Then and Now; or, Thirty-Six Years in the Rockies / Personal Reminiscences of Some of the First Pioneers of the State of Montana

by Robert Vaughn

Two men, names unknown, were killed by Sioux at the mouth of the Musselshell in 1868.

Four men, names unknown, were killed by Sioux at the mouth of the Musselshell in 1873.

One man, name unknown, was killed by Piegans on Warm Spring creek, near the Judith river, in 1874.

The remains of a man were found a few miles up the Missouri river, from the mouth of Sun river, in 1887. His identification could not be had. The opinion was that death had come from exposure.

The above are a few of the shadows that darkened the life of the pioneer.

It is human nature that every person is pleased to hear others saying something good about him. Joaquin Miller said of the pioneers of Montana that some fell from overtoil, others in battle with savages; some died even as they sat for the first time by the new-laid hearthstone waiting for wife and babes to arrive with the first flowers of spring; and that the world does not, perhaps, understand what it cost to come here in the early days.

And, as Mr. Miller says, the Pilgrim fathers set forth in the ship and landed on Plymouth Rock; the Cavaliers of Virginia sailed pleasantly up the James river and scarcely knew what a camp in the wilderness was until they sat down in their future home; the Argonauts of California, many of them, merely sailed from port to port; but Montana was a thousand miles from any ocean, a wilderness in the center of an untrodden country with savages in her every pass and valley, and so, necessarily, every man that came here among the first was in some way a soldier, yes, a veteran soldier, who had mustered, camped, marched and battled, endured hunger and exposure to all kinds of weather—all that the bravest soldier endures—before he ever came within sight of the Mecca that he was toiling to reach. He truly says that there was a great difference between the Montana veteran and the bravest of the brave in any war that has ever been; that the soldiers Caesar, Napoleon and Grant had their governments to clothe, feed, pay and pension them, but the hero of Montana stood alone.

I have just given the names of seventy-six of those heroes who fell victims to the wrath of the redskins, and of several that were wounded and died afterwards. The names of the fourteen men, the woman and the two children, I have not, but their relatives were informed of their sad death. Of the other party of men, women and children no further account of them but the finding of their bodies could be obtained. And, in addition to all, we have twenty-two unknown who were killed; not a trace of their identification could be found—no one knew either their names or where their homes were—therefore, an account of their death could not be given to friends or relatives, who may never know what has become of their dear ones who went West years before.

Think of the affectionate sister who had ceased receiving letters from her brother who had gone to the unsettled West to try and better his condition in life. She said: “My brother John used to write to me often, but now, for a long time he has not written. It may be that he is in the mountains prospecting, and that he has no way to send a letter to me. I expect the next letter, when it comes, will be full of good news.” Month after month has passed and she is patiently waiting for that newsy letter to arrive. Poor girl! She does not know the fate that has befallen her brother. And thus of a loving wife, with a babe on her arm, and with her other arm embracing her kind and loving husband when he left home to go to the gold fields of the “Rockies” to hunt enough of the yellow metal to pay off the mortgage that was on their little home. She said that her husband had been gone nearly four years; that during the first three years he wrote every month, and, in every letter there was some money for her, and that in the last letter he stated that he had good prospects and hopes of “striking it” before she would get another, and would be home with enough money to pay off everything. And she, too, is waiting, waiting. It has not entered her mind that her beloved husband has been——.

Again a fond and loving mother, bent with age, and who parted with her only son several years before. For a long time after he left for the gold regions, she said: “He used to write to me very often and always send me some money, and one time he sent me a nice specimen from the mines, but now I have not heard from him for a long time and I am afraid something has happened to him. I am getting so I can’t sleep at night thinking of my darling boy.” He was advertised in the newspaper nearest where his last address was, and the editor of the paper, for the sake of a broken-hearted mother, left the advertisement in double the time the contract called for, besides inserting, “other papers please copy.” But no one responded. All this time an unheard voice was saying: “He is one of the unknown that were killed by the Indians in an isolated place in the Rocky mountains a long time ago.” It may be that some of the relatives of those unfortunates are still hoping that the lost son, brother, husband, or father is yet alive; but the fact is, their remains are resting in an unmarked grave on the plains, or, may be, far in some lonely gulch in the mountains, and the once little mound is now leveled by the elements and the secret spot robed with herbs and wild grasses, so that even his fellow pioneer who buried him cannot designate the place where the remains sleep and rest forever.