SOME MATTERS INCIDENTAL TO AND CONNECTED WITH THE INVASION
It was claimed in the invaders’ petition to the governor and in his
dispatch to the President, and talked in the press as well as on the
street that the civil authorities of Johnson County refused to give
protection to the cattlemen while engaged in their legitimate business
of gathering and branding their cattle. To prove the falsity of the
charge the following official notice is given as it was printed and
sent broadcast over the country in May, 1892:
Notice
To Henry Blair, Dr. Harris, the Murphy Cattle Company and Other
Owners of Cattle Ranging in Johnson County:
The authorities of Johnson County invite and desire that all owners
of cattle ranging in this county who have either personally or by
their foremen and representatives participated in the late armed
invasion of this county to send able, trustworthy and discreet
persons to their ranches to attend to the rounding and preservation
of their property. The undersigned pledge to them the resources
of the county in the protection of their interests here. We would
suggest that there are a number of idle cowboys here who have not
been branded as outlaws or blackballed by the stock association who
will gladly work and help round up the cattle during the coming
season.
C. J. HOGERSON,
C. M. DEVOE,
J. T. BROWN,
County Commissioners.
ALVIN BENNETT,
County and Prosecuting Attorney.
W. G. ANGUS,
Sheriff.
Another false statement that was freely circulated throughout the
country was to the effect that Johnson County was a barren waste, only
suited for range cattle grazing, and that three-fourths of the taxes
accrued from the range herds owned by the large cattlemen who were
either present or represented in the raid. The martial law petition
sent to the governor stated that the assessable value of the range
herds amounted to “millions of dollars.” The exact facts are presented
by the county clerk in the following statement:
“The assessed valuation of property in Johnson County for 1891 was
$1,789,075.69. The valuation of all horses and cattle owned by
stockmen was $318,125, the tax on which was $3,817.50.” This shows the
cattlemen’s interest in that county to have been less than one-fifth
of the total, yet they claimed to be entitled to the control of all
matters by reason of their money invested.
On the morning of May 10th, 1892, George A. Wellman was murdered on
Nine Mile Divide, in Johnson County. Here is the story as it was first
told to the Bulletin, in Buffalo, on the day of the murder:
“Thomas Hathaway, a cowboy, who has been for several years in the
employ of H. A. Blair Company, known as the Hoe outfit, came into town
Tuesday evening, unarmed, wild-eyed and excited, and unfolded a tale
that created consternation among the people.
“His story, as told then, is as follows:
“George A. Wellman, who, since the absence of F. H. Labertaux, was
in charge of the Hoe outfit, came from Gillette to the Hoe ranch on
Powder River, Monday evening, the 9th of May, paid off the men at work
there, and Tuesday morning, he (Hathaway) started with Wellman to go to
Buffalo. Each was riding a horse, and Wellman was leading a pack horse,
packed with Hathaway’s bedding. When about 15 or 16 miles southeast
from the Crazy Woman stage crossing, and about 10 o’clock in the
morning, as they were riding side by side along the Nine Mile divide,
two shots were fired in quick succession, so quick that one man could
not have fired them, and George Wellman fell from his horse.
“Hathaway’s horse pitched him off; he mounted again and followed
Wellman’s horse and the pack-horse about 300 yards to the right,
stopped, unsaddled both Wellman’s horse and the pack-horse, turned them
loose and rode as fast as he could to Buffalo to notify the sheriff.”
Hathaway changed his story somewhat as he told it to different people,
and in the evening he was arrested on suspicion of being a party to the
crime. The body was sent for and an inquest held, but no certain key
to the mystery was found. The case has been in the United States court
because of the fact of Wellman being a deputy United States Marshal,
but the public is today as ignorant as it was on the morning of the
murder as to the identity of the men who fired the fatal shot. Wellman
was a popular cowboy with all the people and not known to have an enemy
in the country. The Masons of Buffalo buried him with due honors, and
general sorrow prevailed throughout the county. He was married at
Martha, Wisconsin, April 21st, 1892, and had just returned from that
interesting ceremony when he was stricken down.
The belief is general in the northern counties that Wellman died at
the hands of the invaders and not by act of the so-called rustlers. As
explained in another chapter, they believe he was selected as a victim
in the hope of fastening a crime upon the settlers of Johnson County
for the purpose of exciting sympathy for the captured white caps.
Some weeks after the discharge of the invaders, Dudley Champion, a
brother of Nathan, was shot and killed by Mike Shonsey, one of the
late prisoners. Champion came down the cattle trail in search of
work, and at a point about 20 miles northeast of Lusk fell in with an
outfit from Texas. During the evening meal Shonsey rode up, and for a
time pleasant conversation was carried on between the entire party.
Suddenly Shonsey raised his gun and fired, killing Champion instantly.
Shonsey, accompanied by a lad who was in the employ of the Texans,
immediately started for Lusk, where he gave himself up to the officers.
A preliminary hearing was at once had, the boy swearing that Champion
drew his revolver first, and that Shonsey fired in self-defense. This,
of course, relieved Shonsey from blame, and he was released. A few
hours later he took the train for Cheyenne, arriving in that city
at midnight. The next morning he settled up with George W. Baxter,
in whose employ he had been, and took the afternoon train south,
presumably going to Mexico and out of reach of the law.
Twenty-four hours after Shonsey’s release by the court at Lusk other
witnesses arrived, and it was claimed that Champion had made no gun
play and that his killing was unprovoked, cold-blooded murder on the
part of Shonsey. But the information came too late--the murderer was
flying southward and out of reach. Thus was added another crime to the
long list chargeable to white cap influence.
Undoubtedly the motive for the killing of Dudley Champion was the fear
that he would, if permitted to live, seek revenge for the murder of
his brother Nathan at the K. C. ranch. A living Champion was looked
upon as a constant menace--therefore, no Champions must be permitted to
live. Shonsey is still absent from the state, and no action has been
initiated to bring him back to answer for his crime.
Readers of these pages can but be impressed with the knowledge that the
whole cry of the invaders and their promoters was the decimation of
their herds by the rustlers. “Thief, thief!” was the constant yell, and
the charge was always that, “If the thieves are not wiped out our herds
will be.” So they went to battle to destroy the men who had thus driven
the cattle from the ranges of the state. That this was a false cry, the
following story abundantly proves:
“The Western Union Beef Company, of which George W. Baxter was and
still is general manager, had a herd located in Johnson County, with
Mike Shonsey as range foreman. The grass was short and the company had
determined to move the herd to Montana in hopes of securing a better
range. In the early autumn of 1892, four or five months after the
invasion, the herd was gathered for the drive to Montana, and behold
there were found and rounded into the moving bunches about two thousand
more cattle than the company’s books called for. The rustlers had not
taken many of these cattle, surely. Yet no man was a more vigorous
“thief” howler than this man Baxter.
Some persons have been uncharitable enough to suggest that the general
manager and the range foreman had entered into a conspiracy and “put
up a job” on the company for their personal pecuniary benefit, namely,
anticipating and perhaps urging the removal of one herd, they had
“doctored” the tally sheets so as to show two thousand head less than
the real number. Then, when the gather was made, if they found all the
books called for less, say two or three hundred, they could buy the
remnant for a few hundred dollars--less than half of the market value
of the shortage, for it costs nearly all the value of the tailings of
a herd to gather it--and thus have a two thousand herd of their own.
But the little unpleasantness of the invasion made the climate of
Johnson County unhealthy for Messrs. Baxter and Shonsey, and the cattle
gathering had to be done by cowboys not in the deal. Thus, everything
bearing the company’s brands was brought in and the soft snap so
carefully planned was “given away.”
Assuming that there is no truth in this very plausible story, which is
proper in the absence of direct proof, and that if Baxter and Shonsey
had made the gather of the cattle, the same results would have been
secured, the fact remains that the herd had not been looted, as claimed
by Baxter and his co-workers in the invasion, and the belligerent
attitude was assumed without cause. Baxter must accept one of the
two horns of this dilemma--he either allowed the tally sheets to be
incorrectly made out, or he knowingly set up a false cry of stolen
cattle to justify an outrage upon his state and the people such as was
before unknown in the history of the United States, for no practical
cattleman, as he claims to be, could visit his range month after
month and year after year without realizing that his herd was rapidly
increasing, instead of being day by day growing less from wholesale
robbery, as he everywhere proclaimed. This effectually lifts the charge
of cattle stealing from the citizens of Johnson County.
Several members of the Texas contingent of the invaders have paid the
debt of nature since their release from custody by the Wyoming court,
all dying with “their boots on”; and many of them under circumstances
peculiarly distressing. One of the sad stories will be sufficient to
record here. The article copied below is from the Buffalo Voice of a
date early in February, 1894, under the heading, “Vengeance Is Mine”:
“Last Friday, at Fort Smith, Arkansas, the Texas Kid was hung. He will
be remembered as being one of the invaders, and the one who boasted
that he was the man who fired the shot that killed Nick Ray. He was one
of the hired Texans who got $5 a day and rations for helping Wolcott,
Carey, Warren & Co. to kill and scare people out of this country in
order to help out their arid land scheme. After getting out of jail
he went back to Texas and murdered a girl, and for that crime he was
justly hanged. He was engaged to the girl he murdered, before he came
up here as an invader, and when he went back she had learned what he
had done in Wyoming, and refused not only to marry him, but told him
she never wanted to see him again. He became enraged and deliberately
shot her. He was soon caught, and in less than a month after committing
the crime was tried and sentenced to be hung. He broke down several
days before the execution of his sentence and repented of his crimes.
He blamed the instigators of the invasion for being the cause of his
ruin and the death of a fair young girl. He said that he had been
told by Wolcott that a band of outlaws existed in Johnson County,
in comparison to whom the James boys or the Daltons were innocent
children; that they not only were thieves, but that they had waylaid
and killed several stockmen, and that nine out of ten of the citizens
were scared to death of this gang, which numbered about 75 men. He
said Wolcott and Irving told him that the governor and both Senators
had offered rewards for their capture or extermination, and that the
governor, as the head of the state, had given his sanction to the
invasion, as had also both Senators. He denounced the whole gang and
expressed regret for the part he took. “Vengeance is mine, saith the
Lord.”