THE STAGE COACH
The stage coach is one among the most vivid memories of the boy of half
a century ago. The very mention of it recalls the huge oval vehicle with
its great boot behind, fronted by a lofty driver’s seat,—swaying,
tossing, rocking, lumbering and creaking as it dashes along, impelled by
four swift-footed horses, through mud and mire, over hill and dale, in
the daily discharge of its appointed office. Anon the rapid toot of the
horn, closing with a long refrain, which reverberates from every
hillside, winding a different note to the varied motions of the coach,
and a rattle of the wheels announces the arrival, and every urchin in
the village is on the alert to see its passage to the hotel, and from
the hotel to the post-office. It was the daily event in the memory of
childhood, which no time can obliterate. As years wore on and
improvements came, and one by one the old-time inventions gave place to
others, the coach began gradually to disappear from the haunts of busy
life, and the swift-winged rail-car to usurp its customary duties.
Seemingly it shrunk away as if frightened at the improvements
multiplying around it, and sought a freer life in the vast solitudes of
the Great West. There it had full range without a rival for thousands of
miles for a third of a century, and conveyed the van of that grand army
of pioneers across the continent, who sought and found home and wealth
and opened up a new and richer world than any ever before discovered on
the golden shores of the great Pacific.
The system of overland travel, which afforded a comparatively rapid
transit for passengers and mails between the oceans, made the stage
coach an object of peculiar interest to the civilized communities of
both continents. It was the bearer of the earliest news from the gold
fields, the most assured means of communication between those families
and friends whom the lust for fortune had separated, and the most
available conveyance to the land of gold. The novelty of a trip across
the plains, over the mountains, and through the cañons, its exposures to
Indian attack and massacre, its thrilling escapades and adventures, can
only be known to him who has accomplished it.
Before the construction of the Union Pacific Railway, mails and
passengers were transported from the States to Montana by Holliday’s
Overland Stage Line, running from Atchison, Kansas, by way of Denver and
Salt Lake City, and connecting at the latter place with a stage line
owned by other proprietors, running to Virginia City and Helena, a total
distance of nineteen hundred miles. The route, for nearly its entire
distance, lay through a country occupied by various Indian tribes,
several of which were permanently hostile, and the others ready to
become so as occasion offered, to satisfy their greed for plunder or
robbery. The only habitations of whites, except at the places mentioned
and two or three smaller settlements, were the log cabins of the
stock-tenders. The regular time for a journey from Atchison to Helena
was twenty-two days. Once started, the only stoppages were at the
changing stations twelve to fifteen miles apart,—the eating stations
being separated by a distance of forty or fifty miles.
In the Fall of 1864, I made this journey in company with Samuel T.
Hauser,—the time occupied being thirty-one days and nights of continuous
travel. Our journey was prolonged by delays occasioned by the incursions
of the hostile Sioux, who had killed several stock-tenders at different
stations, burned the buildings, and stolen the horses. From their
frequent attacks upon the coaches from ambush, it was necessary for us
to be on the constant lookout, with arms prepared to resist them at any
moment. This cautiousness was intensified by the evidence of their
murderous purpose we met with in our progress. On the second day after
leaving Atchison, the eastern bound coach met us with one wounded
passenger, the next day with one dead, and the next with another
wounded. The reports of passengers eastward bound were also very
discouraging. Yet this risk of life did not lessen travel. The coaches
were generally full.
As a curious fact in stage-coach statistics, I may be pardoned for
stating that in fourteen years, while National Bank Examiner for all the
Territories and the Pacific States, and four years, while Collector of
Internal Revenue, my staging to and fro over the continent exceeded
seventy-four thousand miles. I learned in that experience that the most
comfortable as well as most eligible place for travelling was the
outside seat beside the driver; and as it was seldom in demand by others
for travel by night, I usually had no difficulty in securing it. For one
whose stage travel is pretty constant, no dress is more suitable than
the one usually worn by express messengers, which consists of warm
overalls and fur coat for ordinary winter weather, and a rubber suit for
protection against storms. The only objection to them, and that
sometimes and in some portions of the country a serious one, is the
liability of the wearer to be mistaken for a guard. The road agent
considers the guard with treasure in his keeping as legitimate prey, and
shoots him without the least compunction if he evinces any determined
resistance. It was my good fortune for several years to travel
unmolested over routes which but the day before or after were the scenes
of both murder and robbery.
The ill-starred cañon of the Port-Neuf River, memorable in all its early
and recent history, for murder, robbery, and disaster, is about forty
miles distant from Fort Hall, Idaho. It was named after an unfortunate
Canadian trapper, murdered there by the Indians, and ever since that
event a curse seems to have rested upon it. Captain Bonneville
established his camp there for the Winter of 1833–34, and during his
absence with a few men, those who remained, reduced by cold and hunger,
were obliged to leave for a more promising location. He found them on
his return in the Spring, encamped on the Blackfoot, a tributary of
Snake River, not very far above Port-Neuf Cañon. Not only had they been
pinched by famine, but they had fallen in with several Blackfoot bands,
and considered themselves fortunate in being able to retreat from the
dangerous neighborhood without sustaining any loss.
Ever since the stage road from Salt Lake City to Montana was laid out
through this cañon, it has been the favorite haunt of stage robbers and
highwaymen. Nature seems to have endowed it with extraordinary
facilities for encouraging and protecting this dangerous class of the
community. Both sides of the river wash the base of basaltic walls,
which, by the combined action of fire, water, and wind, have been eroded
into numerous columns, resembling in formation those of Staffa, and
forming coverts and gateways alike favorable to the commission of
robbery or murder, and the escape of the criminals. Indeed, it has been
with many a commonly received opinion, that these gateways of rock gave
the name to the cañon, the word Port-Neuf in compound form signifying
“ninth gate.” Notwithstanding its terrible history, the drive through it
upon a summer day is very delightful. In the most romantic portion of
it, marked by an immense pile of crumbled basalt and favored by an
almost impenetrable thicket of willows, is the scene of one of the most
horrible tragedies that ever occurred in the murderous history of this
robbers’ den.
Robbery and murder in the early history of the gold-seekers in Montana
and Idaho were carried on upon strictly business principles. No attack
upon a coach or a returning emigrant train was made without almost
certain knowledge of the booty to be obtained. Some of the band of
robbers were at the different mining localities, on the lookout for
victims; and between them and the attacking party a system of telegraphy
existed by which was communicated all possible information concerning
every departure of the coach with a treasure-box, or passengers with
gold dust.
In the Summer of 1865, Messrs. Parker and McCausland, who represented
the interests of two successful merchants of Virginia City, and Messrs.
Mers and Dinan, merchants of Nevada City, left Montana for St. Joseph,
Missouri, with about sixty thousand dollars in gold dust in their
possession. For a week or more before leaving, as was the custom in
those days, they had sought by various devices to mislead any local
operatives of the robber gang who might be watching them, as to the
exact time of their departure, so that when they took leave of Virginia
City they were very confident they had stolen a march upon them, and
would pass the ordeal of a coach ride to Salt Lake City in safety.
Port-Neuf Cañon was regarded as the dangerous spot. Once through that,
they were comparatively safe. Their treasure, safely packed in buckskin
bags, was in part concealed upon their persons, and the remainder locked
up in a carpet-sack, carefully stowed away under the back seat which
they occupied. Before their arrival at Snake River bridge, two more
passengers, Brown and Carpenter, were added to the number. Leaving there
in high spirits, they proceeded at a brisk pace down the road, entering
the cañon at an early hour in the afternoon. It was a pleasant sunshiny
day. Happy in the belief that before its close they would leave the
dreaded place behind them, and that no attack would be made in daylight,
the members of the company were engaged in one of those rambling
discursive conversations which belong exclusively to this mode of
travel. Each man, however, as if instigated by the evil spirit of the
locality, had, before arriving at the cañon, examined his weapons of
defence and placed them in a convenient position for use in case of
necessity. Mile after mile was passed, and more than half the distance
through the cañon had been travelled, when a voice issuing from a clump
of bushes by the roadside sternly commanded the driver to halt, and at
the same moment the muzzles of nine or ten guns were presented at the
passengers, who were ordered to throw up their hands. “Robbers! Fire on
them!” exclaimed Parker, who had taken a seat on the outside of the
coach for the purpose of watching,—and suiting the action to the word,
he cocked and raised his gun and attempted to fire, but fell forward
riddled with buckshot. At the same time other shots killed McCausland,
Mers, and Dinan, and seriously wounded Carpenter, who escaped by
feigning death, as one of the robbers was about to shoot him again.
Brown escaped by plunging into the surrounding thicket of bushes.
Charley Parks, the express messenger, received a serious wound which
necessitated the amputation of the leg at the thigh. The murderers then
completed their work by rifling the bodies of their victims, and seizing
whatever treasure they could find upon and within the coach, and then
made their escape through the basaltic gateways to the fastnesses of the
mountains. The driver, with his ghastly freight of dead and wounded,
returned to the station. Large rewards were offered by the stage company
for the arrest of the desperadoes who had committed this frightful
butchery, and for the recovery of the stolen treasure. Many members of
the Vigilante organization of Montana started in pursuit, but all
attempts to trace the murderers were for some time abortive.
Frank Williams, the driver of the coach, soon after left the employ of
the stage company, and was for some time a hanger-on of the saloons of
Salt Lake City. The lavish use he made of money while there, excited the
suspicion of those who were in pursuit of the robbers, and when he left
the city, they followed him and watched him closely, until satisfied
that he was using money in larger amounts than he could have obtained
honestly. At Godfrey’s Station, between Denver and Julesburg, they
arrested him. Conscience-smitten, he fell upon his knees at the feet of
his accusers, and made a full confession, implicating eleven
confederates, whose names and places of abode he revealed. He admitted
that he had driven the coach into the ambush for the purpose of aiding
the robbery, in the avails of which he was a participant. It probably
never occurred to him that the murder of the passengers was possible;
and from the moment of its occurrence he had not known a moment’s peace
of mind or freedom from fear of arrest. He was hanged near Denver
immediately after his arrest and confession. The information he gave
enabled his captors to eventually secure the persons of several others
engaged in the robbery, who were summarily executed,—but the larger
portion of the robbers are still at large.
There have been several coach robberies in Port-Neuf Cañon and the
vicinity since the one here recorded, but none in which life was taken.
Indeed, attacks upon the downward bound coach became so frequent that
for several years before the completion of the railroad the stage
company provided for each treasure coach a guard, whose business it was
to defend both treasure and passengers by all means in his power. Among
the men selected for this duty they made choice of two who had figured
conspicuously in the early Vigilante history of Montana, John X. Beidler
and John Fetherstun.
The only stage station in this cañon was known by the very appropriate
name of “Robbers’ Roost,” and I never passed the place without a feeling
of mingled sadness and horror at the recollection of the tragedy which
has given it such a bloody notoriety. Forty-six times have I passed
through this cañon on trips from Montana to the States and returning. It
has been with me a life-long custom to take my seat with the driver, and
occasionally when riding through the cañon, clad in a buffalo overcoat,
with headgear to correspond, I have experienced an instinctive feeling
of discomfort at the thought that I might be mistaken for a guard, who
is always deemed the legitimate prey of the road agent, and shot down by
some avenging Nemesis of the band. The robbers, however, seldom demand
the money or other personal effects of the driver or messenger, as
these, being of small value, poorly compensate for the risk incurred in
robbing the treasure-box and the passengers.
Among the various devices I had thought of adopting to escape robbery in
case of attack, I finally concluded to act the part of a messenger, with
whose methods long observation had made me familiar. The objection to
this was that the robbers frequented _incog._ the stations on the route
of their contemplated depredations, and knew the _personnel_ of all or
nearly all the messengers. No mercy therefore would be shown to any one
who was detected in the attempt to personate one of them. The risk was
too great to be incurred except by one who courted adventure, or where
the safety of a large amount was involved. An opportunity finally came.
My duties as bank examiner required a visit to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in
the latter part of June, 1878. Having completed my examinations, the
cashier of the Second National Bank requested me on my return to convey
to Denver a considerable sum of gold and currency.
The coach robberies had been so numerous for nearly a year on this
route, that Messrs. Barlow and Sanderson, the proprietors of the stage
line and the express company, had refused to transport treasure over it,
and all packages of merchandise were sent in charge of trusty
messengers. I reluctantly assented, they taking the risk of the safe
conduct of the money,—the other risk, to me at least the greater of the
two, my own safety, I had to take myself. I was the only passenger. No
one else coveted a ride over the dismal route. The money was securely
locked in my valise which was packed among the mail-bags inside the
coach. On arriving at Las Vegas a change of drivers took place. Charley
Fernandez, a half-blood Mexican whose acquaintance I had made years
before while on the same trip, took the reins, and we continued on our
way in excellent spirits. He was known by the sobriquet “Mexican
Charley.” He was an excellent whip, and noted for his coolness in
danger, and kindness to his horses. At Eureka, Mr. Stewart, the stage
company’s blacksmith, who had been shoeing the horses along the route,
got into the coach. Fatigued with overwork, he rearranged the mail-bags
and spread his blankets, and, without my knowledge, removed my valise
containing the money to the front boot of the coach. The first half of
the night had worn away. Charley had told me a great number of thrilling
incidents about the stage travel, and the trouble with road agents along
the road. The subject, though interesting, was not at the time and under
the circumstances particularly inspiring, especially as we were now
passing through the infested portion of the route. I had contrived to
fall into a doze, and in that creepy mood so common to people whose
condition is half-way between slumber and wakefulness, had so
con-jumbled road agents and stage coaches, that but for a fortunate jolt
now and then, I should probably have fallen into the unhappy
consciousness that I was really a victim to robbery and disaster. We
were passing at a moderate pace a cluster of isolated hills, known in
that region as “Wagon Mound Buttes.” The horses had just begun with
slackened gait to ascend a grade, when Charley roused me from my revery
by a quick, short, half-breathless ejaculation, “What’s that in the road
ahead of us?” Every sense I possessed was roused in an instant. The
trust I had undertaken gave me infinite concern, and I confess to an
alarm bordering upon fear. If I had left that money behind, I thought, I
should have little trouble in taking care of myself. Peering into the
darkness at that moment partially dispelled by the rising moon, I
discovered, about fifty yards in front, two objects just disappearing
among the bushes by the roadside.
“I guess,” said Charley, reassuringly, “it’s nothing but burros.”
“Quite likely, Charley,” I replied. “We have seen them at intervals all
the way.”
“That’s what it is, you may depend,” rejoined Charley. “I’ve often
mistook ’em before for the blasted road agents. But I was a leetle
skeered at fust, warn’t you?”
“Considerably, Charley. I don’t want to meet them this time, at any
rate.”
“No danger, I guess,” said Charley, as he touched his leaders with the
whip to urge them up the grade.
The horses pulled along at a quicker gait, and I was settling back into
a state of tranquil somnolence, happy in the thought that we were not
probably the first men who had been frightened by a couple of jackasses,
when suddenly, as if springing out of the solid earth, two men jumped
from the bushes. They were about twenty feet apart. The one most
distant, a short, rather slender person, seized the bits of the leaders
with his left hand, holding in the right a cocked revolver. The other, a
stalwart figure of six feet, with corresponding physical proportions,
raised a double-barrelled shotgun, and aiming it directly at my head,
shouted in a fierce, impetuous tone,
“Halt! Don’t either of you move a hand. I want that treasure-box.” This
startling salutation, with its accompanying demonstration, for a moment
filled me with apprehension, but the quick reply of Charley, “There’s no
treasure-box aboard,” restored me to instant calmness. Now, thought I,
is the time to put my chosen theory into practice, and pass myself as
express messenger.
“Don’t say a word to them, Charley!” said I, in a suppressed tone. “Let
me do the talking.”
The big robber, whose determination was more strongly whetted by
Charley’s reply to his first demand, now spoke in an angry tone, and
with his gun in closer proximity to my head, exclaimed,
“I tell you I want that treasure-box, and quick too. Throw it right down
there,” pointing to the ground alongside the forward wheel of the coach.
My rapid breathing had now so far abated that I was able to say in a
steady, natural tone,
“The driver has told you the truth. I have no treasure-box on this run.
I don’t know what the other boys have had. You fellow’s have run the
road to suit yourselves this summer. I haven’t had a treasure-box for
more than two months.”
“I know better than that,” he replied, with the usual formula of oaths,
“and if you don’t throw out that box, I’ll shoot the top of your head
off,” at the same time advancing two or three steps, and aiming his gun
with both barrels cocked, less than a yard’s distance from my head;—by
reaching forward I could have touched it.
The man was very nervous. I knew that his object was robbery without
murder, rather than murder and robbery afterwards. In his excitement,
which had been rapidly increasing in intensity, I feared that he might
unintentionally pull the triggers on which his fingers were resting. To
possibly avoid a fatal result in such case, I moved my head backward and
forward, to the right and left, and tried to keep as much out of range
as possible. All to no purpose:—the gun kept motion with me, and held me
constantly in range. I finally said to him,
“Oblige me by holding your gun a little out of range with my head.
You’ve got the drop on me, but I can’t believe you wish to kill a man
who is ready to give you all he has.”
“You just give me that treasure-box, and you won’t be hurt,” he replied,
in an obstinate tone, with his gun still in position.
The other robber, seemingly much amused at the fear I manifested for my
safety, in a jocular manner shouted to me, in a voice peculiarly
feminine,
“Does them gun-barrels look pretty big?”
I replied that I could not readily recall a time in my life when
gun-barrels looked quite as large as they did at that moment, and that
although neither the moon nor stars were very bright, yet I was quite
sure I could read the advertisements on a page of _The New York Herald_
which they had used for gun wadding.
This answer excited their mirth, and they laughed quite heartily, but it
did not divert them from their purpose. After parleying with them a few
minutes longer, I handed the big man the way-pocket containing the
way-bill, and told him that the entire contents of the coach were
entered on it, and he could satisfy himself that there was no
treasure-box on board. They made the examination and were convinced.
During this research they watched our movements closely, lest Charley or
I should draw a weapon. Neither of us was armed. Returning the way-bill
to the leather pocket, the big man in a surly tone inquired,
“Got any passengers aboard?”
“There is a man inside, but he is not a passenger,” I replied.
“Who is he then, and what is he doing there, if he is not a passenger?”
“He is the company’s blacksmith.”
Frenzied with the disappointment of not finding a treasure-box, and
thinking that I was screening a passenger by calling him an employee,
the robber exclaimed.
“That’s played out. I want that man,” and, rattling the coach door, in
language redundant with profane superlatives, he ordered him, if he
wished to escape being shot, to come out and show himself.
Stewart, who had slept through all the previous part of the colloquy, on
being thus summarily summoned, comprehended the situation of affairs,
and slipping a small roll of greenbacks into his shoe, stepped out of
the coach.
“Throw up your hands,” was the stern command addressed to him emphasized
by the double muzzle of a loaded gun within a few feet of his head. He
was not slow to comply, nor to submit with the best possible grace to
the search which followed, yielding only a single Mexican dollar.
The fury of the robber as he held this meagre trophy of his enterprise
up to the pale moonlight was dramatic in the highest possible degree,
and yet so associated with his earlier disappointments, that one could
hardly restrain oneself from bursting into a fit of laughter.
“What business have you,” he yelled, interlarding his speech with an
unlimited use of profane and opprobrious epithets, “to be travelling
through this country with no more money than that?”
Stewart answered that he was the horse-shoer of the company, which paid
his bills while on the road, and he therefore had no need of money while
thus employed.
After a careful examination of Stewart’s hands, which were found to be
hard and callous, and the discovery of a box containing the tools used
in horse-shoeing, the robber was satisfied that he had told the truth,
and returned the Mexican dollar. Baffled at all points, he hurled the
way-pocket into the sage brush, and in a tone of mingled anger and
disgust, exclaimed,
“No passengers, no treasure-box, no _nothing_. This is a —— of an
outfit.” With his gun still in point-blank range, he crept close beside
the front wheel, and by the subdued light gazed scrutinizingly into my
face for a brief space, as if to ascertain whether he had ever seen me
before. He repeated this so often that I feared he would resolve the
doubt he evidently entertained of my assured office against me, and
shoot me for the imposition. This to me was the most terrible moment of
the encounter. I returned his stare each time with an impassive
countenance, resolved at all hazards to persist in my experiment. While
thus occupied, he directed his companion to examine the contents of the
rearward boot and overhaul the mail-bags within the coach. Ten minutes
later, the search proving abortive, he said in slow, measured tones,
dropping back a few paces, “Well, I guess you’d better drive on.”
Charley gathered up the reins, and was about giving the word to his
horses, when it occurred to me that I might complete the deception I had
all along practiced by a little _ruse_ which the occasion seemed to
demand.
“Hold on, Charley,” and turning to the discomfited man I added,
“I want my way-pocket.”
“You can’t have it,” was the prompt reply.
“But I must have it,” I insisted. “I can’t go on without it. The company
will discharge a messenger who loses his way-pocket.”
This reply seemed to allay his suspicions. He stepped into the sage
brush and returned in a few minutes with the pocket, which he gave me,
and ordered us quite peremptorily to drive on.
Charley needed no second invitation, but drove on quite briskly. After
mutually congratulating each other on our escape, we naturally recounted
the events of the evening, and among other things commented upon the
feminine voice of the smaller of the robbers; but I soon dismissed the
subject, feeling too well satisfied with the success of an artifice
which had saved the bank a considerable sum of money, and possibly both
of us from a fatal calamity.
Several months after this adventure, while returning by stage from
Leadville to Pueblo, the driver directed my attention to a grave marked
by a low wooden slab on the plateau overlooking the Arkansas River a
short distance below Buena Vista. Just beyond it was an abrupt ravine.
“I never pass that grave,” said the driver, “without being reminded of
the event connected with it. A few weeks ago a band of horses had been
stolen from a ranche on the road between Trinidad and Wagon Mound
Buttes, by two horse-thieves who were pursued by the owners over the
range into the Arkansas Valley. They were overtaken with the stolen herd
in that ravine. On attempting to enter it the smaller thief commanded
the pursuing party to halt, disregarding which, he fired upon and
wounded two of them. Roused by the firing, the other thief appeared, and
a pitched battle ensued, in which he was slain outright, and the other
fatally wounded. Surgical aid was obtained, and the surviving thief was
found to be a woman. She died in a few days thereafter, refusing to the
last to reveal her history, or furnish any clew by which it might be
traced.” This event occurring so soon after the attempt to rob the
coach, convinced the people thereabouts of the identity of the persons
engaged in both outrages.
Many of the “home stations” on the stage lines, where meals were served,
were favorite camping grounds for freighters engaged in the
transportation of merchandise from the railroad to the interior towns.
On the road between Kelton and Boise, the station at Rock Creek, one
hundred miles distant from the railroad, was kept by Charles Trotter. It
was one of the few stopping-places where palatable meals were served.
Its reputation in this respect won for it a widespread popularity with
the travelling public, and in process of time a small settlement sprung
up around it. A store was opened, where emigrants and others could
obtain provisions, clothing, and such other necessaries as they needed.
Naturally enough, many of the newcomers were rough in their tastes, fond
of gambling, drinking, and the athletic sports common in an unorganized
community. The influence exercised by a few citizens of the better class
was all that saved the little settlement from lapsing into lawlessness
and crime.
My diary for 1877 shows that on September 17 I passed through Rock Creek
by stage _en route_ for Boise. Our coach entered the place about the
middle of the afternoon. An Englishman who had arrived in America a
fortnight before, was the only passenger besides myself. It was his
first journey in a stage coach, and the rough and desolate region
through which it lay presented to his mind many features of novelty and
interest, mingled with no little disquietude at the strange character of
his surroundings. He was in a condition to be alarmed at anything.
As we alighted from the coach, our attention was directed by loud
hilarious singing to a company of twenty or more men approaching the
station, bearing in their midst a long pine box. I perceived at once
that it was a funeral orgie over the burial of some wretch who had paid
the penalty of a summary death for a life of crime. A person standing
near me replied to my inquiry as to the cause. He said that about two
years previous to this time, a stranger came one morning to the station
and asked for breakfast. He was hungry and moneyless. Mr. Trotter gave
him a breakfast and he left; but something about his actions and
appearance aroused Trotter’s suspicions, and, concealed by the sage
brush, he tracked him for some distance across the plain, and came up
with him as he was in the act of mounting a horse which Trotter
recognized as the property of a friend in Boise. Believing that the
horse had been stolen, Trotter arrested the man, who gave his name as
William Dowdle, sent him to Boise, where he was tried for the theft,
convicted, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in the Idaho
Penitentiary. Dowdle avowed that if he lived to be free, he would kill
Trotter. At the close of his term he obtained employment as cook for a
freighter named Johnson, and slowly wended his way to Rock Creek, where
his employer and party camped for a day to replenish their stock of
provisions.
The next morning, armed with a revolver, Dowdle went to the station to
execute his threat, and was greatly chagrined to learn that Trotter was
confined to his bed with typhoid fever. He sought to alleviate his
disappointment in liquor, which maddened him to that degree that he
threatened the lives of several persons, and, seating himself beside the
road, fired indiscriminately at all who passed him. One shot hit a Mr.
Spencer, a blacksmith, who was passing quietly along, inflicting what
was supposed to be a mortal wound. Attracted by the reports of the
pistol, young Wohlgamuth, a relative of Trotter who had charge of the
store, hurried to the doorway, when a bullet from Dowdle’s pistol
penetrated the door-casing, just grazing his head. He immediately
grasped his revolver from a shelf hard by, and shot Dowdle through the
heart. The villain fell prostrate in the road, exclaiming, “Such is
life, boys, in the days of forty-nine,” and died instantly. The entire
settlement manifested their approval of Wohlgamuth’s timely shot by a
season of general rejoicing, and a coroner’s jury exonerated him from
all blame.
The funeral followed speedily. A rude coffin of pine, with four handles
of cords knotted into the sides, was the single preparation. In this the
body, incased in Johnson’s overcoat, was laid, fully exposed, the cover
of the box being laid aside until the conclusion of the ceremonies. Four
strong men grasped the handles, and lifting the coffin, the procession
formed about equally in front and rear of them, and the march commenced.
Frequent potations had exhilarated the entire company to such a degree
that no attempt was made to preserve regularity of motion or direction.
The line of march was between a ridge on the south and one on the north
side of the station, about a mile apart. No clergyman was present to
conduct the exercises, and no layman was in condition to offer a prayer
or read the scriptures. The exigency could only be supplied by vocal
music; and in the absence of hymn books it was thought to be exceedingly
proper and befitting the occasion for all to join in an old California
refrain entitled, “The Days of Forty-Nine.” Indeed, the last words of
Dowdle seemed to convey a request for it. The song was a doggerel
composed in the early Pacific mining days in commemoration of “Lame
Jesse,” a kindred spirit to Dowdle. The mourners on this occasion
substituted for the name of “Lame Jesse,” that of “Dowdle Bill.” This
musical service was progressing as our coach drove up to the station.
The song consisted of a score or more of verses of which I can recall
the following only:
“Old Dowdle Bill was a hard old case;
He never would repent.
He never was known to miss a meal,—
He never paid a cent.
“Old Dowdle Bill, like all the rest,
He did to Death resign;
And in his bloom went up the flume,
In the days of Forty-Nine.”
Mrs. Trotter informed me that this procession of men bearing the coffin,
had marched to and fro between the two ridges in a state of drunken
revelry for a period of five hours; some singing one, some another
verse, producing an utter confusion of sound, and so excited as to be
utterly unable to preserve a straight line. At one of their halts near
the coach, Johnson, who was at the moment one of the bearers, discovered
that his own overcoat covered the body.
“—— if they haven’t laid him out in my blue overcoat!” he exclaimed, and
loosening his hold of the handle, he raised the body, removed the coat,
and put it on his own back. The march was then resumed, and amid
singing, shouts, and laughter, the body was borne to a low ridge and
buried.
Supper being soon announced, my English fellow-traveller did not appear
at the table. He was perfectly appalled at the scene he had witnessed.
“Is this,” he inquired, with much earnestness, “the usual way funerals
are conducted in this wild country? We never have such proceedings in
England, you know. If the better class of people do such things, the
country must be pretty rough. I didn’t know but they’d take me next, and
I hadn’t any appetite.”
I assured him that our lives were perfectly safe; but it was not until
we reached the next eating station, that hunger seemed to conquer his
fears, and he was fully reassured.