THE SURGEON SCOUT.
While dwelling upon the scenes and incidents of my life upon the
frontier, and speaking of those with whom I came in contact, I wish to
refer to one whose meeting with me toward the latter days of overland
travel began with a sincere friendship that has lasted until this day,
and will continue to the end of our lives.
The person to whom I refer is Dr. D. Frank Powell, an army surgeon in
those days, and whose gallant services as an officer and scout, as well
as his striking appearance, gained for him the border cognomens of
"White Beaver" (by which he is as frequently called to-day as by his own
name) and "The Surgeon Scout," "Mighty Medicine Man," and "Fancy Frank."
Doctor Powell was the firm friend of Buffalo Bill, and his valuable
services, rendered as a scout, guide, and Indian-fighter, made him
famous as the Surgeon Scout.
His dash and handsome style of dress also gained for him the name of
"Fancy Frank," while the other two appellations by which he was known
were gained by his skill and service as a surgeon and physician.
When the Indians were stricken with an epidemic of smallpox, although at
the time at war with the whites, Surgeon Powell conceived the idea of
boldly entering their village and checking the dread disease.
Leaving the fort upon his perilous mission, Surgeon Powell made his way
alone to the Indian country, and rode forward at sight of them, making
signs of peace.
The astonished redskins received him with amazement, but, assured that
he was in their power, they listened to the bold proposition he had to
make them, and which was that he would check the epidemic then raging or
forfeit his own life.
[Illustration: D. Frank Powell.
"White Beaver."]
Struck with the boldness of the man, whom they knew so well as the
comrade of Buffalo Bill, and who spoke their language fluently, the
chiefs listened to all he had to say and then put him to the test.
Then it was that the strange circumstance occurred of a pale-face foe
and medicine man _vaccinating_ the Indians, young and old, all except
the medicine men of the tribe, who would have nothing to do with him.
The result of Doctor Powell's work was that the dread disease was soon
checked, and under his care many desperate cases of sickness were cured,
and he became the ideal of his friends, who held a grand pow-wow, and
presented him with a robe of sixteen white beaver-skins--the white
beaver being a sacred animal among them.
Nor was this all, for they made him a mighty medicine man, or chief of
their tribe, and bestowed upon him the name of "White Beaver," which he
uses to-day in connection with his own name.
A resident now of La Crosse, Wis., Doctor Powell has a large practice
there, resides in an elegant home, and is for the fourth time mayor of
that beautiful city, and one of the most popular men in the State,
socially and politically.
The doctor has been a most extensive traveler, in this country and
abroad, and yet each year, for a couple of weeks, entertains as his
guests the tribe of Winnebago Indians, of whom he is still the medicine
chief, and who make a pilgrimage to see him, consult him as to the
affairs of their people, and show him devoted respect during the time
they are encamped upon his grounds, where he has a place set apart for
them.
A handsome man, of splendid physique, one who has known a strange life
of adventure, he is yet as gentle as a woman, and ever generous to those
with whom he comes in contact; and this tribute to his worth as a man
and skill as physician and surgeon he most justly deserves.
CONCLUSION.
A SUMMING UP OF THE HAPPENINGS THAT OCCURRED OR TRANSPIRED IN
EVERY DECADE, COMMENCING WITH THE TWENTIES AND ENDING WITH
NINETY.
There was but little occurred of very great note west of the Mississippi
during the twenties. The State of Missouri was admitted into the
sisterhood of the States in the beginning of the twenties; after that
there was very little of note that transpired during the twenties, with
the exception of a few Indian scares on the frontier of Missouri, which,
as a rule, were brought about without any real cause, and some trapping
expeditions going west to the Rocky Mountains to trap for beaver fur,
and also trading expeditions to Santa Fé, in New Mexico. With those
exceptions, everything went along as quiet and almost as calm as a
summer morning. In those days the entire community west of the
Mississippi River, as well as the States east of it, were
self-sustaining, producing all that they consumed in clothing and food,
in their own homes, and I might say that this state of things also
existed during the term of the thirties. Very little of note occurred
outside the regular course of events save the Blackhawk war upon the
Upper Mississippi and the appearance of steamboats in the Missouri
River, as far west as the west border of the State of Missouri, which
commenced in the early thirties, and became a very large source of
transportation and passenger travel, and there was also, in the
commencement of the thirties, some Mormon elders that came to the county
of Jackson, in Missouri, bringing with them the revelations of their
prophet Joseph Smith, and claimed that they had been sent to that county
by the direction of the Lord to their prophet to establish the Zion of
the Lord, or a "New Jerusalem," and, of course, a new church, which has
since kept its existence until the present time, with its headquarters
now in Salt Lake City, Utah. With the arrival of steamboats in the Upper
Missouri, farmers commenced to raise hemp and other commodities that
they could ship to St. Louis and New Orleans upon the steamers, which
was the commencement of the people in that State to market the surplus
that they could produce upon their farms; but the advantage of this
trade or business only applied to the farmers and producers living in
the river counties (I mean the counties located on the river), as it was
too costly to haul their products upon wagons and with teams for any
great distance; so the steamboat transportation could only be very
beneficial to the counties, as above stated, the interior portions of
the State having to plod along very much as was the case before
steamboats came into use. There was no finer passenger travel ever
inaugurated than the accommodations that travelers enjoyed as passengers
upon those floating palaces, and I have lived to see them come and go,
so far as their operations upon the Missouri is concerned. The Missouri
afforded nearly 3,000 miles of water navigation, measured by the
windings of the river. I have traveled on steamboats from its mouth, or
St. Louis, to the head of navigation at Fort Benton, in Montana.
[Illustration: THE RETREAT ON THE COLORADO OF MAJOR JOHN D. LEE,
THE MORMON.]
Now, commencing with the forties, there was nothing of great moment
happened until the great freshet of '44, which was the largest flood
that has been known in the Missouri, about the mouth of the Caw, in the
last seventy-five years, and I think that there never has been in the
history of the country as great a flood in the Missouri at that point.
In '46 the Mexican War came up, and produced quite a stir among the
business men upon the west border of the Missouri, as at that time there
was no Kansas and Nebraska, the whole country being called "the Indian
Territory" west of the State of Missouri. The Santa Fé trade, by this
time, had become a regular annual business, and men had learned how to
outfit wagons and teams so as to carry large amounts of merchandise and
Government stores from the Missouri River to Santa Fé, N. M. and when
General Donathan organized his regiment of troops, by the authority of
the Governor of the State of Missouri, to march to Santa Fé, N. M., he
found no trouble, neither did the Government, in securing all the
transportation necessary to meet any emergency that might arise, with a
plain and well-beaten road the entire route that they had to travel,
this road having been opened by the merchant-trains in previous years.
In '47 the Mormon leader, Brigham Young, with a company of his elders
and members of the church, left the Missouri River in the early spring
and traveled 1,000 miles into the interior of the country, and formed a
colony in that year in Salt Lake Valley, and named the city that they
found Salt City, which proved to be a half-way house, as we might call
it, between the Missouri River and the Pacific Coast, which proved of
great advantage to the emigrants who left the Missouri in the spring of
'49 to reach the gold-fields of California; for it was in '49, or rather
the winter of '48, when the placer gold in California was discovered,
and it was on this account that '49 became one of the most eventful
years of the forties, the Mexican War having closed, and peace
negotiations established in '48, which gave the United States the entire
domain of the Pacific Coast lying north of the line now dividing Old
Mexico from the United States. There were vast numbers of brave and
daring citizens from almost every State in the Mississippi Valley who
attempted to reach California by the overland route, and at no time, not
even during the Mexican War, up to '49, had there ever been any overland
travel to compare with that of '49. Tens of thousands of emigrants or
gold-hunters left the west border at that time, outfitting themselves,
some with ox-teams and some with mules and the best wagons that could be
found in the market, loaded to the guards with supplies of food and
clothing to make the trip and return, for at that time none of them
expected to remain or make their homes in California; if so, it must
have been a very small percentage of the number. Many of them died with
cholera on the way; the large majority, however, reached their
destination, but many of them through great suffering and privation from
one cause or another. One of the misfortunes that attended the majority
of them was want of experience in traveling their animals; they started
off in too big a hurry, and pressed their teams too much at the outset,
the result of which was, many of their animals died from fatigue, caused
by overtraveling, long before they reached the Pacific Coast, the result
of which was to leave on the road, or rather in the road, often the
valuables that they had secured in the outset for their comfort and
preservation when they reached the land of gold.
The year '50 was also a very fatal year to emigration, for it did not
cease with '49, but the success of the "forty-niners" in gathering gold
proved to be a great inducement to the country to continue the movements
of '49 in the way of outfitting and emigrating to the Pacific Coast; in
fact, it continued in a greater or smaller degree during the entire
fifties; but in the year '50, as in '49, there were great numbers died
with cholera. It was fatal among the emigrants from their starting point
from Missouri till they would reach the Rocky Mountains, after which
time the cases of death from cholera were very few compared with what
they suffered upon the plains before reaching the mountains. There were
but few cases that occurred after they reached the Sacramento Valley in
California. Instead of returning, as the most of the gold-seekers
intended to do on leaving their homes, they found California a
delightful climate, with rich and fertile valleys, and many, very many
of them concluded, after having a year's experience in the country, to
become citizens, and a little later in the fifties, there were a great
many people in the Western States who sold their homes and started with
their families for the golden shores of the Pacific--in other words, for
California--in view of adopting that State for their future homes. I was
acquainted with numbers who did so, and who I have since met at their
homes in California, who were delighted with the change that they made,
and it is a very common thing now, after the country has been settled so
many years, to find numbers of people there who think that California is
the only country fit to live in.
Returning to the fifties, there was nothing of great note happened until
the admission of Kansas and Nebraska in 1854, when floods of emigrants,
mostly from the Northern States, passed into those Territories. A
number, however, were from the Southern States, and held pro-slavery
views.
In '56 what is known as the Kansas war occurred, from the invasion of
men from Missouri and other States.
In '57 and '58 the Mormon war occurred, when Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston
was sent to Utah with an army of 5,000 regulars.
In 1859 the great Comstock mine was developed, and it added to the
currency of the world between one and two hundred millions of dollars in
gold and silver. Also in '58 began the Pike's Peak excitement, which
resulted in the settlement of Denver.
In 1860 the election of Abraham Lincoln was followed, in '61, by the
breaking out of the Civil War.
In '62 the initial steps for the establishment of the Union and Central
Pacific railroads were taken, and the idea was fulfilled in '69. Daily
stages were put on in 1859 from the Missouri River to Denver and Salt
Lake.
It was during the sixties that the telegraph was established across the
continent, following in the track of the Pony Express.
Gold was discovered in Montana in the sixties, resulting in the
settlement of that Territory.
During the seventies and eighties, the most important happenings in our
country were the remarkable growth of the railroad interests.
THE END.
BY
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A TRILOGY.
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Transcriber's Notes
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Hyphen removed: "crestfallen" (p. 82), "football" (p. 146), "redskins"
(p. 318), "smallpox" (p. 317), "to wit" (p. 231).
P. 20: "Mrs. Ferrins" changed to "Mrs. Ferrin".
P. 68: "assemby" changed to "assembly" (used as an assembly hall).
P. 72: "employes" changed "employees" (the behavior of my employees).
P. 87: "an" changed to "and" (The cruel and inhuman butchery).
P. 88: "Lianos" changed to "Llanos" (San Juan de los Llanos).
P. 90: "beween" changed to "between" (spaces of thirty feet between
each).
P. 93: "calvary" changed to "cavalry" (three cavalry companies).
P. 124: "dear" changed to "deer" (Antelope, deer, elk, bear, beaver).
P. 139: "litttle" changed to "little" (the little post at Fort Mann).
P. 159: "were" changed to "where" (At a point where the main road).
P. 233: "heathful" changed to "healthful" (The climate is healthful and
invigorating).
P. 249: "Jim Beckwouth" changed to "Jim Beckwourth".
P. 310: The totals in the table are not correct but have not been
changed.
P. 313: "prophyry" changed to "porphyry" (large overflows of porphyry).
End of Project Gutenberg's Seventy Years on the Frontier, by Alexander Majors