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
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“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”
INDEX
SUNSHINE AND ROSES
Wetmore
The Mineral Spring
Wetmore in 1869-70
Our New Temporary Home
Roses The Girls Didn’t Get
LITTLE FILLERS
CONSIDERATE KID
THE BOY OF YESTERYEAR
CAREFUL PLANNING
RED RIFLEMEN
A TWOTIMER
TEXAS CATTLE AND RATTLESNAKES
WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE
DONE IN CALIFORNIA
THE OLD SWIMMING HOLE
MISS INTERPRETED
THE “CIRCUS” LAYOUT
Honesty—The Better Policy
INNOCENT FALSEHOOD
FATHER AND SONS
PLUGGING FOR HER DADDY
THE STRANGE CASE OF MR. HENRY, et al.
SMALLPOX PESTILENCE
CORRECT VISION
GRAPES—RIPENED ON FRIENDSHIP’S VINE
LOCAL “BOARD OF TRADE”
FAMILY AFFAIR
COMPLIMENTARY TO THE “KIDS”
ANOTHER BRIGHT LITTLE STAR
LLEWELLYN CASTLE
MORE ABOUT THE COLONY FOLK
HAPPY DAZE
ODD CHARACTERS—COLORFUL, PICTURESQUE
MY BEST INVESTMENT
THE VIGILANTES
MOUNT ERICKSON
TURNING BACK THE PAGES
WANTS INFORMATION
Fix me: MEMORY’S STOREHOUSE UNLOCKED
DESERT CHIVALRY
THE WIFE—AT GOODSPRINGS
MONEY MUSK
GONE WITH THE WIND
WHITE CHRISTMAS
UNCLE NICK’S BOOMERANG
SHORT CHANGED
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 Later unpublished articles remain as written at the time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.