The Western trail in the early days.CHAPTER ONEPIONEER DAYS
The Western trail in the early days.
The Western trail in the early days.
The Western trail in the early days.
I was born in Illinois in 1842. I crossed the plains by ox team and came to Utah in 1850. My parents settled in Grantsville, a pioneer village just south of the Great Salt Lake. To protect themselves from the Indians, the settlers grouped their houses close together and built a high wall all around them. Some of the men would stand guard while others worked in the fields. The cattle had to be herded very closely during the day, and corralled at night with a strong guard to keep them from being stolen. But even with all our watchfulness we lost a good many of them. The Indians would steal in and drive our horses and cows away and kill them. Some times they killed the people, too.
We built a log schoolhouse in the center of our fort, and near it we erected a very high pole, up which we could run a white flag as a signal if the Indians attempted to run off our cattle, or attack the town or the men in the fields. In this log schoolhouse two old men would stay, taking turns at watching and giving signals when necessary,by raising the flag in the daytime, or by beating a drum at night. For we had in the schoolhouse a big bass drum to rouse the people, and if the Indians made a raid, one of the guards would thump on the old thing.
When the people heard the drum, all the women and children were supposed to rush for the schoolhouse and the men would hurry for the cow corral or take their places along the wall. Often in the dead hours of the night when we were quietly sleeping, we would be startled by the booming old drum. Then you would hear the youngsters coming and squalling from every direction. You bet I was there too. Yes, sir, many is the time I have run for that old schoolhouse clinging to my mother’s apron and bawling “like sixty”; for we all expected to be filled with arrows before we could get there. We could not go outside of the wall without endangering our lives, and when we would lie down at night we never knew what would happen before morning.
The savages that gave us the most trouble were called Gosiutes. They lived in the deserts of Utah and Nevada. Many of them had been banished into the desert from other tribes because of crimes they had committed. The Gosiutes were a mixed breed of good and bad Indians.
They were always poorly clad. In the summer they went almost naked; but in winter they dressed themselves in robes made by twisting and tying rabbit skins together. These robes were generally all they had to wear during the day and all they had to sleep in at night.
They often went hungry, too. The desert had but little food to give them. They found some edible roots, the sego, and tintic, which is a kind of Indian potato, like the artichoke; they gathered sunflower and balzamoriza[1]seeds, and a few berries. The pitch pine tree gave them pine nuts; and for meat they killed rabbits, prairie dogs, mice, lizards, and even snakes. Once in a great while they got a deer or an antelope. The poor savages had a cold and hungry time of it; we could hardly blame them for stealing our cattle and horses to eat.
[1]Sometimes called “spring sunflower.” It has a blossom much like the sunflower, and velvety leaves. It is common in parts of the West.
[1]Sometimes called “spring sunflower.” It has a blossom much like the sunflower, and velvety leaves. It is common in parts of the West.
[1]Sometimes called “spring sunflower.” It has a blossom much like the sunflower, and velvety leaves. It is common in parts of the West.
Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian InstitutionGosiute wickiups in the desert.
Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian InstitutionGosiute wickiups in the desert.
Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution
Gosiute wickiups in the desert.
Yes, they ate horses, too. That was the reason they had no ponies, as did the Bannocks and Shoshones and other tribes. The Gosiutes wandered afoot over the deserts, but this made them great runners. It is said that Yarabe, one of these Indians, once won a wager by beating the Overland Stage in a race of twenty-five milesover the desert. Swift runners like this would slip in and chase away our animals, driving them off and killing them. Our men finally captured old Umbaginny and some other bad Indians that were making the mischief, and made an example of them.
After this they did not trouble us so much, but the settlements were in constant fear and excitement. One incident connected with my father shows this. Our herd boys were returning from Stansbury Island, in the Great Salt Lake, where many cattle were kept. On their way home they met a band of friendly Indians. The boys, in fun, proposed that the Indians chase them into town, firing a few shots to make it seem like a real attack. The Indians agreed, and the chase began. My father saw them coming and grabbed his gun. Before the white jokers could stop him and explain, he had shot down the head Indian’s horse. It took fifty sacks of flour to pay for their fun. The Indians demanded a hundred sacks, but they finally agreed to take half that amount and call things square.
Some of the Indians grew in time to be warm friends with us, and when they did become so, they would help protect us from the wild Indians. At one time Harrison Sevier, a pioneer of Grantsville, was out in the canyon getting wood. “Captain Jack,” a chief of the Gosiutes, was with him. Some wild Indians attacked Sevier and would have killed him, but “Captain Jack” sprang to his defense and beat back the murderous Indians. The chief had most of his clothes torn off and was badly bruised in the fight, but he saved his white friend. Not all the Gosiutes were savages. Old Tabby, another of this tribe, was a friend of my father. How he proved his friendship for us I shall tell later.
A rather amusing thing happened one day to Tabby.He had just got a horse through some kind of trade. Like the other Gosiutes, he was not a very skillful rider. But he would ride his pony. One day this big Indian came galloping along the street towards the blacksmith shop. Riley Judd, the blacksmith, who was always up to pranks, saw Tabby coming, and just as he galloped up, Riley dropped the horse’s hoof he was shoeing, threw up his arms and said,
“Why, how dye do, Tabby!”
Tabby’s pony jumped sidewise, and his rider tumbled off. He picked himself up and turned to the laughing men, saying—
“Ka wino (no good), Riley Judd, too much how dye do.”
Besides our troubles with the Indians, we had to fight the crickets and the grasshoppers. These insects swarmed down from the mountains and devoured every green thing they could find. We had hard work to save our crop. It looked as if starvation was coming. The men got great log rollers and rolled back and forth. Herds of cattle were also driven over the marching crickets to crush them; rushes were piled in their path, and when they crawled into this at night, it would be set on fire. But all seemed in vain. Nothing we could do stopped the scourge.
Then the gulls came by the thousands out of the Great Salt Lake. They dropped among the crickets and gorged and regorged themselves until the foe was checked. No man could pay me money enough to kill one of these birds.
After the cricket war the grasshoppers came to plague us. Great clouds of them would settle down on our fields. Father saved five acres of his grain by giving up the rest to them. We kept the hoppers from settling on this patch by running over and over the field with ropes. We used our bed cords to make a rope long enough.
Dr. Charles G. PlummerGreat Salt Lake, Utah, looking south from Bird Island, which is a rookery of hundreds of thousands of gulls, pelicans, and herons. In the distance are Carrington Island (right) and Stansbury Island (left).
Dr. Charles G. PlummerGreat Salt Lake, Utah, looking south from Bird Island, which is a rookery of hundreds of thousands of gulls, pelicans, and herons. In the distance are Carrington Island (right) and Stansbury Island (left).
Dr. Charles G. Plummer
Great Salt Lake, Utah, looking south from Bird Island, which is a rookery of hundreds of thousands of gulls, pelicans, and herons. In the distance are Carrington Island (right) and Stansbury Island (left).
But it was a starving winter anyway, in spite of all we could do. We were a thousand miles from civilization, surrounded by hostile Indians. We had very little to eat and next to nothing to wear. It was a time of hunger and hardships; but most of the people managed to live through it, and things grew brighter with the spring.