Out of the West

By Dennis Goodwin

This book will help you sink into the days when the Wild West was considerably wilder. Join mountain man, James Clyman, as he earns his "mountain man degree" by studying in classes taught by charging grizzlies, murderous Indians and sub-zero windstorms. Then ride alongside Mary Ringo as she summons every ounce of her inner strength to complete her westward journey after her beloved husband died from a shooting accident. Among her children is fourteen-year-old Johnny, who is destined to cast a black cloud over the family name of Ringo.As you plod alongside the "foot soldiers of Zion," you'll see them living out Brigham Young's challenge to the newly converted saints. "Let them come on foot, with handcarts or wheelbarrows," he had proclaimed. Sadly they will also live out the greatest emigrant disaster in Western history.And as you encounter Presbyterian missionary, John Dunbar, during a Pawnee "Great Festival," you will witnesses the tribal elder laying out bundles of human scalps. As he does, the participants coat themselves with red paint in preparation for the celebration. Enjoy all twenty-two of the true stories in this book as a colorful and intriguing parade of true-life characters step into your world from Out of the West.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dennis Goodwin
• Release date: Apr 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463592205

Dennis Goodwin

I am a free-lance historical nonfiction writer based out of Snellville, Georgia (near Atlanta). For over forty years, I have had an interest in writing about the American West, early entertainment, the Civil War period, and basically anything that catches my attention. I have written a number of books of short stories, as well as numerous articles for magazines like Wild West, True West, and Old West. My wife, Joan, has valiantly put up with my chronic writing addiction throughout the years...bless her heart.

Book preview

Out of the West

Colorful true tales of characters and

incidents that shaped the old west.

by

Dennis Goodwin

Cover photographs by Joan Goodwin

(Scott's Bluffs, Courthouse & Jailhouse Rocks,

Independence Rock, Chimney Rock)

Copyright 2013 by Dennis Goodwin

All rights reserved.

[e-mail]

DEDICATION

To all the early Americans who suspended pieces of time

with their pens in diaries and journals.

The faded ink from those pens transports us to an age

when life was difficult, simple, horrible and beautiful.

To magazines like Wild West and True West

that help keep the spirit of the early west alive in the present

And to my brother-in-law, Tom Campos, for jump-starting me in

the e-book and print-on-demand field. As the endless computer hours racked

up and my eyes began to cross, I wasn't sure if I wanted to buy him a beer

or give him a kick in the butt.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Un-swayed Will A Perilous 1845 Overland-trail Journey Tests the Will of 16-year-old Sarah Walden

Mountain Man University Mountain Man, James Clyman, enrolls in Classes Taught by Charging Grizzlies, Murderous Indians and Sub-zero Windstorms

The Foot Soldiers of Zion The Tragic But True Story of the Handcarts and Heartaches of the West's Greatest Emigrant Disaster

The Thunder Dreamer During a Thunderstorm, Black Elk's Sacred Grandfathers Give Him a Bow That Later Protects Him From a Flurry of Gunfire at Wounded Knee

Billion-dollar Beans An Eventual Billion Dollars in Silver, Gold and Copper Began With a Simmering Bowl of Beans

A Sad Saga of Sweetwater Cattle Kate Becomes the Most Famous Woman in Wyoming…After Her Hanging

Complete Ignorance John Bidwell and His Adventurous Friends Know Everything About California as They Head Out to the Glorious Land…Except How to Get There

Ten-penny Tales Deadwood Dick, Kit Carson Jr., Buffalo Bill and the Rest Gallop Across the Pages of Beadle & Adams' Dime Novels

The Queen of the Comstock Julia Bulette, the Beloved Soiled Dove of Virginia City, is Brutally Murdered and Universally Mourned

These Unknown Wilds The Tale of William Marshall Anderson's 1834 Trek Outside the United States…Past the Western Border of Missouri

The Borders of Civilization The Travels of Origen Thompson in 1852 as He Traded the Familiar Comforts of Home and Family for the Allurements and Adventures of the Untamed West

A St. Louis Secret Mountain Charley" Tracks Down a Murderer and Eventually Reveals a Fascinating Secret

Chisolm Trail Tales Baylis John Fletcher Begs and Pleads Permission From His Aunt to Join an 1879 Chisolm Trail Cattle Drive

Green Pilgrims A Raging Prairie Fire and a Host of Other Frontier Challenges Season First-time Traveler, John Collins, and His Fellow Green Pilgrims

Everything But Our Lives Mary Rockwell Powers Faces Prairie Storms, Thirst, Hunger and a Fanatical Husband on An 1856 Trek to Sacramento

For the Setting Sun James McCauley Lives Out the Cowboy Dream He Had Since He Rode Stick Horses Around His East Texas Home

On Heathen Ground Presbyterian Missionary, John Dunbar, Travels Light Years From His Sedate Eastern World to Live With the Pawnee in 1834

Briton on the Butterfield When English Quaker, William Tallack, Signed Up for a 23-Day Round-the-Clock Trip on the Butterfield Stage, He Bought a Window to the Wild West

Sheer Determination Johnny's Mother, Mary Ringo, Is Forced to Call Upon Every Ounce of Her Inner Strength During Her Terrible 1864 Westward Journey

A Blood-red Sky As Osborne Russell Watches the Northern Lights Fade to Reveal a Deep Red Spreading Over Half the Sky, He Doesn't Realize It Will Soon Be His Salvation

Wanderlust As Young James Pattie Watches the Frightened Mexican Woman and the Still More Fear-stricken Men, He Has No Idea of the Danger and Adventure Awaiting Him and His Father

A Solitary Savior When President Buchanan Decides to Replace Brigham Young With a New Governor, He Nearly Ignites a Senseless Bloodbath. One Man, Thomas Kane, Almost Single-handedly Prevents Disaster

Other Books by the Author:

Ten-minute Tales

More Ten-minute Tales

Lives & Times

Brass Bands and Snake Oil Stands

Fate, Flukes, & Fame in

Country & Bluegrass Legends

The Activity Director's Bag of Tricks

INTRODUCTION

When mountain man, James Clyman sewed his partner's head back together after a fierce grizzly attack, he wasn't doing it so we could marvel at his rock-solid character over 190 years later. And when Thomas Kane almost single-handedly prevented a bloody confronta-tion between the United States government and Brigham Young's Nauvoo Legion in 1857, he didn't do it so we would later write about his incredible negotiating skills. No the rough-edged group of pioneers, cowboys and prospectors in this book were not concerned about being a part of history. They were busy living it.

After all, it's not like they stopped to look at Chimney Rock or Devil's Gate and said, Wow, that's really impressive, but isn't it strange to be living in the past like this. They lived, breathed, laughed and cried just like everyone we will meet today - and those who will march toward the open end of time, tomorrow. I've tried to portray their stories in a non-boring nonfiction style without sacrificing any accuracy. Truth, as they say, can often be stranger than fiction…and just as captivating. Please join me as we bring a colorful cast of one-of-a-kind characters and fascinating incidents into the present from out of the West.

Dennis Goodwin

March 12, 2013

UN-SWAYED WILL

A Perilous 1845 Overland-trail Journey

Tests the Will of 16-year-old Sarah Walden

Hitch up and roll out! a stern voice commanded. Then a contradictory order rang out. Form a corral with all haste! The endangered emigrants, like their divergent leaders, scattered in disarray. The entire company seemed almost wild with excitement, wrote a sixteen-year-old group member. That evening she made a notation in her diary of seeing children crying, mothers screaming or praying, men running wildly, not knowing what to do.

The chaotic scene was their response to a previous warning cry of Indians! Indians! A group member had scouted a gathering war party of Sioux. As the gravity of their dilemma sank into the minds of the 1845 travelers, it looked as if the calmer thinkers might prevail. Rather than hitching up and fleeing, several men decided to arrange the wagons into a circular fortress and prepare to defend themselves against the expected onslaught. Eventually however, despite the pleas of the older and wiser travelers, the group's captain ordered the wagons to line up and prepare to move forward. This directive produced, as our young writer noted, a medley of sounds and sights, a moving to and fro of frightened men, women and children. All was utter confusion and uproar.

Some of the more seasoned members tried to calm the others by reminding them that Indians didn't usually attack in the daylight. Then suddenly, the panic-stricken party of western emigrants saw the distant metallic flash of firearms. Despite their fatigue, the frightened settlers felt a surge of emotion. You can imagine our unbounded joy in the surprise, the young diarist noted, They were a regiment of U. S. soldiers... The troops, lead by Captain Kearney and Lieutenant Fremont, had been dispatched by the government to escort emigrants across the plains. They had executed the type of last-minute rescue that would be reenacted in the cowboy movies of the next century. The feared Indian attack never materialized.

The soldiers remained with the settlers for about ten days as they worked their way along the Platte River toward the Rocky Mountains. While they traveled, Captain Kearney gave the emigrants tips for defending against an Indian attack. He told them to form a perfect circle by laying the tongue of one wagon right behind the rear wheels of the preceding one. He also directed them to build their campfire just outside the circle of wagons. This would make it more difficult for the Indians to observe their movements within the circle at night. If they were attacked, Kearney instructed, the women and children should climb into the wagons and remain on the floor. The men were to then shoulder their guns and prepare to fire. Although the immediate danger had passed, before their journey concluded, the emigrants would need to follow those instructions to the letter.

The group of travelers who made up this party had first banded together in St. Joseph, Missouri in the spring of 1845 several weeks before the Indian incident. Although none of the group knew the exact path, one of the members brought a copy of a Lewis and Clark report. Using that as a guideline, they decided to head north along the bank of the Missouri River. Their destination was the Willamette Valley in present-day Oregon where they had heard of the distribution of donation land-claims.

The teenage diary-writer was a young lady named Sarah Walden. Much later in her life, as Sarah Cummins, she transcribed her diary entries into a small book written primarily for her family. Like the other settlers who turned their joys and heartbreaks into lines of ink on paper, she captured a vivid piece of our country's history, forever suspended in time. The journey she would preserve was actually prompted by her family doctor. In February of 1845, Sarah, along with her father and brother, suffered an attack of lung fever. They sent a messenger thirty miles to the nearest doctor for medicine. Old Doc Vellmon, however, would have nothing to do with simply sending the messenger back with packets of pills. He made the rigorous overnight trek himself and pulled them through the illness.

As he left their house, Doctor Vellmon gave Sarah's father a stern warning not to stay in Missouri for another winter. Your lungs and the boy's and the girl's are not made for weather such as this, he cautioned. Go to Oregon where there are pine and fir trees and grouse. Taking their doctor's advice to heart, Sarah's family sold their house and began making the preparations for their trip. As a young girl, Sarah had dreamed of studying in an eastern school to become a missionary and write children's books. But my star of destiny, she reflected, was to arise in the far West...

Not only was Sarah embarking upon a new destiny, she had only recently begun another new life-style. Three weeks previously she had married a young man named Benjamin Walden. Despite the major changes in her life, Sarah kept her equilibrium and launched into the preparations with enthusiasm. Like the rest of her family, she didn't dwell on the dangers that might lie ahead. It seems a special providence of God, she later observed, that our hearts were kept strong and true to the task before us.

Once in St. Joseph, Sarah and her family joined a number of other groups who had previously arranged to make the journey together. While they waited for everyone to arrive, each gun was examined and put in perfect condition while charges of ammunition were safely stored away. The expanding party selected a captain who, as Sarah noted, had been in mountainous countries and had clear ideas of the possible dangers that we were to encounter. She said they decided to elect a new captain every month to assure that no one be too long burdened with the duties and cares of that office.

Although there would be plenty of duties and cares down the path, the journey started on a fascinating note. Within a few hours time, Sarah remarked, we began to sight vast herds of buffalo on their way to and from the plains... The grand sight, however, soon took on an ominous tone. One bright morning, she related, several thousand of these horned beasts were seen coming directly toward our train. The captain shouted an order for the drivers to stop and veer sharply to the left. His quick thinking likely saved the party. The stampeding herd barely missed the wagons. For the next two hours, Sarah and the others watched the seething mass of buffalo flood by. She said the galloping motion of the individual animals gave the herd the undulating movement of a great sea as it rises in regular billows and falls in gently undulating troughs. The terrified settlers knew all too well they could have easily been trampled beneath that great sea.

Within a few days, their wagon train had reached the plains of the Platte River. The high winds, Sarah observed, would lift the treeless soil and heap it in huge drifts. One of the group members said it resembled the great Sahara desert he had witnessed in the wild region of Africa. Sarah let her imagination carry her there, saying the semblance seemed complete, had we but camels to complete the 'panorama'...

Despite the absence of camels, another fascinating animal soon caught their attention. The small creature raced across the plain one afternoon just after the party had stopped for dinner. A little old man mounted a fleet horse and went in pursuit... Sarah wrote. The small critter soon left the man and his fleet horse in its dust. After the defeated pursuer had returned and faced the group's laughter, he said the animal resembled one described in one of his natural history books. He had decided from its first jump that it must have been an antelope. Chasing antelopes, Sarah added, now became a favorite sport for the younger men...

While the men were fooling around chasing antelope, the women were faced with a considerably less pleasant activity. In the sparse plains, they could find very little wood for the cooking fires. Many times, to their disgust, they had to substitute dried buffalo chips. Apparently they didn't all suffer in stoic pioneer resignation. Many were the rude phrase uttered, Sarah noted, far more humiliating to refined ears than any mention of the material used for fuel could have been.

The inconvenience of using the buffalo chips, however, soon faded from prominence. This was the time-period when Captain Kearney's men thwarted the feared Indian attack. After the incident, Kearney and Fremont trailed along with them for several days. Along the way they met with a Sioux chief and secured safe passage through his land for the wagon train. Sarah reported that once the soldiers left her party, they headed to the foot of the Rocky Mountains and established Fort Kearney.

Following their Indian scare, the party welcomed the day-to-day sameness of the journey. As the emigrants persevered, the trek became, as Sarah observed, a good place to study human nature. One wagon for instance, would pull out ahead of the others every morning. The lady of the family said their stock wouldn't have enough to eat if they remained with the group. Then in the evening, seeking the security of the group, she would ask that they be voted back into the train. This was kept up so regularly, Sarah noted, that at last some of the crowd would vote no just to annoy the lady...

Fortunately, the strain of the trip brought out positive traits as well. Another woman had placed her soup kettle over a fire made from the slender branches available for fuel. The branches holding the pot burned in half and, as Sarah noted, down went the kettle, soup and all. The struggling cook salvaged the soup bone, prepared the contents again, and placed it on another spot on the fire. Once more the branches broke and the kettle hit the ground. It wasn't until the fifth attempt that the kettle held up long enough for the soup to cook. Turning to those observing her ordeal, she said simply, Well, I intended having that soup for supper after all.

As the days melted together, the lack of excitement gradually turned from comfort to tedium. We continued our daily journeying, Sarah reported, listening to the regular tramping of the poor four-footed beasts over the plain and through the dust... She said a weary sameness and an expression of stern desperation gave the look of similarity to the outline of each one with whom we came in contact. For the first couple months, they had stopped to observe Sunday as a day of rest. Now, however, they pushed forward every day. They were acutely aware of the hazards of traveling too late into the season.

When the landscape finally changed, it did so dramatically. With the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop, they approached the wonders of the Yellowstone area. As they traveled through the fascinating rock forms, her husband and father recognized pyrites of copper, silver and gold. It was often remarked, she wrote, that we were passing over more gold than we would ever possess in any new lands which we might conquer. No one considered stopping to prospect since, as Sarah noted, the thought of snow falling in the mountains was a continual menace to any tendency to tardiness or delay.

Nature began to play tricks on them in the Yellowstone region. They camped one evening near a small marsh formed by spring water. When the tired animals stooped to lap up the refreshing treat, they suddenly lurched back. Like his bovine companions, a dog trotted over for a drink. But, as Sarah put it, One lap of his tongue was quite enough to satisfy the good canine. The mystery was solved when one of the men filled a pail for drinking water. Boys, he called out, it's hot enough to cook eggs!

As they left Yellowstone, their surroundings turned rugged and the animals often struggled to maintain their footing. It became evident, Sarah observed, that we were ascending the Rocky Mountains. The hazards of their environment, however, would soon pale next to the danger from the area's inhabitants. A small group of horsemen approached to issue a warning. The little party, led by a Doctor Whitman, included several friendly Nez Perce Indians. They had traveled overnight from the Snake River Mission near present-day Lewiston, Idaho. Doctor Whitman informed Sarah and the others that Indian spies had sighted their party and that large numbers of hostile Walla Walla Indians were advancing across the Blue Mountains to attack them. Captain Kearney's earlier warnings were about to transform from vivid mental images to cold reality.

Doctor Whitman and the Nez Perce remained with the party, guiding them along the Powder River toward the Grande Ronde valley. That evening, shortly after the group stopped to camp, several Nez Perce advance scouts returned at full speed. They reported that they had sighted the Walla Wallas approaching rapidly, and that they were prepared for immediate attack. When the Walla Wallas arrived, they did so, as Sarah reported, by sauntering up in groups, on foot, and in roving bands mounted on ponies. They were shocked to see the settlers armed and prepared for their attack. Doctor Whitman assumed immediate control, approaching the Walla Walla chief and extending his hand in friendship. Sarah said the chief at first hesitated, then after conferring with his warriors, shook hands with the doctor "pretending great