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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.

The deer, more numerous in earlier days, had been pretty well killed out by this time. Though, as late as 1880, I, myself, shot a deer on that same run. Also I recall having seen one band of antelope, that fleet-footed little animal of deer family which could outrun the wind even in its then unhampered sweep across the prairies. I was too young to identify the little ruminants, but my father said they were antelope, and he was a hunter of the Daniel Boone type—in fact had hunted in Dan’s old territory, and he knew his game.

Here I will say the Indian, Na-che-seah, was the leader of that hunting party. He was tall, lithe, and straight as an arrow. In later years, with generous expansion of body, he was known as Big Simon. He died May 27, 1934. As I looked upon the still form of this good Indian, in his wigwam, on the day of the funeral, my mind drifted back across the years to the time of our first meeting—but instead of fear, it was now reverence that gripped me. Big Simon was a man of authority among the Indians for a great many years—though, contrary to newspaper reports, he was never chief. About his age, Big Simon would say, “Hundred years, maybe. Don’t know.” With the passing of Big Simon, Commodore Cat is the sole surviving member of the old, old tribe. He too may have been one of those blanketed redmen back there on that deer trail six decades ago.

The redman’s medicine was an invigorating tonic for my father’s frayed spirits. It seemed like God had sent that Indian just at the psychological moment — when my father’s depressed spirits needed bolstering so very much, when an anodyne for his ills was to be had by the blending of two agencies for making leather. Though he had never up to this time regarded it as a commercial agency, my father knew of course that sumac contained tannin. If the Indians could tan their deerskins with it, he reasoned, why couldn’t he mix it with oak bark and tan his calfskins?

I shall always believe that it was something more than blind chance that brought the paths of white man and red man together at that particular spot. Undoubtedly, the Great Spirit was in control. The movements of the Indians up to that time were of course dark, but timed just right. And praise be, there were Indians—amongst them an Indian like Eagle Eye, who could make himself understood. The big break for my father was in the sumac patch close at hand.

After ten years absence from his old haunts and the business he loved so well, the fire in my father’s blood had cooled. Now he felt the old flame leap. The black oaks and the sumacs beckoned. And to his eager nostrils rose the odor of a tanyard.

Almost at once after that meeting with the Indian, still nosing a tannery, my father was hot on the trail. With the characteristics of a thoroughbred, he doggedly followed his lead, picking up new hope as he went at almost every jump, into the woods of three counties. In a particularly fine stand of wood over in Jackson county, he “treed” his quarry. Looking up into the trees, his senses all aflame with eagerness, and I might say standing on his hind legs — upright anyhow — he barked, “Eureka!”

Then, having gone there on invitation of the owner to view those fine black oaks, standing tall, with their big boles close together, he said more rationally, but still with considerable enthusiasm, “It ’ s enough! By God I’ll have that tannery now!”

My father had now declared quite emphatically, though perhaps a bit inelegantly, that he would establish a tannery here in Wetmore. It was not idle talk. He experimented, and in due time the tannery was a going concern. Not immediately, however. Capital had to be provided, and it took time to bring materials. The tannery was an “open” yard in the bend of the creek just west of where the town bridge is now—a sort of makeshift affair, operated only in the summer months. But in one respect it was regular. It had the tanyard smell.

The black oak-sumac mixture made a fine grade of leather—much better than leather made with straight oak bark, and superior to the present-day chemically tanned leather. My father tanned only calfskins. His surplus stock was sold to L. Kipper & Sons, wholesale dealers, Atchison, Kansas.

I want to say here that those inviting black oaks, earlier mentioned, made it easy for my father to graciously accept his friend’s apology, on the plea of forgetfulness—and when he went to deal for the trees John Wolfley said, “Why, yes, of course you may have them. You know, Bristow, much as I prize my trees, I couldn’t refuse an old friend like you.” He glanced toward me, and now I’ll swear there were mirthful crinkles playing about the man’s eyes.

The black oaks were cut in the spring when the sap was up, then the bark was spudded off the trunks of the trees. All available black oaks within a radius of twenty-five miles of Wetmore were cleaned up in three years. The last tan-bark came from the Wingo farm near Soldier, twenty miles away—wagon haul. That was considered a long haul in those days. The roads here then were no more than winding trails across country, radiating in every direction from town, like the spokes in a wagon-wheel. And there were almost no bridges. The creeks were forded.

The sumac — that innocent little flaming bush, over which young and inexperienced writers are wont to revel — was cut with corn-knives and left spread on the ground until dry. The leaves were then stripped off the stems with a little corn-sheller, the kind that fastened on the hand. The sumac stems were drawn through the closed shelter and the leaves were caught upon a large canvas. Like harvesting tanbark, that was work which had to be done in season—not too soon, not too late.

The time to get busy was when the sumac began to show a tinge of coloring late in the summer, after maturity. But, as the Indian had said, when the big splash came — when the sumac thickets took on a blaze of coloring, that dark crimson hue, as if Nature had spilled the life-blood of the waning summer to glorify the last minute splendor of its passing—it was then time to quit. The leaves would no longer remain on the stems to carry through the drying process. Yes! That was it! “Catchum ‘fore go red!”

My father made Eagle Eye a pair of boots with leather tanned by the new process. He gave them to the Indian, Eagle Eye wanted to pay for them. He had Government money and he had ponies. When money was refused, he thought a pony would be about right. Maybe two, three or even a herd of ponies would not be too much. But my father said, “No, just bring me a deerskin sometime.”

The Indian brought him a green buffalo hide. At that time all swell turnouts—horse and buggy conveyances — included a buffalo robe. When, in time, the hide had been tanned and made up, my father found himself in the rather awkward position of owning a buffalo robe without the turn-out. But even so it was not a worthless treasure. On cold, stormy, winter nights—they were bitter cold then—it served as an extra bed coverlet for a quarter of a dozen of his boys, with, at times, an additional neighbor boy or two thrown in for good measure.

Buffalo were quite plentiful only a hundred miles or so west of here then. But our Kickapoos did not often venture west of the Blue River. Hostile Indians roamed that territory. The Pawnees were the worst Indians the whites had to contend with on the old Overland Trail between the Big Blue and Fort Kearney. Eagle Eye’s gift was all the more appreciated because he had braved the hostile Pawnees to get a suitable present for his “Paleface” friend.

The boots my father made for the Indian were of the tongue pattern, with morocco tops and small high heels. The tops were scalloped with half-moons over red sheepskin. A big red heart was fashioned in the top front. Eagle Eye was very proud of his boots. They were, I believe, the first boots to be worn on the reservation.

But, in time, one of those boots ripped. The side seam gaped near the ankle. The Indian had been walking through wet grass when he came to the shop to get the rip sewed up. He tried to pull his boot off. It stuck tight. My father did not have a bootjack. He always said he did not like to have his perfectly fashioned boot-counters ruined by the use of a boot-jack. He had a better way.

My father turned his back to the Indian, and told Eagle Eye to stick his boot between his—the shoemaker’s—legs and push with the other foot. “Harder, push harder!” cried the human boot-jack. When the boot finally came off, a first-class shoemaker took a header into a pile of lasts and other rubbish in the corner of the room. He came up with a skinned nose.

The Indian—who had now come to call himself Eagle Eye when in the presence of my father—did not, of course get any kick out of hurting his “paleface” friend, but it was plain to be seen that pleasant thoughts were engaging him. An Indian laughs rarely, if ever—not the old Indians two generations back, anyway. But he had his moments of extreme pleasure.

When the rip was repaired, the Indian had a hard time getting his water-soaked boot back on. My older brother, Charley, said to me, “Eagle Eye will have to sleep with his boots on tonight.” The Indian heard. His copper-colored face again registered anticipated pleasure. He actually smiled a bit as if he saw real humor in the thing.

“Huh!” he grunted, as he raised his foot and thrust it to the fore with much vigor, “Pushum squaw maybe! Heap fool squaw all time say Eagle Eye not smart!”