Campfire Tales of Jackson Hole

by Various

EMILE WOLFF’S NARRATIVE

When Colonel Ericsson, Mr. Owen, and the writer visited Emile Wolff on August 9, 1928, we found him stricken with the infirmities of old age and confined to what proved to be his deathbed. Nevertheless his senses were alert and his memory concerning the period in question keen and accurate. The account he gave checked in detail with one he had given Colonel Ericsson a year earlier, and his recollection of names and dates agreed in most cases with evidence obtained later from other sources. In his enfeebled condition, however, Wolff was so weakened by the telling of his story that the interview had perforce to be cut short and certain questions left unanswered. A few questions Wolff declined to answer with the statement that there were features of the affair he would like to forget if he could, and there were others he had never told anyone and never would. What he had told other men, he said, he would tell us.

Concerning himself Mr. Wolff stated that he was 76 years old and a German by blood and birth, having been born in 1854 in Luxembourg. He received an education along medical lines in the old country. When still a very young man, only 16, he emigrated to America, where he served for some years in the United States Army in the Far West, part of the time as a volunteer doctor. His first visit to the Jackson Hole region was in 1872 when he came to Teton Basin (Pierre’s Hole) for a brief period. In 1878 while serving under Lieutenant Hall, he came into Jackson Hole, his detachment being sent to carry food to Lieutenant Doane’s outfit, which had lost its supplies in the Snake River while engaged in a geological survey of the Jackson Hole area[6].

In 1886, Wolff stated, he came to the region to stay, settling first in Teton Basin. It was in this year that the Deadman’s Bar incident took place. The account of this affair which follows is pieced together from the facts given by Wolff; no information gained from other sources has been introduced, and there have been no changes made in the story other than the rearrangement of its details into historical order. The account as set forth has been verified by both Colonel Ericsson and Mr. Owen, who were present at its telling.

In the spring of 1886 four strangers came into Jackson Hole to take up placer mining along Snake River, whose gravels were reputed to be rich in gold. The new outfit had been organized in Montana, and originally had consisted of three partners, Henry Welter, (T. H.) Tiggerman, and (August) Kellenberger—“the Germans” as they came to be called. Henry Welter, who had previously been a brewer in Montana, proved to be an old friend and schoolmate of Emil Wolff’s from Luxembourg. Tiggerman was a gigantic fellow who had served on the King’s Guard in Germany, he seemed to be something of a leader in the project, claiming—apparently on insecure grounds—that he knew where placer gold was to be obtained. August Kellenberger, also a brewer by trade, was a small man who had two fingers missing from his right hand. The trio of prospective miners had added a fourth man to the outfit, one John Tonnar by name, also a German, under promise of grub and a split in the cleanup.

The miners located near the center of Jackson Hole on the north bank of the Snake River where that river flows west for a short distance. They erected no cabins, according to Wolff, but lived in tents pitched in a clearing among the trees on the bar, within a few hundred yards or so of the river. Occasional visits to the few ranchers then in this portion of the Territory brought them a few acquaintances. Once they ran out of grub and crossed Teton Pass to Wolff’s place to get supplies. Wolff recalled that they paid for their purchases with a $20 gold piece. They wanted a saw, and Wolff directed them to a neighbor who had one; this they borrowed, leaving $10 as security.

PHOTO BY LEIGH ORTENBURGER
Deadman’s Bar, at lower left, marks the location of “the German’s” camp, where they lived in tents pitched in a clearing among the trees.

On the occasion of this visit they spoke of building a raft to use in crossing the Snake at their workings, and Wolff tried to dissuade them from the project, assuring them that they did not appreciate how dangerous the Snake could be when on the rise; but they laughed off his warnings with the statement that they had built and handled rafts before, and knew their business.

Wolff learned little, until later, concerning the mutual relations of the 4 men on the bar, nor concerning what success, if any, they had in finding gold.

Late that summer when haying time was at hand in Teton Basin, Wolff was surprised to see a man approaching his cabin on foot. “Seeing any man, and especially one afoot, was a rare sight in those days,” commented Wolff. It proved to be the miner, Tonnar, and he asked to be given work. Curious as to what was up between Tonnar and his partners, Wolff quizzed him but received only the rather unsatisfactory statement that Tonnar had left the 3 miners while they were making plans to raft the Snake in order to fetch a supply of meat for the camp.

With hay ready for cutting, Wolff was glad to hire Tonnar for work in the fields. For a month the two men slept together, and during this time Wolff noticed that Tonnar invariably wore his gun or had it within reach, but while he suspected that all was not right he made no further investigation. Wolff retained a mental picture of Tonnar as being a small, dark-complexioned man of rather untrustworthy appearance and manner.

Once Tonnar instructed Wolff to investigate a certain hiding place in the cabin, and he would find some valuables which he asked him to take care of. Wolff did so and claims that he found a silver watch and a purse containing $28.

Then one day late in August a sheriff and posse came to the cabin and asked Wolff if he could furnish information concerning the whereabouts of the miner, Jack Tonnar (at the time Tonnar was absent, working in the fields.) Briefly the posse explained that Tonnar’s 3 partners had been found dead, that Tonnar was believed guilty of their murder, and that the posse was commissioned to take him. Horrified to think that for a month he had sheltered and slept with such a desperate character, Wolff could only reply, “My God! Grab him while you can!” Tonnar was found on a haystack and captured before he could bring his gun into play.

From the posse Wolff learned that a party boating from Yellowstone Park down the Lewis and Snake Rivers, under the leadership of one Frye (Free), had stopped at the workings of the miners but had found them unoccupied. Just below the encampment, at the foot of a bluff where the Snake had cut into a gravel bank, they had come upon 3 bodies lying in the edge of the water, weighted down with stones. They had reported the gruesome find, and the arrest of Tonnar on Wolff’s place resulted.

Wolff, Dr. W. A. Hocker (a surgeon from Evanston), and a couple of Wolff’s neighbors from Teton Basin hurried to the scene of the killings, a place which has ever since been known as Deadman’s Bar. They readily identified the bodies, Tiggerman by his size, and Kellenberger from the absence of two fingers on his right hand. They found that Kellenberger had been shot twice in the back, that Welter had an axe cut in the head, and that Tiggerman’s head was crushed, presumably also with an axe. Wolff gave it as their conclusion that the 3 men must have been killed while asleep; and that their bodies had been hauled up onto the “rim” and rolled down the gravel bluff into the river, where they had lodged in shallow water and subsequently been covered with rocks. Probably the water had fallen, more fully exposing the bodies so that they had been discovered by Frye’s men.

Wolff and Hocker removed the heads of Welter and Tiggerman and cleaned the skulls, preserving them as evidence. Wolff denied that they buried the bodies, but claimed that they threw them back in the edge of the water and covered them again with rocks.

Tonnar pleaded not guilty and was taken to Evanston, the county seat of Unita County (which then embraced the westernmost strip of Wyoming Territory), and here he was tried the following spring before Judge Samuel Corn. Wolff was called to testify at the trial, mentioning, among other things, the incident of the watch and the purse, both of which he was positive Tonnar had stolen from his murdered partners.

To the general surprise of Wolff, Judge Corn, and others present at the trial, Tonnar was acquitted by the jury, despite the certainty of his guilt. What subsequently became of him is not clear. Wolff was questioned on this point, and at first declined to speak, later, however, expressing the belief that Tonnar probably went back to the old country for fear that friends of Welter, Tiggerman and Kellenberger might take the law into their own hands since the jury had failed to convict him.

Concerning the question of motive for the killing, Wolff stated that he knew Tonnar and the 3 men quarreled. The original partners planned to turn Tonnar loose when his services were no longer needed in sluice digging, etc., minus his share in the cleanup. To discourage his persisting with their outfit they had beaten him up badly a few days prior to the murders; but instead of leaving Tonnar had stayed at camp, nursing his bruises and plans for revenge, finally carrying out the latter to the consummation already described. Wolff did not believe that robbery was a factor of much importance in instigating the crime.

* * * * * * * *

From parties who heard the trial it appears that there were no eye witnesses to the tragedy, save the defendant. Therefore the prosecution was compelled to rely solely on circumstantial evidence. The theory of the attorneys for the defendant was that the 3 deceased persons were prospectors, without funds, and that they represented to the defendant that they had discovered a valuable mining claim and induced him to put up considerable money to grubstake and furnish necessary funds to work the claim; that soon after these men were on their way to the Jackson Hole Country they began to pick quarrels with the defendant; that on the day of the shooting one of the prospectors remained in camp with the defendant, and the other 2 went away to do some prospecting; that the one who remained in camp picked a quarrel with the defendant and the defendant was compelled to kill him in self-defense. It was recalled that after the verdict was rendered the defendant got out of town in a hurry, taking the first freight train; that Attorney Blake was the principal trial attorney for the defendant, and that he afterwards stated he never got a cent for saving the neck of the defendant, who had promised to send him some money as soon as he could earn it, and that he had never heard from him.

Note:

Dr. Fryxell and Colonel Ericsson, immediately following their interview with Mr. Wolff on August 9, 1928, investigated the site of “Deadman’s Bar.” They found unmistakable traces of the diggings, the camp, and the road constructed 42 years before by the 4 prospectors.

Dr. Fryxell’s study of the site cleared up any uncertainty as to the exact location of this historic spot, which was placed on the north side of the Snake in the SW¼ of Sec. 23, T44N, R115W.

The sluice ditch of the miners, though overgrown with brush and partially filled with gravel, was easily located. It tapped a beaver dam located just above the bar, and followed along the base of the terrace, discharging into the Snake about a half-mile from its source.

Numerous prospect pits were found on the bar. Some of them appeared more recent than those dug by Tonnar and the other “Germans,” thus were probably the work of later prospectors.

Dr. Fryxell states: “All of the workings (1928) now observable speak graphically of the expenditure of much hard labor from which returns were never forthcoming.”

This statement is significant, and is borne out by an old sign, crudely lettered, which was reportedly found later in the vicinity:

Payin gold will never be found here

No matter how many men tries

There’s some enough to begile one

Like Tanglefoot paper does flies

THE AFFAIR AT CUNNINGHAM’S RANCH[7]
By Roald Fryxell

Close against the Idaho-Wyoming border, at the headwaters of the Snake River, lies the high, mountain-girt valley of Jackson Hole. Fiercely beautiful in setting and richly historic in background, Jackson Hole and the raw, jagged peaks of the Teton mountains to the west have captured popular imagination as has no other region in the Rockies. Jackson Hole has become a fabled outpost of the vanished Western frontier, the legendary “last stand of the outlaws.” And of all the stories which have given rise to that picture, perhaps none is more starkly simple than one which has become known as The Affair at Cunningham’s Ranch.

As in the case of other frontier communities, the story of the early settlers in Jackson Hole is one of isolation and hardship. When winter closed in and cut off the valley from the nearest settlements across the mountains, life was a struggle for survival against the bitter cold and drifting snow. Occupied with the task of making a home in the face of tremendous odds, the homesteaders were solid, law-abiding citizens with little time for lawlessness, and less for violence. On the rare occasions when gun-play broke out between men in the valley, it was of a nature that could hardly appear heroic except through the romantic eyes of a novelist. In the harsh light of reality, violence was brutal and ugly, and dispatched with a speed and finality grimly typical of the frontier.

The Cunningham Ranch affair broke with a suddenness that shocked the entire valley. It was as cold-blooded as it was simple. A posse came riding in from Montana in the spring of 1893, and at a little cabin near Spread Creek two men were cornered and shot for horse-stealing.

Little news of the Spread Creek incident ever leaked out of the valley in the early days, and when the first general flow of tourist travel into Jackson Hole began nearly 40 years later, the affair at Cunningham’s Ranch was still a widely known but reticently guarded story. By then most of the old-timers who had been members of the posse were dead, and those who were left still were not interested in discussing the matter. And so the story of the killing relies almost entirely on the memory and information of the one man who cared to talk about it, Pierce Cunningham.

A quiet, weather-beaten little man, Pierce Cunningham came into Jackson Hole with the first influx of settlers during the late 1880’s and early 1890’s. He homesteaded in the valley, and there, on Flat Creek, he worked his ranch and married and raised his family.

In the fall of 1892, while he was haying on Flat Creek, Cunningham was approached by a neighbor named White who introduced 2 strangers, stating that they wished to buy hay for a bunch of horses they had with them. One of the men, named George Spenser, was about 30 and had come originally from Illinois; the other was an Oregon boy named Mike Burnett, much younger than Spenser but already rated a first-class cattleman after having punched cattle for several years elsewhere in Wyoming. Cunningham sold them about 15 tons of hay and incidentally arranged to let the men winter in his cabin near Spread Creek, about 25 miles to the north. Since Cunningham himself intended to remain at Flat Creek, he also arranged for his partner, a burly Swede named Jackson, to stay with them.

Rumor began spreading during the winter that the 2 men on Cunningham’s place were fugitive horse thieves. Some of the rustlers’ horses, it was said, belonged to a cattleman in Montana; a valley rancher had worked for him and recognized some of the brands. Before the snow was gone Cunningham had taken it upon himself to snowshoe to Spread Creek, investigate conditions, and warn Jackson to be on guard. Once there his suspicions were confirmed. Cunningham spent several days with the men, went with them to search for their horses, and recognized certain stocks and changed brands that left no question in his mind as to their guilt. The die was cast, and although he could readily have warned the men of their danger, Cunningham returned home without doing so.

The next spring, however, he ordered Spenser and Burnett to leave, and they did; but unfortunately for them, they returned to look for some horses on the very day they should have been absent.

This was in April 1893. Across the mountains to the west a man from Montana was organizing a posse in the little Idaho settlement of Driggs. Somehow, possibly on a tip relayed from the Hole, he had got wind of the rustlers on Cunningham’s place and was coming to get them. One of the valley homesteaders saw the posse leader there with a group of 15 men on saddle horses, and a few days later they came riding over the pass from Teton Basin into Jackson Hole.

In the valley of ... the leader completed organization of the posse. Including him, there were 4 men from Montana, 2 from Idaho, and 10 or 12 recruited in Jackson Hole. Asked to join the outfit, Cunningham refused, and stayed at Flat Creek. The posse elected a spokesman, and then started up the valley to the Spread Creek cabin—a group of 16 men, all mounted and heavily armed.

Under cover of darkness, the posse approached the cabin, a low, sod-roofed log building in dark silhouette against the night sky. Silently they surrounded it; 6 men in the shed about 150 yards northwest of the cabin, 3 took cover behind the ridge about the same distance south of the cabin, and the rest presumably scattered at intermediate vantage points. And then they waited for dawn.

PHOTO BY FRITIOF FRYXELL
The Cunningham Cabin, where on an April morning in 1893 two men were cornered and shot for horse-stealing.

Inside the cabin the unsuspecting men were sleeping quietly: Spenser, the older man, sandy-haired and heavily built; Burnett, the cowpuncher, slender and dark; and of course Swede Jackson, Cunningham’s partner. The two rustlers intended to leave when it got light.

Early in the morning the dog which was in the cabin with the men began to bark shrilly, perhaps taking alarm at the scent of the posse. Spenser got up, dressed, buckled on his revolver, and went out to the corral.

The corral lay between the cabin and the shed, and after Spenser had entered it one of the posse called to him to “throw ’em up.” Instead Spenser drew with lightning speed and fired twice, one bullet passing between two logs and almost hitting the spokesman, the other nicking a log near by. The posse returned fire and Spenser fell to the ground, propping himself up on one elbow and continuing to shoot until he collapsed.

Meanwhile Burnett had got up, slipped on his overalls and boots, and fastened on his revolver. Then he picked up his rifle in his right hand and came out of the cabin. As he stepped forth, one of the men behind the ridge fired at him. The bullet struck the point of a log next to the door, just in front of Burnett’s eyes. Burnett swept the splinters from his face with his right hand as he reached for his revolver with his left, and fired lefthanded at the top of the gunman’s hat, just visible over the ridge. The shot was perfect; the bullet tore away the hat and creased the man’s scalp. He toppled over backwards.

Burnett then deliberately walked over to the corner of the cabin and stopped, with rifle in hand, in full view of the entire posse, taunting them to come out and show themselves. From inside the cabin Jackson pleaded with him to come in or he would get it too. Burnett finally turned, and as he did so one of the members of the posse shot him. The bullet killed Burnett instantly, and he pitched forward toward the cabin, discharging his rifle as he fell.

Now only Jackson was left in the cabin. A big, bumbling man with a knack for trouble, Jackson had once before been taken by mistake for a horsethief and been scared almost to death; when he was now ordered to come out and surrender with his hands in the air he did so immediately.

The work of the posse was done. Mike Burnett lay face down in the dirt at the corner of the cabin, the bullet from his last shot lodged in a log beside him; George Spenser, his six-shooter empty, was sprawled inside the corral with 4 charges of buckshot and 4 or 5 bullets in his body. They were buried in unmarked graves a few hundred yards southeast of the cabin, on the south side of a draw.

No investigation was ever made, no trial held, and the matter was hushed up. As years went by the subject of the killing at Spread Creek became a touchy one, and most of the men directly involved preferred not to talk about it. Swede Jackson, apparently thoroughly shaken by the incident, left the valley and did not return. The affair at Cunningham’s Ranch was a closed story.

What information the members of the posse did volunteer in later years was in justification of their actions. The posse leader was a Montana sheriff, they said, and he and his men had come from Evanston, Wyoming, with the “proper papers,” and deputized the Jackson Hole men. According to them there had been no intention of killing—the 2 victims had been given a chance to surrender, and after the affair one of the men in the posse had gone to Evanston to report it to the police.

Those in the valley who had not been in on the posse were not so sure of the legality of the shooting. Cunningham said he thought the leader was not an officer, and reiterated that the posse had been instructed not to arrest but to kill. He stated that 2 local men had previously been asked to dispose of the pair, but had refused. When asked who raised the posse and investigated the killing, Cunningham laughed and said he could tell but preferred not to; asked if he cared to state whether the move was local or not, he quickly said, “Oh no—it wasn’t only local.”

Cunningham himself was rumored to have warned the outlaws to be on guard, having returned from the Spread Creek ranch only a short time before the killing. The story easily gained credence, since Spenser had caught the posse completely by surprise when he armed himself and started directly for the corral and shed where the men were hidden. Cunningham denied “tipping them off,” and Jackson later said it was unusual for the dog to bark as it did that morning. Spenser probably sensed from the dog’s actions that something was amiss and so put on his gun before leaving the cabin, a precaution which Jackson said the men had never taken during the previous winter.

Cunningham seemed more favorably impressed by the behavior of the 2 horsethieves than by any heroism on the part of the posse, an attitude which was general in the valley. Members of the posse had little to say about it.

In 1928, several years before his death, Pierce Cunningham recounted the story of the killing at Spread Creek and ended by pointing out the spot where the rustlers were buried. With 2 timbers he marked the sage-covered plot, one corner of it crossed by the road then running past the cabin, where George Spenser and Mike Burnett had lain since their death in 1893.

Years later badgers threw out some of their bones into the sunlight.

PROSPECTOR OF JACKSON HOLE[8]
By Fritiof Fryxell

In the 1880’s and 1890’s it was widely supposed that the Snake River gravels of Jackson Hole, in Wyoming, contained workable deposits of placer gold, and there were many who came to the region, lured by such reports and a prospector’s eternal optimism.

Color, indeed, could be struck almost anywhere along the river, but the gold of which it gave promise proved discouragingly scarce and elusive. None found what in fairness to the word could be called a fortune. Few found sufficient gold to maintain for any length of time even the most frugal living—and who can live more frugally than the itinerant prospector? So through these decades prospectors quietly came and sooner or later as quietly left, leaving no traces of their visit more substantial than the scattered prospect holes still to be seen along the bars of the Snake River. Even today a prospector occasionally finds his way into the valley, and, like a ghost out of the past, may be seen on some river bar, patiently panning. Probably he, too, will drift on. It is apparent now that the wealth of Jackson Hole lies not in gold-bearing gravels but in the matchless beauty of its snow-covered hills and the tonic qualities of its mountain air and streams.

But one prospector stayed. Mysterious in life, Uncle Jack Davis has become one of the most shadowy figures in the past of Jackson Hole, little more than a name except to those few still left of an older generation who knew him. He deserves to be remembered—deserves it because of his singular story, and because he has the distinction historically of having been the only confirmed prospector in Jackson Hole.

He was “Uncle” only by courtesy for he lived a lonely hermit until his death; and so far as is known he left no relatives. He first appeared in 1887 as one of the throng of miners drawn irresistibly into that maelstrom of the gold excitements, Virginia City, Montana. In a Virginia City saloon he became involved in a brawl and struck a man down, struck him too hard and killed him. Davis, it should be remarked, was a man of herculean strength and, at the time of this accident, he was drunk. Believing himself slated for the usual treatment prescribed by Montana justice at the time—quick trial and hanging—he fled the city.

Davis reappeared shortly after this in Jackson Hole, the resort of more than one man with a past, and in the most isolated corner of that isolated region he began life anew. At the south end of the Hole, a few miles down the Grand Canyon, he took out a claim on the south side of the Snake River near a little tributary known as Bailey Creek. There he built a log cabin, the humblest structure imaginable—one room, no windows, a single door hung on rawhide hinges. This primitive shack was Jack Davis’ home for nearly a quarter of a century. True, more than two decades later he built himself a new cabin, but death knocked at the door of the old one before he could move.

PHOTO BY AL AUSTIN
Uncle Jack’s cabin was located on the Snake River near the mouth of Bailey Creek. The plank structure on the roof is the old sluice box which was used to make his coffin.

Down in the bottom of this magnificent canyon which he had almost to himself, Davis plied his old trade of placer mining, putting in the usual crude system of sluice boxes and ditches. In addition, he cultivated a patch of ground which yielded vegetables sufficient for his own needs and for an occasional trade. The income from both sources was ridiculously small, but his needs were modest enough. Primarily he wished peace and seclusion, and these he found.

The Virginia City episode never ceased to trouble him. It made him a recluse for life. He lived alone, and limited his associates almost entirely to the few neighbors who, as the years passed, came to share his canyon or that of the nearby Hoback River. Trips to town were made only when necessary, and were brief. On such occasions it was his practice to cross the Snake near his cabin and hike or snowshoe up the west side to the store at Menor’s Ferry, 50 miles distant. Having made his purchases he shouldered them and returned by the same route. In the course of his journey he saw and talked to few. He rarely went to Jackson, the only town in the region. He is said to have been a sober man, afraid of drink.

Davis’ solitary habits sprang from a haunting fear of pursuit, not from dislike of companionship. The presence of a stranger in the region made him uneasy, and he did not rest until his mission was known, sometimes pressing a friend into service to ascertain a stranger’s business. He rarely allowed his photograph to be taken. Apparently his fears had little foundation, for no one from “outside” ever came in after him. Very likely Virginia City soon forgot him.

Davis’ past was known to only 1 or 2 of the most intimate of his neighbors. They kept it to themselves. Nor would it have mattered had this story been more generally known—not in Jackson Hole where such a distinction was by no means unique, and where a man was judged for what he was, not for what he had been, or had done.

Though a strange recluse, he was a man to be admired and respected. Physically he was tall, broad, of magnificently erect carriage—a blue-eyed, full-bearded giant. Stories of his strength still enjoy currency. According to one of these, Uncle Jack once lifted a casting which on its shipping bill was credited with weighing 900 pounds—lifted it by slipping a loop of rope under it, passing the loop over his shoulders, and straightening his back. And it was well known that for all his solitary habits, Uncle Jack was kind and generous as he was strong.

It seems as though for the remainder of his days Uncle Jack did penance for his one great mistake. He impressed one as trying hard to do the right thing by everyone and everything. Such was his love for birds and animals that he would go hungry rather than shoot them. To callers at his shack he explained the absence of meat from the table by a stock alibi so lame and transparent that it fooled no one: “He’d eat so much meat lately that he’d decided to lay off it for awhile.” His unwillingness to kill turned him into a vegetarian—here in the midst of the best hunting country in America. A hermit, yet Uncle Jack was hardly lonely. In birds and beasts of the canyon he found a substitute for human companionship. The wild creatures about him soon ceased to be wild. His family of pets included Lucy, a doe who lived with him for many years; Buster, her fawn, whom the coyotes finally killed; two cats—Pitchfork Tillman, named for a prominent political figure of the times, and Nick Wilson, much given to night life, so named after a prominent pioneer of the valley; and a number of tame squirrels and bluebirds. Not to mention Dan, the old horse, and Calamity Jane, the inevitable prospector’s burro, which had accompanied Jack in his flight to Jackson Hole, where it finally died at the advanced age of 40 years. Maintaining peace in such a family kept Uncle Jack from becoming lonely.

Al Austin, who for many years was forest ranger in this region, and who in time came to enjoy Uncle Jack’s closest confidence, presents an unforgettable picture of the old man and his family. Dropping in at mealtime for a friendly call, Austin would find Uncle Jack in his cabin surrounded by his pets, each clamouring to be fed and each jealous of attention bestowed on any creature other than itself. If the bluebirds were favored, the squirrels chattered vociferously. Buster, if irritated, would justify his name by charging and upsetting the furniture. Add to this the audible impatience of Pitchfork Tillman and Nick Wilson, Lucy was ladylike but nevertheless insistent. To this motley circle Uncle Jack would hold forth in inimitable language, carrying on a running stream of conversation—scolding, lecturing, admonishing, or when discord became acute, threatening dire punishment if they did not mend their ways. It is hardly necessary to add that to Uncle Jack’s awful threats, and the vivid profanity, which it must be admitted, accompanied them, the members of the household remained serenely indifferent, and there is no record that any of the promised disasters ever fell on their furry heads.

PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN
Uncle Jack Davis, the only confirmed prospector of Jackson Hole, was tall, broad, of magnificently erect carriage—a blue-eyed, full-bearded giant. This is a rare photograph taken shortly before his death.

Having no windows, Uncle Jack left his door open during the good weather. One spring a pair of bluebirds flew through the open door into the shack and, having inspected the place and found it to their liking, built their nest behind a triangular fragment of mirror which Uncle Jack had stuck on the wall. Uncle Jack then cut down the door from its leather hinges and did not replace it until fall. Six successive summers the bluebirds returned to the cabin, and, finding the door removed in anticipation of their coming, built their nest and raised their young behind Uncle Jack’s mirror.

Nearby Uncle Jack made a little graveyard for his pets, as they left him one by one. It was lovingly cared for. In the course of the 24 years which he spent there the burial ground came to contain many neat mounds—mounds of strangely different sizes. But Lucy, Pitchfork Tillman, and Dan outlived Uncle Jack.

He would not accept charity, even during the last year or two of his life when he was nearly destitute. Neighbors had to resort to strategy to get him to accept help.

On his periodic trips up and down the canyon, Austin brought the mail to Davis and to Johnny Counts, who lived next to the north. Counts and Davis, too, occasionally exchanged visits. On March 14, 1911, Austin called at Counts’ and, finding that nothing had been heard of from Uncle Jack for some time, snowshoed on down the canyon to see if all was well.

The old man lay in bed, delirious. The last date checked off on the wall calendar was February 11. Outside the cabin, elk had eaten all the hay, and the horse and Lucy were at the point of starvation. Austin stayed by his bedside for several days, then, finding it impossible to care for Uncle Jack decently in the dark old cabin, summoned Counts. Several days later they moved the old man 6 miles up the river, carrying him where they could, most of the way pulling him along in a boat from the shore. The old trail was one Jack himself had built many years before. In Count’s cabin, a week later, Uncle Jack died.

Austin made Uncle Jack’s coffin from one of the old man’s own sluice boxes. Together the two men carried Uncle Jack to the grave they had dug for him at Sulphur Springs, nearby in the canyon. A wooden headboard on which Ranger Austin carved the inscription, “A. L. Davis, Died March 25, 1911,” marks the grave—there Uncle Jack sleeps alone.

In Davis’ shack was found the “fortune” which placer mining had brought him—$12 in cash and about the same value in gold amalgam.

MOUNTAIN RIVER MEN[9]
THE STORY OF MENOR’S FERRY
By Frances Judge

“This ain’t W. D. Menor talking, this is H. H. Menor talking, by God. Holy Saviour, yes!”

Both Bill and Holiday carried a mouthful of oaths that spilled out whenever they spoke. They cursed their friends and neighbors, they cursed each other, and they cursed themselves. But to lighten this burden of words when women were around, Holiday would say, before a sentence, in the middle of a sentence or at the end of one, “Holy Savior, yes!” or “Holy Savior, no!”

Bill never bothered to lighten his profanity.

Yet, in spite of cursing, they were men of dignity.

Everyone in Jackson Hole knew Bill and Holiday Menor. They were as much a part of the country as the Snake River or the Teton Mountains. The type of men they were brought them here.

Then, as now, Jackson Hole had a marked collection of people. They were unshackled and they had color. Strength was intensified. Weakness was vivid. Bill and Holiday were plain spoken, strong-dyed individualists. They belonged here.

The Menor brothers came originally from Ohio. They were tall men. Bill, 11 years older than his brother, was thin and long-boned. His nose and sharp eyes were like an old eagle’s. Holiday’s long body sagged a little. He had a grizzled beard, long, shrewd nose, and amused, gray eyes. He prospected in Montana before coming to Jackson Hole. “My partner’s name was Mean, but I was Menor,” he would say. He claimed to have made over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in one prospect. When asked what happened to the money, he always said, “Wine, women and song.” He talked of going off to Old Mexico, prospecting, but he never went. There was too much living to be done on the banks of the Snake River.

Bill Menor, coming to this valley in 1892, settled on a homestead by squatter’s right. He settled where the Snake River hauls toward the great mountains. He was first to homestead on the west bank of the Snake River, under the Tetons. He built a low, log house among the cottonwoods on the shore of the river, collected a cow or two, and a horse; a few chickens; plowed up sage and made a field; planted a garden; built a blacksmith shop; and in time opened a small store where he sold a few groceries, a lot of Bull Durham, overalls, tin pans, fish hooks and odds and ends.

And he immediately constructed a ferry to ply the unreliable Snake. Before settling in the valley, he spent 10 days with John Shive and John Cherry “on the Buffalo.” At that time he considered establishing a ferry somewhere along the Buffalo, but after talking with Cherry and Shive, he decided on the Snake River. And his decision was wise and farsighted.

Many settlers cut timber on Bill’s side of the river, so the ferry was welcome. There were times when it was the only crossing within a 40 mile stretch up and down the river. Once in awhile there was no crossing at all, when the river was “in spate” and Bill refused to risk the ferry. At such a time people were forced to go up one side of the river to Moran, cross the toll bridge, and travel down the other side—80 miles to travel 8.

The ferry, a railed platform on pontoons, was carried directly across the river by the current, guided by ropes attached to an overhead cable. The cable was secured to a massive log—called a “dead man.” The ferry was large enough to carry a 4-horse team, provided the lead team was unhooked and led to the side of the wagon.

PHOTO BY AL AUSTIN
Menor’s Ferry at about the turn of the Century. Where the mad Snake rolls by, and the shadow of the great mountains moves over sage, and building, and river.

Bill Menor charged 50 cents for a team, 25 cents for a horse and rider. A foot passenger was carried free if a vehicle was crossing.

In those early days almost everyone who came to cross the ferry around mealtime was invited to eat. If the river was too high for safe crossing and the persons who wanted to cross were in no particular hurry, Bill would keep them 2 or 3 days, bedding them and feeding them generously until the waters subsided, and charging them only the slim ferry fee. “When you see them rollers in the middle of the river, I won’t cross,” he would say, apologizing in his grouchy way for keeping people around.

Anyone who stayed with Bill had to be washed and combed and ready to leap at the table at twelve-noon and six-sharp. Early in the morning, as soon as the fire was built, he yelled at them, saying, “Come on, get out of bed. Don’t lay there until the flies blow you!” Nothing angered him more than to have someone late for a meal, unless it was to put a dish or a pan in the wrong place. Bill had a place for everything and everything had to be in place. Once the Roy VanVlecks spent the night with Bill. They washed the morning dishes before ferrying over the river. Bill, leaning against the kitchen doorcasing, criticized and cursed because the frying pans shouldn’t go here and the kettles shouldn’t go there. Yet he did not offer to put them on their proper nails or even show where they belonged.

That was Bill, and his neighbors understood. He was a man boiled down to his primary colors.

Bill was generally accommodating, but if he were particularly out of humor, and had a natural distaste for a person who came along after six in the evening, he would refuse to ferry him over the river or keep him for the night. He apparently got satisfaction out of being downright mean to a few individuals.

When the Snake is high, it is ferocious. It boils, seethes, growls, beats its breast, and carries with it everything it can reach.

Once it got Bill.

A huge, uprooted tree swept against the ferry with such force that the ropes broke and the boat was carried downstream, taking Bill with it. After a quick trip, the ferry grounded on a submerged sandbar. Neighbors gathered and conferred and hurried about, trying to rescue Bill. He stood on the ferry violently cursing the rescue crew and acting, in general, as though they alone were to blame for the high water and his predicament.

Holiday Menor came to Jackson Hole about 1905. He lived for a number of years with his brother, Bill. But the disposition of each was cut on the bias, and the two disagreed over a neighbor. So Holiday took up land on the east shore and built his houses directly across from brother Bill, and let the river run between them. Like a great many individualists, Bill and Holiday considered strong hate a mark of character, so they did not speak to each other for 2 years. Nevertheless, they were proud of each other, and the name of one always cropped up in the conversation of the other, mixed well with curses. And each watched across the river for the other, to make sure all was right on the opposite shore.

One Christmas the brothers were invited to the Bar B C Ranch for dinner. It was Holiday’s birthday. Neither knew the other was to be there. When each arrived he was given a strong drink of whiskey to insure amiability. The 2 brothers shook hands over the Christmas table. Ever after they were on speaking terms.

And sometimes they spoke too freely, shaking fists and cursing each other over the river. There was much gusto in their living.

Though Bill read hardly more than the daily paper that came to him, Holiday subscribed to a number of magazines. He read 7 long months of the year and “talked it out” the other 5. He argued politically with everyone, whether they would argue or not. “Now, mind you, I’m telling you, this ain’t W. D. talking, this is H. H. Menor talking, by God.” And for emphasis he would bang things with a stick of stove wood. Once he came down on the red hot stove with his bare fist and for a short while political views were unimportant.

Gradually the land was taken up by a homesteader or Government leaser, and the Menors were surrounded with neighbors. Then, as now, persons living 10 or 15 miles away were considered close neighbors. Everybody in the valley knew everybody else, or at least knew stories about him. For Holiday to have a close neighbor other than Bill was intriguing. Mrs. Evelyn Dorman, a Pennsylvania woman, homesteaded on the east bank, and her buildings were only a quarter of a mile below Holiday’s. She called him the Patriarch of the Ford, and he called her the Widow down the River.

To have Mrs. Dornan ask how he prepared some dish filled him with pride. He enjoyed giving away his recipes. He would say, “You take two handfuls of flour, that is, and a pinch of salt, that is ...” All his recipes were generously seasoned with “that is’s”. He was an excellent cook and loved to have his friends eat with him.

But there was the rooster episode.

Bill had a beautiful barred Plymouth Rock rooster; a huge single-combed domestic fowl with graceful feathers in its tail, and pride in its walk. But Holiday’s rooster had only two feathers in its tail, its body was completely bare, and it had no pride.

It was a sad sight.

The Widow down the River laughed every time she looked at Holiday’s rooster and wanted to take a picture of it. But Holiday said, “No.”

“Holy Savior, no! I don’t want that rooster shown as an example of what is raised on my ranch.”

Fearing Mrs. Dornan would take a picture of the fowl, he killed it, cooked it, and invited her to eat it with him. He never once thought that the bird might have been defeathered by disease. Mrs. Dorman ate rooster and pretended to enjoy it. She was an understanding neighbor.

Both Bill and Holiday raised excellent gardens. To be fairly safe against frost they never planted until the snow melted up to a certain level in the Tetons. They raised many vegetables. Their cauliflowers were as big as footstools. They raised currents and raspberries galore, and made jelly and jam. And they raised flowers. Holiday always had pansies on the north side of his buildings. He called them tansies. He and Bill always gave freely of their vegetables, berries, and flowers.

During the wild berry season, Bill would charge “huckleberry rates” to the local people—fare one way only—when the berries were ripe along the ridges and around the lakes under the Tetons.

Holiday would can between 50 and 60 quarts of huckleberries during a season. And since he drank periodically he made wine. At any rate that is what he called it. He would make it of berries, raisins, prunes, beets, plus whatever else was handy—and never wait for the mixture to mature.

It would knock his hat off.

At five one summer morning, neighbors stopped at Holiday’s returning from a dance. They were cold. They needed a stimulant, but Holiday had no wine. He had drunk it all. So they drank a cocktail made of gin and huckleberry juice—half and half. After finishing their drinks, 2 young men in the party decided to go shoot a rabbit for breakfast. They did.

“We shot it right in the eye,” one said, holding up what was left of the rabbit.

The hind parts were shot away, slick as a whistle.

That is what gin and wild huckleberry juice did to a rabbit. Holy Savior, yes! What might Holiday’s wine have done to it?

Holiday enjoyed the summer visitors in Jackson Hole. Bill probably enjoyed them also, but they could not lift him from his natural state of grouchiness. Once, after looking over the miles of sage that covered the levels of land that rise from the river to the mountains, an Eastern lady said to Bill, “Mr. Menor, what do you raise in this country?”

Bill, a dyed-in-the-wool bachelor, looked at her and said, “Hell and kids and plenty of both.”

He enjoyed startling people.

And he apparently knew what the “outsider” thought of a Jackson Holer. In 1915 he made a trip to the World’s Fair with his neighbors, Jim and Mary Budge. When they had boarded a San Francisco-bound train, after a strenuous trek out of Jackson Hole, both Jim and Bill felt in need of a long drink of whiskey. Entering the smoker with their concealed bottle, they found one other man there. They did not like his looks and they felt no need of him. Bill walked up and looked down at him with his eagle stare. “Do you know where we’re from?” he said. “JACKSON HOLE!”

The man made a quick escape.

Though Holiday was more jovial than Brother Bill, his neighbors steered clear of him when he was in the process of making lime. He made and sold lime to neighboring ranchers. Some of them, like Bill, whitewashed their houses inside and out with it. Holiday chinked his houses with it. He also used it as a cure-all for man and beast. When he made lime he had to keep a steady fire going for thirty-odd hours in the kiln just behind the house in the bank. During these hours he was not fit company for man or beast. But his neighbors accepted his limy disposition as a necessary part of the process. Holy Savior, yes. What of it?

When late fall brought bitter winds, heavy fogs, and snow, the ferry was beached for the winter. From then on all teams had to ford the river. A little platform was hung from the river cable to accommodate foot passengers. It would hold 3 or 4 at one time. The passengers mounted the platform from a ladder and sat down. Bill released the car; with a quick swoosh it ran down the slack in the cable where it dipped within 10 feet of the river. Then the frightened passengers would laboriously haul themselves up the relaxed cable to the opposite shore.

In later years, when travel became heavier, a winter bridge was flung across the main channel. Putting in the winter bridge was the responsibility of everyone, friend and enemy alike. When the time was ripe, word was sent to nearby ranchers. On this day of days all cars and wagons were stopped and the occupants asked to help with the construction. If they protested, Holiday would say, “Do you want to use the winter bridge? Well, then help put it in!”

Giving a hot meal to the crew that laid the winter bridge became traditional with Mrs. Dornan. While they carried logs and hammered, she baked and fried and boiled.

To find a crew to lay the winter bridge was never very difficult, but to find a few who were willing to help remove it in the spring was a very different matter. The ferry was running full blast. No one needed the bridge. No one was enthusiastic. This was spring; time to plant and build and plan. No time to tear down. To get men to the river for this seemingly useless task was worse than trying to get a fresh cow on the ferry without her calf.

So it came to pass that one spring there was only Holiday and one other man to move the bridge pole by pole, nail by nail, oath by oath. As a result any log that looked too heavy for 2 men to lift was rolled into the river. “To hell with it,” Holiday would say, and dust off his hands. “Holy Savior, yes!”

In 1918, Bill sold his ranch and the ferry. The new owners raised the prices. Soon after the ferry changed hands, a Jackson Holer came along on foot. Finding the fare doubled he leaped, fully dressed and full of anger into the Snake River and swam across. The pilot stood on the ferry, cursing the swimmer and yelling that he hoped he would drown.

Bill sold because he had enough of high water and low water. He had enough of fog, rain, wind, snow, and sunshine on the Snake.

Yet he could not drag himself away. He hung around his house and at twelve-noon, and six-sharp he would pace what was no longer his floor and swear because the meal was not ready. Mrs. Dornan, who was then boarding at the Menor place, would get him to the door and say, “Go on out, Bill. The meal will be good when you get it.” But this was no longer home. At last he dragged himself away from the ranch, away from the valley. He moved to California.

In 1925 the Gros Ventre slide occurred which brought tourists flocking to Jackson Hole. The great rump of Sheep Mountain had dropped away, damming the Gros Ventre River and forming a lake 4 miles long. This landslide occurred directly across the valley from Menor’s Ferry and brought the owners a landslide of business. But Bill had sold and left the country.

By 1927 a huge bridge spanned the Snake not far from the Menor houses, so the ferry was beached and in time dismantled. But before the bridge was completed, Holiday had sold his land and followed his brother to California.

Now they were old men.

Just before leaving the valley, Holiday bought a new suit and a new hat. He stayed a few days in Jackson at the Crabtree Hotel. One night, while he was in town, the ladies of some organization were having a dinner in the Club House—the upper floor of a huge frame building. An outside stairway led up to the hall. Holiday happened along just as a woman stepped out on the stairway with a pan full of dishwater. She threw the water all over him. Holiday walked on to the hotel, wet and violently angry. After a string of oaths that would reach from one end of the Snake River to the other and all its tributaries, he said to Mrs. Crabtree, “A man gets dressed up once in 17 years and a woman has to climb up above him and throw dishwater all over him. Why couldn’t it have been a minute earlier or a minute later? Hell!” And he stomped off to his room.

Shortly before Bill’s death, Mrs. Dornan found the two brothers in San Diego, in a little hospital on Juniper Street. Bill was bedridden, but his mind was keen. He cursed the bed in which he lay, and talked of Jackson Hole. A sympathetic nurse had pinned on the wall at the foot of his bed a crude oil painting of the Teton Mountains.

Holiday was able to be up and about, but his mind had begun to fade. Mrs. Dornan took him mahogany “tansies” like those he once grew. Knowing he would never see her again, he gave her a handkerchief with his initials in one corner. H. H. M.

She knew that never again would she hear him say, “Now mind you, I’m telling you. This ain’t W. D. Menor talking, this is H. H. Menor talking, by God!”

The brothers died within a year of each other.

But living or dead they belonged to Jackson Hole. They were vivid, strong-grained men.

Holiday’s buildings are gone. But Bill’s low, whitewashed house still stands.

And the mad Snake rolls by, and the shadow of the great mountains moves over sage, and building, and river.