Johnson's Creek was named for a foolish missionary a great many years ago, who was on his way to Oregon, in company with a party of emigrants in charge of John Gray.
As they were breaking camp one morning, a band of Sioux suddenly charged out of the hills, and preparations were immediately made by Mr. Gray and his men to repel them. Against such a course as this Mr. Johnson loudly protested. He declared that it would be a terrible outrage to shed innocent blood, and as the savages neared the camp, he marched out to meet them and have a talk, notwithstanding that he was told by his companions that the Indians would not listen to him for a moment, but would take his scalp.
The deluded fool really believed that the savages would not harm him, because he was a missionary, and had ventured out among them to do their race good. Of course he fell a victim to his own ridiculous credulity; for the moment the Indians came close enough, they incontinently murdered him, and his hair was dangling at the belt of one of the warriors before Johnson had a chance to put in a word.
In the fight which ensued three of the Indians were killed, and were, with the mangled remains of the unfortunate missionary, buried in one grave.
Independence Rock is an isolated mass of clear granite, located a few hundred yards from the right bank of the Sweetwater. Its base covers an area of nearly five acres, and rises to a height of about three hundred feet. There is a slight depression on its summit, otherwise the rock would be nearly oval in shape. In the early days of the trail, a little soil, which had probably been drifted into the depression mentioned, supported a few sickly shrubs and one dwarf tree.
The front face of this ancient landmark, like that of Pawnee Rock, on the old Santa Fé Trail, is covered with the names of trappers, traders, emigrants, and other men who supposed that their rude carvings would immortalize them.
The rock derives its patriotic name from the fact that many years ago one of the first party of Americans who crossed the continent by the way of the Platte Valley, under the leadership of a man named Thorp, celebrated their Fourth of July at the foot of the now historic mass of granite.
The most prominent inscription on the face of the rock is Independence.
Father De Smet, the celebrated Jesuit priest, says of it in his
letters to the bishop of St. Louis, in 1841:
The first rock which we saw, and which truly deserves the name,
was the famous rock Independence. At first I was led to
believe that it had received this pompous name from its
isolated situation and the solidity of its basis; but I was
afterward told that it was called so because the first
travellers who thought of giving it a name arrived at it on
the very day when the people of the United States celebrate
the anniversary of their separation from Great Britain.
We reached this spot on the day that immediately succeeds this
celebration. We had in our company a young Englishman,
as jealous of the honour of his nation as the Americans;
hence we had a double reason not to cry hurrah, for
Independence. Still, on the following day, lest it might be
said that we passed this lofty monument of the desert with
indifference, we cut our names on the south side of the rock,
under initials (I. H. S.) which we would wish to see engraved
on every spot. On account of all these names, and of the
dates that accompany them, as well as of the hieroglyphics
of Indian warriors, I have surnamed this rock “The Great
Record of the Desert.”
As is the case with nearly all of the prominent bluffs, mountains, and isolated peaks in the romantic valley, Independence Rock has its Indian legend. The story as told by an old warrior is this:—
A great many years ago, long before any white man had looked upon the valley of the Upper Platte, the chief of the Pawnees, whose big villages extended for some distance along that river, was known as the Crouching Panther. He was one of the bravest warriors that the famous Pawnee nation had ever produced; large in stature, powerful in his strength, yet as lithe and quick as the animal from which he derived his name. He was beloved by his tribe, and none of his many warriors could compete with him for an instant in all the manly games which afford the amusements of the savages, nor with him in the chase after the buffalo or the more fleet antelope. His prowess, too, in battle was far beyond that of any of the great warriors which tradition had handed down; yet he was not envied by any, for he was of a loving and kind disposition. He was equal in feats of horsemanship to the Comanches, which nation excels in that particular over all other Plains tribes.