Deadwood for years ; first imprisoned, then
as a trusty. In the latter capacity he carried
slops and garbage to a few hogs that were
owned by the civil authorities. He did the
work uncomplainingly, and with not a murmur
of discontent, for many years.
One day they missed him from the work,
and they never made a search. They knew that
the wilderness had beckoned to him, that he
had heard the call of the wild solitudes, and
had gone. They let him go, to spend his few
remaining years in the old familiar fastnesses,
where his rapidly dimming eyes would soon
close forever to the changeful coloring of
the sky and land.
Leach, in his historical stories, says that
Harney had twelve hundred troops in the Bat-
tle of Min-ne-to-wap-pa, or Bluewater, which
was more than half of all the soldiers along
the Overland.
In 1855, which was the year following the
Grattan Massacre, there were only 2,000 of
the military guarding the entire line of the
Overland, but this was gradually increased,
for rebel spies and agitators were among the
Indians during the trying times of the early
sixties, and hostilities increased amazingly. At
the close of the war, many men re-enlisted for
service in the west, and they were among the
best, for their experience in guerilla warfare
well fitted them for the character of Indian
fighting.
Al. Wiker, of Alliance, with five others of
his original company were with the Harney
convoy that had a battle in Scottsbluff Moun-
tain Pass.
This convoy was in August, 1866, in charge
of freight outfits for Fort Laramie and be-
yond as far as Salt Lake City. From Wiker
I obtained the story.
They were camped at the springs some dis-
tance east of the mountain, likely on the Sow-
erwine place, and in the morning the wagons
started out a short distance ahead of the sol-
diers. With the wagons were a number of
camp tenders, and other wagons that were.
owned by travellers who took advantage of
the presumed safety of being close to the sol-
diers, and they were traveling along with them.
These wagons were moving through the
big gap when attacked. The sound of battle
reached the soldiers who were just mounting,
and they started forward at a gallop. Instead
of heading straight for the gap they rode to-
ward the point of rocks, known as Eagle Crag,
just north of the present pathway that leads
up to the mountain top from the east. At its
base the cavalry parted, and one-half swung
around to the south, skirting Engine Rock, and
the others essayed to negotiate the Bad Lands
north of the mountain.
Those coming upon the rear of the wagon
66
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
train engaged the Indians who were hidden
just over the summit of the gap. While the
others, after riding as far as they could ad-
vance with their horses, proceeded on foot.
This gave them a good advantage, for the In-
dians were lying on the west slopes of the rocks
that guard the gap, and in hidden ravines
busily engaged with the enemy to the east of
them, and did not notice the approach of the
other soldiers.
Of the causualties on the part of the whites,
five were soldiers, one a colored cook, and the
others emigrants. Three wagons were burn-
ed. Owing to having left their horses in the
Bad Lands, pursuit of the Indians was im-
possible, but the soldiers ran down across the
Pass and climbed the hill that guards it on
the south, and snipped off several of the In-
dians while they were mounting, still within
range.
The Hostii.es Coming in From the Bad Lands to Surrender.
Their first intimation of the existence of this
force was when the soldiers opened a deadly
fire upon them in their exposed positions.
Then they fled towards the southwest, while
out of one of the gulches on the prairie in
that direction came an Indian having a number
of horses. These the others mounted and
rode away towards Robideaux.
The outfit consisted of about seventy-five
wagons and had about one hundred head of
cattle. Part of the wagons were loaded with
governmenl supplies, and some belonged to
emigrants.
Tin (.nil. were being taken along the river-
side through the Bad Lands, but before they
reached there, the noise of the battle was
heard. Of the thirty-live men in charge, thirty
joined in the ride towards Eagle Crag, leav-
ing but five t<> take can- of the cattle.
The thirty-eight dead were buried a few
rods west of the west end of the gap, but a
few days later, the bodies of the whites were
exhumed and taken to Fort Mitchell for in-
terment. The remains of the Indians are yet
in obliterated graves a little west of Mitchell
Gap.
Of the five veterans of the rebellion that
participated in this battle there is only one
survivor. Two were later killed at Fort Kear-
ney, and the other two died, leaving Al Wiker
the sole living member of the five.
Mr. Wiker lives at Alliance, and is modest,
and does not want his name mentioned, but
he was over here some years ago, and with
Frank Sands and some others, went over the
ground, recalling all the stirring details of the
battle.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER XVI
A BUFFALO BILL EPISODE — MORE INDIAN TROUBLES
There seems to have been little systematic
endeavor on the part of the Indians following
the Grattan trouble. Bands of hostiles, in-
dependent of others, committed depredations
here and there at widely scattered intervals.
The Plum Creek affair, the Massacre of Eu-
banks, the surveying party of the Republican
and attacks on the Overland : always there
were surprise attacks on the route from civili-
zation's advance guard to the mountains.
This condition required guards convoying
emigrants or freight wagons, and while for
days they might pass unmolested, any moment
might bring startling denouement.
Col. W. F. Cody related to me one incident,
when I asked him a few years ago to tell me
one of his adventures along the "North River,"
that I might have a close at home event to
chronicle.
Buffalo Bill and two companions had this
experience in June, 1858, just over the hill
east of Ash Hollow.
He and Simpson and Woods were detailed
as guards in connection with others for the
convoying of a train of freight wagons from
Fort Laramie to Fort Kearney, and they had
camped at Ash Hollow. The following day
one part of the wagon train had departed with
a part of the guard, and Cody Simpson and
Woods were to follow up. The other detach-
ment of wagon were to follow a day later.
The three were some distance in the rear
of the first wagons, after they had passed
over the big hill east of Ash Hollow, which,
having been gone several hours, were out of
sight. The guards were riding mules, and the
J Indians were of such superior numbers, they
concluded their only means of defense was
continued resistance until the following day,
when the second detachment would overtake
them. Even this seemed hopeless.
Cody said they shot their mules and drag-
ged them into the form of a triangle, and be-
hind this barricade kept the Indians at bay
for the entire day and night and a part of the
next day. With the butcher knives they dug
in the soil and made a pit deep enough for
them to rest comfortably and the dirt was piled
between the dead mules and over their dead
bodies.
At noon the following day, the Indians were
observed moving away to the south over the
hills from which they had come, and soon the
blessed sight of the coming wagons relieved
them from the tension that for over forty
hours had deprived them of rest and with
but little food.
The war of the Rebellion had a bad effect
upon the Indians, for in 1864 at a council at
Camp Cottonwood, one of the Indian orators
asked the embarrassing question, how the
Great Father expected the Indians to keep
peace, when he was unable to keep his own
children from quarreling. It showed they had
a pretty clear understanding of the situation.
General Mitchell was there, and it was hard
to give a satisfactory answer. But the gen-
eral knew what frightful results would fol-
low the active hostilities if all the Sioux were
to break loose. The Cheyenne and the Arapa-
hoes were then in the terrible work of endeav-
oring to exterminate the white people. There
were also predatory Sioux bands at work.
There was a great and diplomatic effort on the
part of General Mitchell to come to an un-
derstanding, so it was in May of 1864 that he
called a council of the different Sioux chiefs
at Camp Cottonwood, to make a treaty of
peace.
They smoked and talked, but came to no un-
derstanding and adjourned for fifty days. At
the second conference General Mitchell opened
with an address, in substance as follows :
"This meeting is to come to an understand-
ing and make a treaty so that each of us will
know what to do. The government will give
the Indians blankets, flour, bacon and other
supplies so that they will have plenty. That
they should live in houses and the government
will furnish them with carpenters and black-
smiths, and they should live like white people.
But they must stay out of the valley of the
Platte because it scares the women and children
who are travelling over the trail. If the In-
dians wished to cross the trail they should ask
permission of the white people, and they would
furnish an escort from the hills on one side
of the valley, to the hills on the other side.
And that they must keep out spies, and beggars
and bad Indians. If it takes more blankets
and corn and bacon, these things would be
furnished, but the Indians must be kept out
of the Platte valley."
This did not appear to please the Indians,
and Spotted Tail spoke at some length.
"The Sioux is a great people, but we do not
want to be dictated to by the whites. We do
not care about the Platte valley, there is no
(,S
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
game there, our young men, and your people
have scared it all away. But we want to come
to the Platte valley to trade and we will not
give it away. We have let the white man
pass over it, and he has gone over it so often
that he now thinks he owns it. But it is ours,
and it always has been ours. It belonged to
our fathers and their graves are along the
hills overlooking the valley from the Missouri
river to the Rocky mountains, and we will not
give it up. We are not afraid of the white
man. Of late years we have had no serious
difficulty with him, but we are not afraid to
fight him. Our troubles have been brought on
by drunk-water. Bad whites give it to bad
Indians, and it makes trouble. The things the
chief of the Brule Sioux, while O-wa-see-cha,
or Bad Wound was a chief of considerable re-
pute among the Ogallalas, and both were in-
clined to be friendly to the whites.
Some have said that Spotted Tail's daughter
was one of the potent factors that made him
incline to peace, but that is open to question.
One time for instance, the great chief was so
incensed with his daughter, because she wanted
him to get her a white general or officer for a
husband, that he upbraided her for her fool-
ishness and ambition, and knocked her down.
After the conferences, while there was no
treaty signed, Spotted Tail and Bad Wound,
and their band drew away from the bad in-
fluence of the Arapahoes and Cheyennes.
white father has given us is not enough, and
the agents cheat us. The army officers treat
us well, but the agents cheat us, and we do
not want to treat with anyone but army officers.
We will not give up the Platte valley until there
is a treaty, and we have all agreed to it. If we
give you this, then you will want another and
another. Before we agree to anything, you
must stop the surveyors who now, at this very
time, are going west on the Niobrara."
While we all know that the traders were of
a class that took advantage of the untutored
savage, we wonder if the soldiers were any
better, and we also wonder if this interpreta-
tion was not construed to mean something that
was not really said, with the view of centering
in the military the power and profit which the
government had given to civil authority. If
so. it fell short of its purpose.
This second conference broke up as did the
first, with a call for another, fifty days later,
but General Mitchell did agree to stop the
Niobrara survey.
Spotted Tail was then the most powerful
Spotted Tail said at these conferences that
if the Sioux went to war, they had over 25,-
000 warriors with which to fight. Bad Wound
is said to have punished severely some of the
young men who broke away and committed
depredations.
These councils of 1864, were the sequel of
similar events that occurred a great many years
before. Colonel Kearney had nearly twenty
years earlier addressed the Indians at Fort
Laramie in the number of 1200 braves, telling
them that he was opening a road for the white
people that were going to bury their bones
where the waters flow toward the setting sun.
Of course this road was already opened, but
like Fremont, the Pathfinder, he found paths
that had been trod for a generation of white
people and many generations by aborigines.
Colonel Kearney told the Indians that there
were many enemies about them, but that the
greatest of them was whiskey. He warned
them against its use, and advised them to con-
fiscate all that was offered them for sale, and
pour it into the ground. He told them that
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
(■<}
the great father would give them blankets and
flour and bacon, and he did distribute some
presents among them.
Tall Bull chanced to be the principal chief
present, and he made a few remarks.
"If my people will be good to the whites,
they will find that the presents they are about
to receive will often come. Father, this does
very well and pleases me. What you have told
me, I am glad of from my heart. All you have
told me is very good. I have found a father.
We will no longer think of dying, but will live.
I remember the words you have this day spok-
en to us. My people will do as I say."
The struggle to maintain peace had continued
for twenty years, but at intervals white rene-
gades, bad Indians, ambitious army men, or
hot-headed young Indians, would stir up fric-
tion. Steadily it seemed the causes were piling
up, and the break appeared to be inevitable at
some future time.
All the time the Sioux seemed to be getting
a better organization. There was better func-
tioning between the several tribes as the storm
came nearer.
In this the great genius of Spotted Tail and
Red Cloud was affiliated. They amalgamated
the Sioux into a powerful fighting army, with
systematic attacks scattered for hundreds of
miles along the Overland Trail.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BATTLE OF HORSE CREEK — COLONEL MOONLIGHT'S MISTAKE— PRES-
IDENT LINCOLN'S MESSAGE TO THE WEST
While these episodes of adventure, and the
causes of war were accumulating, there were,
during the winter of 1864-1865, in the neigh-
borhood of Fort Laramie about two thousand
Indians who professed to be friendly. They
said that the war tribes had made it dangerous
for them to pursue their usual vocation of
hunting, and under orders from Washington,
they were fed and sustained through the cold
weather. The officials at the fort had good rea-
son to believe that a number of them at least
were carrying word, and perhaps provisions,
to the war braves. Every movement of the
soldiers seemed almost instantly known by the
enemy Indians.
It was deemed advisable to remove the
friendlies from the central scene of hostilities,
and consequently, on June eleventh, a company
of one hundred and thirty-five soldiers, under
Captain Fouts, were directed to act as an escort
for about fifteen hundred Indians, including
squaws and papooses, who agreed to be remov-
ed to Fort Kearney. Charles Elston had charge
of a number of professed friendly Indians,
which he was trying to make useful to the
government as scouts. While they appeared to
be doing his bidding, he was confident that
some of them were better scouts for their na-
tive tribes. The element of integrity did not
seem at first to be requisite, according to In-
dian standards. One time, a chief of some
note among the Sioux had offered his son as
a candidate for position in a place requiring in-
tegrity, and one of the recommendations given
was that the son had single-handed stolen
twenty ponies from the Pawnees.
Captain Fouts proceeded down the south
side of the Platte river with caution, looking
out for surprise attack. There was nothing of
suspicious note, except signal fires on the hills
on both sides of the Raw Hide, and on the
west side of Sheep creek and on Signal Buttes.
"On the afternoon of the thirteenth of
June," says C. G. Coutant, in his history of
Wyoming, "the party went into camp on Horse
creek, and the indians proceeded to give a dog
feast. In the evening, three hundred and
eighty-two of the warriors congregated in se-
cret council. The officers were seriously anxi-
ous to know just what was going on, yet their
best efforts failed of finding out."
Through Butler and Hyde, comes a story,
evidently of Indian origin, that the Indians
were furious at certain white officers and sol-
diers, for taking young Indian girls into their
tents, and keeping them there all night. It
seems doubtful that there was any truth to
the story, for the reason that there were a
number of white women in the party, that were
being taken out of the danger zone and among
them were the wives and families of Captain
Fouts, and Lieutenant Triggs. It is not prob-
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
able that they would permit such conduct as
that alleged.
Furthermore, there had been a recent exe-
cution of some bad Indians at Fort Laramie,
for their criminal treatment of women ; and
among those martyr women being escorted to
safety, were Mrs. Eubanks and daughter and
Miss Roper. Under these conditions it is
not likely that any soldiers, no matter how evil
might have been his reputation, would be
guilty of the alleged disreputable deeds.
On the morning of the fourteenth, the ad-
vance guard started at five o'clock, the idea
being to cover the eighteen miles to the mea-
dows near Fort Mitchell for the next camping
place. The wagons were strung out for a mile
or more, when rapid firing was begun by the
Indians upon the rear guard. Captain Fouts
had ordered that no ammunition be distributed,
fearing that some hair-trigger individual
among the soldiers might become excited and
shoot, and thus set off an unpremediated bat-
tle.
The rear guard started for the front, and
the front guard started for the rear, with am-
munition. They met about half way, and turn-
ed about to fight. Captain Fouts had crossed
Horse creek to hurry up the Indians, and had
been killed, stripped and mutilated. The In-
dians then turned and fled two or three miles
towards the river, and were making warlike
demonstrations while the squaws and papooses
were crossing the river on ponies.
Captain Wilcox assumed charge, and the
guards charged after the Indians. When near
at hand, he sent Elston forward to offer im-
munity to those who would return peacefully.
The Indians shrieked defiance, and charged
viciously.
The Indians numbered more than five hun-
dred warriors, and when at a distance of about
three hundred yards, firing was begun by them,
and answered with telling effect by the military
forces. While Indians advancing from the
front were checked by the fire from the Galla-
gher rifles, both flanks advanced as if to hedge
in and surround them. Over the hills from the
west side of Horse creek poured dozens and
hundreds of the shrieking demons, and an or-
derly retreat was taken to the wagons which in
the meantime had been drawn up in a circle,
and hastily constructed rifle pits made.
Here the Indians ceased and withdrew. Ob-
serving that they were indisposed to press the
attack while the soldiers were behind defenses,
and wishing to keep them engaged and at hand
until reinforcements came, the officer in charge
took fifty of the best mounted men and sallied
out. When out about three miles they saw a
large force of Indians coming around the hills
on the west side of Horse creek with the evi-
dent intention of cutting them off. Again the
military retired to the entrenchments.
About nine o'clock, Captain Shuman arrived
with forces from Fort Mitchell, and thus re-
inforced another attack was made upon the
Indians, but it was a little late. The squaws
and papooses had by this time all succeeded in
crossing the river, and the warriors were fol-
lowing. The military could not follow, for it
would be impracticable, and quite likely impos-
sible to cross the river in the face of the su-
perior number of Indians, at a time when the
river was high. The loss was four killed, in-
cluding Captain Fouts, and four wounded.
A messenger had been sent to Fort Laramie,
and Colonel Moonlight had also received ad-
vice by telegraph from Fort Mitchell telling of
the revolt of the Indians. He had started with
a cavalry force numbering about 240 well
mounted men, for the battleground.
About ten miles east of the fort he met the
messenger who advised him of the Indians ac-
tion iri crossing the river. Owing to its swollen
condition it was considered unsafe to cross at
this point and, returning to Fort Laramie, they
crossed and hastened rapidly down the north
side.
They pursued the Indians for two days and
on the night of the second day camped near
Dead Man's Gulch, which is now in the vicinity
of Broadwater, it being the ravine where
George Hacksby now lives (1919). At that
time there was a bend in the river with steep
banks on three sides and the camp was at the
outer neck of the Horseshoe, with horses in the
rich grass of the peninsula. Contrary to the
advice of many of the old timers, Colonel
Moonlight considered the horses safe without
hobbles.
During the night — at about ten o'clock — the
Indians swam the river, and got upon the pen-
insula. Indians to the number of 200 engaged
the soldiers from the front, while others ran
amid the thoroughly frightened horses, yelling,
shooting, and swinging their blankets.
The horses stampeded straight through the
camp and out toward the battling Indians, who,
for a moment, seemed to think the soldiers were
charging, but discovering their mistake, they
opened up and closed in behind the stampeding
steeds and ran them off into the hills.
After losing the horses there was nothing to
do but to destroy the saddles and other heavy
materials and walk back to Fort Laramie. The
distance was 120 miles and the way was not
pleasant, especially with cavalry boots, and it
was this walk as the culminating event, that
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
71
caused Colonel Moonlight to retire from mili-
tary service. An investigation by General Con-
nor found much to blame in Moonlight, but
for the most part it was his stubbornness that
caused what General Dodge succinctly de-
scribed as follows : "His administration was a
series of blunders."
Colonel Moonlight did not wish to resign,
but his mistakes were seized upon by the
eternal meddlers who were far from danger,
and knew little and cared less for the atrocities
of Indians. In civil life and Wyoming history
the Colonel lived, however. He was Governor
of the state under Grover Cleveland's national
administration.
The battle of Horse creek is one of the many
bloody encounters on the Platte, and this being
a sequel of former events, I shall use the words
of Colonel Moonlight in his report to the de-
partment.
"About the 18th (of May, 1865), instant
some Indians were discovered on the north side
of the Platte river, near the Indian village, en-
camped ten miles east of Laramie. Mr. Elston,
in charge of the Indian village, took a party of
Indian soldiers and captured what was found
to be Two Face, and having a white woman
prisoner (Mrs. Eubanks) and her daughter,
whom he purchased from the Cheyennes. Dur-
ing the same evening and the next morning
early the other Indians who were with Two
Face, and who had fled on the approach of the
Elston party, were also captured and lodged
in the guard house here. Mrs. Eubanks gave
information of the whereabout of Black Foot
and the Indian village, and a party of soldiers
started to bring them in dead or alive.
"The village was found about one hundred
miles northeast of here, on Snake Fork, and
compelled to surrender without any fight.
Black Foot and his companions were placed
in the guard house with the others, making six
men in confinement. Both of the chiefs open-
ly boasted that they had killed white men, and
that they would do it again if turned loose, so
I concluded it best to tie them up, by the neck
with a trace chain suspended from a beam of
wood, and leave them there without any foot-
hold."
The point on "Snake Fork," referred to in
the above report, is two or three miles south
of the present site of Canton, in Sioux County,
on "Snake Creek" as we now call it.
Mrs. Eubanks, who was with Two Face,
was in terrible condition. She had been cap-
tured by the Cheyennes on the Little Blue, and
after Black Foot and Two Face had purchased
her the autumn before, she was compelled to
such treatment that it was a wonder that she
had survived. Her husband had been killed
with several others. The woman had been
compelled to do the work of an ordinary squaw,
and had been dragged across the Platte river
with a rope, and she told tales of awful har-
barities.
There was some concern about the execu-
tion of these renegades, and several of the of-
ficers and men around the fort feared a general
massacre and so expressed themselves to
Colonel Moonlight. But his answer was that
if such an event was to take place, there would
be two less very bad Indians to take part in it.
Many of us remember in our young days of
reading a book entitled, "Beyond the Missis-
sippi." It was by A. D. Richardson, of the
New York Tribune. It was in the spring of
1865 that the author of this book and several
other noteable people visited Fort Laramie,
coming by way of "The Leavenworth and Fort
Laramie Military Road," as the Overland Trail
was then called. This line was along the south
side of the Platte to the Fort Sedgwick Cross-
ing (near Julesburg), thence via Wind Springs
and the south side of the North Platte to the
mouth of Horse Creek where it crossed to the
north side and continued to a point opposite
the fort.
In this distinguished party was Schuyler Col-
fax, then speaker of the house of representa-
tives, and in the west, wherever he met a body
of people, hunters, trappers, miners, or mili-
tary forces, he would deliver to them a mes-
sage from Abraham Lincoln, who, a few days
before his death, had held a conference with
Colfax, whom he had heard was about to take
a journey into the west. The words of the
martyred president seem prophetic in the light
of years. "I have been thinking of a speech I
want you to make for me. I have very large
ideas of. the mineral wealth of our nation. I
believe it is practically inexhaustible. It abounds
all over the western country, from the Rocky
Mountains to the Pacific, and its development
has scarcely commenced. During the war,
when we were adding a couple of million dol-
lars to our national debt every day, I did not
care about encouraging the increase in the vol-
ume of the precious metals. We had the coun-
try to save first. But now. that the rebellion is
overthrown and we know pretty nearly the
amount of our national debt, the more gold and
silver we mine, makes the paymenl of that debl
so much easier. Now, I am going to encourage
that in every possible way. We shall have hun-
dreds of thousands of disbanded soldiers, and
many have feared their return home in such
great numbers may paralyze industry by fur-
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
nishing suddenly a greater supply of labor than
there will be a demand for. I am going to
try to attract them to the hidden wealth of the
mountain ranges, where there is room for all.
Tell the miners for me that I shall promote
their interests to the utmost of my ability, be-
cause their prosperity is the prosperity of the
nation, and we shall prove in a very few years
that we are the treasury of the world."
It may not be amiss to state here that Lin-
coln's idea, big as it was, was only a part of
the greatness of the west. He did not know
then as we do now, that the agricultural prod-
ucts of the territory would at some future time
prove of far greater value than her minerals.
While millions have been torn from the ribs of
the rock bound mountains, in the form of min-
eral wealth, there is within the radius of five
hundred miles of where I am sitting, vastly
more millions taken from the soil in the form
of farm products.
The Dreamers of national greatness, the
Dreamers of yellow gold, the Dreamers of re-
ligious fervor, who streamed through western
Nebraska, knew not of the untold wealth be-
neath their feet. Most of them were ignorant
of the magic of irrigation, or the tremendous
fertility of the soil on which they daily tread.
It is probable that the definite purpose of the
people who passed up along the "broad flat
water" impoverished many, that, had they
paused here on their journey, would have been
lords of the land.
I remember one story told that probably has
its prototype with slight variations by half a
million or a million people. Robert Weller, a
few years ago (1916) was living at Thermopo-
lis, and his experience in 1847 seems incredible.
He lived at Macomb, Illinois, and became im-
bued with the spirit of Oregon. Having little
means, he obtained a second hand light wagon
and harness and a pair of dilapidated mules.
With this outfit he began a journey of three
thousand miles through an Indian infested and
mountainous region. One of the mules had in
its young days injured one front leg, and it
lacked about three inches of being the length
of the other. To overcome this, he invented
a raised shoe — a shoe which made up the
height necessary that the mule might walk on
an even keel, so to speak. When near the state
line of Nebraska and Wyoming, Mr. Weller's
mule died. In 1900 while grading for the
Burlington railroad, Hugh Johnson and Perry
Hayes excavated the old raised shoe still at-
tached to the hoof.
This event testified to two things : one, that
men would take almost incredible chances in
those days ; and second, that this Oregon emi-
grant trailed along the north side of the river.
CHAPTR XVIII
JULESBURG BURNED— MUD SPRINGS ATTACKED— BATTLE ON CEDAR CREEK
Considerable trouble during the winter of
1864-1865 seemed to break in from the south,
particularly along the route frorq Cottonwood
to Denver, and was believed to be largely the
work of prompting of Arapahoes and Chey-
ennes, but there were some Sioux mixed up in
the affairs. It was determined to burn the
prairie south of the "South River," and thus
drive the Indians to the Arkansas for food for
their horses, as well as for game.
So, one night when there was a strong north
wind blowing, tires were set out, and for two
hundred miles a sheet of flame swept the coun-
try from the South Platte river, for a long dis-
tance to the southward. It was a magnificent
pyrotechnic display, but as war strategy, it
failed of the puqjose. It served to incense the
Indians and bring about the crises. Instead of
retiring southward, the Indians moved north-
ward across the "South River," and directly
into territory where they were the least de-
sired.
Spotted Tail was evidently south of the
Platte at the time, and it is believed that his
Indians gave out the information that there
were great stores of supplies at Julesburg, and
that a raid on that point if successful, would
supply the Indians with rations for months.
The great chief successfuly directed the at-
tack and Julesburg was burned on February
second. After taking such supplies as they
could, the war party destroyed the balance, and
crossed the river south of the mouth of the
Lodgepole. They then went up the Lodgepole
valley to the point near the present city of
Chappell, "twenty-four miles from the mouth
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
73
of the creek," and from there crossed to Mud
Springs (now Simla) which they attacked on
February 4th, driving off some horses and
mules and a lot of Ed Creighton's work cattle.
Creighton had the cattle on what was known as
"Rankin's Fork." The Indians made a rich
haul, there were twenty horses, a number of
mules, and several hundred cattle.
News of the attack was sent by wire to
Fort Mitchell and Fort Laramie. Lieutenant
Ellsworth, with re-inforcements from Fort
Mitchell made a trip to the scene at a swift
gallop, and the next day Colonel Caspar Col-
lins arrived from Fort Laramie with one hun-
dred and twenty-five men. The Indians re-
turned the following day also, with the evident
intention of taking and destroying the station,
but were surprised to see the. increased num-
bers of soldiers about it. They contented them-
selves by cutting the telegraph wires. There
were only about ten men at the station when it
was first attacked.
Around Fort Laramie, Young-Man-Afraid-
of-His-Horse, had already started activities,
and had opened 1865 with a bang. On Janu-
ary seventh he attacked a stage arriving at
Fort Laramie from the east, and escaped with
the loss of only one man and one horse.
The impudence of coming practically under
the walls of the fort, caused decisive and
prompt action on the part of the military. Cap-
tain O'Brien, with thirty-seven intrepid and
mounted men, rode out and charged a very
superior number of Indians. There was a
frightful carnage, and hand to hand encounters.
The soldiers lost half their number, and made
a fighting retreat. Fourteen of the thirty-seven
were killed. Exultantly, and maddened by
their victory, the Indians now attempted to
take the fort, but were driven back by the
artillery.
There was an insufficient force defending
Fort Laramie, so that an impression of num-
bers was made by the women dressing in
men's clothing and appearing upon the wall of
the fort, and in the morning it was found that
the Indians had retired. They had lost over
seventy killed.
On February second following, there was a
sudden and successful attack upon the stage
station below the fort (the ruins of which are
near the present Burns school house) and the
station was burned to the ground. Captain
O'Brien and an escort were bringing the stage
from the east, when they discovered the In-
dians and the smoking ruins of the station.
There were four men and one woman in
the stage and five of the escort, and they had
just overtaken two teamsters. The small caval-
cade made a show of bravery, and moved
steadily along. Captain O'Brien rode to an
eminence, gave signals, which the Indians quite
likely understood was for some invisible and
stronger party.
The redmen fled across the ice of the frozen
river, and as soon as they thought that they
could make it, the stage and wagon drivers
and escort put the whip to their horses, and
arrived safely within the walls of the fort.
Colonel Moonlight declared martial law in
all of the North River country, (as the In-
dians had grown so bold) with the intention,
no doubt, of augmenting his military forces
with trappers and emigrants, and pressing in-
to service such horses and equipment as they
might have.
The force at Fort Laramie had been in-
creased by the time that Spotted Tail and his
warriors from south of the Platte destroyed
Julesburg and attacked Mud Springs. Follow-
ing this attack, Colonel Collins determined that
it was time to strike a decisive blow at the
savages. They were flushed with victory, and
well fed with the cattle they had killed, and
the provisions stolen from Fort Sedgwick.
They were apparently well satisfied for the
time to revel in their plunder. They were in
such numbers, being several thousand, that it
would be impossible for them to subsist except
for such raids. This large band was made up
of several tribes, but for the most part, were
Sioux, Arapahoes and Ogallalas. Great quan-
tities of supplies were being forwarded with
the intention of feeding the friendly Indians,
and some of these were seized by the hostiles.
Colonel Collins sent out scouts, who returned
with the information that the Indians were
feasting on "Rush Creek" a distance of about
ten miles east, and he immediately prepared to
attack them.
Old maps show no less than three "Rush
Creeks" flowing into the Platte within a dis-
tance of about forty miles, and this particular
"Rush Creek" is now (1919) called Cedar
Creek. At that time it was the one generally
referred to as Rush Creek, while the present
Rush Creek that discharges into the Platte
some thirty-five or forty miles farther east, was
then called "Rankin's Fork."
On proceeding to Cedar Creek it was found
that the Indians had crossed the river. In
pushing forward they discovered a large war
party on the opposite bank, and were prepar-
ing to cross when they discovered that the
Indians were crossing to the south side, with
the apparent purpose of engaging the military.
A position was taken and rifle pits dug, the
howitzer that had been brought from Fort
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
Laramie was placed in position to be of ser-
vice.
While outnumbered thirty to one, the sold-
iers behaved with splendid courage, and the
experienced sharp shooters of the plains, took
advanced stations and opened deadly fire upon
the boldly approaching Indians. Finding that
to approach in the open meant almost certain
death, the usual Indian tactics of advancing
under the cover of hillocks and ridges was re-
sorted to. But in this manner only a few
could come forward at a time, and as fast as
they showed a tufted knot of feathers above
the plain, they were picked off with accurate
precision by expert riflemen.
A dozen braves had congregated behind a
particular eminence some four or five hundred
yards from the improvised fort, and at a point
of advantage for dropping bullets into the
camp. Sixteen men under Lieutenant Patton
mounted and made a quick and ferocious
charge. The Indians were utterly annihilated.
Some two hundred others started after the
daring little band of soldiers, which fought its
way back with a loss of two men. The In-
dians then gave up the attack for the day. The
following morning they renewed the fight, but
not with the same heart as the day before, and
soon gave it up and retired into the hills on
the north side of the- river. The whole caval-
cade of the savage hordes, containing about
1,000 lodges, went towards the Powder river.
Collins then distributed his soldiers along
the route to protect it from further molestation,
the larger detachments being at Camp Mitchell
and Fort Laramie.
This successful battle against an overwhelm^
ing foe, which was well armed and with plenty
of horses, seems almost as miraculous as the
famous battle on the big Piney in 1867, in
which twenty-two plainsmen armed with
Henry rifles, behind a barricade of iron arm-
ored wagon boxes, whipped Red Cloud and
three thousand braves to a standstill, killing
or disabling over 1,100 Indians with their "bad
medicine guns."
One of the disheartening things about Indian
fighting was the lack of knowledge displayed
by those in charge higher up. For instance,
long after hostilities were commenced and the
Indians were congregating to resist establish-
ment of posts along the Bozeman road in the
Powder river country. General Dodge wired to
General Mitchell, who was about to leave
i imaha fur Fort Laramie, to keep him posted
as he progressed up the Platte. In his tele-
gram was the query, "Where is Powder river?
The "Rush Creek" battle ground is three or
four miles south of the river, at the forks,
where a spring branch comes in from the west.
The improvised fort was on the nose of land
between the two branches of what is now
"Cedar Creek."
An Indian telling of the battle of Cedar
Creek, says they crossed the river at its mouth,
and camped at the foot of a bluff about five
miles north of the river, "on a small stream, the
name of which I do not remember." The story
also is that Creighton's herders were at Mud
Springs when the attack occurred, which was
fortunate for them. After the battle, the hos-
tiles moved to Bear Butte in the Black Hills,
and early in March, the bands separated, Spot-
ted Tail and his Brules moving east of the
Hills, while the Arapahoes and Cheyennes,
joined the Northern Cheyennes under Red
Cloud, on Powder river.
In April, Spotted Tail, Little Thunder, and
sixty lodges of Brules, came in to Fort Laramie
and voluntarily surrendered, and according to
Hyde, he should have been with the Indians
that were being taken to Julesburg, and
Kearney, at the time of the outbreak on Horse
Creek. I do not find any part that he took in
the battle, and perhaps he was opposed to the
action, as many Indians were. Hyde also says
the Indians at first concealed their women and
children in a willow thicket back of their lodges.
I have been unable to locate the thicket. After
the last charge, says Hyde: "The soldiers gath-
ered up the mutilated bodies of Fouts and his
men, and pulled out for Camp Shuman" (Fort
Mitchell).
After over fifty years, George L. Wilcox, no
relation, that I can find, of the captain, was
employed by the government to disinter the
bodies and remove them to the government
cemetery at Cottonwood. He quite easily lo-
cated the grave of Captain Fouts and a soldier
at Fort Mitchell, and after an extended search
he found the two other soldiers, who had been
buried on the battlefield. Later,- two other
soldiers were disinterred at Fort Mitchell. All
now rest at the beautiful cemetery a few miles
east of the city of North Platte.
The date of the battle of Horse Creek as
here given has been disputed by Erastus Wil-
son, Bugler Company B, 7th Iowa Cavalary,
(now 1919), at the Soldier's Home at Grand
Island, who was in the battle; he stating that
it took place upon the 11th day of July, but I
have it from John Hunton, and from the gov-
ernment records, and at least it is officially giv-
en as occurring on the 13th day of June, 1865.
Wilson stoutly adheres to his date, and he de-
clares the three soldiers were buried upon the
battleground, their names being Phillip Alder,
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
75
Dick Crozier and McMann, although only two
were found there.
General Conner, in the Spring of 1865,
moved his headquarters from Denver to Fort
Sedgwick, which was built not far from the
site of the burned Julesburg, for from this
point he could better direct operations.
Mooney says that Red Cloud was "the most
famous and powerful chief in the history of
the tribe, and rose to distinction by his own
force of character." "He was not a hereditary
chief, but a member of the band of which the
chieftainship lay with the family of Young-
Man-Afraid, the latter more conservative and
friendly to civilization."
Red Cloud's chief lieutenants in the Powder
River campaign were "Young-Man" and
"Crazy Horse." The feat of keeping the In-
dians together for the two years 1866-1868,
provisioning them, and a determined united
front to the government stamps him as a re-
markable organizer, and with great power. The
government finally gave up the attempt to open
the Bozeman Road, and this must have added
greatly to the prestige of Red Cloud.
Crazy-Horse was not an hereditary chief,
and never addressed in person any council, but
always spoke through his uncle, Little Hawk.
"Which leads me to inquire," says D. W.
Butler, "the nature of the system that prevailed
among the Sioux and Cheyennes as to the
authority and position of the acknowledged
chiefs, and the war chiefs or leaders like Red
Cloud and Crazy Horse and Roman Nose. One
might imagine there would be much conflict
of authority. But evidently not."
Crazy Horse was not much known until
after 1865, when he had a brother killed by the
whites near Fort Laramie, after which he went
on the war path with vengeance.
I am not sure as to the exact date of the lo-
cation of Red Cloud's Agency on the Platte,
but it occurred about 1870. It was on the
north side of the river near the Nebraska-Wy-
oming line. By the year 1875, the new Red
Cloud Agency was established on White river,
west of Fort Robinson. The agency on the
Platte was not abandoned until two or three
years later, although it may have been offi-
cially thrown into the discard.
Sheldon has a photo of the ruins of a sod
house on the site of the Platte River Red Cloud
Agency, that is believed to be what was left
of one of the original structures of the early
seventies. The photo was taken 1918, and
from the best information from the oldest in-
habitant, it is all that remains of one of the
first buildings erected.
CHAPTER XIX
COAD'S BATTLE ON LAWRENCE FORK — "SHORTER" COUNTY ORGANIZED
TANK FIGHTING ON THE PLATTE — BUFFALO BILL KILLS TALL BULL
Affairs like the Harney battle on Blue
Water, or worse still, that of Col. J. M. Chiv-
ington, at Fort Lyons, on the South Platte,
drove the peace loving Indians into the more
desperate of the savages. The latter was an
unprovoked attack upon a large village of
inoffensive Indians. Over the lodge of the
chief there floated the stars and stripes, yet an
hysterical, or a deliberately brutal, commander
brought about wholesale murder, with the re-
sult that many hundreds of lives were lost in
the years of hostilities that followed.
Following the disturbances of 1865, the
early part of 1866 was ushered in by an at-
tack upon Julesburg (Fort Sedgwick). About
one thousand Indians participated in the at-
tack, and the place was defended by Captain
O'Brien and thirty-seven men, with two moun-
tain howitzers. The Indians lost sixty or sev-
enty men, while Captain O'Brien lost fourteen.
But after one day of hot fighting the Indians
gave it up and moved on to the North River
country.
In 1865 J. F. Coad took the contract to fur-
nish the garrisons at Julesburg and Laramie
with wood. He was furnished an escort from
Julesburg to the "wood reserve" on "Lorron's
"fork, and there erected a small log house, called
by him the "ranch." The day following its
completion, he and three others were at work
loading some wood about three miles from the
"ranch." The thermometer was about twenty-
five degrees below zero. His party was at-
tacked by Indians, which rode clown into the
valley between them and the cabin. They fled
into the rocks, and the Indians pursued as far
76
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
as they could with their horses, then dis-
mounted and came on foot.
Soon the men found that they must discard
their heavy clothing, and in the chase they be-
came separated. One man found a crevasse
underneath a rock and crawled into it, obliter-
ating his tracks by covering them with dirt and
sand. The Indians went directly past the
mouth of his hiding place, then came back and
took counsel in front of it. Then they returned
to their horses and rode away. Coad and the
other two found a hiding place, and after the
Indians had gone built a small fire to keep from
freezing, and remained hidden until nightfall.
When the men returned to the "ranch" in
the night, they found that the men there had
been attacked, and stood the Indians off for
four hours. The savages then drove away their
horses and mules and some of their cattle, but
the latter could not travel sufficiently rapid to
suit them. The next day it was decided to
return to Julesburg, and ask that the govern-
ment furnish guards to protect them from fu-
ture similar experience. They took the oxen
and went to the tableland in the direction of
the old Water Holes, but were caught in a
frightful blizzard. It raged all night and the
thermometer was thirty below zero. A man of
experience has written, a western storm will
sometimes seem to abate, to lure one away
from fire and shelter, just to catch him in the
open with full force. A messenger had been
sent on ahead, to tell the soldiers to come out
and meet them, but the storm made it doubtful
if he would reach Julesburg. In consequence,
the next morning, Coad told the others to re-
turn to the "ranch" and he would try to go on
to the fort alone. About ten miles north of the
present site of Sidney, he came upon a de-
tachment that had already been sent out. They
said that the day before, they had had an en-
gagement with some Indians near there, and
had taken from them a number of horses,
which proved to be Goad's, and the Indians
had fled in the storm towards the south. A
few days later thirty-six men arrived at a
"ranch" on the Lodgepole, about twenty-five
miles west of Julesburg, and thirty of them
were pretty badly frozen.
Nearly all the cattle drifted into the fort in
the next week or so, and the fact of their
weathering this severe storm, and seemed little
the worse for it, brought to the mind of Mr.
Coad the idea that the prairie grasses must be
very nutritious and sustaining, even though
browned by the autumn suns and beaten by
the wintry winds; and from that thought in
his mind and the minds of Creighton, and of
others, were born the big ranches of the Pan-
handle, and followed the years "when cattle-
men were kings."
The "ranch" on the Lodgepole where these
storm-beaten fugitives found shelter, was one
of the early structures used for housing and
protection along the line of the Union Pacific,
then being projected up the Platte and Lodge-
pole.
In November, 1866, the construction of the
railroad was completed as far west as North
Platte, and on the 31st day of January, 1867,
the plat of the original town was filed. A mili-
tary post was established, and soldiers were
garrisoned there. "Shorter" county, the ante-
cedent of Lincoln county, had tried to organize
five or six years earlier, but the only officer
who had qualified was Charles McDonald,
judge, who did so in order to perform marriage
ceremonies. The county seat had been desig-
nated as Cottonwood Springs, but the county
was re-organized as Lincoln County, and the
county seat moved to North Platte, by a total
of twenty-one votes cast, on October 8, 1867.
The officers were B. I. Hinman, representative ;
W. M. Hinman, County Judge; Charles Mc-
Donald, County Clerk ; O. O. Austin, Sheriff ;
Hugh Morgan, Treasurer; and A. J. Miller,
Commissioner. Charles McDonald resided at
North Platte until 1919 and was in the bank-
ing business, until his death.
In the Indian troubles that followed, the few
settlers in that vicinity used to gather at North
Platte, and take refuge in the railroad round
house. On one occasion, the Indians captured
a freight train and after killing the crew, they
pillaged the cars, and found some bolts of cal-
ico. With this they made merry, tying one end
of a bolt to a pony's tail, one would ride out
across the prairie with a hundred yards of
brilliant calico streamers trailing in the wind.
At another time "Dutch Frank" saw the In-
dians on the track ahead of him, and feeling
sure that it meant death to stop, he opened the
throttle, plowing through them throwing them
into the air and killing many. He arrived safely
into town. This, we believe was the origin of
"tank fighting."
The Union Pacific, during the year 1867,
built on through Sidney and Cheyenne, and
Mr. Tracy, who later became another of the
cattle kings, was at Pine Bluffs, took a contract
for getting out wood and ties for the railroad.
At this point he received his inspiration for
ranching, and was long known in that business
by the early settlers.
The Fifth United States Cavalry under Gen-
eral Carr arrived in the spring of 1S69, and
eight companies were left at North Platte and
McPherson, while four were sent to Sidney and
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
four to Cheyenne. Their orders were to "clear
the country of Indians from the Union Pacific
to the Kansas Line."
It was at this time that Tall Bull, one of
the most bestial and brutal, although brave In-
dians, obtained the title of the "scourge of Kan-
sas," because of his numerous raids, culminat-
ing in the massacre of the "German Settle-
ment," and taking away two of the young wo-
men. General Carr had at hand the strategy,
of maneuvering of the best known of all the
old scouts on the pursuit of this band, none
other than Colonel W. F. Cody. The final bat-
tle occurred "at the springs in the sand hills," a
few miles south of the old Valley station on the
South Platte. Here it was that Buffalo Bill
killed Tall Bull, by shooting him from his
horse. One of the young women captives was
killed by the Indians, while the battle was on,
and two braves were about to tomahawk the
other, when the unerring markmanship of the
old plainsman ended their career. Tall Bull's
band was headed for the Niobrara and White
river country, where they could brag about
their achievements to other Indians, but it was
utterly destroyed at this battle.
The fifteen years war following the killing
of the Mormon cow was drawing to a close.
Spotted Tail had been taken to Washington,
and Red Cloud was losing prestige, for the
peaceful Indians were being fed regularly by
the whites.
CHAPTER XX
INDIAN AGENCIES ADJUSTED — SITTING BULL'S DETERMINATION — BAT-
TLE OF WAR BONNET CREEK
Then for a few years, the work of estab-
lishing agencies and locating the Indians in
places where each might better work out his
destiny, without the interference or trouble
making of another tribe was the duty of the
war department. Early in the seventies the old
Red Cloud agency was built at the Wyoming
state line, on the Platte river and in a few
years the new agency was established on White
river. Spotted Trail was located on the Da-
kota state line about north of Rushville.
In 1874, Chauncey Wiltse at the head of
twenty-five men, was sent out to survey the
state line between Nebraska and Dakota. If
there is anything that made an Indian un-
easy it is a surveying party. Either they did
not understand the mystery of the instrument
and they thought there was something uncanny
about it, or they knew that the surveying in-
strument presaged the coming of settlement,
and the end of the wilderness. One surveying
party, on the Republican, entirely disappeared.
None of the equipment nor any trace of them
was ever found.
Nothwithstanding Spotted Tail's avowed
friendship for the whites, and his expressed
opinion of the uselessness of struggling against
the white race, when Wiltse's surveying party
reached the vicinity of White Earth Creek,
one hundred and sixty-two miles west of
Keya Paha river, a number of Indian scouts
armed with Winchester rifles came to meet
them, and for a pow-wow. They said that
Spotted Tail did not want the line run.
Wiltse told them that he cared not for what
the Indian tribes wanted, he used stronger
language than that, for the great father had
told him to run it, and run it he would. And
run it he did.
The trail, or road, from Ft. Laramie to
Spotted Tail's agency, came farther down the
river than that to the Red Cloud agency. The
eastmost of the Red Cloud roads ran through
the vicinity of Agate, while that to Spotted
Tail crossed near Spotted Tail Springs, Wind
Springs, and over the Box Butte table. It will
be observed that the relays between watering
places, from starting point to destination, are
the shortest distance possible, and yet it is al-
most a direct route.
The establishing of Fort Robinson, in 1876,
was practically contemporaneous with the ad-
justment of the Indians in their different
agencies. It was nearer to Red Cloud because
the Red Cloud Indians needed watching more
than those under Spotted Tail. In 1876, Red
Cloud was deposed by the whites, and he no
longer ruled as chief. The "great red cloud" —
his warriors wore red blankets, and moved as
a cloud — ceased to be a menace of the prairie,
and his descendants now live pursuing the arts
of peace.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
The trails leading from Fort Robinson to
the Union Pacific made a veritable network at
the time, and all converged in the vicinity of
Fort Robinson, following one principal high-
way north to Deadwood.
From Cheyenne the mail road ran almost
straight to Laramie, and was a stiff bad road,
hard on oxen feet and lined with "poison
weed." It ran via Chugwater creek. The
part north of the Platte cut across the country
west of the Raw Hide and finally dropped into
that valley. The soil on this part of the road
was too light for heavy freighting, and in
places quite sandy, but it was used to some
extent.
The Freighter's road ran direct from Chey-
enne to Old Red Cloud on the Platte through
the Goshen Holes. If having business at Lar-
amie they would go up the river to Laramie
ferry or bridge, then by the mail route to
White river.
Freighters frequently forded the Platte at
Old Red Cloud, and then struck down the
Platte a number of miles, to avoid the sand
ridges that lay directly north of the agency.
From the old agency to the new, there seems
to have been several roads, and they were all
called the Freighter's road. There was a canoe
at Old Red Cloud, which was used in crossing
when the water was high.
The Sidney road was all right for horses and
mules but was not much in use by 'bull
teams" for there were two places along the
route, where the distance between water holes
caused suffering and death among the cattle.
This road was satisfactory during part of the
season, but in the hot dry summer months, two
of the watering places dried up.
The Sioux Trail from White river to the
Republican ran parallel with this route, and it
was used as late as 1876 by Brules and Ogal-
lalas. Fort Robinson and the New Red Cloud
agency on White river was where all the trails
merged into one.
The fall of Red Cloud, and the discovery of
gold in the Black Hills brought forth another
leader of the war division of the Sioux. Sitting
Bull came into the public eye ; and the depreda-
tions, and lawlessness of his bands grew more
pronounced as the whites poured into the Black
Hills after gold.
Sitting Bull obtained his name, by shooting a
buffalo bull, that fell and was attempting to
arise, when the daring young Indian leaped
from his mustang's back, squarely upon the
back of the buffalo. It struggled to rise, but
settled back upon its haunches.
The new leader was determined that he
would drive the white man out of the Black
Hills, and was doing effective work along the
line of his endeavor, when General Crook de-
cided to put an end to it. Reno and Custer
were chasing the wise old redskin over the
wilds of Wyoming, and Custer, who was in
advance, fell into an ambuscade, and his entire
force was destroyed. I have walked over the
battle ground and observed the location of the
graves, as shown by the little white stones, for
each was buried where he fell, and it tells the
story of a struggle better than all else. All who
are making a trip into the northwest, should, if
possible, stop over one day at Crow agency,
Montana, just over the Wyoming line, and
spend that day at the battle ground, and in the
woods on the Powder, where Sitting Bull pre-
tended to be unprepared although keenly upon
the alert.
Reno was some distance away, but within
sound of the battle, and has been criticised for
not making an attempt to rescue Custer. One
of the graves of a fallen soldier, was about two
miles in the direction of Reno's camp, he evi-
dently having broken through the red line of
battle, and made a great run for life.
At the Red Cloud agency there were five
thousand or more Indians, for the most part
friendly ; but about eight hundred of them, fired
by the news of Sitting Bull's achievements, left
the agency to join him in the work of driving
the whites cut of the hills.
General Sheridan ordered General Merritt,
with four hundred men of the Fifth Cavalry,
to proceed post-haste to re-enforce General
Crook on Big Goose creek. He heard of the
movement of the Indians at the agency, and
disobeyed the order of his superior, to inter-
cept them. Events justified his disobedience,
as it often did in the kaleidoscope changes in
fighting Indians. Colonel Cody, who at that
time was in the midst of a Wildwest exhibition,
at the Centennial Fair, abruptly closed his show
at tremendous loss, and volunteered his serv-
ices. He was made chief of scouts with Gen-
eral Merritt. To intercept the movements of
the Indians the cavalry moved as directed by
Buffalo Bill, seventy-five miles in twenty-four
hours, and placed themselves directly in the
path of the Indians.
The advanced portion of the Indians was
surprised, and drew up in battle line, to await
these that were coming from the rear. The
cavalry also were prepared. At this dramatic
moment, Yellow Hand, issued his famous chal-
lenge to "Long Hair" (Buffalo Bill), and with-
out waiting for orders from his superior,
Colonel Cody rode out to meet him.
Little Bat, the interpreter, conveyed to Gen-
eral Merritt, the nature of the challenge, and
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
all eyes on both sides were centered on the duel.
It was with such sudden rush and denouement,
that it was over and the battle of War Bonnet
Creek was on before it was hardly time to
realize it.
Buffalo Bill and Yellow Hand spurred their
horses straight for one another at full speed,
and when near to each other, a bullet from
Cody's rifle struck the Indian's horse squarely
in the forehead. It fell with a forward mo-
mentum, and the horse Cody was riding fell
over it. Yellow Hand and the veteran of the
plains were both afoot, and went at each other
without a moment's delay, one with his toma-
hawk, and the other with his knife. With his
left hand Cody caught the blow of the toma-
hawk, and plunged the knife into the heart of
the Indian. Falling upon him as he went down,
Buffalo Bill lifted his war bonnet, and seized
his scalp-lock.
The Indians waited no longer, but plunged
forward to avenge the death of their chief.
Cody shook in the faces his bloody scalp, and
shouted : "the first scalp for Custer." With
war bonnets streaming, and brilliantly painted
they were almost upon him, when the veteran
Fifth Cavalry in action, swept by. with their
carbines cracking. The nerve of the Chey-
ennes broke and they fled. Time after time,
they tried to recover, and make a stand ; but
before there was any organization, the soldiers
were again upon them, and finally they broke
and ran, pell mell for the agency.
There was some apprehension that when
they got among the five thousand friendlies
they would excite them to violence. It was
determined to make a show of courage, and
the troops, in solid formation, ready for any
emergency, rode straight through the agency,
to Fort Robinson.
That ended the insurrection at the agency,
and Sitting Bull, whom Custer was trying to
prevent from going north, when the massacre
occurred, got away after wiping out that por-
tion of the advance. He was pursued, but
reached the Canadian line in safety.
War Bonnet creek is a branch of Hat creek,
coming in from the east. The point of con-
vergence is in, or near the twenty-two thous-
and acre ranch of Colonel Charles Coffee, in
northern Sioux County.
CHAPTER XXI
SAND HILLS STATION ROBBERY — BIG BEAR, OR CRAZY WOMAN — THE
SOD CABIN — PRIVATIONS OF EARLY YEARS
Hugo Koch, was one of the old freighters
of the late fifties and early sixties. He is still
living at Lander, Wyoming, and is an intimate
friend of Charles Andrews of Scottsbluff, who
had charge of the feeding business at the
Scottsbluff Sugar Factory for many years. I
have a letter from Koch in which he speaks
of his connection with the Sand Hills station,
which is located a few miles over the line in
Wyoming, and he says : "eighteen miles west
of Scottsbluff." This would indicate Robi-
deaux Gap, far eighteen miles west of Mitchell
Gap would not reach the state line.
It was shortly after the Grattan Massacre
that Spotted Tail and a band of Sioux are
credited with attacking this station as a stage
from Salt Lake City was enroute east. They
killed all the employes and the driver, and car-
ried off twenty thousand dollars in gold, in
twenty dollar gold pieces, belonging to the Liv-
ingston Kinkaides Company of Salt Lake City.
General Harney made a demand for the per-
petrators of the deed, and Spotted Tail and the
party made their spectacular entry into Fort
Laramie singing their death songs.
Another point of interest is just over the
Wyoming line, near the northwest corner of
Sioux county. It is one of the many branches
of the Cheyenne river, not much more than a
creek or canyon, occasionally widening to
small hay valleys. In the early days it bore
the Indian name "Big Beard." the same obtain-
ing from the character of the grass that grew
along the bank of the stream. But for the last
generation it has held the name of "Crazy
Woman," because of incidents and adventures
I have heretofore written in a crude story of
verse under the title of "The Sod Cabin."
The beginning of the adventure was in Lake
Canyon, about thirty or forty miles south of
80
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
North Platte. Here a family of easterners,
from the Buckeye state, had settled down and
left for a time their happy, yet unhappy, sur-
roundings for the primitive life and restfulness
of the semi-mountain home.
But their persecutor, "Scar Face Ben," had
followed and in the disguise of an Indian with
a party of Indians, the home was invaded, and
an attempt made to kidnap a young lady. Her
mother, who had seen an Indian raise his toma-
hawk as she thought, to strike her daughter,
had interposed, the blow fell upon her head
and left a long ugly cut, with the temporary
loss of consciousness.
This unexpected denouement, for there had
been no intention of murder, for a moment dis-
concerted the outlaw, and in the moment the
father and the girl escaped, but were separated
in the night. The story tells of their wandering
up through the valley of the N ortn Platte, and
to the Horse creek caves. Then on through the
Rocky Gap, where their persecutor chased
the "Prairie Rose," as the heroine was called,
until she fell over a cliff and made a footprint
in the soft clay, that "after hardened into
stone and left distinct the footprint there."
During the building of the Cheyenne and
Northern. I was working in one of the camps,
near the head of Chugwater, and one Sunday
two of us boys scaled some very difficult rocks
in the Rocky Gap, and we found the footprint
which is part of the foundation of the story.
The track was that of about number four
size woman's or child's bare foot, and it was
impressed fully an inch in what had become
soft rock, during the lapse of years.
The girl's sweetheart was temporarily away
from the lodge on the Medicine, and when he
returned he found the cabin in ruins, and all
had departed, including the woman. Of
course he knew nothing of their fate, nor that
the woman had been hit by a tomahawk, and
had wandered away "a crazy woman."
Some instinct sent him on into the west,
and there is quite a long story of it, and of
how he witnessed from a distance the Custer
Massacre.
The mad mother in the course of her wan-
derings came to the valley of the Big Beard,
and here she lived for a year or more, sub-
sisting on roots and berries and bark. Mere
the father found her. and while she several
times rushed away and hid at his approach as
she did when strangers appeared, he at last
caught her, and her reason returned.
The woman's living in this section changed
ili< name of Big Beard to Crazy Woman.
As is the way with stories, this ended well,
and the daughter was found, and then the
sweetheart, and also came the knowledge that
their persecutor was dead. They then lived
for a time in a huge sod cabin, some distance
west of the Big Horn range in Wyoming, but
later left their happy mountain domicile for the
old home in Ohio.
"Sometimes when Lillie musing sits,
A dreamy mist before her flits,
And to her waking memories come
Fair visions of a mountain home.
And all her gilded marble halls
Become transformed to sodded walls,
Her frescoed ceilings fade away
To rough hewn poles and boughs and hay.
"The mists they break before her eyes,
'Twas but a dream of Paradise.
"Since then the mountain fires swept o'er
And burned the ivy round the door.
The rotting door frame stands alone,
Save idly swinging door, with moan,
Its hinges coated o'er with rust.
The walls have crumbled into dust."
There are not a great many of the old guard
of pioneers surviving, but those that are still
with us in their travels over western Nebraska,
occasionally see the ruins of a sod cabin, and
to each there come a sadness, for each sees
therein the home shrine of a once hopeful
family that came into the west.
We all had the same ambitions, and all did
our level best to make those humble places of
abode, real homes. We had no wild or ex-
travagant ideas or desires, but we wanted that
farm for ours and our children. A few, like
the dwellers in the cabin west of the Big
Horns, went back to better things (perhaps) in
the east. The most of us that have survived
are still here, where our lives are woven into
the woof and warp of the fabric of western
Nebraska.
Together, we suffered the hardships of the
lean years, and we hustled out for grub-stakes,
singly or in pairs, leaving wives and families
in the old soddies, dugouts, and log houses,
looking after home affairs while we went after
the few scattered dollars that we could pick
up at work wherever we could find it. Up
on the Cheyenne & Northern I met Harry
Watson, John Frazier, and others from the
Box Butt'e table. In the South Platte Vailey
there were Theo. Harshman, Theo. Deutsch,
William P. Young, Antoine and Wenzel
Hiersche, and I know not how many others,
picking spuds, herding sheep, or working at
railroad construction. The Cheyenne & North-
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
81
era and the Sterling & Cheyenne branches of
the Burlington drew heavily from the granges
of western Nebraska for the help needed to
build them. Young and Hiersche brought in
from Colorado the few sheep that was the
nucleus of their later large herds.
Irrigation in the North Platte valley was in
its infancy. A few of the smaller ditches were
in operation, and others had been crudely sur-
veyed. There was plenty of man power, and
there were harness broken bronchos for horse
power, but there was no equipment, and no
money with which to buy it. Men would take
their payment in stocks and bonds, but these
had no fixed value. They were hocked about,
and traded and exchanged for provisions at
low figures, or swapped for anything else of
value. I furnished some tile for culverts and
outlets for the Gering canal, and had to take
my pay in bonds, at about two-thirds par.
The bonds were sometimes as low as fifty cents
on the dollar, in exchanges.
When the spud pickers were over on the
South Platte and the Cache le Poudre, they no-
ticed occasionally abandoned "slushers," or
road scrapers, of the wooden back and Mor-
mon tongued variety, lying by the road side,
and inquiry failed to locate the owners.
On returning to the North Platte valley,
they hooked up their grass-fed broncs, and re-
turned to the location of the find. We are
told that they again sought for but could not
find the owners, and as they had apparently
been abandoned for a long time, no doubt for
better equipment, the old ones were loaded in
the wagons and brought into western Nebraska.
It is yet an open question if they sought very
diligently for the owners, and also what they
would have done had they not found them for
they had no money to buy the scrapers. Be
that as it may, these scrapers were used to
good service in the North Platte irrigation
building.
Lars Olson, of Banner county, and James
Nighswonger were among the spud pickers
that went to Greeley, and there were many
others.
Over on the Chadron plains and Box Butte
table, the hardships seemed fully as acute. Of-
ten I wonder what mental processes worked
out those years, and how those who stayed,
survived, and how they managed to keep the
wolf from the door.
A few miles east of Chadron there lived a
German and his family. One day he was ob-
served sitting in a disconsolate mood on the
sidewalk, and a passing acquaintance stopped
and asked his what was the matter. He said
that there was no flour in the house, no food,
that the children cried because they were so
hungry, that he had brought a load of wood
to town to try to trade for something. No
one wanted to trade; the merchants needed
money and not fire wood, and no one else
would buy it. He only wanted a few dollars,
and he could not borrow at the banks, or get
credit at the stores. "I think I get a gun,
and end it all," he said. "But that will not stop
the hunger cries of the children," said his phil-
osophic friend. "Yes, but I cannot stand it
to hear them, and that will end my hearing
them, and maybe someone can feed them," was
the answer.
"Listen," said the friend, "you take that
wood up to my house and unload it. You go
home and buck up, and do your best to take
care of that wife, and your children," and he
handed him three silver dollars. The German
took courage, and weathered the gale, some-
how, and lived and prospered in the land.
But the friend, what of him? Those three
dollars were the last three dollars that he had
in the world. What was he to do ? He man-
aged it some way, just as many another man-
aged it, and to this day, they can look back
and say : "I do not see how it was done, or
where it came from, or what kept the wolf
away. Elijah was fed by the ravens, and I
guess the ravens must have looked after us."
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER XXII
REVOLT OF DULL KNIFE — WINTER FIGHTING IN THE PINE RIDGE — END
OF INDIAN WARS — SIGN LANGUAGE
After the departure of Sitting Bull for the
Canadas, it was decided to separate the disturb-
ing element of the Indians and to remove those
who most strenuously objected to the advance-
ment of settlement in western Nebraska, to
places remote. In consequence the Northern
Cheyennes were taken to Indian Territory.
Dull Knife, Little Wolf, Wild Hog, and oth-
er chiefs with a large part of the tribe refused
to be satisfied with the new location, and insist-
ed on being returned to the north. They were
accustomed to the cool climate and the pure
water, and the feeling of dissatisfaction was in-
tensified by an epidemic of malaria, which be-
came so prevalent that two thousand were
prostrated at one time. The supply of medicine
was exhausted and it was necessary to dis-
continue its use.
On the night of September 9, 1878, eighty-
nine men and two hundred and forty-six
women and children, vanished in the darkness,
leaving their tepees standing to deceive the sol-
diers. As soon as the departure was discov-
ered, hundred of troops from a half dozen
posts, were detailed to overtake or intercept
them. Guards were placed along the Kansas
Pacific and the Union Pacific railroads to pre-
vent their crossing and engines with steam up
and ready to go, were held in waiting to be in-
stantly away, when the wires would flash the
news that they had been discovered.
In spite of all this, the desperate little band
of fugitives swept across Oklahoma and Kan-
sas, killing more than forty settlers, and burn-
ing houses, and committing other outrages. Re-
mounting on two hundred and fifty freshly
captured horses, they crossed the Kansas Pa-
cific between the patrols, and a few hours
ahead of the pursuing party. On October
tenth, after they had reached the Sand Hills of
Nebraska, the troops temporarily abandoned
the chase.
In their flight of five hundred miles, they had,
besides the damage inflicted on the settlements,
fought three engagements, each time with more
than twice their number, and with a total loss
of only fifteen Indians killed.
From prisoners taken later, it was learned
that they were trying to reach their kinsmen
in Montana, where they intended to surrender
if they would he allowed to remain in the
north. < Itherwise they were intending to push
on, and join Sitting Bull in Canada.
In the meantime, their kinsmen were on their
way south in charge of the noted scout '"Ben"
Clark, and he, with rare tact, diplomacy and
courage, avoided the track of the raiders, and
kept his own people in ignorance of what was
going on, until he had them safely landed at
Fort Reno, Oklahoma.
Clark, at the age of sixteen years, had ac-
companied General Albert Sidney Johnston
to Salt Lake City, to impress the Mormons into
a state of mind acknowledging that the domin-
ion of the United States meant Utah, as well
as other states. He was at Ash Hollow in the
summer of 1857, when the Cheyennes attacked
the wagon train and killed three of the party.
This was Clark's first experience with Indians,
but he later became a scout of great renown.
When Dull Knife's band reached the sand
hills of Nebraska, they scattered into small
bands, and the pursuit of any single band re-
sulted in that band breaking into fragments,
and if a capture was effected, it was only a
single Indian. The soldiers, weary of the long
chase, and the baffling tactics of the Indians,
went to Fort Robinson ; and after a brief re-
spite, together with re-enforcements of sol-
diers, and friendly Sioux, the pursuit was re-
sumed
On October 23d, one hundred and forty-nine,
which included Dull Knife's fragment of the
band, together with Wild Hog, were captured
by Captain Johnson. The remainder of the
fugitives, under Little Wolf, escaped in a
snow storm. These captured were taken, still
protesting to Fort Robinson, and were confined
in an empty barrack room. They declared that
they would die, rather than be taken back to
Indian Territory.
Red Cloud requested of the army officers
that the knives be taken away from the Indians,
for in event that the government should order
that they be taken again south, they would,
rather than yield to the order, take their own
lives. This request was ignored by the mili-
tary. In. the time that elapsed in getting orders
from Washington there was apparently some
laxity in vigilence, and the Indians had gotten
possession of about fifteen guns and some pis-
tols.
On the 3d day of January. 1879, the order
came to return them to Indian Territory, and
the next day Wild Hog gave an unequivocal
negative to the proposition, saying that the fol-
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
83
lowing would prefer to die. There were forty-
nine men, fifty-one women, and forty-eight
children prisoners at the time, and it was un-
dertaken to starve and freeze them into sub-
mission. Water was denied them three days,
and fuel and food five days, but it was ineffec-
ual. Dull Knife was wary, and Wild Hog. af-
ter being induced to come out, was put in
irons, after stabbing a soldier.
At this, the others barricaded the doors, and
covered the windows to conceal their move-
ments. They then tore up the floors and con-
structed rifle pits in the enclosure, to command
all the windows. About ten o'clock at night,
on the night of January 9th, they killed two
sentinels, took their guns and made good their
escape. As they fled over the snow in the val-
ley of Soldier creek, the alarm was given and
hundreds of shots were exchanged with not
many casualties, after which a tense quietness
settled on the Pine Ridge hills.
There was a ranchman, named Bronson, who
had located about five miles south of the fort,
the first actual settler in the present limits of
Dawes county, and he and his man heard the
noise of battle. Knowing the danger if the
Indians had broken out, and especially if they
should happen to make their break to the
southward. Bronson and man mounted their
horses and rode toward the fort, keeping a
sharp lookout. As they topped the Pine Ridges
south of the valley, they could see it laying
white with snow under the full moon, and not
a sign of life. The fort was absolutely dark,
save for one feeble needle of light. In the si-
lence, they moved forward, and came upon
tracks in the snow, indicating, the route taken
by the fugitives. There was a dark spot upon
the snow, that as they approached proved to be
Buffalo Hump, a relative of Dull Knife, and he
was near unto death. So near, that his only
movement thereafter was a futile attempt to
kill Bronson, which effort took his last ounce
of vitality, and he fell back in the snow, dead.
There were a number of engagements in the
Pine Ridges the following several days, and of
the one hundred and forty-nine that escaped,
there were killed a total of thirty-two, and sev-
enty-one were re-captured. Of the forty-six
still at large, nineteen were warriors. After
several skirmishes and escapes these were in-
tercepted January 22, by Captain Wessells, and
twenty-three were killed and nine re-captured.
The other fourteen joined Little Wolf's band,
and on March 25th, Lieutenant Clark captured
Little Wolf on the Box Elder, and with him,
thirty-three warriors and eighty-one women
and children.
Officially Dull Knife was reported killed in
some of the skirmishes in the Pine Ridges, or
bad lands, although all information, except the
official records, is to the effect that he lived
for many years after. Bronson says that Dull
Knife was with the Ogallalas, and that his
later years were full of moroseness, and he
was a sour and surly old Indian.
Of the three hundred and thirty-five that left
Indian Territory, seventy-two were the total
number killed. Two hundred and six were re-
captured, and sixty finally made good their es-
cape. They won their fight, however, for in-
stead of sending them south, the others were
brought north from the territory. The tribe
was given a reservation in Montana, to which
many of them were taken, but a large number
remained with the Sioux, and some of them
still live on the Pine Ridge reservation.
That was practically the end of Indian fight-
ing in western Nebraska. It is true that about
1890, there was a scare that went over the
homestead territory, and the Medicine man,
Sitting Bull, the incorrigible, worked a few
of the tribe into a frenzy. "Ghost Dancing"
was initiated, and some of the younger In-
dians had a slight reversion to the blood lust
of early years. Sitting Bull was killed, and
the Battle of Wounded Knee, nearly north of
Rushville. was only a small affair compared
with early Indian fights, and that was the last
flare of the dying fire.
W. P. Clark, captain of the Second Cavalry,
followed the work of Major North in training
Indians for scouting and police work. North
had a number of Pawnees at Summit Springs
when Tall Bull's band was annihilated ; and as
they were preparing to go into battle, they dis-
carded Uncle Sam's uniforms, and wore only
breachclouts. They painted the bodies thick
with vermillion, red and black. That was their
idea of how to dress for a fight.
In 1876, when gold was discovered in the
Black Hills, it made a big rush, and with con-
sequent irritation to the Indians. Captain
Clark was established at Red Cloud Agency on
White River with three hundred Indian scouts
— • Pawnee, Shoshone, Arapahoe, Cheyenne,
Crow and Sioux. There were six tribes having
six different vocal languages, yet thev managed
to converse fluently and with ease. It was by
the common sign language, and under such
conditions it could not otherwise than impress
one with its value and beauty.
On the march, by the camp fires, at early
dawn, or just before the battle, one could see
the signs, the recognition, and the perfect un-
derstanding. The sign language extended to
the Assinoboines, Gros Ventres of the Prairie.
84
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
the Bannocks, the Mandans and the Arikaries.
It was the universal language of the race.
So impressed was General Sheridan with
its importance that he detailed Captain Clark
to prepare and submit to him a work on the
silent language. This was not completed until
1881 ; too late to be of value in the wars, but
of great interest and merit. Old Indian fight-
ers and frontiersmen had, however, absorbed
much of it in the earlier years, and it was of
much use to them from time to time.
Its value lay in not only being able to com-
municate and receive impressions, but it check-
ed unreliable interpreters. Sometimes, after a
crooked interpreter would convey one impres-
sion, a silent sign from a friendly would tell
the observer the truth.
Indians can sit for hours with only an oc-
casional grunt, yet their hands are unweaving a
tale, or they are exchanging opinions. There
was a child among the Sioux, that was dumb,
but she could talk fluently with her hands.
Even the Zodiac was crudely exemplified in
the silent language of the Indians. The Trail
to the Happy Hunting Grounds was indicated
by "the sign of the milky way," for the starry
pathway across the sky was believed by the
Indians to be the "Long, long trail." Arapa-
hoes who fainted, and came to, said they had
been along the Milky Way, and had seen the
tepees and game.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE WINDING STORY— SAGES TALE OF ORGIES — THE NEW DAWN
"The story winds as winds the river," and
memory and history goes back along the Red
Cloud Trail, when it did not bear the distinc-
tion of the common translation of the name,
"Marpiya Luta." It was used, however, by
the trapper and the trader, and the country of
North Sioux county, then unorganized, was
alive with dangers similar to those that marked
the close of Indian wars. The benevolent as-
similation of all that the Indian possessed was
in progress. The red man was drugged with
the sweetened fire-water, and fought and rob-
bed and murdered to get more.
When the Indian fought the emigrants and
stages and pony express along the Great White
Medicine Road, they were fighting for their
own as they viewed it. The signal fires that
burned at night on the hills the length of the
North Platte Valley, the signal smokes that
curled upward from the hills by day, the fire-
arrows that marked lurid streaks across the
dark skies of the terrible wilderness, the silence
of the night, the sudden pandemonium- of
sound, the whirlwind of activity, leaving death
in its wake, the disappearing shadows, and
then again the silence. That was the part of
the Indian life that homeseekers, goldseekers,
and early patriots of the west found.
But brutal commercialism found another
side. Life, morality, soul, all the finer In-
stincts of man, were subordinated and sub-
merged in the one great purpose of greed. The
stories of Sage in Rock Mountain Travels, in-
clude events in the history of the Panhandle
of Nebraska. Sage went out over the route
later designated as the Red Cloud Trail, with
a party of the traders, and his is a harrowing
recital of the drama of life on the Running
Water and White River in 1845.
"Soon after arrival at White River, a man
was sent to a nearby Indian village, with a
keg of diluted rum for the purpose of trade.
The Indians wanted it "as a gift on the
prairie," which the trader refused. A fight
ensued, and the trader and two protecting sol-
diers were beaten off, the former after having
been dragged through the lodge fire three or
four times, narrowly escaped with his life.
"The Indians then attacked and took the
trading post of the American Fur Company,
and robbed it of both liquor and goods."
About the same time two traders from an-
other fur company appeared and one had liq-
uor and the other goods to trade. The Indians
were treated, and as usual, commenced to fight.
In the end they attacked the other trader. He
was compelled to flee, and through the friend-
ly assistance of squaws, he managed to escape
with his life. His goods were taken, and one
of the Indians who had defended him, was
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
85
murdered, while several others suffered
wounds.
Not long after, Choteau's man was shot at
three or four times, and one of his guards
wounded. Another, while serving liquor was
stabbed, and but for timely assistance would
have been murdered. And still another was
compelled to stand over a hot fire, nearly
roasting alive, while Indians helped themselves
to his stock. Two warriors entered a trader's
post for a blanket. They were intoxicated
and one of them was in the act of stabbing an
unsuspecting clerk, when Sage caught his
wrist. This trader was later, when sur-
rounded by all his men. shot at and narrowly
escaped death. And then, one night a party
of Indians tried to burn his store, but the logs
were too green to burn.
Sage was a partisan of the American Fur
Company, and sought to enlist the interest of
an old chief, by giving him a "soldier suit"
to wear. Bull Eagle, another chief, was in-
toxicated and laughed at him. Inflamed he
rushed to Sage's quarters, intending to kill
"Yellow Hair," as Sage was called. He was
tall, well made, and wild-eyed. Bull Eagle,
in sudden anger appeared, and made a thrust
at him with his knife, but the old chief caught
the blade and nearly severed two of his fingers.
His wife then interfered, but twenty of the
partisans fought it out, while the white people
stood around observing neutrality. Two were
killed and others hurt. Two hours later the
chief re-appeared and apologized and he and
Sage became famous friends.
Sage also tells of a grand jollification at
Fort Laramie, that "rivalled Bedlam and the
Council Chamber beyond the Styx. Yelling,
screeching, firing, shouting, fighting, swearing
and such interesting performances were kept
up without intermission, and there was no re-
pose." Liquor sold for four dollars a pint.
Men and women ran from lodge to lodge with
vessels containing liquor. Susa-ceicha fell
from his horse, while riding between Fort
Platte and Fort John, and broke his neck.
Low Bow, his son. preached a sermon, calling
on "Wakan-tunga" the Great Spirit for help.
All the Indians" cried like children, and the
whites helped prepare a burial scaffold.
After all the chaos of early years, we won-
der that there is anything left of the red men ;
but time and another generation accomplish
marvelous changes. There was a change in
the few years that followed the visit of Sage.
It was effervescing at that time.
When he and his friends built their cabin
by the curiously shaped rocks on White river,
then called "the Devil's Teapot," they encoun-
tered a nest of thirty-six torpid rattlesnakes.
They heated water and scalded them to death
in the presence of several Indians. This un-
usual proceeding struck the Indians with ap-
prehension, as they had a sort of reverence for
the serpent. For Standing Bear, the chief, it
was the slaying of the dragons. It broke the
chains of a mentality, theretofore bound down
by custom and precedent.
Sometime later, an Indian stole Sage's bed,
and while he was looking for it, the noble red
man was trading it for liquor. Standing Bear
apprehended the culprit, took his bows and
arrows. He broke and shot away the arrows
and broke and burned the bows, and then he
sent the victim, dubbed a squaw, t> his tent,
bellowing like a calf.
In the soul of Standing Bear, the "new
day" was breaking. And the highly intelli-
gent Indian, the farmer and the cattle raiser
of the Pine Ridge, may some day know that
the destruction of the serpents in White river,
started the new thought, which, when the fires
of the fourteen years of war burned out, left
his race a new people, and his tribe with new
ideals, and a destiny in common with the prog-
ress of the years.
There was another Indian born in the years
too soon. That little brown maiden who in
the early years dabbled her feet in the cool
waters of Spotted Tail springs, and played in
the nearby sands ; who looked up roguishly at
the first white men. and who wiggled her
shapely toes under the edge of her brightly
colored calico gown, when white folks stop-
ped to look at her.
Ah-ho-ap-pa (White Flower), the daughter
of the chief Spotted Tail, in her first vision
of budding womanhood, wanted to marry a
particular white man, and finding this was im-
possible she was content to be nearby. Then
she wanted her people to settle down, and live
in houses like white people. She did not
want them to be at war with the white race,
and through all the years of the last great con-
flagration she suffered, and plead for the cause
of peace.
To cure her infatuation for an officer at
Fort Laramie, Spotted Tail took her over to
the far Powder river. Here she pined away
and died, the doctors said of tuberculosis, but
the soul of White Flower has never died. "The
dawn" for the new Indian race was breaking.
and had she lived, she could have seen her
daughters graduating at Carlisle, and teaching
the younger Indians on (he Pine Ridge hills.
But how "could she know what the generations
would bring forth? She who stood almost
alone in the vears of awful strife. Could her
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
fancy paint the daughters of her tribe, in mod-
ish garments of silk and hig-heeled shoes, as
now we see them occasionally walking in the
thoroughfares of Alliance, Chadron, Crawford,
Gordon and Rushville?
She had asked to be buried at Fort Laramie,
where she would always be near the white
people, whom she idolized, and they swung her
body between two ponies, and carried it thus
two hundred miles to the river. They wrapped
her body in beautifully dressed deer skins, and
out north of the present ruin that was once the
post hospital, they erected a scaffold, for her
burying place. The soldiers helped to erect
the scaffold, they went out to meet the burial
pageant, and over her resting place they fired
the burial salute. . Her favorite white horse
was killed and its head and tail fastened to the
scaffold, that she might ride to the Happy
Hunting Grounds.
Not only in the Mists of the Hereafter does
White Flower live. The new Indian girls see
the embodiment of her far-off vision in the
present progress of her people. While In-
dian boys of the second and third generations
after the intellectual liberation of Standing
Bear, accept the standard of our civilization,
and join in the universal sentiment of 'Am-
erica, advance."
PART III
WHEN CATTLE MEN WERE KINGS
CHAPTER I
WHEN CATTLE MEN WERE KINGS
The passing of the Indian menace in west-
ern Nebraska, brought into prominence its
capacity as a range. True, before that, it had
been brought to the attention of freighters, and
"the builders" who had their herds of oxen,
commonly called "bull herds," in the land about
us.
From every source available we have thought
to make this part of the story of the develop-
ment of the high plains, complete, there being
no authentic record. Only fragmentary inci-
dents here and there, that have fiction and in-
accuracy as a basis or for filling, it gives but
little idea of the magnitude of the business.
Naturally from the broken stories — the ma-
terial at hand — this part will be broken and
rambling, like the life of the nomadic cow-
boys — here today and there tomorrow.
Some writers have said, that sometimes,
these plains and these times will furnish the
basis for a novel that will sweep popular fic-
tion like a prairie fire. A few have under-
taken to fulfill the prophecy.
Mrs. E. Joy Johnson, in "The Foreman of
J-A-Six" has brought out some of the proper
coloring, and has taken for her characters
real persons. Very naturally, those whom she
admired occupied the prominent place in her
story and the novelist idea creeps in, regard-
less of the best efforts to keep it out.
William R. Lighten in his "Billy Fortune"
series, has delineated the character of many
of the range people correctly, although his
stories were not pretended to be history. There
are others who have attempted to portray the
cowboy character, which have brought out the
grosser of exaggerated types.
I find particular objection to the stories that
picture the man of the range, on a dance floor
with his "chaps" on, or wearing a hat or spurs
or gun. When such are given, it shows the
ignorance of the writer. He never saw a cow-
boy dance, but has been at some low joint call-
ed a "dance hall" where "four-flushers" and
tinhorn gamblers congregate ; a place that
would not exist if the cowboys were the only
patrons.
The history, the incidents here related, come
to me from years of association with old set-
\r "Signal Buttes"
tiers, cowmen particularly and from the most
authentic sources available. They will come
as near to a chronicle of the facts as will prob-
ably ever be written, for I have made consider-
able effort that it be true to the epoch that
followed the Indian wars.
Among those who have contributed by let-
ter, story, word or book, to that which I in-
clude, are William A. Paxton, John A. Creigh-
ton, John A. McShane, Tohn Bratt, Major
Walker, W. F. Cody. A. B. Hall. I I. Mc-
intosh, Colin Hunter, Colonel Pratt. Mark M.
Coad, Bartlett Richards. W. I. Kelly, Henry
T. Clarke, S. J. Robb. John 'Wright'. Charles
H. McDonald, and a score of others now that
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
have taken the "long, long trail," to Other
Ranges.
And from those living, (1919), Frank and
Jess Yoder, H. V. Redington, R. U. Vantassel,
John Adams, Charles F. Coffee, John Hunton,
Granville Tinnen, Joe Wilde, Eugene A. Hall,
Perry Braziel, Robert Graham, Charles Nel-
son, Runey C. Campbell, Robert Harvey,
Colonel Joe Atkins, L. J. Wyman, Morrill Wy-
We drove our car to his very door, and as
the rain had begun to fall it was suggested that
we drive it upon his porch, which is a prodig-
ious affair. It extends three hundred and
fifty feet in length and sixteen feet wide along
the length of his "residence," and the bal-
cony floor forms the roof of the lower porch
and is itself covered, and extends the full
length and breadth of the lower porch.
'Branding Calves"
man. Ark (Henry county) Hughes, W. F.
Connoly, Tom Snow, Dan McUlvane, Tom
Powers, W. L. Wallace, Charlie Foster, Cap-
tain Cook, S. P. DeLatour, J. W. Harper, A.
S. Neuman, W. F. Gumaer, Billy King, Harry
Hynds, John Evans, Tom Hughes, and doz-
ens of other of the old guard have come the
stories of the time when the Panhandle of Ne-
braska was one vast pasture where roamed the
long horns, and where wild horses and the
bronchos ran free in the western wind.
In the new mode of travel, the motor car,
I have gone many miles to find the man or the
setting.
Some time ago we (Mrs. Shumway and I)
were at Fort Laramie to see John Hunton and
Joe Wilde, who were the early settlers. First
we called on Wilde.
We were hospitably entertained by Mr. and
Mrs. Wilde, who for over forty years lived at
Fort Laramie, and this, their dwelling, is a
purchase from the United States, it being for-
merly the soldiers' quarters. Wilde had it
worked over a little and has about half of the
lower story for his dwelling and office and
for feeding the travellers and others who may
be journeying thence and onward. In the up-
per story about fifty rooms have been fitted out
for the accommodation of the public, and the
other half of the upper story is one immense
hall with oak floors used by the people of the
country wide as a meeting and dance hall. It
is one hundred and seventy-five feet long and
twenty-four in width.
Around about this building the barren sever-
ity of soldier's quarters has been changed into
fs Resting and Playing Mumblebeg.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
89
a wilderness of green, and a bower of trees, all
planted by the busy hands of Mr. and Mrs.
Wilde, since the departure of the soldiers, and
in the foreground stood the host, his irrigation
shovel in his hand, and his wife, whose sturdy
German intelligence complemented that of her
husband in the building of this part of the
west.
Back of the home, upon a hill, there stood
a ruin of apparently medieval architecture.
Once it was the hospital, where soldier and civ-
ilian went, or were taken, in the days when
roughing it meant occasionally broken limbs
and bullet wounds. It was not uncommon in
those early days of rough men for quick retort
and challenge and resort to arms. And many a
man was buried in the cemetery with "boots
on" to lie in unmarked graves.
To the west and south of an oblong square
formerly used for parade grounds, stands what
is left of the officers quarters, which were ex-
cellent, well-built domiciles, and in the midst
of them is "Bedlam." This interesting struc-
ture obtained its name from the scenes en-
acted therein by the rough soldiery of early
years.
Two doors north of "Bedlam" now (1919)
lives John Hunton, whose word is accepted as
final in things pertaining to early history.
From him I obtained some interesting facts
concerning the beginning of the cow business
in western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming.
In the early sixties a freighter lost some of
his oxen, and he did not find them until the fol-
lowing spring. In some miraculous manner
• they had escaped the Indians, and their ex-
cellent condition awoke in the mind of many
the same thought, that cattle could be wintered
without care, and that the grasses must be
very nutritious. Then and thereafter the
freighters decided to take a chance. The larg-
er outfits, the Creightons, the Coads, and a few
others, established "ranches" or a headquart-
ers for a few caretakers, who were to look af-
ter the "bull herds," during the winter months.
Bull canyon, in western Banner county, is
one of these wintering places. Another point
was on Cedar creek and Smith's lurk, near
Mud Springs. In Carter canyon is the ruins
of another of the old camps, and there were
many others. The hazards were considerable,
but if they escaped the Indian raids, they
came through the winter in fine shape.
R. Proust, Sr.
As much of the work at that time was gov-
ernment freighting, the government eventually
made good the losses occasioned by the Indians.
Old Bordeaux, who in 1847, looked after
the business of the American Fur Company at
Fort Laramie, had accumulated a few old cows,
maybe a dozen or so, by 1866, and they were
kept about eight miles down the river at Bor-
deaux place. Nick Genice had a similar
bunch on Deer creek about four miles south
of the fort.
90
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER II
STAGE STATION RANCHES — NAMING FORT MITCHELL
ON THE NORTH PLATTE RIVER
FIRST RANCHES
Jules Beni, of early fame, once had a
"ranch," on the south side of the South Platte
about a mile from the mouth of the Lodgepole
creek, and as early as sixty-four this ranch,
which was nothing but a trading post, where
occasionally a lame ox was left to recuperate,
had (like other similar places) been abandoned.
Jock Morrow had such a place near North
Platte, and there were a number of trader sta-
tions called ranches, where the foot worn oxen
were left, and those that had rested were taken
by travellers at a good increase of price over
the amounts paid for them.
Ben Holliday, the big man of the Overland
Stage, appropriated the site of "Jules Ranch,"
and had built extensive barns. He called it
"Julesburg Station." It was several miles up
the river and on the other side, from the pres-
ent town of Julesburg. As was common, he
had the place fortified. He, Holliday, obtain-
ed his wood supply from Jack Morrow's can-
yon.
Ware tells us that there were two crossings
of the Platte at Old Julesburg, one almost op-
posite the station and curving up the stream to
a point about a half mile above the entrance,
and the other several miles farther west. Af-
ter crossing the Platte, these two routes con-
tinued up the Lodgepole on opposite sides for
a number of miles. The lower was called the
"California crossing," and the upper the
"Mormon crossing."
In the autumn of 1864, sod structures were
built one mile west of "old Julesburg" and in
the spring of 1865, Fort Sedgwick came into
being, a military post of the United States hav-
ing been established there.
General Mitchell, for whom Fort Mitchell
came to be named, Camp Shuman being chang-
ed to that name, was in charge of the western
military forces at the time, and the prairies
were unusually good for pasturage. The In-
dians took advantage of the fact and did not
go to the south as usual in the winter. Con-
sequently, General Mitchell determined to drive
them south so that they would cease their mur-
dering and depredations along the Overland
and Denver trails. On the evening of January
27, 1865, he set out prairie fires, simultaneous-
ly all the way from Fort Kearney to Denver.
There was a brisk north wind blowing, and it
"sure" was one sight to see the sheet of flame
three hundred miles long, sweeping over the
table lands to the south, leaving blackness and
desolation in its wake.
The effect of this was to drive the Indians
north of the Platte, and the Indians from the
south were soon joining them, and making life
a hazard of great interest to the people of
this section.
Early in February, they drove off some of
Creightoirs fat work cattle from the head of
Rush creek, and feasted upon them.
J. F. Coad had the contract for hauling wood
for Fort Sedgwick from the wood reserve on
Lawrence fork, and had difficulty with them
also.
These adventures with the oldest of our cat-
tlemen are related elsewhere, but it had the
effect of the establishment of the very first of
all the permanent ranches in this part of the
west ; namely, the Creighton ranch on the
Laramie Plains.
One of the oldest of the ranches to actually
engage in raising cattle as a business is the
Tracy ranch at Pine Bluffs. Mr. Tracy came
to the country as early as 1867, and he cut cord-
wood in the Pine Bluff hills which he sold to
the Union Pacific. This railroad was just then
penetrating into the western part of Nebraska
and they used, handled and sold large quan-
tities of wood. Tracy had one pile of a hun-
dred cords or more, cut in the winter of
1867, or the spring of 1868, waiting for the*
acceptance of the company. In this the gov-
ernment had an interest, and it was cut from
government land. The Indians came upon it
one day, and burned it completely. The gov-
ernment court of claims paid the loss in full
to Mr. Tracy.
Tracy graduated from wood cutting into
ranching in the late sixties, and put in a small
herd of cows and heifers, and from that de-
veloped into reasonably large proportions. He
was not so important as to size, however, as
were the Texas herds that began to arrive
about that time, or the bonanza cattle outfits
that later took over his ranch with the others.
During his life at Pine Bluffs he had many
interesting experiences and Indian troubles,
and it was one of his "herdsman" referred to
by Captain Charles King in his story of
"Trumpeter Fred'."
John Hunton is authority for the statement
that the first real cow business in the vicinity
of Fort Laramie was when Benjamin Buckley
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
91
Mills ( Buck Mills), a Kentuckian, brought two
hundred and fifty short horn cows from
southern Iowa and northern Missouri in Oc-
tober, 186S. These he located on the Laramie
river about three miles up that stream from
the position occupied by the old fort. This
initiation stirred others to activity.
Colonel Bullock, who had been a post trad-
er at the fort was early to see and follow tht
lead of Mr. Mills. He went to eastern Kansas
and western Missouri, and accumulated two
hundred and fifty good shorthorn grades in
cows, and drove them through, arriving at
Fort Laramie late in the Spring of 1869. He
picked out for his ranch location, Bordeaux
place, about ten miles down the Platte river
from Fort Laramie, and purchased the embryo
herd that Bordeaux already had upon the
ground.
John Hunton is a veteran of Fort Laramie,
the Dean is perhaps the right word, for he
is a man of wide knowledge and information.
In 1867, he came to the fort and went to work
for the Post-trader Seth E. Ward. Ward was
succeeded by G. H. and J. Collins, who retain-
ed Hunton for several years.
J, F. Coad, the government wood contract-
or" up to 1872, yielded to Hunton, the contract
for Fort Laramie, which Hunton held for ten
years.
Hunton began to see something in ranch-
ing when the larger herds commenced to ar-
rive, and he located a ranch about four miles
up the river, and began to accumulate cattle.
This he continued during the period he was
supplying wood for the fort. His ranch is a
short distance above the fort, being about two
miles up the Laramie from the crossing of
the new government canal.
The contract for wood supply was very
profitable. Dan McUlvane with five outfits
was employed by Hunton to assist. He re-
ceived five dollars per cord and could haul
twenty cords per day, making twenty dollars
per day for each man and wagon. Dan told
me a short time ago, even at the price, he
failed to lay up very much, until he went into
the cow 1 business, and the cows and increase
grew into money.
In the year 1871, Dan McUlvane, now
(1919) living in Cheyenne, and until recently
interested in the big "Hereford Ranch," at
that place, went to western Missouri and east-
ern Kansas and secured about two hundred
and fifty young shorthorn cows, which he
drove through and established his ranch, on
the Chugwater, about twenty miles southwest
of Fort Laramie. He crossed the Kaw river
on pontoon bridges and drove his herd through
the streets of Topeka, when it was but a vil-
lage.
These were among the first of the ranchers
west of the junction of the Platte rivers. This
magnificent cow country which lies west of the
forks of the Platte, and east of Fort Laramie,
soon was filled with great herds. The first
herds were gathered about the places protected
by forts, no doubt for that very reason.
Phil and Jim Dater, who helped to blaze the
Texas trail brought their cattle up from the
south in 1872, and established the 66 brand on
the north side of Sixty-six mountain. This
brand, and the location of the Sixty-six ranch,
has given rise to many mistakes in early tra-
dition. Some have said that the brand indi-
cated the year of the starting of the business
there, and others tell us that the brand is what
named the mountain. John Hunton would
not be sure about that, but he thought the
mountain was unnamed pior to the locating
of the 66 brand. However, a number of old
timers, namely: D. McUlvane, Colin Hunter,
H. M. Ingraham, and others have said that
the mountain was named before the Daters
appeared in this country. The thrilling events
that led to the naming of mountain forms an-
other chapter in the history of the west. It
was one of the strangest mysteries, and un-
written events in all the chronology of western
Nebraska.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER IV
THE CATTLE OF SIXTY-SIX .MOUNTAIN
The death of M. Goshe in his cabin on
Cherry creek, of Jacques Laramie on the Lara-
mie river, of Gonneville on Pumpkin creek, of
Hiram Scott on Scotts Bluff (mountain), of
Ruleau in the Wild Cat range, of Creel in his
famous Bull canyon, are tragedies that mark-
ed the territory around about Sixty-six moun-
tain, as one of danger and death, long before
the mountain was named. A spot upon the
map of the world when conflict and homicide
seemed inevitable and frequent. It was shun-
ned by the trappers of old, except the most
ventursome, and such as dared its reputation,
almost invariably perished in the wilderness.
The fame of the mountain does not extend
far across the wide reaches of western prairie,
except along the Texas trail, where from the
Panhandle of the Lone Star state to Assinna-
boine, the cow-punchers knew of the Daters
and the famous Sixty-six brand.
Only a few have heard of the battle of
Sixty-six mountain, and most of the early
ranchmen assume that the cattle brand brought
into use the name. Phil and Jim Dater, how-
ever, who came up the trail in 1872, and es-
tablished the ranch, adopted the brand because
the mountain already bore the name. There is
as much confusion of opinions as to the origin
of the name, as there is mystery connected with
the events that are here related.
Several years befor Ed. Stemler came into
the west, Eugene Ware made the discovery of
an abandoned wagon train, near Trapper's
rock, a score or more of miles up the Lodge-
pole, west from old Fort Sedgwick. Yet, it
remained for Ed. Stemler to clear up the mys-
tery of the wagon train, and to provide the
only story of the battle of Sixty-six mountain,
and which also gives an index to the naming of
the mountain. The mystery of it is that Ed.
connected up with these people, and that he
lived and experienced events that transpired
many years before he had come into the west.
About the silence of the wagons, and about
the solitude of Sixty-Six mountain, there is
wrapped one of the great tragedies of the west ;
and one person only can tell that story in all
its graphic details. It forms one of the most
interesting unwritten chapters of adventure,
and frightful consequence, that has ever paint-
ed red spots on the frontier.
The story begins on the banks of the Ohio,
where lived an orphan boy, a little fellow whose
father and mother were gone. He ran about
and played, and made boon companions of
trees and flowers, of dogs and cats, of bees
and butterfles. Children who have not the
things that other children have, things that
are necessary to childlife, will conjure them
from the elements at hand : — "make believe
people," identities created from the animate
and inanimate creatures about them.
The woods, the brook, the river bank with
its myriad life, became his friends. But, one
day they missed him from the familiar haunts,
and for many days thereafter. The lady slip-
per, that rare wild flower, grew unplucked be-
side the trails that he had made. The people
interested in him, his relatives, had many
children of their own ; he was as a fifth wheel
to a wagon, and they thought that he might
make a place for himself in the west. So, at
the age of fifteen or sixteen years, they sent
him out to the far wilderness of Cheyenne,
"to find work upon a ranch."
By way of Denver, he reached Cheyenne in
the middle of a dark and stormy night. He
had no money, and his sole possession aside
from the clothes he wore, was an old horse
pistol which his uncle had given him, and
who said at the time that he "might need it
to fight Indians."
He crawled underneath the wooden platform
that then served at the Union Pacific depot,
and indulged in fitful slunlber until dawn.
Then he sought for a pawn shop, that he might
get rid of his antiquated gun to furnish money
for food. He also sought at the restaurants,
and offered to leave the gun as security for
his breakfast. One of the old night women of
Cheyenne, straggling along in the grey dawn
of morning, saw him, and bought him his
breakfast. Her motherly intuition had sensed
his needs, and her ragged heart had pulsed for
the moment with the eternal sensibility of
charity. Thus even in the lowly and the sin-
ful, the spark of eternity ever shines.
A Black Hills freighter hired the tenderfoot,
being in need of a man to drive a trail wagon.
So, that freighting, and untangling a string
of obstinate miles, was his initiation into the
west ; from which interesting and engaging
pastime, he graduated into his original pur-
pose of "working upon a ranch."
That was more than two score years ago,
and the prairies north of Cheyenne, was where
he kept lonely vigils, caring for, and moving
the cattle from place to place. It was monoton-
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
93
ous labor, and he longed for the woods, and
the woodland companions on the banks of the
Ohio. The bees and the butterflies were calling
him.
The lone environment, the solitude of the
prairies, are enough to try the intellects of
mature people, and there is graver danger for
the young. Out of the high tablelands, the
mirage makes everything seem so unreal.
Lakes where lakes are not, trees where the
trees have never grown, inverted cities on
the sky, mountains lifting themselves suddenly
from the plain, to sink back again at one's
approach.
No wonder lone herdsmen and lonely set-
tlers became insane ; no wonder they build
small habitations on the summits of hills or
mountains where the "desert devils" find it
difficult to reach ; no wonder that many of
the herdsmen on reaching frontier-towns stand
about and count the people, the vehicles, the
trees, and watch the wheels go around ; or else
take to drink, for the queer things of drunk-
enness are more substantial than desert things.
A "touch of the prairie," is madness incipi-
ent, and unless relief comes in some exciting di-
version, or in the rush of tears, the victim will
perish in the wilderness, or come wandering
into the edges of civilization in a sort of driv-
iling lunacy that may be permanent.
The writer remembers well his own experi-
ences in Goshe's Holes, now called Goshen
Park, where the goblins of the desert led him
from place to place, without food or water,
until he felt almost as etherial and wisplike
as the most immaterial of them. Whether it
was by accident or otherwise, Joe Wilde, the
well known veteran of Fort Laramie, found
me, and piloted me. to the safety of his home.
And I can sympathize with Ed Stemler, the
Buckeye boy, who, when alone in the wilder-
ness, would seek the highest points of land,
and look as far back east as his eyes could
reach, and where he would bawl his heart out
with a terrible, terrifying grief, with no wit-
nesses save the brassy, unresponsive sky. Ex-
cept for the clinging clay, he would tear away
through the miles of intervening space to the
hills that nourished him. When the tempest of
his homesickness passed and the frame shook
spasmodically with subsiding sobs, he would
return to the duties of the range.
By and by, the prairies began to look differ-
ent, he began to make friends with the cattle
he tended, the horses he rode, and other life
of the plains.
Nomadic red men drifted by at intervals
and he had no fear of them. Like Fiddler
Campbell, he found heartease in the music of
his violin. Astride his horse, without instruc-
tion, he learned to ply the bow with his left
hand, while with his right he held the instru-
ment upside down, its drum upon the saddle
horn, and its neck extending upwards. In the
later days, at the round-up and granger dances,
he held the inverted fiddle upon his knees and
the music was good.
A Mrs. Stickney, a writer of some note, once
visited La Grange, and later published an ac-
curate descriptive story of a round-up dance.
The stories of Emerson Hough, in which he
describes cowboys dancing in chaps and with
spurs jingling, is purely fiction, and Mrs.
Stickney did not yield to such impulses to
ranmble and exaggerate. But she did describe
the violinist as a "bow-legged, left-handed,
red-headed and freckle-faced fiddler, who play-
ed with the violin standing on its head."
If one recognizes anyone from this descrip-
tion, perhaps one best be as circumspect as
was Mrs. Stickney, and mention no name, for
though now a grizzled veteran of the prairies,
the described can clip the ears of a coyote
at a distance of one hundred yards with his
old forty-five, or a much greater distance with
his new forty-thirty.
Ed. Stemler, in his long years on the
prairies, has had his little fights and his one
great battle. In 1888, I "met up" with him at
a roundup dance, and although intimately ac-
quainted, I have never heard him relate of his
adventures, nor whisper of the great battle
of Sixty-six mountain.
Only recently did this story come to me,
in the quiet undertone of an old plainsman,
who sat in my office and related it, in the sub-
dued tone of conversation that comes of long
hours alone, when one talks much to one's
self, for the companionship of a human voice,
or in speaking soothingly to cattle when night
riding about a herd — 'so not to startle them
— for wild cattle always seem ready to stam-
pede. I had heard of it before, but had never
heard the story in its entirety until the side
partner of "Shanghai" Pierce, dropped a few
words that put me on the trail.
It was after the Union Pacific was builded,
and the old Overland trails were falling into
disuse, that Ed. Stemler came into the west,
and the summit of Sixty-six mountain knew
his homesick .grief and loneliness. Likewise
the summits of Wild Cat mountain, of Big
Horn and Bear mountains, and the High Di-
vide of Flowerfield, or the Lone Pine emi-
nence near the head of Lawrence fork.
One day he left his herds on the Flowerfield
Swell and started for Ohio. He was riding
down the Lodgepole when he came upon the
94
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
deserted wagons. The mystery of them ap-
pealed to him, and for the balance of the day,
he rummaged in the chests found in the wag-
ons. He handled the harnesses and rattled the
chains. Night came on and after dark, the
Shadows. The People came back to the wag-
ons.
He walked among them, glad to companion-
ship, and he heard their story :
They were a party of emigrants, and had
left Julesburg several days previously; the
grasses of the Lodgepole valley were so allur-
ing to them and their worn stock, that when
they reached the point where the Jules Cut-
off left the valley for the table-lands, they
were reluctant to follow the continental thor-
oughfare.
So, up the Lodgepole valley they contin-
ued for several miles. Here amidst luxurious
grasses they formed the regular corral of
their wagons by drawing them to a circle, and
the stock was turned loose to graze.
Early in the evening the wolves appeared
howling about them in great numbers, and
they wished their horses were safely within
the enclosure. The campers were unable to
determine certainly whether the cries were ac-
tually those of marauding wild beasts or In-
dians imitating them. If beasts, they should
stay to their fires, if Indians, they should take
to the shadows. A clatter of hoofs told that
the horses had stampeded to the west. The
howling continued about the camp, but in di-
minished volume until nearly dawn.
In the morning the emigrants on foot start-
ed upon the trail. The women and children,
hardy and strong, joined, rather than be left
behind, at the mercy of any nomadic band that
might come prowling about.
The trail of the runaway horses took the
emigrants to the head of "Lorren's Fork," then
to the springs in the hills bordering Gonneville
or Pumpkin creek. Now they had come back,
but were going again. Abandoning his pur-
pose of going to Ohio, the lone herdsman
hereafter journeyed with them, showing them
the way to Fort Laramie. He knew the route,
the watering places, and the passes in the
hills. They left the wagons where they stood.
At the head of Pumpkin creek valley, on
the west line of the state, a part in Nebraska,
and a larger part in Wyoming, stands an emi-
nence. Its summit is six miles long east and
west. It is five hundred feet above surround-
ing plains, and five thousand feet above the
sea. Its rugged slopes and base cover fifteen
or twenty sections of land.
When the granger came, it was called Sixty-
six mountain.
There were sixty-six emigrants, moving
along the base of this mountain, one fatal day,
when they were beset with Cheyenne Indians.
They took refuge in the hills and fought long
and hard. It was days before the remnant of
the sixty-six were overcome near a spring on
the north side of the mountain, and here it
was that Ed. Stemler fell, as the others had
fallen, fighting stubbornly.
There is a superstition among the Indians
about red hair, atid it is said this fact is all
that saved him from the shocking fate, and
the scalping meted out to the others.
How long it was after the massacre that
Ed. revived, he had no means of knowing,
and why he set about and buried the dead, and
why he went back to the herds north of Pine
Bluffs, and why no report was ever made, are
things which will give rise to lively speculation
forever. My life and experiences on the range
enable me to speculate more clearly, perhaps,
than others.
After a few weeks of solitude, an adven-
ture like this, and its miraculous finale for
the one that lived, and who knew no reason
why he had been spared, will make it all seem
like a vagrant dream. A nightmare of the
prairie, a figment that never had real sub-
stance.
Why had he left his herds? What directed
him to these people, and how came they there ?
Why had the Indians singled him out, and
avoided dealing him the fatal injury? Surely,
it must have been a dream, like, so many of
the wild things he had dreamed before, out
there in the solitude.
So he said nothing of it. And years later
he built his ranch house on the mountain side,
by the spring where the last stand had been
taken.
A long time after, he told a few, only a few,
and they with admonitions of secrecy. Secrecy
because the story of the battle of Sixty-six
mountain, if generally bandied about, would
lead someone to doubt his integrity or his
sanity. But Ed. Stemler is both sane and
honest, and the story will not harm him now.
For over forty years he has lived on the
66, sometime on one slope of the mountain and
sometimes on the other, but always with the
wraiths of the 66 emigrants that faded out of
the world over a half century ago.
He has his thousands of acres, and his thou-
sand cattle, but sometimes at night, the moon-
light calls out images from the rocks — images
of the long ago — and the shadows flee and flit
from shelter to shelter, spectrals fighting a
battle in silence, a battle which years ago in-
volved tumult and noise. The "nieht herd is
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
95
running," and Ed. knows every detail in ad-
vance, and he is sure now of what he did not
know — that the color of his hair rendered him
immunity from the scalping knife, and spared
him for the years of usefulness to come.
(This narrative is given, not as history, al-
though many believe it a true account of the
battle, but for what it is worth, and as one of
the shadowy affairs of the unwritten long
ago. Eugene Ware found the wagons in per-
fect order, and and where the wheels rested
upon the ground, the sand and dust had drifted
over the felloes, and grass was growing in
the newly made ground. The harnesses were
rotting on the wagon tongues. That Stemler
knew of these wagons, that in the solitudes
and the isolation he came in touch with People
already gone, that in some way he connected
up with Them, and Intelligence went through
Experiences and in Companionship of pos-
sibly ten years before, is an explanation satis-
factory to many old plainsmen, who have heard
Voices out of the past, when alone in the si-
lence of the prairie.)
CHAPTER V
THE RIDE OF DAN DILLON AND OTHERS— THE START OF THE TENAS TRAIL
A few years ago (1916) I met Dan Mc-
Ulvane and Colin Hunter in Cheyenne and
had a long talk with them of early ranch life.
McUlvane was pretty nearly an old timer
when he went into the cow business in 1870.
Six years before, or in 1864, he had whacked
bulls from Leavenworth to Fort Laramie, un-
der the government wagon boss, Merin Car-
lisle.
Colin Hunter, who since 1872 had a ranch at
the confluence of Little Horse creek with
Horse creek proper, recently died in Chey-
enne. He owned the old ranch at the time of
his death, and his son. Tom Hunter, still owns
it. Tom has an office in Cheyenne. Colin
Hunter was coming with a wagon train to Fort
Laramie in 1867, when, on July 4th, the sound
of guns attracted their attention. The sight
of the blue coats gave them some apprehen-
sion. When the shooting subsided, they found
the soldiers and a civilian or two, with one
dead white man in their midst.
Just what the difficulty was they could not
learn, nor did he ever learn, but the dead man
was killed by a white man's bullet, and the
shot was fired from behind the bank of the
river. This happened near Bordeaux's place.
The dead man was George Riptoe, whose ex-
periences along with others followed the mas-
sacre at Fort Phil Kearney up on the Piney,
and the rescue of that beleagured garrison.
Coutant tells a pretty story of the famous
ride of John Phillips on Colonel Carrington's
fine thoroughbred, all the way alone through
the bitter cold Christmas weather, from the
Piney to Horseshoe station. There is another
story which many old timers tell concern-
ing that message and how it was transmitted,.
that I am led to believe, after much inquiry.
Many of the older people will remember
Jim Bellamy, and his Nine Mile station, or
ranch nine miles up the Platte river from Fort
Laramie.
On the night of December 24, 1866, late in
the night, Bellamy and Daniel McUlvane, and
several others were sitting by a roaring fire
at Nine Mile station, when out of the bitter
cold and darkness appeared four horsemen,
whose names should go down in history. They
were Dan Dillon, big diffident Dan, Sam
Gregory, George Riptoe and John Phillips.
They had all ridden all the way from Fort Phil
Kearney.
Dillon was the bearer of dispatches, and
asked if they could get a wire to the Fort at
Laramie. They had previously tried to do
so from Horseshoe station farther west, but
could not. The storm of the Indians had put
the line out of commission, but as their horses
were utterly exhausted, they had to put up
for a rest.
Dan gave the dispatches to Bellamy, who
locked them in his big chest for the night. All
rested for several hours, and early the next
morning, Bellamy gave Dillon the dispatches
again, and the four journeyed on to the fort.
All who mention it tell me that Dillon and not
Phillips was the bearer of the dispatches.
96
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
Old Bedlam was alive with a merry party,
which had been dancing all the night. On the
upper floors the officers had administrative
quarters, and the lower part of the building
was full of the dancers. Dillon, because of his
bashfulness, found it difficult to attract the no-
tice of any of the soldiers who were busy
dancing attention to the ladies ; and while hesi-
tating, Phillips grabbed the dispatches from his
hands, ran into the throng, and up the stairs
to the officers' quarters.
When Coutant wrote his history, these four
men were scattered to the four winds. Riptoe
had been killed, and Dillon was supposed to be
in Mexico. Gregory, who had later been chief
of police in Laramie City, had departed for
parts unknown. Coutant's story came from
Phillips and from his patriotic political friends.
The historian is now also dead, he having died
at Chinook, in the far northwest.
Dan Dillon, the bearer of the message that
reached the fort, having returned from the
south and rejoined his command, was in 1881,
given some dispatches at Fort Robinson, Ne-
braska, for delivery on the other side of the
Indian reservation, at Fort Meade, South Da-
kota. He vanished somewhere in the Chey-
enne river country. Nor has he or his remains,
.or any of his effects, horse, saddle, or accouter-
ments, ever been found. Possibly the quick-
sands of the river could tell more of faithful
Dan, but they only whisper on and on in
voices mysterious and unintelligible to us all.
From a very early date the mines about
Hartville, Wyoming, had been prospected. In
fact, the time antedates any record, and it
was believed that the white people who were
separated several hundred years ago, a frag-
ment of which were never heard from, might
have been among the early men at Hartville.
This is the purest conjecture, however, and
only the fragments of old tools give evidence
of early pilgrims of superior intelligence.
During the days of the cowmen it again be-
came quite a center of activity, and here was
one of the relaxation points of the west. Oth-
ers were Antelopeville, Cheyenne, Ogallala,
Sidney, and Camp Clarke. Alliance, the pres-
ent headquarters of the Stockmen's associa-
tion, was not then on the map. The Box Butte
table lay in all its virgin glory under the west-
ern sun.
The Texas trail was three hundred miles
wide, if you take in all its deflections and rami-
fications. From east of Ogallala to the Lara-
mie plains ran the parallel lines of trvael, some-
times crossing one another, according to the
idea of the men having a herd in charge, as
to pasturage and water.
Occasionally somewhere between the start-
ing point and the destination, a large herd
would entirely disappear, and with it the men
in charge. The general belief was that these
were gigantic thefts, but there came a story
filtering into the south country, of a mysterious
arroyo or canyon, somewhere about the vicin-
ity of the southeast corner of Colorado, where
these herds of cattle were stampeded by a
phatom steer, run over a bluff, and all killed.
I think I shall tell this story as it came to
me more than a score of years ago.
The route of the original Texas Trail was
not direct, it swung eastward across Oklahoma,
or Indian Territory, to Coffeyville ; then swung
westward up the Arkansas river valley a hun-
dred or more miles, and while such a route
had water advantages over a route more di-
rect, I had often wondered if that was the
reason for its being in such an indirect way.
The story came to me in the later eighties,
that in about 1860, a herd had been sent north
by the direct route, but that it never reached
the Arkansas river. Searching parties failed
to disclose what became of them although they
found evidences of a stampede near the south-
west corner of Kansas. The following year
another expedition was planned but it met with
the same fate. Not a trace beyond a few miles
from where they had appeared to stampede.
The next expedition was manned with a
bunch of trustworthy men, and absolutely fear-
less. It occurred to the owners that perhaps
somewhere off to the westward someone or
several were starting new ranches at the ex-
pense of the Texas owners. So after sending
out the original party, a second outfit of ten
men and a wagon were directed to follow.
Their duty was apparently to pick up the strag-
glers that were left behind, or that would
get up in the night and start back along the
trail.
One of those beautiful moonlight nights so
common to the southwest, while the cattle were
all lying down apparently at ease, they sud-
denly arose, and after a brief thunder of hoofs,
seemed to melt into the moonlight mist, and
the night riders had gone with them. When
daylight came the trail was followed a short
distance after which it became too indistinct to
follow. In the night a sudden whirl wind had
arisen and shifting sands had obliterated the
tracks. The country about was searched close-
ly for many miles, but with barren results.
The returning men to the Texas range were
so chagrined that they begged the privilege
of taking a smaller bunch, and go over the
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
97
same trail. Only two of these men returned,
and their story ended trailing cattle through
that particular section of the south for a great
many years.
They had crossed the Kansas line as usual,
and the night was one of those typical stam-
peding nights. The utmost vigilence had been
observed. The night herd had been doubled,
and they were to move about the dozing cattle,
and to keep up whistling or singing the sooth-
ing tones that only night-herders know will
tend to keep the cattle from taking alarm.
As John A Lomax says in his book : "The
Songs of The Cowboy."
"What keeps the herds from running,
Stampeding far and wide?
The cowboy's long, low whistle
And singing by their side."
Suddenly, like one, the entire herd arose,
and the silence of the night was changed to a
pandemonium of sound. The earth trembled
with the beating of hoofs, the cowboy's tran-
quil call rose to a shrill crescendo, shouts and
shots woke the startled prairie owls, and all
was feverish anxiety. The two men who re-
turned to Texas were at the camp, when the
tornado of activity awoke. They were a little
behind the others ; one was a little in advance
of the other, and both were riding to overtake
the herd.
One of the riders far in advance suddenly
disappeared, then another went down, and that
meant ground to death under the feet of the
trampling steers. One after another the head
riders fell, and there were left but the two.
One was riding into the rear, and the other shut
his eyes for a moment, for such a perform-
ance meant only one thing, and that, death.
Instantly he opened them again for in closing
his eyes he had apparently closed his ears. The
Pandemonium of sound had ceased. When
he looked forward, it was upon an empty plain,
save for the one lone horseman, that came
riding back to him.
"Did you see it?" he asked.
The other had seen nothing that could be
designated as "It."
"The Phantom Steer" said the first spokes-
man. "As sure as we live there was a big,
shadowy steer that led the bunch, and these
that came on became as he, for I rode through
them, and cut them with my rope, time after
time."
The Phantom Steer was a Thing in the
semi-mythology of the west, that always leads
herds and men "to the end of the trail." And
they say, out in that section of the land some-
where, there is an arroyo where the herds have
gone down, led by this mysterious creature,
and if you will go there at night when the
moon is full, you can see the shadows moving,
and you can hear the "moo" as of belated
cattle'.
So the Texas Trail was swung away to the
east, where the Thing did not interfere with
safe delivery on to the northern range.
CHAPTER VI
COWBOY ESCAPADES — DEATH OF TIMMEY TATE — RED PATH BILL — FRA-
TERNAL AND CLASS SENTIMENT
When the Cheyenne and Northern railroad
was built, the trail went into disuse. The cat-
tle were brought north by rail and unloaded at
Wendover, and trailed from there into the
Big Horn Basin and the British possessions.
I "skinned mules" on the head of Pole
(Xodgepole) creek, Horse creek and the Chug-
water, and I cooked for an outfit from the
river to "the basin." I had had no experience
at cooking to amount to anything, but I could
boil spuds and beans, make "sore-finger
bread," and make good coffee. The recipe for
good coffee is "a couple of hands full to a dip-
per of water." What more does a hungry
man want? Also I had the advantage over
some cooks in that I kept my dishes cleaned up
after every meal, and I was always on the job.
When the boys would pass a settlement
where there were any girls, some of the set-
tlers would be sure to have a roundup dance.
Either among the boys, or among the settlers
there were fiddlers. Among the cowboys, I
knew several: there was Runey Campbell, Ed
Stemler, Ed Wright and Ark. Hughes — all
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
alive today (1919), and still able to draw a
bow across the strings. In fact I would like
to go to one of the old fashioned dances, \Vith
the old fashioned music, and a crowd of the
old timers. To be sure, it would be nothing
like the gymnastic performances of the new
people, the dips, the trots, and the wiggles
that we are told is dancing now.
When near one of the old frontier towns,
the boys were due for a little relaxation.
Once down at Sidney, Jimmy Tate and
Johnny Frantz had gone to town, and every-
Four Old Time Cowpunchers
Left to right, standing: John Shear, Jimmey Tate,
sitting : Johnny Frantz and Frank Fitz.
body knew what that meant. Each would try
to excel the other in some prank, or deed of
daring. Riding their horses into saloons, sit-
ting on the floor of a grocery store in tests of
endurance eating cove oysters from the can by
the handful, and such other general foolish-
ness.
Late that night six rapid fire shots, and the
sharp staccato of horse's hoofs announced the
return of Johnny, and with him was Tate's
riderless horse. The boys tumbled out of
their blankets and tarpaulins, and Johnny
tumbled from his horse. He told a sort of an
incoherent, reproachful tale that Tate was
dead, hack in the road.
All were more or less concerned, for Tate
was supposed to have intentions of giving
evidence against the Bay State Company con-
cerning some of their acquisition of land from
the government, and the empty saddle looked
bad, for Jimmy was a good rider, even when
intoxicated. "Long" (Wyatt) Heard, now
(1919) and before of Uvalde county, Texas,
then headquartered on Pumpkin creek, was
telling about it. He said that the story they
got from Johnny was that Tate had fallen
from his horse and was killed.
"But how do you know that he is dead?"
was asked.
With all sincerity Frantz told them that he
had stopped, and called to Tate several times,
and received no answer, and then he had
"rode over him two or three times, and he
never moved."
Jimmy came out of it all right, but after-
wards died with his boots on, in the same old
town of Sidney, and many believed that his
revelations concerning the land matters had
something to do with his sudden and violent
death. He now lies in "Boots Graveyard," a
part of the Sidney cemetery, that was set aside
for the boys who died in the classic way of
the early west.
"Bad men" were always drifting in and out
of the early camps, and through the frontier
towns, and it was somewhat difficult to dis-
tinguish the real from the make-believe. Oc-
casionally one would make his bluff stand up
for a time, but he eventually met someone that
"called him."
In "Ole Cheyenne" it used to be the stand-
ing joke that a cowpuncher who had taken on
too much of a load, was a candidate for Hat
creek. Why Hat creek was the proposed des-
tination for a fellow that was full, is more
than I ever learned. But that stream, if it
may be called a stream, is up towards the
headwaters of White river, and was on the
line of the trail from Fort Laramie to Dead-
wood. Sending them up Hat creek became a
classic in western expression, symbolizing a
drunken cowpuncher, and it never failed to
humiliate and shame.
One time a "bad man" drifted into Chey-
enne, and his name was enough to strike
terror to tenderfeet. "Red Path Bill" was a
dread combination. "Bill" was a favorite
name in the wild first years of the west, es-
pecially if the person was a bad man; but
"Red Path" prefixed would certainly indicate
for a bad man nothing less than a trail of
human gore.
Red Path Bill was hungry — voracious for
human bones to crush in his mighty jaws, and
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
')•!
he was famishing for drink — red liquor of
the first magnitude, and mixed with human
blood. He could not be appeased. Pounds of
steak — blood raw — or such stale things as
coffee and common bar drinks, could not sat-
isfy such an appetite as he possessed.
So he rambled from place to place, until he
found the place of Harry Hynds.
Hynds came to Cheyenne in the early years,
and had joined with a man named Elliott in
the trade of blacksmithing. He had a strong
arm, and was not afraid to use it ; and he was
also a reader of human character. He quit
blacksmithing, and opened an emporium of
entertainment and refreshments. There he
had to know the science of humankind to sur-
vive.
His business developed, and at the time Red
Path Bill appeared, the place contained a ves-
tibule, with cigars and the like ; and behind
swinging doors of mahogany was a mahogany
bar and crystal glass, and then a third room
separated from the second by swinging doors
of green. In this latter room were the choice
of any number of tame amusements : the faro
box, the roulette wheel, monte, twenty-one,
craps, poker, and sometimes keno.
These interested, amused and entertained,
and sometimes broke and hurried a man up
Hat creek.
Gambling was a quiet vice and the besetting
sin of the cowboy was activity — great activ-
ity — and noise. He was tired of the mighty
reaches of the prairie, and was glad to be
where he could bump into something. He had
wearied of the silent solitudes, and he wanted
the reverberation of sound. So the gun —
that six gun — its roar within the confines of
a room, was different from the futile little
pops out on the open range. The jingling
glass, and his pride of marksmanship that
often plunged a room in darkness, was the
transcendant glory of the new free west. Es-
pecially was this true, when an unwilling and
half wild mustang had been coaxed, rowled,
jabbed and coerced, rearing over threshholds
into unaccustomed haunts. Furthermore the
boys did enjoy seeing the gamblers duck for
cover under the tables or behind the bar.
Red Path Bill, with moccasined feet, came
silently in. His deep voice called for the
strongest at the bar, and then, to the swinging
doors of the inner room. Suddenly he was
electrified. A heavy fist smote simultaneously
each door, and they swung wide. With spec-
tacular effect he had made an entrance. No
one seemed to notice him, and he was offended.
"I'm Red Path Bill," he roared, and glared
about to see if anyone dared dispute it. None
did. Instead, the man at the wheel droned :
"Double OO in the green," and the rumble of
"Deuce-Nine," or "a natural," or "an alsa,"
came from different parts of the room. These
expressions may have been a reference to his
entrance, or they may have referred to the
plays at the different tables. Smiles here and
there would have indicated the former. The
games and the players went on as usual. Red
Path Bill was offended. Somebody had killed
his act in the vaudeville of life. He went
about annoying the players, who tolerated him
with rare good nature, until he trod upon the
toes of a bystander.
Fred Ashford was working in the Union
Pacific shops at the time. He had for several
years whacked bulls on the Black Hills route
for Billy Hecht. Fred was a man r f medium
stature and prodigious strength. He quit
freighting in 1882 and joined a cow outfit,
and then later went into the shops.
To step upon a man's toes in the west was
an affront and a challenge, and when Red Path
Bill picked Ashford for the offense, he did not
know his man. Fred's right arm swung once.
The rest were better told by a humbled and
contrite spirit.
"I am what remains of Red Path Bill. They
took a caseknife and tried to scrape me off
the wall where I had been splattered, but they
could not get enough to do much good."
Each of the classes that inhabited the early
west held the other in contempt. That is : the
soldier aKvays treated the cowboys as "herds-
men," and the cowboys returned the sentiment
with vigor. The gamblers respected the men
of the range for their money, for the game
way they took a loss, but generally with utter
contempt for their skill at cards. Occasionally
they miscalculated. Sandy Ingraham caught a
fellow "out on a limb" once in the Capitol
saloon of Cheyenne. After a delay of careful
deliberation of fifty minutes, he called the
gambler's bet of seven hundred dollars, and
won with "two deuces."
Captain Chas. King, who wrote Trumpeter
Fred, and other tales of local color, always
used the offensive appellation "herdsman."
Thus the whipping of a drunken or saucy sol-'
dier by a cowboy or freighter was always con-
sidered legitimate sport.
Occasionally the cow outfits would sweep
down on old Fort Fetterman, or some other
camp or sub-station in the Fort Laramie dis-
trict, and would rope the mountain howitzers,
and antiquated brass cannon, jerking them
from their positions, would drag them about
the fort. Soldiers knew better than to inter-
100
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
fere with such pranks, for when the sport was
over, the boys would make amends.
When there came real Indian troubles, the
civilian was a valuable asset. An average
freighter or cowman was much better skilled
in the tactics of Indian warfare, and were
needed when trouble arose.
CHAPTER VII
COAD'S RANCH AT SCOTTSBLUFF STATION — SHEEDY'S SEVEN-U RANCH ■
ANECDOTES ABOUT THEM
About 1870, the Coad Brothers took posses-
sion of the old Stage station, "Scotts Bluffs,"
and put in a herd of cows. This they devel-
oped to colossal proportions. The younger
Coads still have the ranch north of Cheyenne
at which Mark M. Coad was killed a few
years ago by a Mexican. At the early date,
however, the principal ranch was just a little
west of the present site of Melbeta, and their
range took in all of the south part of the
North Platte valley, from Court House rock
to and including Mitchell valley. The part-
ners were J. F. and Mark M. Coad. They had
10,000 cattle and their brands best known were
FF-Bar and C-12. The "Wisconsin Ranch"
previously operated by Coad, near Julesburg,
was for caring for bull herds and was the
scene of bloody Indian conflicts.
From Perry Braziel, who "met up" with
"Shanghai" Pierce at Coffeyville, and drifted
up the Texas Trail in 1880, and who went to
work for the Coads in 1882, and who still
lives in the splendid country south of Henry,
and from R. C. Campbell and from other old
timers, I have been able to get a fairly accur-
ate description of the old buildings at the
Scotts Bluff Station, which became the Coad
ranch house.
It faced the south, and was 20 by 50 feet,
its walls were thirty inches thick and the sod
were eight or ten inches in thickness. It had
red cedar cross logs and ridge poles, and poles
and dirt were used for the roof. A row of
posts through the center supported the center
ridge log. The building contained two rooms,
the smaller being about 12 by 20, was used for
the kitchen. A large sod fireplace added cheer
to the larger room.
It was in and around this old building that
"Baldy" Kelly, and "Iron Leg Bill" DeCamp
had their bout over who should win the af-
fections of their enamorita. I never learned
her name, but the stories first gave Baldy an
advantage, and then Bill's Winchester took
part, and the last of Kelly was a fading fog
in the direction of Cheyenne, with a pocket
full of Yorick Nichol's money.
The younger generations of Coads are now
here frequently, and are interested in develop-
ing the feeding industry in the land where
their fathers ran the big range herds.
The Powers brothers came into the Scotts-
bluff country in 1870 or 1871, and they built
a ranch on the north side of the river, within
a mile of the present site of the north end of
the Bayard state aid bridge. They were Tex-
ans and run from 4,000 to 5,000 cattle. Den-
nis Sheedy bought this outfit sometime after,
and here was the famous Seven-U (7U)
brand. He increased the herd to large pro-
portions. Sheedy accumulated a fortune and
has been busy for years in the commercial af-
fairs of Denver, being president of the Den-
ver Dry Goods Company only a short time
ago, and now (1919) vice-president of Colo-
rado National Bank. It is to be ventured that
his active brain is still working in lines for
which it was splendidly equipped.
Around the Seven-U clusters a number of
old anecdotes which extended down to the ad-
vent of the granger. The cowboys used to
sing a song, "The Famous Seven-U Brand,"
when I first came into the west. It was more
of a slam than a song, and one time years
after, when Sheedy stopped at Tusler's, the
lady, who had an old melodian, thought to re-
vive a pleasing memory by singing it, but it
made Mr. Sheedy indignant.
James O'Hallern was in charge at the time
I first visited this ranch, and he was a char-
acter all to himself. He liked company and
had many festive occasions at the old sod
ranch house, where the people came for one
hundred miles to dance.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
101
Tim Montrose was the cook, and a good one
he was, albeit that he "was not much larger
than a drink of water," as the cowboys used to
say. Tim was particularly tired of one fellow
in the olden days who settled down near the
ranch and made it his general source of prov-
ender. Almost; daily he would sojourn from
his squatter's cabin to the ranch to visit Tim-
my, and incidentally "get his fill of grub."
One day Tim pulled out of the capacious
oven a particularly delightful roast of great
dimension. The visitor's nose soon led him to
it. He gorged himself outrageously and had
some internal pains as a result. Yet he felt
called upon to compliment the cook. Tim
asked him if he knew how to make roast beef
tender in the cooking. Receiving the negative
response, he told him to put a little strychnine
upon it — not too much, as a little too much
might be fatal, but that he always put some on
his own cooking. This suggestion, and the in-
ternal agonies increasing, so frightened his
visitor that he never bothered Tim any further.
Montrose made regular trips to Chicago, to
his old home ward, and he invariably came
back with the scars of battle, for he loved a
fight.
One time in a cow outfit, a big bully tried
to "run a whizzer" on Timmy. For a little
time those who knew Montrose were surprised
to see the stranger apparently "getting by with
it." Suddenly the battle fire in the little Irish-
man blazed up, and after a short but terrific
battle, the bully turned and ran.
James O'Hallern liked a good time, and he
frequently called the scattered people of the
country together in the big buildings at the
Seven-U, where they would dance all night
and into the next day.
One time when they had gathered for one
hundred miles to trip the light fantastic, the
cook, Montrose, found access to too many
flasks, which the boys had hidden in the barn.
Tim had found the cache and his condition
was such that O'Hallern had to deny him the
joy of the dance floor. He was tremendously
humiliated, to hear him tell it, and likewise
angry in a maudlin way. He planned deeply
and from his pondering a scheme of revenge
was formed, that lacked only one little essen-
tial element of successful strategy.
He saddled his pony, from the woodpile he
selected a club. Ordinarily he was a good man
with his fists, but this time he was taking no
chances. He took his station at the door from
which he had been ejected. Soon one of the
boys stepped out to take the air, and Mont-
rose very politely asked him to tell O'Hallern
that there was a gentleman at the door who
wanted to speak to him. As the foreman
crossed the threshhold, 'the blow fell, and it
was well aimed and effective. O'Hallern fell
across the doorstep, and was insensible
for several hours. With a whoop of exultant
victory and defiance at the whole world, Tim
Montrose leaped into his saddle and rode away
across the yard toward the Camp Clarke trail.
Here came the disastrous detail he had over-
looked. The clothesline was hung at a proper
height to lift him from the saddle, and the im-
pact upon the earth was sufficiently hard to
leave him in an insensible condition until the
next day. But scratches and bruises were
common in those days, and after a brief delay
to ascertain how serious were the casualties,
the gay party went on with the dance until
after sunrise.
At the Seven-U there are four graves —
two of which were emigrants and two are old
cowboys that died with their boots on and
were so buried. One of the latter was a
brother of Henry Bradford, who was with the
English boys later, and the other a Texan con-
cerning whom later reference is made.
The surviving Bradford had become pos-
sessed of a large acreage north of Camp
Clarke, which was called the Bradford ranch,
and which was operated by a man named El-
liott. Bradford had some income therefrom,
and he spent part of his time at the Seven-U
until his brother was killed.
One day they were discussing a certain out-
law horse that had been run into the corral
with great difficulty. The discussion was
mixed with sundry libations. At a certain
stage "Brad" offered to bet twenty-five dollars
that he could saddle and bridle the animal un-
assisted. The bet was covered and he repaired
to the corral. After much difficulty he man-
aged to get a rope over its head and this he
looped about a log in the barn. Gradually he
worked the animal nearer and finally he got
it into the barn and snubbed up to the manger.
Here he proceeded to blind it with a gunny
sack, and then saddle and bridle it. One sud-
den upward swing of the head at an unexpect-
ed moment took "Brad," who was leaning over
the partition from an adjoining stall, squarely
in the face, and he lost all the teeth of his
upper jaw on the left side. Occasionally af-
terwards, he would point out and display the
gold teeth with which they were replaced, and
say: "Well, I won the twenty-five, but it
cost me a hundred."
When the granger came, the Seven-U was
occupied by Ed Burnett, who was one of the
old families about Bayard. Ed one night had
a very vivid dream about the grave of one of
102
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
the emigrants who was buried at the Seven-U.
He awoke the next morning convinced that the
grave was a cache for hidden gold, and he pro-
ceeded to put his faith in dreams into his
works. But when he reached the proper depth
he found a crude decayed coffin and the re-
mains of a little girl. After that. Burnett
lost all faith in dreams, and such foolish
things.
CHAPTER VIII
SURVEYOR SCHLEICxEL'S TEAMSTER HUNG AT SIDNEY — THE BOSLER
RANGE — THE VB BRAND — MINNIE MONTGOMERY HONEY-
MOON—THE HOUSE OF LA GRANGE
Contemporaneously with the establishment
of the Powers ranch (about 1871), Bosler
Brothers & Company built their home ranch
on the lower Blue, near the present site of
Lewellen, and extended their business to in-
clude several ranches up and down the North
Platte river on the north side, but they always
maintained the principal quarters on the Blue.
They ran 15,000 to 20,000 cattle and were one
of the big firms of the time. B-Bar and
others were their brands.
About 1872 E. E. Cunningham, surveyor
general with headquarters at Plattsmouth, sent
Alex. Schleigel to survey a part of the Platte
river country between North Platte and Camp
Clarke bridge. I met Mr. Schleigel a few
years ago in Washington, D. C. He was then
a draughtsman in the Interior Department, but
now lives at Lincoln, Nebraska. He is an old
soldier (being under Lt. Beecher in the Battle
of Beecher Island), and has been in many In-
dian battles, and he is an intimate friend of
Robert Harvey, our state surveyor, and of
John E. Evans of North Platte.
This territory he was to invade was gener-
ally known as the Bosler range, although it
was occupied by Boyd brothers, of which Ex-
Governor James E. Boyd was one ; and the
other ranches of less importance in relation to
size. Schleigel had been at the work two or
three weeks, when he took two men and teams
and crossed the country to Sidney for supplies.
He bought his provisions at the old C. A.
Moore supply depot, then a big concern of the
frontier town.
The Boslers and other big cattle men did
not approve of the survey, for it meant the
final settlement of the land by homesteaders.
After the wagons were loaded, one of the
drivers of the party failed to show up. When
they were ready to depart they made a search
for him,, and in a cottonwood tree that stood
in the vicinity of the garrison at Sidney, they
found the teamster hanging to the limb, dead,
and on his body was pinned a placard, "Horse
Thief."
SchleigeFs party believed the dead man had
stolen no horses, but that cattlemen thought so
little of human life, they had hung an innocent
man, in order to scare them into giving up the
survey.
There was no evidence that it was the work
of the Boslers or any clue as to the identity of
the parties who committed the deed, and per-
haps the man had stolen a horse some time and
the vigilantes had just caught him.
However, a general impression prevailed as
to who it was and why it had been done. If
so, Alex. Schleigel was built of different stuff
than they had calculated. He, the old soldier,
continued his work and finished the survey in
due time.
Mark Bouton arrived over the Texas Trail
in 1873. He decided that Bear creek, about
fifty miles northeast of Cheyenne, looked good
to him, and here he went into the cow busi-
ness. On his way to the north, Mark had
taken a side trip into Denver, and there he
met his affinity. After settling down on Bear
creek he returned to Denver and sought out
his "Virginia," and brought her with him to
the ranch. The romance of Virginia Bouton,
placed upon the range the old and familiar
name. "VB" brand.
One born to the range, cannot change his
habits instantly, and while anchored on BeaT
creek, Mark Bouton traveled much. Mrs.
Bouton frequently accompanied him, and at
such times he gave way to the passion of
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
103
jealously, for his wife was prepossessing, at-
tractive and fond of company.
One time they were in Cheyenne, and he be-
came obsessed of a fear that she intended to
leave him, or to go back to the old wilderness
of passion in which he had first met her. He
warned her not to leave the hotel, under pen-
alty of death. Sometime after dinner she was
gone. Mad with affection and fear, he sought
in all the probable places, but failed to find her.
In the evening, two ladies were approaching
the hotel, when from behind a pile of lumber
on the west side of Eddy street, a pistol shot
rang out. One lady fell dead, and she had
much the same graceful carriage as Mrs. Bou-
ton, but proved to be another and an entirely
innocent girl. Her companion was Minnie
Montgomery, the daughter of John Montgom-
ery, who owned the log stage station on the
Black Hills route, at the north end of the Fort
Laramie bridge.
Miss Montgomery did not see the assailant,
and whoever he was, he made good his escape.
No one knows who fired the shot, but all old
timers had their suspicions.
Bouton finally sold his ranch to Seberry &
Gardner, who built a big stone house, and went
into the business of raising hurdle ponies, for
cross-country riding, and other fancy purposes.
Leaving the ranch, Bouton and his wife
went to Deadwood, and by and by there drift-
ed back along the route a rumor that he had
found his wife talking to a mining man of
considerable prominence, and had started a
row, in which he had come off second best.
They said he was buried in Boots graveyard
at Deadwood.
Young Gardner, of the new firm, was the
trainer for the ranch, and his tiny saddles were
the jokes of the country wide. Once, when a
number of prospective buyers were at the
ranch, young Gardner proposed to give them a
demonstration. He had a series of hurdles of
various kinds over a given run and he mounted
one of his well broken ponies and rode away.
The first hurdle, which was an insignificant
affair, proved too much for his thoroughbred,
and they went down in a heap. A great shout
of laughter went up from the assembled ladies
and gentlemen, which provoked young Gard-
ner into a torrent of language so inelegant, al-
beit so expressive of his sentiments, that the
party beat a hasty retreat.
John Montgomery, the father of Minnie
Montgomery, who was with the unfortunate
young lady who was murdered at Cheyenne,
after the passing of the Black Hills stage,
sold his location and buildings to Whipple &
Hay, who put some cattle on the range, and
established the 4J brand. The same brand is
now (1919) owned by Ed Covington, whose
range is in the Pine Ridge and Hartville
mountains.
One of the brands acquired by the Bay
State Land and Cattle Company, was the 4J,
but it was of another herd, and of less import-
ance. Just east of Wild Cat mountain, in the
northern part of Banner county, is a spring
that adds its flow to that of Pumpkin creek.
This was located by a man named Brown, and
the forty acres on which it was situated was
sold to the Bay State. This spring is known
as the "Four- Jay-Spring."
Ed Bouton, a brother of Mark Bouton, of
the VB, followed from Texas soon after the
location of the VB ranch on Bear creek. He
also had a temper and an inclination to homi-
cide. A sister arrived and in due time was
married to one of the early men, Ed Bryant.
Bryant had a house in Cheyenne on. Sixth
street, but he was out at the ranch considerable
of the time, while his wife lived in the city.
One day Bryant had an altercation with Ed
Bouton, and came off second best.
It was thought best to send the body to the
widow, and it was accordingly placed in a
spring wagon, and a Teutonic employee was
tojd to drive with it to Cheyenne. Two cow-
punchers were delegated to ride along, and see
the safe delivery of the remains.
Reaching the city late one evening, the
punchers went into an emporium for a bracer,
before going to break the news. The Dutch-
man waited some time, and being thirsty, and
also rightly sensing the boys were taking sev-
eral before returning, he decided to make the
delivery alone. Mrs. Bryant heard the knock
on the door, and answered the summons. The
Dutchman said simply :
"Mrs. Bryant, Ed is here."
"Ed who ?" asked Mrs. Bryant, not knowing
if he meant husband or brother.
"Why, Ed Bryant," was the answer.
"Well, why don't he come in?" she asked.
"Why, damn it, he's dead," was the gentle
way he finally broke the news to her.
But the sudden and melancholy end of men,
and the sudden widows of the early west, had
no discouraging effect upon matrimonial events
and ventures.
I have mentioned John Montgomery, the
keeper of the stage station at the north end of
the Fort Laramie bridge. Montgomery had a
daughter — most everyone has a daughter for
that matter — and Miss Minnie Montgomery
was like other daughters of the early west.
She liked to ride, and frequently met the
"birds of passage," the early cowboys, and the
104
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
other cowmen that settled down and anchored
themselves to the soil.
Among her admirers was a foreman of the
P. F. ranch. This foreman used to make peri-
odical visits to Deadwood, taking from the
ranch some of the fat cattle for Deadwood
markets. The P. F. people were not receiving
the liberal returns that they had been led to
believe was in the ranching business, and grew
suspicious of their foreman. An examination
of the books seemed to give an impression
that all the cattle sold in Deadwood were not
accounted for, and they had a warrant out for
their foreman. Officers went to the ranch in
search of the alleged criminal, but not finding
him, were returning to Cheyenne. As they
reached Horse creek crossing they met him in
company with John Montgomery's daughter,
Minnie. They had been married in Cheyenne
the day before, and were on their return home.
The. Bride's Day may have been fair and
clear, but it was "dark in the east and west"
for the groom. I never learned what came of
the trial, or of the principals in the little ro-
mance, but I hope big John Montgomery took
a hand, and that they lived happy ever after.
We lack interest in history and the older
events, frequently because we have no inti-
mate relationship. Yet, to know that this new
land of ours had its loves and romance fifty
or more years ago, attunes our hearts to the
reception of stories of the days so long past.
We travel about and find places named ; and
they are of mountain or plain, or city or valley,
and we seldom stop to think what it was that
named it. For instance, a mark has been left
on Horse creek in the name of LaGrange.
Yet, it has no significance to the ordinary set-
tler, tourist or individual. There are perhaps
a few dozen living people, that a reference to
LaGrange will interest. With them a recita-
tion of the little intimacies, and memories of
experience, or a word of the personnel of the
old times, will arouse a train of memories that
will trail by with their pleasant recollections
for a number of hours. And it might interest
some of the newer people of the community.
All the cowboys of the time knew Kale La-
Grange, as a "squaw man" along with Hi
Kelly. Nick Genice, and Frank Vallet. It was
over a score of years ago that LaGrange quit
the western range and went back to his old
home in Iowa, and afterwards married a white
woman.
Kale's mother, old timers all remember
"Aunt Delia," was a much married woman. I
think she had buried a round half dozen hus-
bands, before she met Tommy Chanavierre
(Shunover) and in the late eighties Tommy
was her spouse — the one we knew. Tommy
was the one whose pride of ancestry runs
back to the time when Marchioness La Pom-
padour was spreading the French Empire over
the western world, but to us he was merely a
jolly old Frenchman, who liked to talk with
his hands, his shoulders and otherwise, and
who, merely for the love of activity and so-
ciety, went visiting about the country in "dat
old buckboard," with "dem old plug." "Shun-
over" died in Iowa. I am not advised if
"Aunt Delia" survived to marry again.
CHAPTER IX
CREIGHTON'S — THE FIRST RANCH OF ALL — DEATH OF CREEL IN BULL
CANYON — TOM KANE'S ADVENTURE — A COWBOY WEDDING
After the loss of his cattle on Rush creek in
1865, John A. Creighton decided to get out of
the lines of the regular raids of Indians. It
seemed that their north and south line of
travel centered in the territory east of Court
I [ouse rock.
It will be observed also that this line was
the path of the buffalo at an earlier date, and
it later became the route of the travelers into
the gold field of the Black Hills, where Henry
T. Clarke's steel lined stages went over the old
toll bridge. Now the travel is by motor, or
over the Burlington.
Creighton went west up Gonneville or
Pumpkin creek. Then over to Horse creek,
and up to the Laramie Plains. Here he built
a substantial set of ranch buildings, securing
the materials from the Laramie mountains.
From this beginning in 1867, originally for
the protection of his bull herds, the great
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
Creighton ranch was born. He was first in the
work of tying the east and west with wires
and electric communication, so was he first in
all Wyoming and western Nebraska to go into
the cow business. The Creighton ranch opera-
tions extended and establishments were built
on Horse creek and Pumpkin creek, and his
ten or twelve thousand cattle roamed the
ranges of the east half of Wyoming and the
western part of Nebraska. The half-circle-
bar brand, of the very early days, developed
into the quarter-circle-block, generally called
"circle-block" in the later years.
Pumpkin creek ranch became the "Home
Ranch" after its acquisition by the Bay State,
and the name Pumpkin creek, in place of
Gonneville creek, rose in usage, as the wild
vegetable which provoked it gradually disap-
peared. The range cattle were very fond of
the product, and the vine, and the very roots
of the vine, were stamped out by the cattle
trying to get more of the tasty verbiage.
The "Home Ranch" is woven into song and
story by cowboys. It can be made to apply to
any Home Ranch anywhere in the universe,
and there was a song that had the run on the
ranges when I came into the west which was
entitled "Pumpkin Creek's My Home."
Bull Canyon is an arroyo that leads down
from the Flowerfield Swell to the lower tables
at the head of Pumpkin creek, and it was once
the rendezvous of freighters' bulls used on the
Black Hills route.
These animals were not always enduring,
and they required periods of rest. A man
named Creel decided he would make a busi-
ness of handling the tired cattle until they
should be able to resume the burden of the
yoke.
Bull canyon was unnamed and unappro-
priated, and there was an abundance of water,
and the nearness of the range to Cheyenne
made it a desirable spot for the purpose. So
Creel built his crude cabin and rode about
looking after the herd of bulls.
The Good Book says something about it not
being good for man to dwell alone, but I do
not think that had anything to do with the fact
that Creel, on one of his visits to Cheyenne,
brought back with him a woman.
This woman had no thought of remaining
alone in the solitudes. The sight of the great
herd of cattle, and the isolation put into her
head the thought of independence sudden and
swift. She pointed out to Creel that it would
be easy to get away with the cattle and out of
the country long before the probability of be-
ing discovered. The plan failed, and Creel
was killed, and Bull Canyon became only a
name and a memory.
Tom Kane used to run the ranges of the
Pumpkin creek country. Kane was known in
Sidney in the early days. One day he had a
brush with the Indians, and escaped into the
rushes on the creek bank ten miles east of
Wild Cat mountain, where he lay three days
caring for his wound before he managed to
get away.
And from that fact, occurring about 1874,
the point of rock that extends into the valley
just west of Wright's Gap became known as
Kane's Point. This part of the Wild Cat
range is one of the beauty spots of nature,
and the long wall of windworn rocks that ex-
tends from Kane's Point to the northwest, in
back of Kelly's ranch, resembles the ruins of a
Frowning City built by hands.
John Wright came to Pumpkin creek from
Horse creek in 1877; he earlier resided in
Colorado. Finding some rich, unappropriated
natural meadows in the vicinity of Kane's
Point, he settled down and proceeded to ac-
cumulate cattle. It was adjoining the Wright
ranch that I located a homestead in the mid-
dle eighties, and I remember meeting John
Wright shortly after.
He was driving by, and stopped to watch me
turn over the sod with my grasshopper break-
er. , In the course of our conversation I said
that it would be a mighty good thing if the
grangers and the cowmen could dwell together
in harmony. John exclaimed that I was the
first granger that he had ever heard say such
a thing, and asked me why I thought so. I
told him that I thought the cowmen would fur-
nish a home market for the product of the
granger, to which he agreed.
We were marked for good friends, Wright
and I, and we always were glad to meet each
other. I am sure that it was a sincere friend-
ship.
About the first event of any consequence that
occurred after my coming into the west was a
cowboy wedding.
Miss Alice (Dude) Wright was John
Wright's oldest daughter. Ed A. Boots was
with a cow outfit for the Bay State, and he
and Miss Wright were married at the home of
the Wrights, on Pumpkin creek. The event
brought friends for five hundred miles.
Elder Stephens was then located at Sidney,
and he was retained to perform the ceremony.
"Retained" is probably a legal expression, but
when you bring a minister sixty or seventy
miles into a country, I take it that it is proper
to "retain" him.
The Wrights had some homemade rhubarb
106
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
wine, and in the early prodigal way of the
west, a dish pan full of this was set out on the
table for use of any who desired to partake.
It was said that they even insisted that the
Elder take some, and that he did touch it to
his lips. This was taken as evidence that he
did not hold himself above his associations,
and there were few boys on the range that
would not swear by Elder Stephens. He was
a powerful influence for good in the early west.
The wine was a little light for some of them,
and they surreptitiously emptied their flasks
into the beverage. The result was that it grew
stronger as the evening waned.
W. J. Kelly, who recently died in Denver,
and who was the oldest actual resident of Ban-
ner county at the time of his death, was there,
and he took Jim Pogue into the kitchen for
refreshment. He had Jim to put his lips to
the edge of the pan, while he tipped it, and
Jim let the mixed beverage run down his
throat in considerable quantity. As Pogue
straightened up, he wiped the tears from his
eyes, and said: "Bill, I always did have a
good time when I was with you."
The groom was a bit nervous, and the boys
would urge him to "take a bracer and buck
up. It ain't as bad as it seems," and otherwise
"jolly" him. Boots usually was a very brave
man, but the boys' tormenting got on his
nerves, and he wept during the ceremony,
which filled the boys with glee.
After a while someone missed Kelly and Al
Stringfellow. They went outside and found
these two worthies playing "andy over" the
haystack with their six shooters. This was the
regular pastime for these two after that,
whenever they met, and were in the proper
frame of mind.
The dance continued until morning, and
when some of them were departing, one made
a misstep as he meant to swing into the sad-
dle. The horse swung away, and there he was
with one foot fastened in the stirrup. The
wild bronc made a quick swerve, and the man
swung out clear of him and the ground while
it ran in a short circle. The quick wit of some
other cowboy, and his skill, saved the man.
He dropped a rope over the animal's head,
and brought it up, head end to the man on the
ground.
"Swing your pardners," shouted that worthy,
as he jumped to his feet. The near tragedies
of old times were so lightly held and affairs
that ended well were experiences worth while,
and compensated fully for the danger involved.
I often attended the dances given in the old
Wright school house, and was also at a double
wedding at Wright's when Ed Wright and
Miss Elizabeth Osborne, and Henry Heard of
Texas and Miss Ono Wright were married.
The country had changed by that time, and it
was more on the order of weddings usual in
older communities. Boots now resides at
Thermopolis, Ed Wright at Morrill, and Henry
Heard at Long Beach, California. Thus the
tides of life separate and distribute the peoples
of the world.
CHAPTER X
FIRST RANCH IN NEBRASKA WEST OF NORTH PLATTE, KEITH & BARTON
H. V. REDINGTON'S RANCH — NERUD'S CORNER — LATER
SNAKE CREEK RANCHES
The first to actually engage in ranching in
western Nebraska, that is west of North Platte,
was Keith & Barton. Morrill C. Keith was
grandfather of Ex-Governor Keith Neville,
and Guy C. Barton was well known in Omaha
business and club circles for many years. The
location of their ranch was at O'Fallon's Bluff,
and about eighteen miles west of North Platte.
Guy Barton was the originator of the ranch, in
which Keith soon joined. After Keith and
Barton, it was owned and operated by Barton
& Dillon.
The year that Creighton built his ranch near
Wyoming station on the Laramie Plains
(1867), Barton embarked in the sheep busi-
ness at O'Fallons. In 1868, when Robert
Harvey was with a surveying party in that
vicinity, the ranch was not much of an affair.
But it was the nucleus, and on the site was
builded the big stone house that still stands.
John Bratt, later for many years around
North Platte, came up the Texas Trail in
1866, and the following year, he built the sec-
ond ranch in Wyoming on the Laramie Plains,
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
107
but the altitude, and the better grasses in the
vicinity of North Platte, made a change in his
plans and he was almost as early in that vicin-
ity as Keith & Barton. His first ranch there,
however, was south of the river and east of
North Platte city, and the high posts a little
east of the state experiment farm, indicate the
gateway of the original ranch. He later
moved to the Birdwood, twenty miles north-
west of North Platte, on the north side of the
"North river."
Next in the order of seniority, but in fact
the first ranching in the Panhandle of western
Nebraska, was started by H. V. Redington, in
1870.
Mr. Redington still lives at Sidney (1919).
In 1870 he landed at Sidney, and he located
his ranch on "Lorren's" fork, about a mile
from its junction with Gonneville or Pumpkin
creek. This ranch was not far distant from
the identical spot where Gonneville, the French
trapper, lost his life years before.
The nearest ranch to the westward at that
time was Creighton's Horse creek ranch —
over sixty miles. The nearest to the south was
Iliff's ranch on the South Platte river — sev-
enty-five miles. And the nearest ranch to the
east was Keith & Barton's at O'Fallon's — one
hundred miles. And the whole country to the
north was Indian land.
His ranch dates the same year that Coad
Brothers took over Scottsbluff Stage station
for their cattle operations, but earlier in the
year.
The country along the Platte was a year or
two later than Mr. Redington in the matter of
seniority of ranch locations. But north of the
river into the Black Hills remained Indian
domain until some years after when gold dis-
coveries in the Hills brought about a transfor-
mation. Stage routes from Sidney and Chey-
enne, and the tremendous freight transporta-
tion opened up this new country in 1876, and
later.
On the south side of the Platte, just a short
distance below Bridgeport, are some ditches
that look like rifle pits of the Indian days.
These are all that remains of the original Hart
ranch in western Nebraska. The trenches
were made around hay stacks in the place of
fences, and were to keep range cattle away
from them, which it did very successfully.
The later location of the Hart ranch, on Snake
creek, was about one and one-half miles up
the creek from the Sidney crossing. This
ranch branched into mercantile business and
had a post-office.
This location later became known as Nerud's
corner, and the four corners were occupied by
different branches of business. A timely wag
immortalized them in verse that ran as fol-
lows :
Nerud's corner,
Baxter Street,
Foster's restaurant,
And nothing to eat.
Joe Nerud had long since become the owner
of a valuable place on Snake creek. He had
the blacksmith's shop at the Corners in the
early days.
Old Joe frequently comes to Scottsbluff to
trade, but an indiscreet joker has made his
visits less frequent than of yore. His country
is naturally tributary to Scottsbluff, and his
son, Young Joe, married one of the Scotts-
bluff's charming girls, Matilda Montz.
Old Joe was here a number of years ago,
and at the time the bootlegger, Bill Bowen,
was doing business. Like most old timers, Ne-
rud likes a nip now and then, and if the
weather is just right he may take two. Bill
had the goods, and it just so happened that the
chief of police was hot on his trail, and had
him pulled for a "vag."
Bill was a pitiful object of humanity and
Nerud's sympathies were aroused. He told
the officers of the law that he would take Bill
out to the ranch, if they would let him off.
The humor of the situation was too great to
be resisted, and he was put into the wagon
alongside of Joe. and sent out to Snake creek.
I cannot say what brought about the trans-
formation in Nerud's sentiment, but the fact
is, that a day or two later, Bill Bowen arrived
on the Burlington with a paid in advance
passage from Angora, and he did not have a
cent when he left Scottsbluff.
A man is not to be censured if he changes
his mind. Wise men have that privilege —
and no one would blame any man, who in an
impulse of sympathy or sentiment should pick
up a bug, if he should decide, when he came to
an analytical study of the insect, that he had
no further use for it. A kind heart only would
take the trouble of returning it to the spot
from which he had taken it.
Pearson's ranch was one of the later places
on Snake creek, and he needed more range and
came into the hills about three miles north of
the west end of Lake Alice, where he estab-
lished a camp — as a sub-station for the
ranch. These sub-stations consist usually of a
well and windmill and a set of watering tanks.
Sometimes a small shack and corral is added.
This sub-station of the Pearson ranch was the
only watering place between Snake creek and
the' North Platte river.
108
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
When Pearson sold to Billy Haynes, he re-
served this sub-station for his own use.
Pearson had two daughters, and the oldest,
Alma, married Joe Maycock and they went to
Lusk to live. She did not live very long —
only a couple years, I believe, and then Joe
married the younger daughter, Mamie.
A few years ago they removed to Canada,
where Joe has since died.
The 'Maycock brothers were among the cow-
boys when the grangers began to arrive. For
when the contingent that settled old Tabor
(now Minatar'e) landed in the valley, John
Maycock was the first to greet them. He at once
"spread the alarm" up and down the valley
for manv miles.
Virgil' Grout and Captain W. R. Akers were
building their first irrigation ditch over the
Wyoming line, when they saw John coming,
riding like the wind, and when he got in hear-
ing distance he commenced to shout the news :
"There is a whole colony settling on the river
down below Scottsbluff, and they have brought
along everything, even a postoffice." This lat-
ter was, of course, an invention or imagina-
tion, but all who knew John Maycock are not
surprised at this — in fact it was moderation.
Some years later John Maycock dropped dead
from his horse in the sage brush of central
Wyoming, and there was another on the Final
Roundup.
Mike Elmore's ranch was down Snake creek
a few miles from the old Sidney crossing.
This well known place has passed into the
hands of the big grading outfit, Kilpatrick
Brothers, who use it for wintering horses.
They built a large reservoir on the creek run-
ning sheet piling down into the substrata to
raise the underflow for a supply for irrigation.
The experiment was only partly successful.
They did increase the supply a small amount,
but not nearly so much as they had expected.
Mike Elmore was recently ' (1919) killed at
Sheridan, Wyoming, by being struck with a
passing automobile.
Wilbur L. Wallace went to Snake creek in
1S87, and located near the old Hart ranch. He
also needed more range than was obtainable
near there and he came into the Lake Alice
country, and established a sub-station about a
mile northwest of the Pearson wells, Wallace's
wells then became a watering place for many
travelers. In due time. Wallace's business took
him to Scottsbluff, and he and his family have
resided in that city for about all the life of the
municipality. He is now a heavy dealer in
livestock for range or feeding purposes and
in banking business at Henry (1919).
John Caddis located on Snake creek at the
same time that Wallace went there, and his
daughter Nellie, who later became Mrs. Wal-
lace, and together they have followed the trail
of human events, and shared the joys and re-
sponsibilities for over a quarter. of a century.
Turner Harris come into the Snake creek
country in 1888, and went over to Mud Springs
for his selection. This place also developed
and became a postoffice. Were it not for this,
the postoffice department and the Burlington
railroad would be asked to change the name of
meaningless "Simla" to "Mud Springs." As
that railroad station south of Bridgeport is the
location of the famous Mud Springs of his-
tory.
The Mud Springs in Sioux county soon
passed to the hands of the Schoonovers, and
they in turn sold it to Ed Eastman. Eastman
used to live at Minatare, and was identified
in the story of Jimmy Moore, related else-
where.
Eastman wanted more land, and Mrs. East-
man secured a divorce on very good grounds
of periodical intoxication. She then took a
claim near his land, and in due time made final
proof. Then Mr. and Mrs. Eastman secured a
license and went before a magistrate to re-
marry.
The judge noticed that the names were both
Eastman, and he asked some question about it.
Mrs. Eastman told him that they had been
previously married, and he wanted to know
why they had been divorced. She told him,
honestly, that she had secured a divorce on the
grounds of drunkenness. The humor of the
affair was that at the time of the second wed-
ding, she might have had ample grounds for a
second divorce on the same complaint.
John Maycock bought out Eastman after a
few years, and the place finally went to Joe
Schramek, who sold it to Chas. Loucomer, the
present owner.
Below the Elmore ranch on Snake creek,
Billy Haines was known to many of the later
people. He had bought out Frank Harris, Will
Benn, Iperhope and some others, and made
quite a ranch. After Billy's death, Mrs. Haines
sold the ranch to Wilson brothers. Doc. Wil-
son was quite active for a time, but the ranch
finally went to Scotty Henderson. Scotty has
been in the Snake creek for a third of a cen-
tury, and is the present owner of the valuable
ranch, the history of which runs back to al-
most the beginning of the cow business in this
part of the west.
Jim McKinney was also upon this creek
some distance below the Elmore ranch. Mc-
Kinney sold out and went into the creamery
business at Alliance.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
CHAPTER XI
COLONEL CHARLES COFFEE OF CREIGHTON'S, BOX ELDER, ROCK RANCH,
HAT CREEK AND CHADRON — EMMET & BREWSTER — ARREST
OF FLY SPECK BILL — FIRST GARDENS IN SIOUX COUNTY
The Texas trail has brought many a good
man into the western range country, and it
did not depart from the custom when Colonel
Charles Coffee arrived in 1873, at the Creigh-
ton ranch on Horse creek. Charlie was quite a
fellow to "play his own hand," so he soon
went over on the Box Elder in the Goshen
Holes and built his initial ranch on the north-
ern range.
The following year he went to the river, for
hay and grasses of the Goshen Holes then
made rather short picking for the stock in win-
ter. Around the Rock ranch location, then
as now, there were some excellent meadows.
The summer range around there was good,
and the valley produced good hay for winter.
This brought about the building of the ranch
at that point about 1877.
The earlier years had witnessed activity in
the same vicinity. Carleton Clinton tells us
that the original name was Stone ranch, from
the fact that a southerner first located it, that
his name was Stone, and that he brought
north with him a number of slaves, and lived
there for a time. Clinton has not given us his
authority, and we have been unable to con-
vince ourselves that slavery has ever existed in
the North Platte valley. None of the chron-
iclers of events along the Overland trail has
mentioned it, and the trail fell into disuse
about the time or shortly after slavery was
abolished.
The overland stage and the pony express
had a stopping place near the present ranch,
and the meadows were used for supplying
feed for their stock. But I am conviced that
Rock ranch as a ranch- came into existence,
almost simultaneously with the abandonment
of the old Red Cloud agency. Stealing stock,
particularly horses, by the Indians was com-
mon at that time.
The horses of Charles Coffee were so stolen,
except a few of the most useless, and the
work of building the original rock house on
this ranch was principally by hand. The
rocks were torn out of the hills close at hand
and wheeled by hand to the site, where they
were laid up in alkali gumbo. The barn, pre-
viously built, was west of the house, the house
was provided with port-holes commanding a
view of the barn, for the purpose of prevent-
ing the success of any further Indian raids
upon the stock. The original building is
the north part of the present Rock house, and
the port-holes are filled in with masonry.
Sometime before the building of this ranch,
or about 1876, Coffee was at Ogallala, and in
company with a man named Gordon, who is
the father of the Gordon in the Gordon Con-
. struction Company. They had what was call-
ed, "The Wild West Exchange" at Ogallala
at this time, and here the boys challanged one
another for feats of doing or daring char-
acteristic of the Wild West. Someone had
captured a young buffalo, and had it properly
confined. While generally the talk was of
horses, and Gordon was expostulating concern-
ing the merit of his horse, as a racer, Coffee
told him his horse was not so much, that he
could beat it and ride the buffalo. That na-
turally led to an expression of doubt as to
whether the young Texan could stick to the
animal.
Gordon and Coffee met only a few days
ago, and when Gordon sprung the old incident,
Charlie said: "The boys told me that I had
a pretty good time at that affair, and looking
myself over in the grey light of the morning
after, I am confident that they were right."
He had ridden the buffalo, but there were a
few indications that the buffalo might have
stepped on Charlie sometime during the per-
formance.
At the time they were at Ogallala, a noted
character named "Fly Speck Bill." his face
being well spotted with freckles that had the
appearance of fly specks, had been appre-
hended and placed in the city jail. But the
jail was a flimsy affair, and failed to hold him
for long. A day or two later, as Coffee was
leaving Sidney for the north on the stage, Bill
was found to be one of the passengers. At
Camp Clarke they separated, and Charlie did
not see him again until the following year.
He had then just stolen John Durbin's horse
at Cheyenne and was making his get-away.
Here he obtained a good look at the man and
sensed his identity, although he did not make
himself known.
Sometime later, when in Cheyenne, Coffee
met Billy Likens, the redoubtable man that run
down Doc. Middleton about the same time,
and Likens asked if he knew "Fly Speck Bill."
Being assured, he asked Coffee if he would
110
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
point him out, as he had reason to believe the
horsethief was in town.
They went into the Tivola saloon, then on
the corner west of the old Inter-Ocean hotel,
and the man was sitting at one of the tables.
Likens pressed a gun muzzle against the back
of his neck and said : "Fly Speck Bill, you are
my meat." The arrest proved a tame affair,
for the man merely glanced at the officer, and
threw up his hands, saying: "Oh, all right!"
By this time the Coads had laid claim to
about all of the North Platte valley, east of
Scottsbluff mountain. They had put fences
in the gaps in the hills, and had some pole
bars in Mitchell Gap.
Among early ranchmen, a custom had sprung
up to respect the calves belonging to another,
and if a cow and calf were found in a herd,
off of their proper range, it was customary to
put on the calf the brand of the real owner.
Coad early refused to follow the custom, and
the calves of other fellows found in his herds
were left unbranded.
One time a calf belonging to the Coads
crawled through the bars, into Mitchell val-
ley, and was found by a bunch of fellows from
higher up the river. That Coads might under-
stand the custom, they singed the hair on one
side of the calf with big letters "M-A-R-K"
and on the other side "C-O-A-D," Coad did
not like it, but he took the hint.
By 1879 the North Platte valley had become
' too tame for Colonel Coffee, he determined to
try the wilderness once more. Near the pres-
ent site of Ardmore, on Hat creek, he found
Hugh Jackson. He told Hugh that he was
looking for a new location, and with the
courtesy of the first cowmen, he asked Jack-
son if he would like a neighbor. Being assured
that he would be welcome, Coffee went up Hat
creek, looking for a suitable place. He esti-
mated his speed, and took note of the time by
his watch, until he had reached, as he thought,
about fifteen miles — that being a neighborly
distance.
There he and his wife and boys, Charles T.
Jr., the youngest was only six months old, set-
tled down in a cabin on what proved to be sec-
tion fourteen, township thirty-three, range fifty-
five. There the O-Ten-Bar brand and ranch
was born. Coffee still has the place, and twen-
ty-two thousand acres around it, vast herds of
cattle, a bank in Chadron, and various other
matters to occupy his attention.
Granville Tinnin is the hero in the pretty
story, "The Foreman of the JAC. This ranch
is on the Rawhide, and is partly owned by
Coffee, who has often told Mrs. E. Joy John-
son, the writer, that she made a hero out of
the wrong partner. I presume Tinnin would
take issue with his producer on this matter.
About the same time that the Hat creek
ranch was located, Emmet & Brewster estab-
lished the S-Bar-E brand twelve miles farther
west. Two of the hangers on about the
S-Bar-E ranch were "Whitney Jim," and
"Trapper Tom," and they built an independent
cabin on a branch of Hat creek, where they
could follow their own inclinations wittiout in-
terference. Jim had an inclination, or pro-
pensity, for strong drink, and a pronounced
aversion to cleanliness. In season he would
gather a wagon box full of wild plums, take
them to Fort Laramie, and come back amply
provided with booze, which Tom would help
him to consume. They had interesting times
trying to put each other to bed, when in this
maudlin state, both maintaining with the dig-
nity of intoxication that the other was drunk.
Tom captured hundreds of beaver, and sold
the pelts for one dollar each, which supplied
all that was necessary during the winter peri-
ods. The pair originated farming into the
northwestern corner of the state — they raised
gardens and potatoes usually sufficient for their
needs.
The different branches of Hat creek and
White river began to take on the euphoneous
names of early days, such as "Dirty Jim
Creek," "Sow-belly Creek," "Tom Creek,"
"War Bonnet Creek," and the like, and Cof-
fee's ranch, after he had removed to Chadron
and the kangaroo rats made merry around the
place, was nick-named "Lickit ranch." While
the place was abandoned part of the time, it
was kept well provisioned. Sometimes those
who were there for a day or two, left without
washing the dishes, and one time, when some
others had stopped and found the dirty plates,
one complained and another said : "Why don't
you 'lick it', if you don't like it." Thus orig-
inated the name that endures.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
111
CHAPTER XII
JOHN ADAMS JOINS REDINGTON IN FIRST RANCH OF THE PANHANDLE-
THE RUSTLERS — ORIGIN OF RANCHES ON CEDAR CREEK— SMITH'S
FORK OR RUSH CREEK — VANTASSEL'S TIE CONTRACT
In 1874, John M. Adams, allured by the big
profits then apparent in the cattle business, the
Indian depredations having practically ceased,
came to Sidney, and formed a partnership with
H. V. Redington, under the name of Adams,
Redington & Company, at the ranch near the
junction of "Gonneville" creek and Lorren's
fork, about a mile south of the present location
of Redington. Their range included the lower
Pumpkin creek country and Lawrence fork.
Adams in a recent letter tells of it, and em-
phasizes the name "Lorren's fork," explaining
its original significance. "Lorren's," of French
derivation, indicates robbers, and the rocks
about the head of this stream were once the
rendezvous of a band of robbers, who preyed
upon the unprotected stragglers along the
Overland. Adams, Redington & Company ran
4,000 to 6,000 cattle, and their principal and
best known brand was H-Bar.
The Greenwood ranch of Tusler Brothers
was one of the well known spots along the
Sidney trail. Merchant & Wheeler built this
about 1872, and it was operated as a horse
ranch when I first knew of it.
I was then new to the ways of the west.
Clark Streeter, who had been ranging cattle
on Medicine creek, south of North Platte until
the grangers came into that territory, and I,
were riding to the North river country, when
we arrived at the Tusler ranch a little after
noon. We dropped our bridle reins over the
heads of our tired beasts, and walked to the
door and asked if we could get dinner. A lady
told us "No, we never feed travelers," and
she no doubt meant it. The travel along the
route was doubtless quite extensive and they
had adopted the system. We asked how far it
was to the next ranch, and she stepped outside
to show us the road. Seeing our horses and
accoutrements, she exclaimed : "Oh, you are
cowboys, are you ? Well, come right in, and
we will find a bite for you."
I was not then a cowboy, but I was young
and hungry, and Streeter was audacious and
hungry, and we went "right in." While we
were eating, the lady asked us a question that
would have floored me, but Clark had been a
little longer in the west. She asked : "What
outfit do you belong to?"
"We are working independent," answered
Clark promptly. "We are looking for cows
branded 'L,' on the left shoulder, and some
Oregon mares that got away and started back
along the trail."
I told you Streeter was audacious, but he
went it stronger than I could have imagined.
I was later informed that there was this much
truth to his reply: The cows he used to run
were branded "L" on the left shoulder; also
several years before his father had bought a
bunch of Oregon mares, and some of them
had gotten away, and never came back.
C. C. Nelson and Dr. Geo. C. Keenan bought
this ranch, and I think they own it now
(1919). Keenan was a brother of Mrs. Tus-
ler.
A letter from Adams tells of the hospiltality
of the early ranchers, but we are inclined, from
our first experience, to think that this hospi-
tality had its limitations to the ranch class ;
that the only way to reach this hearty hospita-
ble nature, was to bear "some of the earmarks
of a range critter."
Adam's letter says : "at these ranches, the
truest and freest of hospitalities prevailed, and
the way-farers and weary travelers were al-
ways welcome to any and all comforts and nec-
essities that the abode could furnish for man
or beast. In fact each ranch was supplied with
the necessities of life in abundance and the
way-farer was welcome to help himself with-
out awaiting the presence of, or asking the
consent of the owner or his representative. This
practice was continued until the county settled
up more thickly, and the abuses of such gen-
erous courtesies caused the stockmen to discon-
tinue their liberalities to some extent.
"The ranchmen learned to have in their out-
laying ranches, only such things as they could
have locked up, nailed down, or otherwise
guarded from petty pilferers, and malicious and
unseemly jokers."
Tusler ran about two thousand cattle and
one thousand horses, and the ranch brand was
Sixty-six on the left side, and cow animals were
also marked with dewlaps on the brisket.
In 1885, Elijah Tusler was riding in a pri-
vate car of an official of the Union Pacific,
when it arrived at Sidney. Yielding to the
importunities of "the bunch" on board, Tus-
ler remained on the car after it left for the
west. Before it arrived at Potter, he stepped
out on the rear platform, and not returning as
11.
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
quickly as the party thought he should, an-
other opened the door, and on the platform
lay the form of Tusler. He was quite dead,
apparently from heart disease, and was taken
back to Sidney, from which point the fact was
communciated to the widow at the ranch.
"Ark" or "Henry County" Hughes was
working for the Tusler people at the time.
Hughes had come up from the mines of Colo-
rado in 18S0. He went to work on the Tus-
ler ranch in 1883, and remained there for four
years. In the meantime he had "picked out"
a place on Horse Creek, where he established
his own ranch and range.
The Tusler cattle were sold to the Ogallala
company, and the Greenwood ranch continued
in the horse business a number of years.
Charlie Nelson, a veteran of the other years,
still operates it (1919), and it is worth while
to start him reminiscensing, and hear story
after story follow as he leads out like a hound
upon a trail.
On Cedar creek, which the earlier maps
designate as Rush creek, C. A. Moore built a
ranch in the early seventies. The Shiedley
Brothers bought this place for their North
river operations. Mac Radcliff now owns it.
The first convention that I ever attended in
western Nebraska, was at Sidney, and Mac
Radcliff was the nominee of the democratic
party for county commissioner of old Cheyenne
county.
The Rush creek shown on the maps today,
was originally called Smith's Fork. Moore had
from one thousand to two thousand cattle and
his range extended from the mouth of Smith's
Fork to the ranch.
When the Shiedley Brothers acquired this
ranch, Moore went into the mercantile busi-
ness. He established a big supply depot at
Sidney for ranch supplies and Black Hills out-
fitting. And at one time the sod emporium at
the north end of the Camp Clarke bridge was
owned by Moore.
Just at what time, and how it came about,
that Rush creek was changed Cedar creek, and
Smith's Fork was changed to Rush creek, I
do not know, but this explanation has served
to clear up some of the foggy ideas concern-
ing locations of Indian battles and other early
historic events. Modern maps give 
