Week 20: May 14 thru 20th

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Names in bold will be found in Players; bolded Titles in References.

5/14 of… 1832

The first engagement of The Blackhawk War (east). Isaiah Stillman‘s Illinois Militia are routed by Blackhawk‘s “British Band” of Sauk and Fox [Meskwaki] Indians at the battle of Stillman’s Run.  {001}

1836

Treaties of Velasco: a public treaty and a secret treaty signed at Velasco, TX, in the aftermath of the Battle of San Jacinto.* Attempting to stop the hostilities and set borders, the signatories were prisoner, Antonio López de Santa Anna for Mexico and Interim President David G. Burnet for the Republic of Texas. Neither treaty was ratified by the Mexican government because Santa Anna had signed the documents under coercion. Mexico claimed Texas was a breakaway province, but couldn’t do anything about it. The independence of Texas, or its later annexation by the U.S., was not formally recognized by Mexico until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.** Formally ending the Mexican-American War, which had resulted partly from the annexation, and setting the Rio Grande River as the international border.  {001}
see:
*Wk. 16, 04/21/1836 – Battle of San Jacinto
**Wk. 05, 02/02/1848 – Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
References – Dictionary – Runaway Scrape

1856

Army Maj. Henry C. Wayne lands at Indianola, TX with the first 34 camels of the U.S. Camel Corps; 41 more will arrive in February of 1857. Photos: Wayne, PD U.S.  {001}
see:
Wk. 9, 03/03/1855 – Camels
Photo Gallery Index – Transportation Photos – Camels?)

1878

LCW: Deputy Sheriff Doc Scurlock (a Regulator) leads a twenty-man posse including Charlie Bowdre, George Coe, Billy the Kid and Henry Brown, to the Dolan-Riley cattle ranch where they kill one employee, wound two, and abscond with 26 horses and several mules. This action gets Sheriff John Copeland (Tunstall-McSween faction) removed by the Governor and George Peppin (Murphy-Dolan faction) appointed in his place.  {001}

1880

The Battle of Tularosa: After an all-night forced march (dismounted), twenty-five 9th U.S. Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers [K Troop] led by sergeant George Jordan, successfully repel an assault on the town (abandoned fort) of Tularosa, NM. The Apache attack was led by Victorio. Sgt. Jordan received the Medal of Honor for his leadership in this action, the first trooper in the 9th Cavalry so honored.  TYH!+4

1883

Henry Newton Brown is called to Morris’ Grocery Store to deal with a Pawnee Indian named Spotted Horse who had been waving a pistol around and demanding food in a local cafe. Brown requested that the Indian come with him, but Spotted Horse refused and reached for the pistol. Brown drew his own, and ordered the Indian not to complete his draw. When he did so anyway, Brown shot him three times at close range. Even so, the man leveled his gun at Brown, thereby prompting a shot to the head which soon proved fatal. Caldwell, KS.  {001}

1900

Nature writer Hal Borland, born in Sterling, NE.  {003}

1934

Tom Pickett, a Dodge City Gang member lives to die of old age in Winslow, AZ.  {001}

5/15 of… 1850

The Bloody Island Massacre, CA – aka: the Clear Lake Massacre : Andrew Kelsey and Charles Stone enslaved some Pomo Indians who were not allowed weapons or fishing implements and were confined to a village surrounded by a stockade. Families starved on the meager rations provided and women and girls were sexually abused. Men were forced to labor at their at their master’s will, herding cattle, construction, mining, etc. The Indians finally revolted and killed the slavers.
A contingent from the 1st Dragoons Regiment of the U. S. Cavalry under Lt. Nathaniel Lyon and Lt. J. W. Davidson tried to locate Chief Augustine’s band (the chief himself had killed Stone, others got Kelsey) to punish them. When they instead came upon a group of Pomo on Badon-napoti (later called Bloody Island), they killed old men, women and children. Murdering at least 60 innocent people. They were Indians, and California was conducting a genocide of indigenous people at the time…  {001}

1855

Cherokee cowboy Clem Rogers and 15 others began a drive of 500 longhorn steers from Indian Country (OK) to sell in Kansas City. Finding no buyers there, they continued four months and 250 more miles to St. Louis, MO.  {001}
see also:
The Originals Index – Cow? What cow? – Where did all the little dogies git along to?

1856

Led by Republican businessmen, residents of San Francisco organized a Committee of Vigilance (with some eight thousand members) to combat crime in their rapidly growing city. Similar to other gold rush boomtowns, the population explosion had raised crime levels and left residents feeling insecure. Although the  committee attempted to clean up the streets, there was also considerable focus on politics. However, the targets of these efforts were usually Democrats. While these vigilantes turned the majority of alleged criminals over to law enforcement, they were well known to have taken matters into their own hands on a number of occasions. The Committee disbanded after a few months of activity.
see also:
References – Books – Novels and History (non-ref) – McGowan, Edward

1876

A black man, Isaiah Dorman, is hired as an interpreter by Lt. Col. George Custer for the upcoming campaign against the Indians. He will ride with Custer to the Little Bighorn…  {001}

1882

Doc Holliday arrested in Denver, CO, by fraudulent “detective” Perry Mallen and held for extradition in the Arizona Territory for his actions at the Gunfight at the OK Corral.  {001}

1886

In the Continuing the pursuit of the Chiricahua Apache band who had committed the Bear Valley Raid, Captain Charles A.P. Hatfield and Company D, 4th Cavalry, found the Apaches camped near the village of Santa Cruz, MX. A cavalry charge routed the hostiles, captured the camp, their horses and killed or wounded at least one man. On leaving the battlefield, Hatfield headed towards Santa Cruz. However, the command was ambushed while they were stopped at a watering hole some five miles from the village. A cook and a blacksmith were killed in the fight and two sergeants were wounded. One of them, Samuel Henry Craig, later received the Medal of Honor for his “conspicuous gallantry.” TYH!+4
Yet again, the Apaches retreated and vanished. No more battles and none were captured until Geronimo surrendered in September.  {001

1893

Founding of The Western Federation of Miners (WFM). A labor union whose efforts to organize hard rock miners and smelter workers in the West, brought it into bloody conflict and frequent pitched battles with employers, backed up by Pinkertons and all too often, government authorities; backed by police and/or state or federal troops. The union gained a well-deserved reputation for militancy. Their struggles generated the infamous Colorado Labor Wars. One of the most dramatic and notorious incidents was the 1903–04 strike in the Cripple Creek District of Colorado. In the end, Colorado Governor McIntire had to send the Colorado National Guard to protect the striking miners from “deputies” of the local sheriff. The 1896-97 strike at Leadville, CO wasn’t much better. There were numerous other “events”. In 1905 the WFM played a key role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World (aka: IWW, The Wobblies)* but broke away but a few years later (1907).  {001}
see:
*References – Dictionary – Industrial Workers of the World

1915

William “Bill” Neulson Whitney born in Lawton, OK. Film and TV director.  {001}

1925

Lt. General Nelson Appleton Miles, age 85, died in Washington, D.C.  Career Soldier, Civil War (Medal of Honor – 1863 – TYH!+4), Indian Fighter. Miles was involved in nearly every campaign against the Indians in the west. West Texas in 1874-75; Northern plains, post Custer, in 1876-77; claimed the capture of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce (1877) [debated]; commander of the forces who eventually captured Geronimo; commander of the campaign against the Sioux which led to the death of Sitting Bull and the brutal Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890) where 300, including women and children, were killed by troops. Miles saw additional service during the Pullman strike and then the Spanish-American War. Photo: U.S. PD 1898, Brands Studio (a cabinet card)  {001}

1991

Reno Browne, aka Reno Blair (Josephine Ruth Clarke), age 69-70 (?), died in Reno, NV. Western movie actress, trick rider (1949 – 1950); Lead in 1949 radio show “Reno Rides Again”; appeared in Marvel comics, [4 issues in 1950].  Photo: U.S. PD promo shot.  {001}

5/16 of… 1866

North San Juan, California: three stage robbers killed and $8,000 recovered by lawman Steve Venard.  {001}

1866

Dead of pneumonia at 61 years while prospecting near Danner, OR: Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, son of Sacajawea and Toussaint Charbonneau. Always a traveler and adventurer, he spent time in Europe, spoke at least four languages, led a Mormon wagon train west, worked as a hotel clerk, prospected for gold — and for a time, was magistrate for the San Luis Rey Mission. Portrait: U.S. PD, unknown.  {001}
see:
The Originals Index – Pushin’ Up Dasies – Sacajawea

1881

Rangers Jeff Davis Milton, J.M. Sedberry and L.B. Wells kill rowdy cattleman W.P. Patterson for resisting an inspection of his pistol after a shooting incident near the Nip and Tuck Saloon. Colorado City, TX.  {001}

1881

Jim and “Billy the Kid” Leroy, along with two other outlaws, hold up the Barlow and Sanderson Del Norte-Lake City Stage near Clear Creek, CO. Passenger Frank Bartlett, a D&RG Western RR engineer is shot in the thigh.  {001}
see:
Wk 19, 05/12/1881

1905

Henry Jaynes Fonda born in Grand Island, NE. Movie actor.  {001}

1956

Gene Autry closes the barn doors on Melody Ranch after a 16 year run on CBS Radio. (Less two, 1943 -45, while Gene served in the U.S. Army in WW II.) Gene, always a good businessman, had already opened on TV.  {001}
see:
Wk. 30 07/23/1950 – The Gene Autry Show

5/17 of… 1849

The Great St. Louis Fire: 3 deaths, 15 blocks, 430 structures, 23 steamboats, 9 barges. $ 4,000,000… gone in eleven hours!  At the time, the city population was estimated at around 63,000, 10% (4,500+) of those, would die in the cholera epidemic sweeping the city at the same time as the fire. Daguerreotype: U.S. PD 1849  by Thomas Easterly – The Ruins.  {001}
see also:
The Originals Index – Resources and Hazards – Disease – Cholera

1873

Wes Hardin+2 and Jim Taylor kill ex-Texas State Police Captain and DeWitt County sheriff Jack  Helm, a Sutton sympathizer. Hardin’s contribution to the Sutton Taylor Feud.  {001}

1876

Lt. Col. George A. Custer leads the 7th Cavalry out of Fort Lincoln, ND, for the last time. The sounds of “The Girl I left Behind Me” and “The Garry Owen”, hang in the morning fog…  {001}

1878

Austin, TX swings Brown Bowen for the murder of Thomas Holderman even as he claims John Wesley Hardin+2 pulled the trigger.  {001}

1886

Died at 86 years in Moline IL, John Deere. After his blacksmith shop failed, and with wife Damarius and nine children to feed, Deere decided to move west to Illinois in 1836. He found that the old wood and iron plows, so effective in New England’s light soils, were no match for heavy, dense prairie sod. Farmers lost valuable time cleaning sticky clay off of their plow shares. Deere believed a properly formed blade could clean itself as it worked like a needle through cloth, or a pitchfork through hay. His experiments began with re-purposing old steel saw blades, and paid off in 1838, when he sold three steel moldboard self-scouring plows to local farmers. By 1855, he had marketed 10,000 polished cast steel plows. Deere’s design was, “The Plow that Broke the Plains.” As business improved following the Panic of 1857*, Deere left the day-to-day operations to his son Charles and began to follow his interests in civil affairs and politics. He incorporated his business as Deere & Company in 1868. Photo U.S. PD, unknown.  {003 & 001}
see:
*Wk. 34, 08/24/1857

5/18 of… 1825

Daniel B. Wesson born in Worcester, MS. Gunsmith, designer.  {001}

1841

The Bidwell-Bartleson Party (emigrant company) was organized with John Bartleson elected as captain. Bartleson had refused to go with the company unless he was made captain. Ignorant of the route west to California, fortunately, they were able to travel to the Rocky Mountains with a party of Jesuit missionaries guided by Thomas F. “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick. Left to their own resources from Soda Springs, ID, to their destination in California. Having been advised by Fitzpatrick to travel south of the Snake River drainage and north of Great Salt Lake, they entered present-day Utah and became the first emigrants with wagons to travel across northern Utah.
Abandoning their wagons in eastern Nevada, they continued on to California. Had they scouted better west of Lucin, UT, along the present alignment of the Southern Pacific RR, a trail could have been blazed to the head of the Humboldt River near Wells, Nevada. It is likely that the route traveled across Utah, could have become the California Trail, instead of the trail later established north of Wells, NV, through the City of Rocks, Granite Pass, and Goose Creek. They became the first emigrant party to reach Sutter’s Fort. Bidwell published his diary of the trip in 1842. The trip diary of Party member James John was not discovered until the twentieth century, and was first published in 1991.  {001}
see also:
Wk. 27, 07/04/1848 – John Bidwell

1852

Born in Fort Des Moines (IA), Gertrude Stanton Käsebier. American photographer.  {001}

1871

The Warren Wagon Raid (aka Salt Creek Massacre – TX): Chiefs Addo-etta (Big Tree), Santank, and Satanta lead a large Kiowa band (estimated at 150 warriors, including Big Bow, Eagle Heart and Fast Bear). Acting on a medicine man’s advice of the night before, they allow a lightly-escorted army ambulance to pass by on the Jacksboro Belknap road while they wait for larger game. Several hours later, civilian contractor Henry Warren happens along with ten mule-drawn wagon loads of army supplies bound for various Texas forts. Despite circling the wagons and corralling the livestock inside, seven teamsters are killed and mutilated. Forty-one mules are taken and loaded with stolen goods, while army corn supplies are set ablaze. There were five survivors — one of whom, Thomas Brazeale, reported the attack to Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie after walking twenty perilous miles to Fort Richardson.
These killings were the last straw for General Sherman. He reversed an earlier order that prohibited Mackenzie’s soldiers from pursuing Indians on to the reservations and he ordered ruthless reprisals. This is the groundwork for the Red River War.*  {001}
see:
*Wk. 39, 09/28/1872 – Battle of the North Fork
*Wk. 39, 09/28/1874 – The Battle of Palo Duro Canyon

1881

Jim and ‘Billy the Kid’ Leroy are captured by a posse led by Sheriff Lew Armstrong and taken to Wagon Wheel Gap, CO. Fearing the prisoners will be lynched, authorities move them to Del Norte.  {001}
See:
Wk 19, 05/12/1881
05/16/1881 – above
then Wk. 21, 05/23/1881

1904

James B. Hume, dead at Berkley, CA, at age 77. Gold prospector, lawman, prison warden, and one of the finest scientific detectives in the Old West. Hume was the Wells Fargo detective who tracked down Black Bart (1883).  {001}

5/19 of…1868

Brigham Young will allow Mormons to work on the Union Pacific RR as it builds through Utah.  {001}

1869

William Wells Bent departed us, of pneumonia, in Kansas City, MO, at age 59. Along with older brother Charles, he had begun trapping and trading in the eastern Colorado area since the mid 1820’s. In partnership with Ceran St. Vrain as Bent-St. Vrain Company, they built Bent’s Old Fort sometime around 1832. It became the largest trading center in the early west. (In the process, it unknowingly became the first major vector for all the white man diseases transmitted to the Indians.) It was said that at times during the trading season, 20,000 Indians were camped near the fort. Bent was married into the Cheyenne (three wives) and a sub-chief of that tribe. He was instrumental in the split of the Southern Cheyenne (c. 1832) which caused them to move to the area of the fort on the north side of the Arkansas River. The Comanche nation ruled the south side. Bent negotiated the Great Peace of 1840 between the tribes north and south of the Arkansas River. The old fort was “abandoned” in 1849*. In 1853 he built Bent’s New Fort sixty miles downstream near Big Timbers, and later in 1859 sold it to the Army, when it became Fort Wise. Bent was ever the trader, ever the peacemaker and a great contributor to his times. Look him up! TYH!+4  Photo: U.S. PD Colorado Historical Society.  {001}
see:
*Wk. 34, 08/21/1849
Wk. 43, 10/28/1870
The Originals Index – Western Forts and Trading Posts

1873

Nevada tailor Jacob W. Davis uses copper rivets, to strengthen his denim pants. The products popularity exceeds his production capability so he takes his design to the manufacturing facilities of his denim supplier, Levi Strauss. This is the beginning of the product as we know it today. Photo: U.S. PD pre-1923, Jacob W. Davis (c. 1905).  {001}
see:
Wk. 39, 09/26/1902 – Levi Strauss

1881

The railroads race to El Paso, TX, but the Southern Pacific RR (SP) track arrives first, beating rival Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe RR (AT&SF).  {001}

1883

First performance of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Omaha, NE.  {001}

1883

Deadwood, SD suffers a massive flood. Bullock and Star Hardware survives with some damage. Al Swearingen‘s Gem Variety Theatre, on higher ground is untouched by the raging water. Photo: U.S. PD, USGS.  {001}

1894

Acting Wells Fargo Shotgun guard William Hendricks killed would-be stage robber John Keener. The stage escaped through gunfire from the second robber, and two passengers were wounded. Near Angels Camp, California.  {001}
see:
Wk. 22, 05/28/1894

1918

George Bent (Ho—my-ike in Cheyenne) Born at Bent’s Fort in 1843. He was the mixed-race son of Owl Woman, daughter of a Cheyenne chief, and William Bent (see above, this date). He grew up with his mother’s people, his father and the panoply of visitors to the trading post. Then, with the white culture, from the age of 10 while attending boarding school in St. Louis, MO. However, he always identified as Cheyenne. He became a Confederate soldier during the Civil War and fought Americans as a Cheyenne warrior afterward.
After the Indian Wars (1870), Bent became an interpreter for the U.S. government. Working with the US Indian agent to the Cheyenne and Arapaho, on the Oklahoma reservation where he stayed and spent the rest of his life.
Bent was bilingual and knew the culture well and so became an important source of information for anthropologists James Mooney and George Bird Grinnell, who were studying and recording Cheyenne culture. Photo: U.S. PD by unknown – George Bent and his wife Magpie.  {001}
see:
Resources – Books – novels and History (non-ref) – George Bird Grinnell
Resources – Books – novels and History (non-ref) – George E. Hyde

05/20 of…1801

William Henry Seward born in Florida, NY. Politician: U.S. Secretary of State (1861 – 1869), 12th. Governor of New York (1839 – 1842), U.S. Senator from New York. (1849 – 1861).  {001}

1818

William George Fargo born in Pompey, NY. One of the founders of Wells Fargo & Company.  {001}

1836

The Fort Parker Massacre, in what would be today’s Limestone County in central Texas. Attacked by nearly 500 Indians, five men are killed, two women and three children taken captive.  {001}

1836

Elizabeth Duty Kelly taken in the Ft. Parker raid, then ransomed by Sam Houston.  {001}

1836

Nine year old Cynthia Ann Parker (Naduah), was taken hostage by the Nokoni Comanche during the Ft. Parker raid. Peta Nocona, a Comanche War chief, eventually took her as his wife. They had three children, one of whom was Quanah Parker. Naduah was captured/rescued twenty–five years later by the Texas Rangers and returned to her white family.  She recovered but few memories from her childhood — she had become a Comanche. She never adapted to her new life among the white culture. In 1870, at about age 45, she starved herself to death in grief over her daughter’s death from pneumonia. Lucia St. Clair Robson’s 1982 Golden Spur winning novel, Ride the Wind tells the tale. Photo: U.S. PD pre-1870.  {001}
see also:
Wk. 51, 12/18/1860

1836

John Richards Parker taken in the Ft. Parker raid at the age of five, then ransomed in 1842 and returned to his family.  He could not re-adapt to the white world and returned to the Indians. He participated in Indian  raids, married in Mexico, fought with the Confederacy and died in 1915 a rancher in Texas.  {001}

1836

James Pratt Plummer, age 2½, taken with his mother, Rachael, in the Ft. Parker raid. Ransomed in 1842, he was placed in the care of his grandfather and successfully re-adapted to the white culture.  {001}

1836

Rachael Plummer, taken in the Ft. Parker Raid: “…anyone who said that a good woman died before being violated had not been forced to run naked tied by a rope to a horse for a day or two in the sun.”  {001}
see:
Wk. 12, 03/1839
Wk. 25, 06/19/1837

1862

Free Land!!  The Homestead Act is signed by President Abraham Lincoln. It offers up to 160 acres outside the  original 13 colonies, to anyone (21) who had never taken up arms (including freed slaves) against the U.S. Apply (do the paperwork), Prove Up (make the required improvements), Apply for your deed. Aside from populating the west, the act was useful for replacing indigenous peoples with tax-paying farmers and as a method for manipulating water and other resources. Other major reiterations of the act were passed in 1909 and 1916. Nearly 10% of all land in the U.S. was homesteaded. Forty-two percent of Women claimants proved up, only thirty-seven percent of the men did. The old timers said, “With the Homestead Act, the U.S. is betting 160 acres that you can’t live on it.”  {001}

1895

During a gunfight sparked by a Doolin Gang bank robbery in Southwest City, MO, Bill Dalton kills local J.C. Seaborn, former Missouri State Auditor. Bill Doolin receives a head wound but the outlaws, including Doolin and Dan Clifton, successfully shoot their way out of town.  {001}

1998

Died at 87 years, Monte Montana (Owen Harlan Mickel): Roper, stuntman, trick rider, silent film star, movie star. Inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1994. A few of his many movie appearances: The Circle of Death (1935), Down Dakota Way (1949), The Young Rounders (1966, Arizona Bushwhackers (1968). TV: The Rifleman (1958 & 1960), 26 Men (1959) and others. Horse: Rex.  {001}

End: Week 20, May 14th thru 20th.
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{001} C 11/21; E 02/19: F 01/16; P 08/18