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.
It is fitting that I pause here to pay tribute to one of those little
borderlets mentioned in the opening paragraph. Resplendent in its
lofty setting that little borderlet, and its kind, possessed priceless
properties. Henceforth it becomes golden thread in the woof and warp
of this tale. As with the lovely Claudette Colbert and her coca-cola
tidings, this is, in a manner, “the pause that refreshes.” And so being,
it is with memorable pleasure that I now salute the sumac! It was my
father’s salvation.
Back in the Wolfley timber, my father told the Indian the owner did not
permit hunting on his premises—that he, the tanner, was not interested
in the squirrel.
“Me shoot ‘im,” said the Indian. The long barrel of his rifle pointed
upwards—a sharp crack, and the squirrel fell the ground, shot through
the head. The Indian picked up the squirrel, and then holding it out to
the frightened little boy, said, “Take.”
Without more ceremony the Indian rode away. He was gone only a few
minutes. When he returned he was holding in his hand a branch of
sumac. “Sequaw,” he said again. There were but a few belated red leaves
clinging to the stem. “Catchum ‘fore go red,” he offered when he saw the
leaves shattering in my father’s hands.
The Indian’s sharp eyes surveyed the black oak again. He looked at
the branch of sumac, saying “Makum buck-kin.” He hesitated. Then said,
“Maybe killum deer ‘fore Sun go way. Maybe two suns. You seeum deer?”
My father told the Indian—whom he then and there named Eagle Eye—that
he had not seen the deer which those redmen were trailing. Those Indians
who had remained in the background were trying to conceal a deer which
one of them had swung across his pony as they went into that huddle.