Читать книгу Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories - John T. Bristow - Страница 7

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There were only eleven buildings and thirty-four people Wetmore when I came here with my parents from our Wolfley Creek farm home in the fall of 1869.

There was one general store owned by Morris Brothers. Uliam Morris, with his wife Eliza and daughter Nannie, and his brother Nathaniel, lived over the store. Kirk Wood had a blacksmith shop, a small home, his wife Euphemia and two children, Riley and Jay. Kirk’s brother Jay lived with the family. M. P. M. Cassity, lawyer, owned his home and rental house, had a wife—off and on—and a son, George. Martin Peter Moses Cassity’s second marriage with his Griselle (Wheeler), the birth of Eddie, and the final parting, were after we came.

James Neville, section foreman, had a residence, his wife Sarah, and five children—William, George, Mary Ann, Jo Ann, and Mahlen. Dominic Norton, section hand, had six motherless children — Anna, Kate, Bridget, Ellen, Mollie, and Michael. Mike Smith, a plasterer, lived with the Nortons in the section house. Ursula Maxwell, a widow, with her son Granville and daughter Lizzie, lived in her own home. Ursula’s daughter Maggie, married to Jim Cardwell, was also temporarily in her home at this time. Samuel Slossen was building a hotel. He had a wife and a son, George. And there was a railroad station, and an agent named Catlin. Also a school house, and a teacher—John Burr.

The family of Peter Isaacson, deceased, in a farm home separated from the town by a street, were considered as town folk. Here lived the mother (married to A. Anderson) and four of her children—Andy, Edward, Irving, and Matilda. Anderson had two children, Oscar and Emily, living in the home. William and Alma were born later.

Matilda Isaacson, a very pretty girl, later, married Alfred Hazeltine. By reason of his living in a farm home on the opposite side of town, Alfred was also considered as belonging. Well, in fact, Alfred did live in town several years prior to his marriage. We roomed together at the Overland Hotel when he was engaged in business, partner in the Buzan, Hazeltine & Hough Lumber Company, and I was clerking in Than Morris’ store. Our family was then — ten years after first coming to Wetmore—doing a three-year stretch on a portion of the Charley Hazeltine farm west of Alfred’s place, beyond the timber on the south side of the creek. And I was working out a store bill. Father still worked at his trade in town, but he could go home before dark; and, anyway, he wasn’t afraid of Erickson’s ghost—nor panthers. More about Erickson’s ghost and the panthers, later. My work kept me in the store until 10 o’clock, at night. After marrying, Alfred Hazeltine built a home in town, the house now owned by Adam Ingalls. And later he bought the Charley Hazeltine 120-acres adjoining his farm, and moved back to the country. His brother Charley and family went to Payette, Idaho. Alfred Hazeltine was a fine man. He was deacon in the Baptist Church. One time when a protracted meeting was in progress, he said to me, “By-damn, You, you ought to join the Church.”

Andrew J. Maxwell, with his wife Lizzie and two children, Demmy and May, and, at this time, the estranged wife of Elisha Maxwell, lived on a homestead adjoining town-and, like the Isaacsons and Andersons and Alfred Hazeltine, were regarded as town folk. Elisha Maxwell, brother of Andy, lived part time with his mother in town, as did also his wife. Elisha’s wife was the daughter of Matt Randall, then living near Ontario, seven miles south-west of Wetmore. There was much in common between the town folk and those borderites. Let it be a picnic or a dog-fight they were all on hand. Altogether they made one big-shall I say—happy family. This, however, strictly speaking, would not be quite right. Gus Mayer built the first residence in Wetmore—the Neville dwelling on the corner where the First National Bank now stands. His daughter Lillie (Mrs. Peter Cassity) was the first child born in the town—though Irving Isaacson was born earlier in a temporary shack near the present depot before the town was established.

There was a one-room school house on the site of the present City hall, with one teacher, John Burr—in 1869. I was nearly eight years old then, and my brother Charley was a little over nine. This was to be our first—and last — school. Charley died at the age of eighteen; and I was out of school—not graduated, not expelled, but out—before the shift to the present location on the hilltop.

While our home was being built in Wetmore on the lot where Hart’s locker is now, the family found shelter in a one-room, up-and-down rough pine board shanty in hollow west of the graveyard, on the Andy Maxwell homestead—the farm now owned and occupied by Orville Bryant. This little “cubbyhole” was originally built to house Andy ’ s brother Elisha—known here as “The Little Man” — and his bride.

Charley and I followed a cow-path through all prairie grass all the way from the shack — about a half mile — to the school house. And during that first winter, after the path had been obliterated by a big snow which drifted and packed solidly over the board fence enclosing the school grounds, bearing up pupils — even horses and sleighs zoomed over the drifted in fence—we skimmed over the white in a direct air line to the school, with not a thing in the way.

Our parents were from the deep South, and on the farm Charley and I had no playmates other than our younger brothers, Sam, Dave, and Nick—even the hired hand on the Wolfley Creek farm, Ben Summers, was a Tennessean — hence we brought into a school already seven-ways-to-the-bad, in language, just one more type of bad English.

Many of the other pupils were children of immigrants — from Germany, England, Ireland, Wales, and the three Scandinavian countries — whose picked-up English was maybe not so good as our own. In those days we learned from our associates rather than from books—that is, unconsciously became imitators—and the result, in most cases, was not promising. My mentor was a Swede girl several years my senior. “Tilda” Isaacson was neat, sweet, and sincerity compounded. She would tell me, “You youst don’t say it that way here, my leetle Yonnie.” This, of course, was the first runoff. In time, our Wetmore school was to rank with the best. And for all I know maybe it did then.

The old Wetmore school made history — history of a kind. An incident of those eventful years having decidedly bad-English flavor occurred after John Burr had been succeeded by D. B. Mercer, who came to us from a homestead up in the Abbey neighborhood between here and Seneca. Mercer gave one of his pupils a well-earned whipping one forenoon. At the noon hour, the boy’s older brother danced up and down the aisle in the school-room, singing, “Goodie, goodie, popper’s goin’ to lick the teacher.”

That dancing boy was Clifford Ashton.

Soon after school had taken up in the afternoon, Mr. Ashton, late of London, walked in unannounced. He was moderately docile in presenting his grievance and the teacher, not to be outdone by this green Englishman, treated his caller civilly. The trouble seemed to be amicably settled. But the teacher’s mild manner had emboldened the Englishman. As a parting stab, in an acrimonious monotone without stopping for breath or punctuation, Ashton delivered the ultimatum: “But if you ever w’ip one of my children again sir I shall surely ’ ave to w’ip you.”

This was a mistake — a real “John Bull” blunder, Mercer was a large, muscular man. With a single pass he knocked the Englishman cold right there in the school room. Ashton fell almost at my feet. When he had come up out o f his stupor, still blinking and grimacing, Ashton bellowed, “I shall see a solicitor about this!”

“See him and bedamned,” bawled Mercer. “Now get out!”

After he had become seasoned, Ashton was really a fine fellow, rather above the average of his countrymen in intelligence. And he reared a fine family of boys and girls — Clifford, Anna, Eva, Stanley, Horace, and Vincent. Ashton was a carpenter.

At another time, James Neville rushed unceremoniously into the schoolroom and hurled a big rock at Mercer’s head, barely missing. The rock tore a big hole in the blackboard back of the teacher. Neville was a powerful man. Just what the grievance was, and how a lively fight was averted, has slipped my memory—though I rather suspect Neville did not tarry long after he had failed to make a hit with the rock.

These two infractions, and many more, passed as being only by-plays incidental to a good school, as interpreted by those pristine patrons.

Andy Maxwell’s home was on the hill west of the shack. But Andy did not live there long after we came—in fact, he was off the place for keeps even before our house in town was ready for occupancy. Mary Massey, unmarried sister of Mrs. Maxwell, as well as the estranged wife of Elisha Maxwell, was at this time in the home—altogether too many Women to be in one man’s home. Mary, a close observer, had said she’d see a man of her’s and that other woman both in h — l before she’d play second fiddle in her own home.

“Second fiddle” in this sense was of course a figurative term having dire implications. Then, too, Lou Hazeltine, a sister-in-law by reason of a first marriage with a brother of the Massey sisters, had her say. It was critical.

It occurs to me that I have seen in print a recent version of an old quotation or saying, often expressed then, which, in line with Mary’s blow-off, defined the situation admirably. It read: “Hell hath no music like a woman playing second fiddle.” For the text of the original quotation, ask any oldtimer—or you may substitute “fury” for music, and “scorned” for playing second fiddle, and you will have it.

These facts were gleaned while spending the day with my mother in Lou Hazeltine’s home. Lou had said to my mother, as was customary at the time, “Bring the children and stay all day.” So we were duly scrubbed and dressed up for the occasion. I think Lou wanted to unburden herself. But how she could have thought the children would be interested in such topic of conversation is beyond me. True, there was her daughter Lizzie Massey, about my age, for company—but Lizzie behaved as though she thought she might miss something, and paid no attention to her mother’s frequent admonitions, “You children run along outside and play.” I think Lou was unduly worked-up over the matter. She would look at us children, and then put her hand up to the side of her mouth, come down momentarily off her “high-horse” almost to a whisper, and channel the choice bits to mother. I think my mother would have been satisfied with less than was said—and certainly, as a newcomer in town, she did not want to be the one to spread gossip. However, she repeated it all, with apparent relish, to my father, adopting Lou’s adept manner of, shielding it from the children with her hand.

The Massey women decided that Andy’s sympathies for his estranged sister-in-law were simply “outlandish”—and Mrs. Andy invoked the law on him.

Constable Lon Huff started to take him to Seneca, but when they came to the creek crossing, a ford, in my Uncle Nick Bristow’s timber, Andy slipped off his shackled boots, jumped out of the buggy and made his getaway, barefooted, over the snow-covered ground. My cousin, Burrel Bristow, followed Andy’s barefoot tracks through the woods and counted the trees barked by the constable’s gun.

That Alonzo—he was the shrewd one. Shot up the trees, he did—and brought home Andy’s shackled boots.

I liked Andy—and, though I was never to see him again, as glad that he had gotten away from the constable. I think that nearly all the other people here were glad it, too. And, moreover, I’ll bet Andy did not travel far without foot-protection.

You may be sure Andy did not come home to his wife. Lou Hazeltine told my mother that the arrest was big mistake. Charley Hazeltine, Lou’s Swede husband, said “The vimens was yust yumpin at collusions.” Elisha’s wife and Andy’s daughter May left Wetmore soon thereafter. Demmy remained here with his grandmother for several years—then went to his father at Spearfish, South Dakota, from which place Andy was then operating a stage line to Deadwood.

With Ursula Maxwell and Charley Hazeltine as long-range intermediaries, Andy Maxwell waived claim to farm equipment, livestock, and all other belongings, in favor of Lizzie Maxwell. All Andy asked—and received—were his children, and the promise of no contest in two divorces, Lizzie Massey Maxwell remained here. She sold the farm improvements to Dr. W. F. Troughton for $50. Troughton filed on the homestead in 1872.

In the meantime Andy, with his daughter May and Mrs. Elisha, traveling out of Miles City, Montana, in covered wagons, with four other men, were attacked by Sioux and Nez Perce Indians—the siege lasting for three days. The newspapers said at the time, it was the hardest-fought Indian battle of all times.

A three-column account of that Indian attack, written reminiscently by a correspondent of the Chicago Times seventeen years after it had taken place, found its way by mere chance into the Wetmore Spectator—right back to the old home of the defenders — through the medium of the Western Newspaper Union, Kansas City, Mo., from which auxiliary the Spectator then got its inside pages ready-printed. It was a hair-raising story—one that could be read with interest again and again.

Incidentally, Andy Maxwell had Indian blood in his own veins. His mother told me she was a quarter-breed. She had Indian features.

Then there was another Indian story having Wetmore connections. I have in my newspaper files Catherine German-Swerdfeger’s own story — nearly a full page written for the Spectator — of the slaying by the Indians of her father and mother, a brother and two sisters; and the capture of herself and three sisters—Sophie, Julia, and Addie. John German, from Blue Ridge, Georgia, with his family, was traveling by ox-team and covered wagon, through Kansas on the way to Colorado at the time of the attack.

Catherine’s description of the abandonment of her two little sisters, aged five and six, after two weeks on the move by the roving band of Indians, on the then uninhabited plains somewhere between southwestern Kansas and the main Cheyenne camp in Texas, in the midst of a big herd of buffalo, where, after following on foot until well nigh exhausted, as mounted Indians forced the two older girls on ponies away from the scene, the little girls lived—no, existed—for six weeks, in October and November weather, with no shelter other than a clay bank, on the leavings of soldiers, (cracker crumbs, scattered grains of corn, and hackberries), in a deserted camp, by a creek, would wring your heart.

Catherine’s personal explanation to me was that the little girls, when down to the last morsel of edible scrapings, had difficulty in deciding which one should eat it. The little one thought the older one should have it—that it might enable her to live to get away. It would appear that the little one had already resigned herself to her fate. The older one decided it rightly belonged to the baby. And neither of them ate it. It was only a dirty kernel of corn, Catherine said in her article: “God had a hand in that work, and I believe you will agree with me when I say He wrought a miracle.”

And I, for one, certainly do agree.

Several inaccurate accounts of the fate of this unfortunate family have been written—one by a professor, who evidently did not have the full facts, as text for the Wichita schools. And another one, as told to a reporter for the Kansas City Journal by “Uncle” Jimmy Cannon, an interpreter on Government pay-rolls, stationed in Kansas (the rider of “Little Gray Johnny”) in which he himself, in a daring dash on a band of Indians, rescued one of the little girls — which, in fact, he didn’t do at all, according to Catherine.

Actually, it was this story of “Uncle” Jimmy’s that caused Catherine to write the true story of the massacre and of their captivity, for my paper. Catherine said it was soldiers under Lieutenant Baldwin of the Fifth Infantry who found her little sisters, sick, emaciated, on the verge of starvation, in that same deserted camp, which was really no camp at all—only an overnight camp site. And though soldiers were constantly on the trail of the Indians, there was no spectacular dash by the military in the rescue the two older girls. When first taken into the main Cheyenne camp, in Texas, Chief Stonecalf told Catherine, who was then nearly eighteen years old, that he was grieved know that his people would do such a deed; that he would, Soon as possible, deliver them to the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Agency—and that he did. Catherine had much praise for Chief Stonecalf, and General Nelson A. Miles, their efforts in liberating them. Under Indian custom, girls were regarded as loot, and had to be bought from their captors.

Jim Smith, now living in the west part of Wetmore, went to school — at the Porter school house on Wolfley-creek—with the two younger German girls. Pat Corney, living on a farm adjacent to the J. P. Smith farm, was guardian of the girls.

Addie—Mrs. Frank Andrews—is still living, or was a few years ago, at Berwick in Nemaha county. A few years back, Mrs. Andrews was invited to appear on a radio program in New York, with all expenses paid—but she did not go. Amos Swerdfeger, husband of Catherine—and son of Adam Swerdfeger, who was among the first settlers here—died at Atascadero, California, Nov. 12, 1921, age 73. Catherine died in 1932, age 75.

These two Indian stories would make good reading now—and while they are in line with my endeavor to give a true picture of the old days, they are not included in this volume. Nothing but my own writings, since my retirement from the newspaper field appears in this book. However, slight reference to those two Indian attacks were made in my more recently published stories, which are reproduced in this book—just as they were written at the time. Many changes have taken place in the meantime.

After it became generally known here that the defenders of that fiercely fought Indian battle in Montana were former Wetmore citizens, many of our people came in from time to time to read the story. That page of the old files is pretty well thumbed.

About fifty years ago, a family by the name of Cummings came here and lived for a short while in the northwest part of town. Mrs. Cummings said she was the daughter of Andy Maxwell. I did not learn her given name, but supposed she was May. She called at the Spectator office, and read the story.

Then, in February, 1939, Mrs. Nettie E. Rachford, Westwood, California, wrote the Spectator asking for a copy of the story, saying she was the daughter of Andy Maxwell. I then copied the story from my files, and W. F. Turrentine printed it again in the Spectator, February 1939.

This reprint of the Maxwell story caused Dr. LeVere Anderson, born and reared on a farm five miles southwest of Wetmore—now established in Miles City, Montana—to bring the matter of that Indian fight to the attention of the Miles City Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber was at that very time sponsoring a homecoming jubilee—and after an exchange of letters between Miles City and Wetmore, Andy Maxwell, then living in Santa Ana, California, was invited to be the Chamber’s honored guest—but he was unable to make the trip. Andy Maxwell died at Santa Ana in 1941, at the age of ninety-nine.