Memory’s Storehouse Unlocked
TRUE STORIES
by
John T. Bristow
PIONEER DAYS IN WETMORE and Northeast Kansas
January — 1948
WETMORE, KANSAS and
FRESNO, CALIFORNIA
1005 Ferger Avenue
“The SPECTATOR FORCE”— In “GAY NINETIES”
This book does not carry the actual work of these pictured Associates—but it does bring them into the writings. The Author owes much to them for helpful co-operation during our newspaper regime—and maybe also, if the truth were known, they have been, in a manner, quite helpful in the actual writing.
The book is dedicated to the memory of them.
INDEX
[“The SPECTATOR FORCE”—In “GAY NINETIES”]
[TEXAS CATTLE AND RATTLESNAKES]
[THE STRANGE CASE OF MR. HENRY, et al.]
[GRAPES—RIPENED ON FRIENDSHIP’S VINE]
[ODD CHARACTERS—COLORFUL, PICTURESQUE]
[MEMORY’S STOREHOUSE UNLOCKED]
SUNSHINE AND ROSES
Because of World Unrest and conditions with the Printing Fraternity what they are, this job has lain on the shelf for over a year. Most of the articles are dated, and appear just as written and published. Later unpublished articles remain as written at the time of preparation. Except for 1 story, and a few “Notes” the issue bears the date of January, 1948—and with situations running back into pioneer times.
THE AUTHOR.
This foreword is being written in California—in the shadow of Campbell mountain, a 1700-foot detachment from lofty Sierra Nevada range, 25 miles east of Fresno, on Christmas Day, 1947—six days before my eighty-sixth birthday.
I am writing on an envelope—and a used one, at that—out in the open, in Anna’s and Virginia Anne’s rose garden, at the ranch home of my nephew, Sam Bristow, from whose orchard came the choice oranges sampled by our Wetmore friends at Christmastimes.
I am writing in the rose garden for the same reason I Imagine Gray’s Elegy was written in the Country Churchyard—for privacy. My nephew’s home is filled with relatives, seventeen by actual count, waiting for the call to a turkey dinner.
Then, too, I want to get in a word about this most unusual Christmas Day—something seldom seen in my cold climate home state. As a rule you just don’t write on a tab out in the open, nor pluck roses in the wintertime, back home.
Though, on Christmas Day, 1937, I cut four lovely long-stemmed perfectly developed Radiant Beauty (red) roses from a single unprotected plant, the one blooming plant among hundreds, in my rose garden in Northeast Kansas. And, to make it appear all the more unusual, Radiant Beauty was brought out in 1934 as a hot-house rose. Also, I needed a little data—and I got it from Sam in the rose garden. And this seemed the opportune time to write a few lines.
It will not, of course, be a “White Christmas” here as is likely back home—never is in the San Joaquin valley. Sunshine and Roses enhance the beauty of the day here. But farther up—up in the high Sierras, up toward Mount Whitney, the highest point in the United States, only a few hours away, there will be snow aplenty today, tomorrow—and forever.
This book is not my memoirs. It is not a family tree. It is not a complete history. But it is, sketchily, all of these things. The book is not a connected narrative. The articles, each complete within timely as of the date of the situation. Also, some of the characters depicted as living at the time of the writings have since died—but the stories are printed as originally written. And for clear understanding the articles should be read consecutively, as they appear in the book.
These feature articles, pertaining mostly to Wetmore and Northeast Kansas, have all been written—some by request—for the home papers since my retirement from the newspaper field, in 1903. The first one, “The Boy of Yesteryear” was printed in W. F. Turrentine’s Wetmore Spectator, May 29, 1931.
One or more of these articles have been printed in George and Dora Adriance’s Seneca Courier-Tribune—and, later, in Jay Adriance’s Courier-Tribune; General Charles H. Browne’s Horton Headlight; Will T. Beck’s Holton Recorder: Ray T. Ingalls’ Goff Advance; Senator Arthur Capper’s Topeka Daily Capital; and the Atchison Daily Globe. And all of them, with twelve exceptions, have appeared in the Wetmore Spectator. The twelve exceptions are recent writings—since the Spectator’s demise—rounding out topics previously introduced.
Pictured with the writer in the forepart of this book are two of the principals of the old Spectator force during o ur newspaper regime through the “Gay Nineties.” While referred to often in the articles they had no part in the writing thereof. Regretfully, they were both dead before e beginning of these writings.
Besides these two capable assistants, our printing office had something no other paper could boast. Our “itchyfoot” Devil—for a short time only—was a personality of high adventure. Like Nellie Bly, of (National) magazine fame, and Ed Howe of (Atchison) Daily Newspaper fame, Bert Wilson, better known as “Spike” Wilson, went around the world. But unlike Nellie, backed by a magazine in a race against time; and Ed, teeming with newspaper dollars, our “Spike” bummed his way, with a minimum of work—mostly dish-washing—all the twenty-five thousand miles around the globe while still in his teens. “Spike” aspired to become a printer for the advantage it would afford him in his desire to see the world. A journeyman printer could always get a lift from any country newspaper in those days. Old Busbee, Nationally known “tramp printer” dropped in on us one time. He was given a day’s work—and a half-week’s salary. He tried to discourage “Spike”—and maybe he did. But I think his woe-begone looks was the greater influence. Busbee came this way three times within my recollection. “Spike” Wilson was the stepson of “Mule” Gibbons, who came here with his family from Corning in the early 90’s—and several years later moved to Holton.
President Grant’s Congress — 1876 —memorialized the state legislatures to have County Histories written for the benefit of posterity. Nemaha County has had three—but not one of them touched on the subjects covered in this volume. Usually local histories are compiled for profit — colored, biased; boosting individuals who are willing to pay for a write-up.
There is no angling for profit in this work.
These stories are now printed in book form to preserve them for their historic value. The book is not for sale. It is my gift to the home folks.
The books are costing me about ten dollars a copy—and, naturally, I won’t have enough of them to be passed out promiscuously. I shall place them in the schools, and libraries, and with the newspapers in the county—and with friends here and there, where all the home folks can have the chance to read the book, should they so desire. I am sure that I have more friends than I have copies of the book, and I trust that those who do not receive a copy will not feel that, in my estimation, they do not rate one.
Wetmore
It was not an excess of water, as one might suppose, that gave Wetmore its name. Nor was it, as some have been led to believe, because a certain Captain Wetmore, with a number of soldiers during the Civil War chanced to camp over night at our ever-flowing mineral spring. Art Taylor says his grandmother told him that such was the case.
It has been generally understood all along that the town was named after a New York official of the railroad which came through here in 1867. Confirmed, this would seem to kill the Taylor version of it, by at least two years. The matter, I believe, was settled for all time a couple of summers back when a New York woman, returning by automobile from the Pacific coast, called at the Wetmore post office to mail some letters. She told Postmaster Jim Hanks that the town was named after her father, who was an official of the railroad—and that she had driven a hundred miles out of her way to have her letters bear the Wetmore postmark.
I have seen Wetmore grow—and slip. Compact at the time of my entry seventy-nine years ago, occupying less than a half block, the town spread out through the years to a space of one-half mile by nearly one mile—not quite solid. The town became a City in 1884, with Dr. J. W. Graham as first Mayor—and at its peak had a population 687. The population at this time—1948—is 373.
There is not a person in this City today who was here when I came. Gone, all gone now. And nearly all dead. Something more than a tinge of sadness accompanies this thought. There is not a building of any kind standing that was here when I came—not a tree but what has been planted since that day. In truth, there is nothing, not a thing left, save the eternal hills and the creek which flows through the south edge of the City that antedates the time I came here.
Yet, I do not feel old. And should any of my friends choose to wish me anything, let them wish with me that I never do grow old.
The Mineral Spring
To enlarge a bit on our ever-flowing mineral spring! It was—and is—near the creek in a natural grove of big trees at the southwest limits of Wetmore. Nathaniel Morris, an early-day merchant, had an analysis of the water made—and talked of developing the spring into a health resort. The water was pronounced medicinally good — mostly iron, I believe. But, beyond attracting large celebration crowds, his dream was never realized. However, Morris induced the railroad to run in an “excursion” train of flat-cars canopied with heavy-foliaged brush against a blazing summer sun, on the occasion of one Fourth of July celebration. Green leafed brush also covered some of the stands on the south margin of the grove. Green brush was the standard picnic coverings in those days.
Then, later, Charley Locknane, Jay W. Powers, and Jim Liebig, undertook to popularize the spring—and incidentally, make some money for themselves. They invested considerable money in improvements. Locknane was a budding promoter with considerable nerve—and a pull with the railroad. He caused a special excursion train to be run out from Kansas City, $1.50 fare for the round trip. Also, Charley organized a Girl Band of twenty pieces, which furnished music for the opening picnic—and many occasion thereafter. The Girl Band gained national acclaim. Locknane was State Deputy for the Modern Woodmen of America—and took his Girl Band to the Head Camp at Colorado Springs in 1901, and to Minneapolis in 1902. The members were: Dora Geyer, Mollie Neely, Nora Shuemaker, Mabel Geyer, Phoena Liebig, Iva Hudson, Daisy Terry, Blanche Eley, Kate Searles, Truda Berridge, Edith Lapham, Pearl Nance, Maude Cole, Jennie Scott, Belle Searles, Grace Maxwell, Ruby Nance, Myrtle Graham, Mrs. Ella Rice and Mrs. Carrie Glynn, of McLouth, Kansas, were numbers five and six in the line-up as written on the back of an enlarged photograph now in possession of Mrs. P. G. Worthy—formerly Myrtle Graham.
The dance pavilion was well patronized between celebrations—and the town populace turned out of evenings for a stroll to the spring. It was really popular. Then a flood, an unusually big flood, swept the park clean of all improvements. The large frame dance-hall came to anchor on a projection of land on the present Bill Winkler farm nearly a mile down the creek. The town jester said that as the pavilion floated away the piano was automatically playing “Over the Ocean Waves.”
The mineral spring is still here—but that’s all.
At one of the big celebrations about the turn of the century a farmer brought his family to town in a spring wagon. He tied his team on the town-side of the picnic grounds, leaving a three-year-old child asleep in the wagon. When the parents returned after taking in the picnic, the child was gone. Then the picnickers began a search which lasted throughout the night. All roads were covered for four or five miles out. One searching party went four miles west on the railroad track—then turned back, believing a small child could not travel that far. The section men out Wetmore found the mangled body of the child in a small wash by the side of the railroad about a half-mile beyond the point abandoned by the searchers. An early morning freight train had bumped it off a low bridge. Then there was much speculation as to how a small child could have traveled that far—even hints, unwarranted suspicion, of foul help. Then there was a story afloat about the conductor whose train had struck the child. When told of the killing, it was claimed, he cried and said had he known a child was lost along the track he would have walked ahead the train.
Wetmore in 1869-70
There were only eleven buildings and thirty-four people Wetmore when I came here with my parents from our Wolfley Creek farm home in the fall of 1869.
There was one general store owned by Morris Brothers. Uliam Morris, with his wife Eliza and daughter Nannie, and his brother Nathaniel, lived over the store. Kirk Wood had a blacksmith shop, a small home, his wife Euphemia and two children, Riley and Jay. Kirk’s brother Jay lived with the family. M. P. M. Cassity, lawyer, owned his home and rental house, had a wife—off and on—and a son, George. Martin Peter Moses Cassity’s second marriage with his Griselle (Wheeler), the birth of Eddie, and the final parting, were after we came.
James Neville, section foreman, had a residence, his wife Sarah, and five children—William, George, Mary Ann, Jo Ann, and Mahlen. Dominic Norton, section hand, had six motherless children — Anna, Kate, Bridget, Ellen, Mollie, and Michael. Mike Smith, a plasterer, lived with the Nortons in the section house. Ursula Maxwell, a widow, with her son Granville and daughter Lizzie, lived in her own home. Ursula’s daughter Maggie, married to Jim Cardwell, was also temporarily in her home at this time. Samuel Slossen was building a hotel. He had a wife and a son, George. And there was a railroad station, and an agent named Catlin. Also a school house, and a teacher—John Burr.
The family of Peter Isaacson, deceased, in a farm home separated from the town by a street, were considered as town folk. Here lived the mother (married to A. Anderson) and four of her children—Andy, Edward, Irving, and Matilda. Anderson had two children, Oscar and Emily, living in the home. William and Alma were born later.
Matilda Isaacson, a very pretty girl, later, married Alfred Hazeltine. By reason of his living in a farm home on the opposite side of town, Alfred was also considered as belonging. Well, in fact, Alfred did live in town several years prior to his marriage. We roomed together at the Overland Hotel when he was engaged in business, partner in the Buzan, Hazeltine & Hough Lumber Company, and I was clerking in Than Morris’ store. Our family was then — ten years after first coming to Wetmore—doing a three-year stretch on a portion of the Charley Hazeltine farm west of Alfred’s place, beyond the timber on the south side of the creek. And I was working out a store bill. Father still worked at his trade in town, but he could go home before dark; and, anyway, he wasn’t afraid of Erickson’s ghost—nor panthers. More about Erickson’s ghost and the panthers, later. My work kept me in the store until 10 o’clock, at night. After marrying, Alfred Hazeltine built a home in town, the house now owned by Adam Ingalls. And later he bought the Charley Hazeltine 120-acres adjoining his farm, and moved back to the country. His brother Charley and family went to Payette, Idaho. Alfred Hazeltine was a fine man. He was deacon in the Baptist Church. One time when a protracted meeting was in progress, he said to me, “By-damn, You, you ought to join the Church.”
Andrew J. Maxwell, with his wife Lizzie and two children, Demmy and May, and, at this time, the estranged wife of Elisha Maxwell, lived on a homestead adjoining town-and, like the Isaacsons and Andersons and Alfred Hazeltine, were regarded as town folk. Elisha Maxwell, brother of Andy, lived part time with his mother in town, as did also his wife. Elisha’s wife was the daughter of Matt Randall, then living near Ontario, seven miles south-west of Wetmore. There was much in common between the town folk and those borderites. Let it be a picnic or a dog-fight they were all on hand. Altogether they made one big-shall I say—happy family. This, however, strictly speaking, would not be quite right. Gus Mayer built the first residence in Wetmore—the Neville dwelling on the corner where the First National Bank now stands. His daughter Lillie (Mrs. Peter Cassity) was the first child born in the town—though Irving Isaacson was born earlier in a temporary shack near the present depot before the town was established.
There was a one-room school house on the site of the present City hall, with one teacher, John Burr—in 1869. I was nearly eight years old then, and my brother Charley was a little over nine. This was to be our first—and last — school. Charley died at the age of eighteen; and I was out of school—not graduated, not expelled, but out—before the shift to the present location on the hilltop.
While our home was being built in Wetmore on the lot where Hart’s locker is now, the family found shelter in a one-room, up-and-down rough pine board shanty in hollow west of the graveyard, on the Andy Maxwell homestead—the farm now owned and occupied by Orville Bryant. This little “cubbyhole” was originally built to house Andy ’ s brother Elisha—known here as “The Little Man” — and his bride.
Charley and I followed a cow-path through all prairie grass all the way from the shack — about a half mile — to the school house. And during that first winter, after the path had been obliterated by a big snow which drifted and packed solidly over the board fence enclosing the school grounds, bearing up pupils — even horses and sleighs zoomed over the drifted in fence—we skimmed over the white in a direct air line to the school, with not a thing in the way.
Our parents were from the deep South, and on the farm Charley and I had no playmates other than our younger brothers, Sam, Dave, and Nick—even the hired hand on the Wolfley Creek farm, Ben Summers, was a Tennessean — hence we brought into a school already seven-ways-to-the-bad, in language, just one more type of bad English.
Many of the other pupils were children of immigrants — from Germany, England, Ireland, Wales, and the three Scandinavian countries — whose picked-up English was maybe not so good as our own. In those days we learned from our associates rather than from books—that is, unconsciously became imitators—and the result, in most cases, was not promising. My mentor was a Swede girl several years my senior. “Tilda” Isaacson was neat, sweet, and sincerity compounded. She would tell me, “You youst don’t say it that way here, my leetle Yonnie.” This, of course, was the first runoff. In time, our Wetmore school was to rank with the best. And for all I know maybe it did then.
The old Wetmore school made history — history of a kind. An incident of those eventful years having decidedly bad-English flavor occurred after John Burr had been succeeded by D. B. Mercer, who came to us from a homestead up in the Abbey neighborhood between here and Seneca. Mercer gave one of his pupils a well-earned whipping one forenoon. At the noon hour, the boy’s older brother danced up and down the aisle in the school-room, singing, “Goodie, goodie, popper’s goin’ to lick the teacher.”
That dancing boy was Clifford Ashton.
Soon after school had taken up in the afternoon, Mr. Ashton, late of London, walked in unannounced. He was moderately docile in presenting his grievance and the teacher, not to be outdone by this green Englishman, treated his caller civilly. The trouble seemed to be amicably settled. But the teacher’s mild manner had emboldened the Englishman. As a parting stab, in an acrimonious monotone without stopping for breath or punctuation, Ashton delivered the ultimatum: “But if you ever w’ip one of my children again sir I shall surely ’ ave to w’ip you.”
This was a mistake — a real “John Bull” blunder, Mercer was a large, muscular man. With a single pass he knocked the Englishman cold right there in the school room. Ashton fell almost at my feet. When he had come up out o f his stupor, still blinking and grimacing, Ashton bellowed, “I shall see a solicitor about this!”
“See him and bedamned,” bawled Mercer. “Now get out!”
After he had become seasoned, Ashton was really a fine fellow, rather above the average of his countrymen in intelligence. And he reared a fine family of boys and girls — Clifford, Anna, Eva, Stanley, Horace, and Vincent. Ashton was a carpenter.
At another time, James Neville rushed unceremoniously into the schoolroom and hurled a big rock at Mercer’s head, barely missing. The rock tore a big hole in the blackboard back of the teacher. Neville was a powerful man. Just what the grievance was, and how a lively fight was averted, has slipped my memory—though I rather suspect Neville did not tarry long after he had failed to make a hit with the rock.
These two infractions, and many more, passed as being only by-plays incidental to a good school, as interpreted by those pristine patrons.
Andy Maxwell’s home was on the hill west of the shack. But Andy did not live there long after we came—in fact, he was off the place for keeps even before our house in town was ready for occupancy. Mary Massey, unmarried sister of Mrs. Maxwell, as well as the estranged wife of Elisha Maxwell, was at this time in the home—altogether too many Women to be in one man’s home. Mary, a close observer, had said she’d see a man of her’s and that other woman both in h — l before she’d play second fiddle in her own home.
“Second fiddle” in this sense was of course a figurative term having dire implications. Then, too, Lou Hazeltine, a sister-in-law by reason of a first marriage with a brother of the Massey sisters, had her say. It was critical.
It occurs to me that I have seen in print a recent version of an old quotation or saying, often expressed then, which, in line with Mary’s blow-off, defined the situation admirably. It read: “Hell hath no music like a woman playing second fiddle.” For the text of the original quotation, ask any oldtimer—or you may substitute “fury” for music, and “scorned” for playing second fiddle, and you will have it.
These facts were gleaned while spending the day with my mother in Lou Hazeltine’s home. Lou had said to my mother, as was customary at the time, “Bring the children and stay all day.” So we were duly scrubbed and dressed up for the occasion. I think Lou wanted to unburden herself. But how she could have thought the children would be interested in such topic of conversation is beyond me. True, there was her daughter Lizzie Massey, about my age, for company—but Lizzie behaved as though she thought she might miss something, and paid no attention to her mother’s frequent admonitions, “You children run along outside and play.” I think Lou was unduly worked-up over the matter. She would look at us children, and then put her hand up to the side of her mouth, come down momentarily off her “high-horse” almost to a whisper, and channel the choice bits to mother. I think my mother would have been satisfied with less than was said—and certainly, as a newcomer in town, she did not want to be the one to spread gossip. However, she repeated it all, with apparent relish, to my father, adopting Lou’s adept manner of, shielding it from the children with her hand.
The Massey women decided that Andy’s sympathies for his estranged sister-in-law were simply “outlandish”—and Mrs. Andy invoked the law on him.
Constable Lon Huff started to take him to Seneca, but when they came to the creek crossing, a ford, in my Uncle Nick Bristow’s timber, Andy slipped off his shackled boots, jumped out of the buggy and made his getaway, barefooted, over the snow-covered ground. My cousin, Burrel Bristow, followed Andy’s barefoot tracks through the woods and counted the trees barked by the constable’s gun.
That Alonzo—he was the shrewd one. Shot up the trees, he did—and brought home Andy’s shackled boots.
I liked Andy—and, though I was never to see him again, as glad that he had gotten away from the constable. I think that nearly all the other people here were glad it, too. And, moreover, I’ll bet Andy did not travel far without foot-protection.
You may be sure Andy did not come home to his wife. Lou Hazeltine told my mother that the arrest was big mistake. Charley Hazeltine, Lou’s Swede husband, said “The vimens was yust yumpin at collusions.” Elisha’s wife and Andy’s daughter May left Wetmore soon thereafter. Demmy remained here with his grandmother for several years—then went to his father at Spearfish, South Dakota, from which place Andy was then operating a stage line to Deadwood.
With Ursula Maxwell and Charley Hazeltine as long-range intermediaries, Andy Maxwell waived claim to farm equipment, livestock, and all other belongings, in favor of Lizzie Maxwell. All Andy asked—and received—were his children, and the promise of no contest in two divorces, Lizzie Massey Maxwell remained here. She sold the farm improvements to Dr. W. F. Troughton for $50. Troughton filed on the homestead in 1872.
In the meantime Andy, with his daughter May and Mrs. Elisha, traveling out of Miles City, Montana, in covered wagons, with four other men, were attacked by Sioux and Nez Perce Indians—the siege lasting for three days. The newspapers said at the time, it was the hardest-fought Indian battle of all times.
A three-column account of that Indian attack, written reminiscently by a correspondent of the Chicago Times seventeen years after it had taken place, found its way by mere chance into the Wetmore Spectator—right back to the old home of the defenders — through the medium of the Western Newspaper Union, Kansas City, Mo., from which auxiliary the Spectator then got its inside pages ready-printed. It was a hair-raising story—one that could be read with interest again and again.
Incidentally, Andy Maxwell had Indian blood in his own veins. His mother told me she was a quarter-breed. She had Indian features.
Then there was another Indian story having Wetmore connections. I have in my newspaper files Catherine German-Swerdfeger’s own story — nearly a full page written for the Spectator — of the slaying by the Indians of her father and mother, a brother and two sisters; and the capture of herself and three sisters—Sophie, Julia, and Addie. John German, from Blue Ridge, Georgia, with his family, was traveling by ox-team and covered wagon, through Kansas on the way to Colorado at the time of the attack.
Catherine’s description of the abandonment of her two little sisters, aged five and six, after two weeks on the move by the roving band of Indians, on the then uninhabited plains somewhere between southwestern Kansas and the main Cheyenne camp in Texas, in the midst of a big herd of buffalo, where, after following on foot until well nigh exhausted, as mounted Indians forced the two older girls on ponies away from the scene, the little girls lived—no, existed—for six weeks, in October and November weather, with no shelter other than a clay bank, on the leavings of soldiers, (cracker crumbs, scattered grains of corn, and hackberries), in a deserted camp, by a creek, would wring your heart.
Catherine’s personal explanation to me was that the little girls, when down to the last morsel of edible scrapings, had difficulty in deciding which one should eat it. The little one thought the older one should have it—that it might enable her to live to get away. It would appear that the little one had already resigned herself to her fate. The older one decided it rightly belonged to the baby. And neither of them ate it. It was only a dirty kernel of corn, Catherine said in her article: “God had a hand in that work, and I believe you will agree with me when I say He wrought a miracle.”
And I, for one, certainly do agree.
Several inaccurate accounts of the fate of this unfortunate family have been written—one by a professor, who evidently did not have the full facts, as text for the Wichita schools. And another one, as told to a reporter for the Kansas City Journal by “Uncle” Jimmy Cannon, an interpreter on Government pay-rolls, stationed in Kansas (the rider of “Little Gray Johnny”) in which he himself, in a daring dash on a band of Indians, rescued one of the little girls — which, in fact, he didn’t do at all, according to Catherine.
Actually, it was this story of “Uncle” Jimmy’s that caused Catherine to write the true story of the massacre and of their captivity, for my paper. Catherine said it was soldiers under Lieutenant Baldwin of the Fifth Infantry who found her little sisters, sick, emaciated, on the verge of starvation, in that same deserted camp, which was really no camp at all—only an overnight camp site. And though soldiers were constantly on the trail of the Indians, there was no spectacular dash by the military in the rescue the two older girls. When first taken into the main Cheyenne camp, in Texas, Chief Stonecalf told Catherine, who was then nearly eighteen years old, that he was grieved know that his people would do such a deed; that he would, Soon as possible, deliver them to the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Agency—and that he did. Catherine had much praise for Chief Stonecalf, and General Nelson A. Miles, their efforts in liberating them. Under Indian custom, girls were regarded as loot, and had to be bought from their captors.
Jim Smith, now living in the west part of Wetmore, went to school — at the Porter school house on Wolfley-creek—with the two younger German girls. Pat Corney, living on a farm adjacent to the J. P. Smith farm, was guardian of the girls.
Addie—Mrs. Frank Andrews—is still living, or was a few years ago, at Berwick in Nemaha county. A few years back, Mrs. Andrews was invited to appear on a radio program in New York, with all expenses paid—but she did not go. Amos Swerdfeger, husband of Catherine—and son of Adam Swerdfeger, who was among the first settlers here—died at Atascadero, California, Nov. 12, 1921, age 73. Catherine died in 1932, age 75.
These two Indian stories would make good reading now—and while they are in line with my endeavor to give a true picture of the old days, they are not included in this volume. Nothing but my own writings, since my retirement from the newspaper field appears in this book. However, slight reference to those two Indian attacks were made in my more recently published stories, which are reproduced in this book—just as they were written at the time. Many changes have taken place in the meantime.
After it became generally known here that the defenders of that fiercely fought Indian battle in Montana were former Wetmore citizens, many of our people came in from time to time to read the story. That page of the old files is pretty well thumbed.
About fifty years ago, a family by the name of Cummings came here and lived for a short while in the northwest part of town. Mrs. Cummings said she was the daughter of Andy Maxwell. I did not learn her given name, but supposed she was May. She called at the Spectator office, and read the story.
Then, in February, 1939, Mrs. Nettie E. Rachford, Westwood, California, wrote the Spectator asking for a copy of the story, saying she was the daughter of Andy Maxwell. I then copied the story from my files, and W. F. Turrentine printed it again in the Spectator, February 1939.
This reprint of the Maxwell story caused Dr. LeVere Anderson, born and reared on a farm five miles southwest of Wetmore—now established in Miles City, Montana—to bring the matter of that Indian fight to the attention of the Miles City Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber was at that very time sponsoring a homecoming jubilee—and after an exchange of letters between Miles City and Wetmore, Andy Maxwell, then living in Santa Ana, California, was invited to be the Chamber’s honored guest—but he was unable to make the trip. Andy Maxwell died at Santa Ana in 1941, at the age of ninety-nine.
Our New Temporary Home
Earlier in this writing I mentioned the fact that our family had three years on the Hazeltine farm. My older brother, Charley, contracted “quick consumption.” There was a prevailing notion that the scent of new pine lumber and fresh country air would be helpful in effecting a cure. So my father made a contract with Charley Hazeltine for the erection of a new house under the cottonwoods on the hill near the old log-house which had been the home of father of the Hazeltine brothers—with a three-year lease on 40 acres of farm land.
The new house had plenty of exposed pine lumber and fresh air all right. It was a box-house made of barn-boards, unplastered, with sleeping quarters in the loft, comparable to the hay-mow in a barn, reached by a ladder from one corner of the ground-floor room. On occasions, snow sifted through the cracks in the loft, covering my bed completely. The lower room was more closely built, which was living room, kitchen, and sleeping quarters for my parents—and the babies. There was a standard sized bed, and a trundle bed—the latter shoved under the regular bed in the daytime, and pulled out to the middle of the room at night. It was a replica of many another home of that day, only the others could have added protection of plastered walls. Then too, it was Dr. Thomas Milam’s belief that Charley would show improvement in the new home with the coming of spring. But, come time for the swelling of the buds of those old cottonwoods in the spring of 1879, the “Grim Reaper” beat the carpenters to the finish. Charley had died before the new house was ready for occupancy. And that made long lonesome hours for me on the farm. Charley had an enviable record as an exemplary boy—and, try as I might, I have not been able to follow wholly in his foot-steps. But I am sure that my memory of him has helped to make me what I am.
Roses The Girls Didn’t Get
Reference has been made to my Rose Garden. I have grown them, you might say, as a hobby—and for the pleasure of giving the flowers to my friends. Bushels of them have gone in the past to the Cemetery on Memorial Day, and not a few to sick rooms, to churches, and to local society functions.
The fame of my Rose Garden has traveled far—to California and to Florida. Proof: The two little girls of Shady Mitchell, a Tennessean, who conducted a general store in Wetmore some years back and lived across the street west from the school grounds in the house now owned and occupied by Prof. Howard V. Bixby—in their school work at their new home in Orlando, Florida, wrote in collaboration a theme, beginning: “There was a man living in our town in Kansas who grew roses just to give them away to his friends—” This is the extent of the essay which has been relayed to me—but I’ve no doubt that Verda Bess and Marjorie Lou acknowledged having been the recipient of roses from my garden. I don’t think I ever permitted a little girl—nor a big one either, for that matter—who stopped by to admire my roses, to go away without a bouquet.
And particularly have I been pleased to supply the girl graduates of our splendid Wetmore High School at Commencement time. Last year—spring of 1947—the garden did not show promise of early bloom of quality flowers, and I got the girl graduates some beautiful long-stemmed “Better Times” red roses, ($7.85 per doz.), from Rock’s in Kansas City. I planned to make this an annual contribution, whether at home or away, as a sort of commemoration of the fine Rose Garden I once owned. The garden is now owned by Raymond and Marjorie McDaniel.
Before leaving in the fall for California, I told the girls I would send them roses by air mail—but, through an oversight of someone, I was not apprised of the date of the 1948 Commencement. And this was one time when the girls, through no fault of their own, (except possibly trusting another than a member of the class to do the notifying), missed getting some really high-class graduation roses—roses grow to perfection in California—which I think was more of a disappointment to me than perhaps to anyone else, unless it should have been my niece, Alice Bristow-Tavares, who was to have supplied two dozen extremely beautiful long-stemmed Etoile de Hollande red roses from her climbers. A Fresno florist had been engaged to pack them for mailing.
LITTLE FILLERS
In this volume will be found several “Little Fillers”—sayings of children, which have no connection with the various articles. They have been prepared to fill out the pages where the ending of a story leaves unused space—so that all articles may have a top-page heading.
CONSIDERATE KID
Having bought little three-year-old Karen McDaniel a 5-cent cone, and also one for her to take home to her little brother Harry, I laid a couple of nickels on the counter at the restaurant; and then put down a dime, and picked up the two nickels—this twenty-cents representing the sum total of my cash as of the moment. Karen said, “What you do that for?” I told her that I was going to purchase a 5-cent lead-pencil from Charley Shaffer at the drug store, and that I wanted to keep the nickels, as it would save time of waiting to get back the nickel in change, were I to keep the dime. She said, brightly, “He might not have a nickel.” I said, “That’s just it.” Not realizing the risk which I myself was cooking up at the moment, I said, “It’s never wise to take a risk when it can just as easily be avoided.” Placing the two nickels beside the little dime, I told her the dime was worth as much as the two bigger nickels. Thinking to see if she had caught on, I said, (rather badly stated), “Now, what you think—which would you rather have?” She smiled, almost saucily grinned, and reaching for the dime, said, “I’ll take the little one—you want to keep the big ones.”
THE BOY OF YESTERYEAR
Published in Wetmore Spectator
May 29, 1931
By John T. Bristow
It was a lazy October afternoon. The woods were still in full leaf and the tops of the trees, touched by early frost, had turned to reddish brown and golden yellow. It was a fine day for squirrel hunting. But this is not strictly a hunting story.
There were six in the party—three men of widely varying ages and, as the college youth would say, three skirts — but, for convenience, all wore trousers that afternoon. It was a sort of boarding-house party out for recreation and game. They were: Mrs. Edna Weaver, Miss Genevieve Weaver, Miss Thelma Sullivan, Milton Mayer, Raymond Weaver and the writer.
Our wanderings carried us into the heavily wooded section near the head of Wolfley creek. I had no hunter’s license and, being a law-loving citizen, carried no gun. The hunters, alert for game, went deep into the woods. And I trailed along, not noticing, not caring, where we were going. Having passed the stage of life when one normally gives a whoop where he is or what he does, to me, one place was as good as another.
And then, of a sudden, I became tremendously alert. We were now coming near to my father’s old farm—the home he had blazed out of the wilderness, so to speak, on first coming to Kansas—oh, so many years ago. That farm is now owned by Mrs. Worley.
A few of the many letters commenting on my published stories are printed in this volume—in all cases, blocked in the story to which the letter refers. They help to attest the authenticity and worthiness of the article. It’s most stimulating to have one’s friends write in and say, “I know that to be true.” It’s like the “Amen” to a fervent prayer.
The regret is that so few of the old ones are left.
For sentimental reasons I wanted to hunt that old place — to live, briefly, again the days of my youth. As we came to the line fence between the Worley farm and the Brock pasture lands on the east, my companions balked at wire—wanted to turn back. My suggestion that we go on was regarded as “idiotic.” The Worley timber was un-inviting. There were lots of weeds over on that side, and probably snakes, too. I know rattlesnakes infested that place when I lived there as a boy.
I climbed over the fence, anyway, and was soon racing toward a mammoth elm tree—a tree that had budded and leaves more than sixty times since the day I last saw that place. The hunters came over on the bound. “It went up this tree,” I lied. There was no squirrel. I was in truth a boy again—a very small boy—resorting to childish subterfuges.
E D WOODBURN
Lawyer
HOLTON, KANSAS
October 19, 1931
Mr. John Bristow, Wetmore, Kansas
Dear John:--
I want to express to you my appreciation for the opportunity of reading your article, “The Boy of Yesteryear” published in the Wetmore Spectator May 29, 1931.
I have never understood and have always regretted the fact that you quit the newspaper field. It has always seemed to me that with your ability to write, you could have been useful as a newspaper man. You have the happy faculty of getting and holding one’s attention from beginning to end.
Yours very truly,
E D WOODBURN
But my “idiotic” idea wasn’t so bad. The hunters a got a nice bag of squirrels on that side of the fence and in passing the spot again an hour later one of party thought she saw my mythical squirrel go into a hole in one of the top-most branches of that old monarch of the woods. So that was that. Kindly forget the ethics involved. We hunted the timber the full length of that place Dad’s old farm. Now there were big trees—and some tall trees. As I remember, there were big tall trees on that place when we lived there more than a half century ago. My father split rails from that timber to fence the farm, And as ex-woodsman he was he was inordinately proud of that rail fence, of his excellent craftsmanship. In his native state, with the straight-splitting birch and poplars, it would have been a simple matter. Here it was an accomplishment.
In that day there were two kinds of rail fences in general use. The “leaner” fence was constructed with posts set on top the ground in a leaning position and supported by stakes on the under side, with the rails nailed onto the posts. The “stake and rider” fence, also sometimes called the “worm” fence, was made by laying the end of one rail on top of another, in zigzag fashion, at an angle of about twenty-five degrees, so that the ends would lap, with a ground chunk under each section, and when built up to the desired height — usually seven rails—two cross-stakes were set in the ground at the junction of the panels, with another rail on top the cross-stake. My father’s fence was of the latter type. It took a lot of rails.
Also I recall seeing my father shoot a squirrel out of the top of a very tall tree with his Colt’s revolver. That six-shooter was presented to him by Federal officers during the Civil War for protecting himself against a band of guerrillas. More about the guerrillas later.
And on this October day I saw the spot where the old house stood on the south flank of that woodland—the house around which I played with my brothers as a care-free child, and where my mother almost cried her heart out because of loneliness. Also, it was here where my mother told me a story one day—a story of my father, of herself, of why we had left our home in the Southland. Our tears mingled over the telling of that story then. And there was sadness in my heart that October afternoon as I paused, reverently, for a moment in passing.
Although I was born in the sunny South where magnolias bloom and mockingbirds sing all winter long, my first vivid recollection of life was upon this bleak Kansas farm, hot and wind-swept in summer, cold and desolate in winter. The rigid climate of this new plains country home was in such marked contrast to the mild and even temperature of my mother’s native heavily timbered state as to her long to go back to her old home.
It was eight wilderness miles to Powhattan, the post-office; five miles to Granada, the trading post; and one mile to the nearest neighbors—Rube and Anne Wolfley.
The mill that made our sorghum molasses—nearly every farmer grew a patch of cane for making molasses to go with corn-bread, the staple diet—one mile off from Powhattan, was owned by Charley Smith, the same Charley Smith who had in earlier days, been keeper of a station (his home ) on the old John Brown “underground railroad,” where runaway Negro slaves, being transported to Canada, were in hiding through the day. I know it was the Charley Smith place, for Ben Summers, our hired man, said it still smelled of “niggers.” But of course it didn’t. That was Ben ’ s way of opening a sizeable tale about Mr. Brown and his underground railroad.
And I wouldn’t know how far it was to the mill that ground our corn-meal, but I do know there was one—for we had no bread other than cornbread for months on end. Only on rare occasions would we have “lightbread”—made of wheat flower, of course. The cornbread my mother usually made was not the cornpone customary in the South. Cracklin ’ bread and seasoned cornbread was much better—that is, for most palates. I wish I could have some of it now. But there was one traveling salesman, Hugh Graham, who preferred the cornpone. He would wire the hotel here of his expected arrival, which meant that for breakfast, dinner, or supper, he wanted cornpone. I think the cornpone was made of cornmeal, salt, and water.
I recall that Ben Summers had gone “acourtin” Betsy Porter that evening, when my parents were shelling corn, by candle-light, on a sheet spread upon the kitchen floor, to take to the mill—probably the Reiderer mill east of Holton — when a big bullsnake which had crept in through a displaced chink in the log house, slithered across the sheet, gliding over the corn, and out an open door. The matter was debated, seriously—then it was decided the hogs should have that corn.
My father and mother, with their three small children, came to Kansas from Nashville, Tennessee, in 1865. They came by steamboat on the Cumberland, the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to Atchison. The family was met there by my uncle Nick, father’s only brother, with an ox-team, taking most of two days to drive us to his home on Wolfley creek. That farm is now owned by William Mast.
On the way out from Atchison, as we were nearing home, we ran into one of those fierce prairie fires that so often menaced life and property of the early settlers. I was very young then and cannot say positively that what I am about to relate here is from actual memory, although I have always believed that I retained a mental picture of that prairie fire. Details are now a bit hazy—and, you know, with the very young there is always a borderland not any too well defined between what you may have actually seen and what you may have heard others recount.
Anyway, there was a prairie fire. And its sinister red flames—a long snake-like line of crackling, blazing hell — overhung with an ominous pall of thick black smoke, sent a spasm of fear surging through my uncle and my parents.
That prairie fire was on one of the big creek bottoms — probably on the old Overland Trail — somewhere between Granada and Wetmore, only there was no Wetmore then. We had just forded a stream and were well out in a big bottom where the slough grass was as tall as the oxen, when the fire was sighted coming over the hills towards us, and fanned by a brisk wind it was traveling at terrific speed.
My uncle, who was driving, ran up along side his oxen and yelled, “Whoa-haw-Buck! Jerry!” The oxen seemed to sense danger and the wagon was turned around in no time. Just then a man on horseback came running up. Without stopping to say a word the man jumped off his horse and touched a lighted match to the tall dead grass in front of the outfit. An effort was made by the man to beat out the fire on the windward side. The man then excitedly commanded my uncle to drive across the thin line of back-fire into the newly burned space. It looked like the rider had come out of that blazing inferno especially to warn us. And as the wagon moved away he yelled loudly so as to be heard above the roar of the encroaching flames from behind, “For God’s sake, man, follow it up as fast as you can.”
That young man was Fred Liebig.
Boyhood impressions stick like the bark on a tree, while later events are submerged in the whirlpool of life and are forgotten. One of the outstanding incidents of my young life took place upon this Wolfley creek farm. I remember it as distinctly as if it occurred only yesterday. It was my first—and last—alcoholic debauch.
I have already told you that rattlesnakes infested that place way back in the distant past. One of them—a fat, seven-button specimen—took a whack at me one summer day, its fangs loaded with deadly green fluid sinking deep the top of my right foot. It was August — dogdays — and of course I was barefoot. The children of pioneer settlers didn ’ t wear shoes, except in cold weather, even when their fathers were excellent shoemakers, a distinction my father enjoyed at that time.
My father was over at Granada. A neighbor was sent after him — and for whiskey, the then universal remedy for snakebite. Finding no whiskey at Granada, the courier, on horseback, came on to Wetmore, which town was just starting then, and failing again, pushed on the Seneca, stopping on the way long enough to change horses. The round trip approximately sixty miles and eight hours had elapsed when the rider returned with whiskey. He brought a generous supply.
In the meantime my mother had dumped a package of baking soda into a basin of warm water. She bade me put my foot in it — and two little fountains of green came oozing up through the soda-whitened water. And she gave me tea made from yard plantain—why, I wouldn’t know.
Also my Uncle Nick had arrived by the time the rider returned with the whisky. I didn’t like the taste of the nasty stuff and, boy-like, set up a howl about having to drink it. And my Uncle, desirous of helping in every possible way, said, soothingly, “Johnny, take a little, and Uncle take a little.” We both passed out about the same time.
I don’t mean to infer by this that my Uncle was a drunkard. He was not. And, mind you, he grew up in a country at a time when you could buy good old Bourbon at any crossroads grocery store as you would buy a jug of vinegar—and almost as cheaply.
My Uncle Nick was a soldier in the Mexican war of 1848. And he was a soldier in the Civil war—an adventurer, and in a way a “soldier of fortune.” He prospected for gold, and hunted mountain lions—with the long rifle—in the Rockies, just as he and my father had hunted panthers in Tennessee.
This ferocious beast, if you don’t know, is the big cat with four names. In the South and East—extinct in most sections now—he is the dreaded panther. In the Rockies he is the mountain lion. Farther west, in Arizona and the Sierras, he is the cougar. Somewhere he is called the puma. And everywhere he is “the killer.”
Two strangers stopped at our home just after I had passed out—that is, after I had become limp, unable to stand, unable to talk, from the effects of the whisky. But I could understand as well as ever what was said. One of the men suggested that if they could find the snake and cut it open and bind the parts to my foot that it would draw the poison out. I knew that Jim Barnes had killed that snake, and the stranger’s suggestion gave me a mental spasm. I could not speak out and tell’ them that I had had about all of that snake that I could stand.
The earthquake of 1868 — or thereabout — greatly frightened my mother. It was her first experience with quakes. And, woman-like, with a perpetual grudge against the erratic Kansas weather changes, she laid this shakeup in climate, which, it seemed, she never could become accustomed to. And when the house trembled and the dishes cupboard began to rattle, she rushed out into the yard, where my father and the children were, and said, “If we must all go to the devil I would just as soon walk as ride.”
Also Indians from the Kickapoo reservation, while harmless enough at the time, had a habit of prowling about over the country, and a band of them nearly scared the wits out of my mother one hot summer day. She saw the blanketed red skins, on ponies, coming down the road, single-file. Gathering her youngsters, much as a hen gathers her brood the approach of danger—and much as my mother had once before taken her children under her protecting arms and saved their lives, as you shall see presently—she hid in the cornfield until the rovers had left our farm.
And now another prairie fire. If there could be any question about the youngster having retained with photographic accuracy the horrors of the one earlier mentioned, there can be no doubt about this later one, which, whipped by the ever-present wind, stole in upon us in the night, My father’s much prized rail fence was laid low, and only by heroic efforts was the house saved. These dreaded prairie fires and other subjected frights incident to the new country seemed to place a mark upon my mother.
“William,” she said one day to my father, “we might as well have remained in Tennessee and taken our chances on being killed by guerillas as to come all the way out to this God-for-saken country only to be burned to death by prairie fires, or shaken to pieces by earthquakes, or frightened to death by Indians.” And I am sure that if the Kansas cyclone had then enjoyed the widespread reputation that it does in this year of grace, my mother would have included that also.
In Tennessee, my father was a shoemaker and tanner by trade. And, by the grace of a kind Providence—and some quick shooting—he was a live Union “sympathizer” in a Rebel stronghold. The great conflict—the Civil War—between the North and the South was then on. My father had not, at this time, joined the fighting forces on either side. He was content to ply his trade, make leather and shoes, both of which were very much needed at the time. But my father made the almost fatal mistake of “exercising his rights as a free-born citizen,” in having his say.
The South was not quite solid for Confederacy. Sometimes even families were divided. In my mother’s family two of her brothers favored the North and two were for the South—”rank rebels,” my mother said. None of them went to war. They worked in a powder mill—more dangerous, by far. Twice the mill blew up, and each time one of my Uncles was blown into fragments. Also one of my mother’s acquired relatives hid in a cave for the duration of the war.
The guerilla element was composed of Southerners, not in colors — and they made life miserable for any o ne who dared to express an opinion, on the aspects of the war, contrary to their views.
The hush of a November night lay upon the forest, in the thick of which was located my father’s home, his tan-yard, his shoeshop. The night’s stillness was broken by a volley of bullets from the guerilla guns crashing through the windows and doors of the log house.
My mother—herself only a girl in her teens—took her two babies and crept under the bed, which, luckily, had been moved to another part of the house that very day. And that shift of the bed saved the family from the death-dealing bullets poured into the house with that first onslaught.
My father had only a muzzle-loading, double-barrel shotgun, with two charges in the gun—and no more ammunition — with which to defend himself and his little family against that mob of armed men. The main body of guerillas, on horseback, were in the front yard. The house stood upon the bank of a deep gully, with little or no backyard. A wide plank served as a walk across the gully. Beyond that was heavy timber.
Believing that his family would be safer with him out of the house, my father, only partly dressed, grabbed his shotgun and flung open the back door. He quickly emptied both barrels of his gun into the two men who were guarding the back door. The revolver in the hands of the first man in line, standing on the plank, was being brought down on him when the charge from father’s shotgun cut off the crook of the man’s arm at the elbow and entered his body, killing him instantly. The bullet from the guerilla’s revolver plowed through my father’s hat. And that was the revolver my father shot squirrels with in Kansas. It was retrieved by Federal soldiers and presented to him.
The other man was mortally wounded and lay there in yard, at the far end of the plank walk, until morning, Things had happened so quickly, and so disastrously to their ranks, that the mob believed the house was occupied by armed men. And, after firing another volley into the home, many of the bullets this time penetrating the bed under which my mother, with her babies, lay flat on the floor, the mob withdrew to a safe distance—but sentinels were kept posted in the nearby woods until morning. All told, more than one hundred shots were fired into the house.
And now a man from the outside dashed in at the back -the door by which father had made his exit. Hurriedly he bolted the door from within.
My mother, peering out from her hiding place under bed, exclaimed in surprise, “You here, Sandy! What does this mean?” And before he could explain, she cried, “Oh, I smell smoke. Is the house on fire, Sandy?”
“Yes,” he said—”it was. And the tanyard buildings and shoeshop are now burning.”
Sandy Fouse, a Southern boy, had worked for my father in his tobacco fields, and lived at our home. My father grew tobacco on the side. I was told Sandy took a marked interest in me—a baby. God only knows why it was so, but it seems I was destined to become the favorite of the family. I had an older brother, too. But it seems I was the favorite of my Aunt Harriet who helped my mother, and the pet of Sandy who “wormed” the tobacco.
And as with the prairie fire—only with positive conviction this time—I must again rely on what has been told me. Reaching under the bed and hauling me out, Sandy said, “Why, I’d risk my life any time for this here boy Johnny—or any of you-all.” And that was just what he was doing that night.
When the mob had withdrawn after starting a fire against the house, Sandy ran back and kicked the blazing sticks away from the building—and then made a dash for the door. He was now afraid of the mob and did not leave the house again that night. Good old boy — Sandy, Pal, Protector. Just why you were out with those guerillas that night has never been explained to me.
My father did not come back into the house, and my mother believed that he had been killed, or mortally wounded, as she could plainly hear the groans of the dying man outside. And she was, of course, frantic with grief. After hours of agony, when she could stand it no longer, she took a lighted candle and went outside to investigate.
My mother’s name was Martha. The wounded man kept groaning, “Oh, Lordy.” And my mother thought it was my father calling her name. It took some tension off when she discovered the dying man was not my father — but she was horrified to find he was the son of a close neighbor. The young man asked for a drink of water, and wanted someone to pray for his soul. She gave him water. And she prayed for him. At daybreak the young man’s companions took him to his father’s home where he died a few hours later. He told his people that he got what he deserved, that he had no business in permitting the mob to persuade him to go out with them that night.
Still my mother did not know the fate of my father — and of course her mind and nerves were harassed to the point of breaking all through the long hours of the night. In this story I can only give the facts and trust that some power of understanding in every human heart may lead the reader to some appreciation of the tense situation—the web of destiny seemingly inextricably entangled, in which my parents had been caught.
After shooting his way out, my father had kept on going, and under protection of the night and the dense woods surrounding the house, eluded the mob. And after fifteen miles of weary tramping over the hills and through woods, after hours of worry for the safety of his family, he reached the Union lines, at daybreak. In the afternoon of that same day the family was moved to Clarksville, by solders sent out from the army.
The guerillas had burned my father’s tanyard and shoeshop, and his tobacco barn. They had stolen his horses — four fine grays which were kept on the plantation for plowing the tobacco fields and for hauling tanbark. And in the end, someone stole his farm. The trusted agent forgot to remit.
My father then went as a scout with detachments the Union army. He served under Major E. N. Morrill, who was later Governor of Kansas, and a resident of Hiawatha for a number of years. The guerilla band was broken up. But hostilities did not stop altogether with the surrender of Lee. And bushwhacking” became a pastime with the embittered few.
My mother, with her sister, Nan Porter, went back to Tennessee some years later for a visit. And about the first thing they did was to attend church—a new church in the old neighborhood. My resident aunt — Aunt Harriet Lovell—had said to her sisters, “You-all will meet lots of friends after church.”
The two Kansas women, with their handsome and deeply religious young escort, marched into church a trifle late, and my mother was smiling and nodding to close seated old acquaintances, and properly attuned, all were living in the happy anticipation of a real love feast when church would be out. Then suddenly, abruptly, as if she had received some deadly stroke, the smile faded from her face. She looked at her sister, in crestfallen dejection, and whispered, “Let’s get out of here, Nan, just as soon as the services are over.” That pained look did not belong on my my mother’s sweet face. Some highly disturbing thing had happened.
Quickly, my mother revised her plans. She could consistently have waited for the preacher to come down from the pulpit and address her as “sister” with more significance than ordinarily accrues to the church going woman. But no, thank you—not my mother. Not in that spot. She had recognized in that coarse-voiced preacher the leader of that guerilla mob. He was my non-consanguineous uncle — father’s own brother-in-law. And the accommodating young man who had been so kind as to “carry” them over in his shiny new buggy could not understand what made them in such a hurry to get away.
That meeting house was set in a small clearing in the dense woods on top of a high ridge. It was called “Sentinary.” The worshippers came in from the lower settlements from every direction. It was their custom to tarry after services for a visit — and especially^ if there were strangers in the congregation they must be wholeheartedly welcomed, Southern style, as I was to learn.
Some years later it was my pleasure to attend that same church. And Walter Cox “carried” me over in his buggy—the same rig in which my mother and my aunt had ridden with him—though the buggy was now, of course, somewhat the worse for wear, as the roads down there are rocky. Fully half that four-mile trip was in the bed of a creek which flowed, clear as crystal, over a rock bottom, between high hills. And when not in the middle of the creek that road crossed and recrossed the stream many times.
But the guerilla-preacher—he of the “foghorn” voice — who had so disturbed my mother’s tranquility, was not at the Church to greet me. It was my uncle, one of my mother’s rank rebel” brothers, who stepped down from the pulpit to meet the stranger.
And when Walter Cox introduced us—after effusive greetings and some emotional tears from the older man — uncle, with fine Southern accent, said, “I’m powerful proud that Walter here didn’t introduce you before the services. If I had known one of sister Martha’s boys was the congregation I believe I would have forgotten my text.” He stroked his whiskers. “Yes, suh, it would have frustrated me a heap.”
Having registered at the Maxwell House—the one that presumably made a certain brand of coffee famous—I attended the Nashville Centennial for three days before looking up any of my relatives. My Uncle Thomas Cullom lived Nashville — but my Aunt Nancy Cullom-Porter had written from Wetmore to my Aunt Harriet Cullom-Lovell at Newsome Station, twelve miles out, of my expected visit—and I went there first, by train. I inquired at the Newsome store for a way to get out to John Lovell’s, five miles up Buffalo creek. Mr. Newsome said, “Just go right down to the mill, the boy there will carry you over plum to his door—you a Cullom?” The boy led out two horses, and I was “carried” over astride a horse to my Aunt’s home, arriving at about four o’clock. And here I met, for the first time, Uncle John Lovell, his two daughters, Emma and Margaret; and of course my Aunt Harriet—not however, for the first time. My mother had told me that we had been pretty good friends in my baby days.
Also, I met here the renowned spirit medium Jim Spain, of whom I had heard my mother and my Aunt Nancy tell some tall stories—but Jim got on a horse, rode away, and I did not see him again that day. Jim Spain at this me was about thirty-five years old. He had come to the Lovell home when a young man—and just stayed. I don’t know if he had any relatives; though undoubtedly there was a time when he might have been blessed—or plagued—with kin.
At eventide—maybe it would define the hour better to say as dusk settled on the hills and hollows surrounding my Aunt’s home, making the hollows thick with semi-darkness—girls, in twos and threes, began coming in—in all about a baker’s dozen. That spirit medium had made the rounds spreading the news of my arrival. The girls were too nearly the same age—sweet sixteen—to be of one family. They were my relatives — or maybe just relatives of my relatives. They were all cousins. I asked one of the girls where had they all come from? She said, “Just over the east hill—apiece.” It was a steep hill.
The Lovell home, a double structure with the usual open spacious gallery separating the apartments—a typical Southern home—was near the junction of Buffalo creek on the north and a deep gulch between high wooded hills, flowing in from the south. The building spot, about the size of an ordinary town lot, had been leveled off some fifteen feet above the wash, with the west end of the dwelling resting on piles reaching down almost to the water level. To the east, the hill above the flattened space, was so steep and high that the sun did not» shine on the house until after ten o’clock. A cook-house stood in the yard about thirty feet south of the dwelling where family meals were prepared—presumedly by a colored cook.
Here, I must explain.
After I had returned home, I learned that my Aunt Nancy had written my Aunt Harriet advising her to get rid of her Negro cook for the duration of my visit. Whatever possessed her to do this, I wouldn’t know—there was, in fact, no justification for it. I had no reason to be prejudice of Negroes. On the contrary, I may say I “owe my life” to a Negro — my mother said he was the blackest Negro she had ever seen—for having rescued me from the river after I had fallen off the deck of the boat, when coming to Kansas from Tennessee. I was about four years old—and still wearing dresses, in the fashion of the times. I was told that the Negro said he had saved my mother’s little darling girl. I didn’t like to be called a “little girl”—either with or without the “darling”—but this was no cause for me to forever dislike the colored folk.
Might say I was nearly six years old before I got my first pants—and even then I didn’t wear them regularly. They were knee pants—in style, which style endured for a long time. I knew one young fellow in Wetmore who wore his knee-pants right up to his wedding day. When I first began howling for pants, my mother said I was lucky she hadn ’ t dressed me in a flour sack, with holes cut out for head and arms, like Preacher Wamyer’s kids had been clothed, in our neighborhood. But the joke was, she did not happen to have a flour sack, and she said that in this God-for-saken country she was not likely to have one for ages. My mother made me shirts with long tails — and when around home out there in the sticks, in hot weather, I would not bother with the britches. I recall the time mother took me with her to a quilting at the home of one of the Porter women—it might have been at the home of Kate Evans, wife of Bill Evans, the famous old stage-driver; but more likely it was the home of Amanda Ann Watson, widow, who later married Brown Ellet. Johnny Bill Watson, a red headed, freckled face boy about my age, played rough, making it plenty hot for me. I pulled off my pants, went into the house, and threw my britches onto the quilting frame—greatly humiliating my mother, and creating uproarous laughter from the women.
Well, you know, I didn’t see a “Nigger” or even hear one mentioned during my visit at my Aunt Harriet’s home, That cook house was the one place not exploited. But somehow the meals got cooked—tempting meals just like my mother used to cook—and I suspect by Auntie Lovell’s regular colored woman, after the Cullom technique.
The smoked ham, produced and cured on the place, was the best I have ever eaten. Uncle and Auntie’s 200-acre farm lay in irregular boundaries—likely described by chains and links zig-zagging between blazed trees—for two miles up and down Buffalo creek. Uncle John showed me the limestone ledge protruding over the north bank of the creek, which sheltered his hogs at such times as they would come home to spend the night—and feed on perhaps the first “bar’l” of corn produced on a near-by clearing. The hogs came home only at such times as the “mast” was insufficient. This combination made for cheap pork—and delicious hams.
I had recently been in Texas—and because of that trip to the Lone Star state, I had a message from a relative to a relative to be delivered in Nashville. Here again I should explain. On learning that I planned a trip to Galveston ten days hence, my Aunt Nancy Porter asked me to stop off at Dallas and call on a relative—a Cullom of the Tennessee tribe. I believe his name was Jerry. But if he were not Jerry, he was a close relative. When I called at Mr. Cullom’s real estate office in Dallas, I was told he had gone to Galveston. I went on to Galveston, and dismissed all thought of seeing my relative. I went out to the beach, and while strolling on the sands—on the gulf side of the sea-wall — among hundreds, perhaps thousands of other strollers, fell in with a friendly man. He told me he was from Dallas, and I told him that I was from Wetmore,„Kansas. He said, quickly, “Did you say Wetmore? Reckon you might know my cousin Nan Porter, there.” And I said, “Then, I reckon you know that my Aunt Nancy asked me to stop off at Dallas, and call on you.” He grabbed my hand, saying with real Tennessee accent, “Mr. John Bristow, I’m powerful proud to meet you.” Again, I may be wrong. It could have been the Texas accent. In the course of our conversation I told Cousin Cullom that I would be going to Nashville for the Centennial, and he said likely he would go, too. The message from him was for my Aunt Tennessee Cullom-Clark, mother’s sister, living in North Nashville.
I may say I’m “powerful proud” that my meddlesome letter-writing Aunt Nancy took it upon herself to notify our Texas cousin of my intended visit. That rather unusual chance meeting is paralleled by another chance meeting — which opens the way for bringing into this writing my distinguished Kansas cousin. I had an engagement to meet J.L.Bristow at the Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence, when he was Fourth Assistant Postmaster General — later, U. S. senator from Kansas. He was of my father’s branch of the Virginia and Tennessee Bristows, a third cousin to me, and up to this time we had never met. He was billed as principal speaker at a Republican rally in the Bowersock Opera House that night. Upon my arrival in Lawrence about noon, I discovered he was registered at the Eldridge House—but I could not locate him. I went out to the Kansas-Nebraska football game, and got a seat by a man who seemed to be deeply interested in the game. We conversed in an off-hand way when he was not up on his toes rooting for the Kansas team. From the conversation I inferred that he was a newspaper man, like myself. But, unlike myself, he was a college man. Not being a college man, I could not get interested in the game. It was brutal. When we had fetched up at the Eldridge House, this football enthusiast—now surrounded by politicians—said to me. “I am told by the clerk here that you were looking for me, and it seems you failed recognize a relative when you had found him.” He was my man.
Might say I first learned of my Kansas cousin when he was owner and publisher of the Salina Daily Republican, and I was publishing the Wetmore Spectator. A Kansas City printing firm addressed a letter to J. L. Bristow, Wet-more, Kansas—one initial off from my own. It was delivered to me. The contents of the letter showed that it should have been sent to the other newspaper man in Salina. I mailed it to him. He came back promptly wanting to know from whom did I get my name? One more exchange letters told us both exactly who we were. We both claimed kin to old Ben — of Virginia, Kentucky, and New York fame—though I do not now recall his specialty. But it’s a safe bet it had to do with politics. My father was a first cousin of J. L.’s father, a Methodist minister, living in Baldwin, Kansas. My illustrious cousin Joseph has climbed high up the ladder of political fame — and who knows his limit? I shall not lose track of him.
After I would have returned from Pensacola, Florida, and spent a day in Nashville with Uncle Tom and Aunt Irene Cullom, and their three daughters, cousins Lora, Clevie, and Myrtle, it was planned to give a party for me at Aunt Harriet’s country home, the day set for one week hence — when they “allowed” they really would show me some Tennessee girls. Here, I think my Wetmore Auntie had been meddling in my behalf once again. Well, no matter. If it was meant that the girls at the coming party would grade upwards in looks from the first showing, it surely would be worth coming back for. Cousin Maggie Lovell, a fifteen-year-old beauty, told me the girls would turn themselves loose at the party—and, she said, “The woods are full of ‘em.” The girls of the advance showing had been rather on the reserved order—I might say very lady-like. Still, I imagine there were missies in that group who would have been pleased to start something. Also, I imagine they were the flower of the flock.
All Southern girls at that time were supposed to be pretty. The climate, and the care in which the girls were taught to shield their faces from the sun was believed to make for superior beauty. My mother said that in her day no girl would ever think of going out without her sun-bonnet.
Admittedly, the South is blessed with some extremely beautiful girls. But, after extensive searching, may I say that—exempting cousins of course—I did not find it overwhelmingly so. I am convinced that it takes something more than climate and ribbed sun-bonnets to turn the trick; and that the South has no monopoly on this something. Also, I further find that the strikingly beautiful girl is, like -prospector’s gold, where you find her. And for my money give me the sun-kissed girl from the wide-open Kansas range.
Unfortunately, I was called home, and did not have the pleasure of attending the party—and was compelled to send regrets, from Nashville, by mail. Also, I missed the chance to see Jim Spain call up the spirits. But then it was only a half promise. When I asked Jim if he would hold a seance for me, he said, “Reckon I might—but generally I aim to do it only for the hill folks.”
“But,” I said, “you fooled my mother and my Aunt Nancy when they were down here not so long ago.” He said “Yes—I did. But you know they grew up here in the South where most everybody believes in ghosts.
“My mother used to tell us kids that there was no such thing as a ghost—but she said it in such a dispirited way as to cause me, as young as I was, to doubt if she fully believed her own words.
I grew up in a generation which talked freely, pro and con, about ghosts. And, believe it or not, I have actually seen Erickson’s ghost—that is, until the apparition faded away into something tangible, as “ghosts” always do if given time. There was a time here when I — and other youngsters of like caliber—looked for Erickson’s ghost in every dark corner. And I think that if I should even now go through the woods on the old Hazeltine farm adjoining town, at night, as I often did in the early days, I would involuntarily keep an eye peeled for the ghost of Jim Erickson, a murderer and suicide, of May 10, 1873—buried, without benefit of clergy, mourners, or even regulation coffin — on top a high hill just south of town. To mention only one of the several proclaimed haunted houses—which always go hand in hand with ghosts—Jim Erickson’s ghost cut up a good many capers here in the early days, particularly where “it” was often “seen” on the margin of the big swamp lying between town and the high hill. Let there come a foggy night someone was sure to say: “Erickson’s ghost will stalk tonight.” A party of three young couples—boys and girls — set out one night to trap old Jim, or whatever it was that haunted a vacant house of many rooms, which sat on a high hill near the swamp—but, would you believe it, they were disturbed by another couple who had preceded them—and all fled the scene in a rout. Actually, some brave people — grown-up’s—positively refused to venture south of the creek on foggy nights. It’s not a promise—but I may, at some future date, write the Erickson story for the Spectator readers.
And I can well believe Jim Spain had the situation as to ghosts stalking among the oldsters of his generation in the South sized up correctly. However, the bright kids of today should never be troubled with any such hallucinations.
No, kids—truly, there is no such thing as a ghost. My mother told me so.
NOTE—Cousin Bill Porter recently visited Nashville, and was told that Jim Spain (having died in cousin Margaret Lovell-Ezell’s home in Nashville in 1948, aged 84) is only a memory down there now.
And what a memory!
CAREFUL PLANNING
When still very young, Donna Cole—in our home—had eaten an apple and was nibbling the core. My wife said to her niece, “Oh, oh—child, you must not eat that core.” Donna smiled, and taking another bite, said, “Ain’t goin’ be no core.”
At another time, the wife and I were visiting in the Locknane home in Topeka—and Myrtle had taken Donna along with us, at the suggestion of Coral, who said they would try to get her pictured in the Sunday Daily Capital. Well, they did that easily. Donna was deservedly given a top position—a standout picture—among other youngsters. Myrtle and Coral were very proud of this—and Donna “rode high” during our stay.
The Locknanes had a fine home, neatly, though not lavishly furnished—and a “hired girl”; a Cadillac car, and a colored chauffeur.
Along with all her gayety, Donna did a little sound thinking. She whispered. “How can they beford all this, Aunt Myrtle?”
RED RIFLEMEN
Published in Wetmore Spectator,
Feb. 7, 1936—and in
Seneca Courier-Tribune’s Historical Edition.
By John T. Bristow
It was early autumn far back in the pioneer days. The wood which this story opens was one of the largest stands big trees in Northeast Kansas. It was bordered on the high slopes with sumac, hazelbrush, and tall grass. The trees had not yet fully shed their leaves.
An Indian, blanketed, with a long rifle swung across withers of his buckskin pony, detached himself from the band of rovers and rode straight to the place where my father and I stood, under a great oak tree, frozen to the spot. A foreboding stillness pervaded the oak grove. I was terribly frightened. Somehow the idea had formed in my young head that the Indians would not kill children; that they carried them off alive, along with the scalps of adult whites.
About that time frequent accounts of Indian depredations had filtered in from the west — gruesome, hellish, blood-curdling stories they were.
A tribe of Indians lived then, as now, on a reservation only eight miles away. The fact that those Kickapoos were considered civilized and peaceable did not register in this all boy’s mind—nor even in some adult minds.
My father, William Bristow, was reared in the heavily wooded sections of Kentucky and Tennessee, where, in his day, the gun and the “hound-dog” were man’s dearest possessions. I knew that he was a crack rifle-shot; that he could, without doubt, hold his own with the advancing redman—but not against that band of savages lurking in the background. Wrapped in flaming blood-red blankets, those Indians, silent and sinister, with the long barrels of their rifles sticking up like telegraph poles, looked as if they might be making ready to go on the warpath.
Closer and closer came the Indian. And why the devil didn’t my father shoot? Was he going to let that redskin take his scalp? In a fit of panic I dodged behind the big oak tree; and then just as suddenly I popped out again and backed up my father by clutching his trousers legs from behind. It is surprising what amount of terror can flit through a small boy’s mind in so short a time.
In a flash I reviewed again the fate of the German girls, orphaned and stolen by the Indians. All oldtimers here will recall that the German girls—Kate, Sophia, Addie, and Julia—after being rescued from the Indians, became wards of the Government and were placed in the home of Pat Corney, who lived for many years on Wolfley creek. Their ages ranged from six to seventeen years when rescued. They were filthy dirty—grimy, without clothes. When the two younger girls were brought to the Corney home—the other two were recovered later—the old Irishman exclaimed: “For God’s sake, Louisa, get a tub of water and a bar of soap!”
Also, about this time—probably a few years earlier — our townsman, Andy Maxwell, after leaving Wetmore to take up his home in the West, was besieged for three days by Sioux and Nez Perce Indians. With Andy were Mrs. Maxwell — his sister-in-law — his daughter May, and four men. They were traveling out of Miles City, Montana, in covered wagons. The story of this Indian encounter had filtered back to Wetmore where Andy Maxwell’s mother, a brother, and two sisters still lived. According to the report, Maxwell and his men took their stand in a small timber tract, on three sides of which were deep gullies. Owing to this advantageous position the Indians could not follow their customary tactics of circling the whites. They skulked. And whenever an Indian would get near enough, he would be picked off by the white man’s bullet. Maxwell and his men killed eight Indians. Two of the white men were severely wounded. May got an arrow through her foot; Andy lost a lock of his hair and had his face grazed by a bullet. Mrs. Maxwell was shot in the arm. The party lost twenty-six oxen. Andy Maxwell now lives at Santa Ana, California.
I have mentioned these two Indian incidents briefly, merely to give the reader some idea as to what was, and might have been, flashing through my mind at that tense moment—and for their historic value. Also other Indian pictures assailed me. That awful moment will stand out in my memory while life lasts.
My father said not a word, and to be sure I could not read his reactions. I knew only that he had been harboring a fine mess of mixed emotions at the moment when the Indians appeared.
Mark this well.
“How!” greeted the Indian as he drew rein. He slid off his pony and surveyed the surroundings quickly. At edge of the clearing his redskin companions, departing from their single-file formation, sitting on their ponies, went into a huddle not unlike modern collegiate intelligentsia on a gridiron.
Though it may be said that the Indian’s mission was of rather urgent nature, let us leave him standing here by the side of his pony while I tell you how my father and I happened to be caught in this embarrassing predicament.
For some reason, undoubtedly well grounded, the owner of that timber forbade hunting on his premises. Nevertheless, on one occasion, that ban was lifted in promise, if not in reality—and therein lies the nucleus of this tale.
One day while on a friendly call at the shoeshop in Wetmore, John Wolfley granted permission to my father to shoot squirrels in his timber, though he made it plain that this was to be considered a special favor, because of old friendship. My father and John Wolfley, the senior John, were among the first settlers in this country. They came before the railroads, before the towns in this section—in the log cabin days. The towns then were strung along the old land or military road passing five miles north of here. As compared with highways of the present day, it was not a road. It was but a rut, a serpentine streak of dust spanning the great plains, crossing the mountains—and on to California. Yet, it carried immense traffic—stage, pony express, commerce — and was a celebrated thoroughfare. Many notables passed this way. U. S. Grant, Horace Greeley, Mark Twain. And although of no particular moment here, I might add that I, myself, came into this country over the Old Trail at a time when traffic was near its peak.
It was, therefore, in considerable blitheness of spirit that on one fine October day my father and I “hoofed it” five miles up Spring creek to the Wolfley timber. We were going to a choice and restricted hunting grounds, on invitation of the owner—a favor granted no one else.
My father shot a squirrel. The report of his gun, heard by the owner of the place who was in the timber gathering down-wood—sometimes in the old days called squaw wood — brought a vigorous protest from a half-hidden spot across the creek.
“Get out!” the angry voice shouted.
My father was not disturbed. Not then. He even laughed a little. And I fear his voice was charged with rather too much mirth when he called back across the stream, “Why, John, don’t you know me?”
Like a flash of lightning came back the ultimatum, “I don’t care if you are General Grant, you can’t hunt in my timber!” So that was that—a sorry situation for two old friends to impose upon themselves.
My father told me we would leave the Wolfley timber by the shortest route. Leaving the dead squirrel on the ground where it had fallen, he started off at once with the stride of one bent upon urgent enterprise, muttering incoherent but indubitably uncomplimentary things about his late friend. It is such breaches of friendship, as this seemed to be, that cause men to talk to themselves.
Sometimes, however, what we consider a calamity proves to be a blessing in disguise. That was true in this case. And the breach, which loomed so menacingly on the horizon at the moment, instead of impairing a fine friendship was the indirect cause of making it everlasting.
Even as my father hastened away, the Invisible Hand was working in his favor. Had there been no interruption, he would have continued on his course as mapped out, up the creek, and the providential thing which was very soon to take place would have miscarried. Here I want to interpose a paragraph—maybe two, or more—to show how welcome this providential thing that was now about to enter my father ’ s life.
A shoemaker with a family rather too large to support in comfort even in normal times, was my father—a slaving man who, like so many others in those pioneer days, had nearly reached the limit of his endurance. In this new country everyone was directly, or indirectly, dependent upon the products of the soil. Those were the days of Texas long-horn cattle and ten cent corn—when there was corn. Those were the days when snows driven by winter’s howling blasts across the open prairies piled high in the streets and country lanes and cut off all communications with the outside world for weeks at a time. At such times we would burn corn for fuel. Well do I remember the superior warmth of those corn-fed fires. They were life-savers for those who were compelled to live in the open, wind-blown homes of that day.
There was land to be had for the taking, but my father thought he could not afford to take it. Without capital to stock the free grass range, the pioneer farmer could not hope to make more than a bare living. And when crops failed for lack of moisture, as they too often did in the early days before the country became seasonable for the production of grain, all suffered.
That was pioneer Kansas! That was “Droughty Kansas! ” That was “Bleeding Kansas!” It was not the Kansas of today—barring, of course, the year 1934, and maybe with apologies for 1935.
Then, before that providential find was to bear fruit, two outstanding reverses visited appalling hardships upon an already discouraged peoples. The lingering effects of the great money panic of 1873 was the cause of much distress. There was no such thing as Federal aid then, and everyone here was on his own. However, the East did contribute some bacon and a quantity of cast-off clothing, including plug hats and Prince Albert coats—useful in some cases, but generally scorned by the needy people.
That money panic was brought on by the collapse of the Jay Cooke brokerage houses in three eastern cities. Cooke, a nationally known promoter, was financing the building of the Northern Pacific railroad, and had made too many advances.
It may be of interest here, especially in Nemaha and Jackson counties and possibly throughout all Northeast Kansas, to know that, later, through an unprotected brokerage partnership in the National Capitol with that wizard of finance, a former resident of Wetmore township, Green Campbell, who had come into local and national prominence by reason of his sensational rise to affluence as principal owner of the famous Horn Silver mine at Frisco, Utah, dropped a cool million of his mine-made dollars in the aftermath of that failure.
After he had failed, Jay Cooke, still the promoter par-excellence, secured a railroad for Green Campbell’s mine. Later, after he had sold his mine, Campbell went to Washington as delegate to Congress from Utah. Still later Campbell joined Cooke there in the brokerage business. With new money in the firm, Cooke’s old creditors swooped down upon Campbell like a swarm of bees. And they stung him hard. His first check was drawn for nine hundred thousand dollars! However, there was no time after selling the Horn Silver mine that Green Campbell was not a rich man. Green Campbell endowed a college at Holton, Kansas, bearing his name. His old homestead was in the southwest part of Wetmore township. It is now owned and occupied by August Krotzinger.
Then there was the year 1874—a blank year with its train of blighted hopes that socked the whole populace still deeper down into the slough of despond. Following a season of scanty production, the crops that year, in the spring and up to mid-summer, showed signs of fulfillment. Then came the usual anxious period—dry, windy, scorching days, And hope, that had sprung in the tired hearts of the farmers commenced to die as they looked with anxiety on the drooping crops. The people prayed for rain. They watched for clouds. Then, out of the northwest there came a cloud—a black cloud, a menacing cloud, that was to blot out all renaming hope.
It was a rain of pests—a deluge of grasshoppers! Like the plagues of old they descended upon us. And they greedily devoured every growing thing—corn, grass, weeds, foliage of the trees—leaving in their wake a barren waste and a woefully impoverished lot of people. After devouring every edible thing, and gnawing on pitchfork handles and axe handles — for salt deposited by sweaty hands — the hoppers deposited eggs in the ground, and then perished with the coming of cold weather. The young hoppers in the spring of 1875 cleaned up the farmer’s first plantings—but on a day, at noon, late in June they rose up as a cloud blotting out the sun from the earth as they winged their way to greener pastures—where, nobody here knew.
Now we have left the Indian standing there by the side of his pony for a long time. But the Indian doesn’t mind. Not our Kickapoo, anyway. And, as a stickler for the truth, for accuracy of detail, I will admit that my deductions, my fears, did not coincide with the facts as later developed; that, in the language of the street and as my father said of me at the time out there in the wood—literally, I was “all wet.”
That Indian was not an emissary of destruction, rather, he was, after the manner of the wise one of his peoples, a maker of good medicine. My father’s great haste to get away from the Wolfley timber had been halted by a clump of black oak trees. There were two holes in a large limb of the great oak under which the Indian found us standing. The Indian looked up into the tree. “Long time go Indian’s tomahawk make holes,” he said. “Maybe catchum coon,” He shifted his beady black eyes to another part of the tree, and exclaimed, “Seeum squirrel!”
My father had hot noticed the holes in the limb, nor the squirrel which the Indian saw flattened out on a branch high up in the tree. To my father, that tree presented far more interesting possibilities. Before interrupted, his thoughts had, more or less, shifted from the man who had treated him so shabbily and had carried him back to the sunny Southland, to the evergreen hills of his boyhood home. There he had successfully operated a tannery—successfully, until the Civil War put him out of business.
The tree my father was now viewing was a huge black oak. It was surrounded by more of its kind. At any time the sight of a black oak attracted him. Black oak bark was the agency he employed in making leather in his Tennessee tannery. He longed to get back into the business. There were other black oaks in the country; yet he questioned if there were enough to justify the establishment of a tannery here. He was constantly on the lookout for a substitute for making leather.
Pointing to the boots he himself wore, my father told the Indian that his interest in that tree was because the bark of the black oak was used in making leather. Also, noticing that the Indian was wearing moccasins and other deerskin raiment under his blanket, my father asked him what the Indians used for tanning. The Indian became thoughtful and finally said something that sounded like “Sequaw.” But that was worse than Greek to my father.