Shatto 1

THE LAMOREAUX FAMILY:

A Family That Will Always Be Wyoming’s History

Christina Shatto

HIST 4055

Archival Research Methods

May 9, 2014

People across the United States, and possibly the world, have been envious of the bucking horse and rider that adorn the Wyoming license plates. There are many theories as to who the rider is. One of the theories is that it is a man named Albert “Stub” Farlow. Stub Farlow’s story does not begin with the bucking horse nor does it end with it. This paper’s aim is to explain who Stub Farlow was, including who his family was, their importance in history and the history of the famous bucking bronc on the Wyoming License Plate.

Family History

Lamoreaux Family

This story begins withthe marriage of Woman Dress and Jules Lamoreaux in 1862 in Fort Laramie or O’Neill, Nebraska.[1] Woman Dress was the sister to Gall, a major Sioux War Chief in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.“According to Lamoreaux family history, Woman Dress was born in either 1845 or 1846.”[2]Jules was born in 1836 at Hyacinthe, Quebec.[3] He came to Fort Laramie in the early 1860s,[4] where he met Woman Dress. He most likely came for the fur trade, and “family history states he had “a store at Fort Laramie.”” [5]

The couple headed for South Pass from Fort Laramie in 1868. The wagon company consisted of “12 wagons, 17 men and three women.”[6] People accompanying the family included, H.B. McCumber; Wordon P. Noble; Frank Ecoggey, his wife Julia, their daughter; Joseph Bissonette and his Sioux wife; Charles Lajeunesse, his Shoshone wife, and their daughter, Louisa, who was married to William Boyd; Mitch Lijeunesse (Johnny Seminoe); Noel Lijeunesse; and a few other children.[7] The Lamoreaux family brought their daughter Elizabeth “Lizzie” who was four and her two year old brother Dick.[8]Jules was commanding one wagon, with four yoke of oxen and two hitched wagons. Woman Dress was driving a Murphy Wagon, pulled by Indian ponies with Lizzie and Dick riding along.[9] Woman Dress was also pregnant with a third child.[10]

The wagon party had a few close call with some small Native American War Parties (Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe), but they were never seriously attacked.[11] The group travelled slowly as the grass was short. [12]At Split Rock the groups luck with the Indians changed. The group found themselves surrounded by a large war party that began to attack them. [13] As the war party attacked Woman Dress recognized the voices of the attackers as being Sioux warriors. With her children down in the bottom of the wagon she began to protect her family.

…coming out of the circled wagons, she began shouting to them in Sioux at the top of her lungs and going towards the Indians waving her blanket as she did so. As the Indians recognized her they ceased firing and shouted to her that they would come and talk to her if the white men would not fire at them.[14]

The wagon party and the Sioux warriors stopped fighting and gathered together. It is said, that when Woman Dress stepped out of her murphy wagon and was waving her blanket, she said, “I am Woman Dress, sister to your Chief Gall. Beware lest you harm me. I have my children here. Go away or you will rue it.”[15]

Woman Dress then negotiated safe passage for the wagon train and the train arrived at the Sweetwater Mining District after 50 days of travel.[16] W.P. Noble insists that they arrived at South Pass on April 27, 1868.[17] Woman Dress gave birth to a son, which was named Willow, however he would also be known as Will, Bill, William, or Smiling Fox. [18] In 1868 Jules opened a store in Atlantic City which he operated for nearly a decade when he decided to get into the cattle industry (1874). He moved to the Lander Valley and being married to Woman Dress was allowed to let his cattle roam on the Wind River Indian Reservation.[19]

Jules and Woman Dress continued their lives in the Lander Valley. Jules became a successful cattle man and eventually became the second mayor of Lander, Wyoming. Woman Dress died in 1908. Jules lived a few short years without her and died in 1914.[20]

The story of Woman Dress and her saving the wagon party is significant to history, because it is not often that one hears of a Native American woman saving a wagon train. The more impressive thing is that Woman Dress is the sister to Gall, the War Chief that helped massacre Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Not only was her saving the wagon train important, but her heritage helped Jules when he went into the cattle business. The freedom to graze his livestock on reservation land meant that his stock had more pasture land to graze from. Jules also contributed to history in that, he brought trade goods and his family.

E.J Farlow Family

Lizzie Lamoreaux was a very beautiful young lady and was well liked by the people of Lander. This was proven the night of the Christmas Eve Church fair. The goal for the congregation was to erect a church for the Catholic priest Father Mariarty.[21] The competition was between Lizzie and Ella McCarty[22]. Ella was Irish and related to the O’Briens, the Crowleys, and W.P. Noble. [23] At stake was a beautiful ladies watch. The men’s popularity contest was won by Ike Bowman and brought in $40.[24] The contest began, a vote cost 10 cents per vote.[25] The popularity contest “split the town into 2 sections --- the Moccasin Band and the Irish Brigade. W.P. Noble led the Irish vote and Jules led the Indian vote. They were the biggest cattlemen in the valley.”[26] The voting was to close at midnight and at around eleven Ella was ahead 500 votes. “The Moccasin Band immediately became active and just before the voting closed, entered a block of six thousand votes, thus insuring the success of their candidate, Lizzie Lamoreaux.”[27] Lizzie’s prized watch brought in $1,250.[28] According to Beach, Lizzie was still very proud of the watch she had won, even 46 years later.[29]

In the crowd there was a young gentleman name Edward J. Farlow. E.J. Farlow was born in Iowa in 1861. He had come from a poor family and left home in 1876 to explore the west, which is how he landed in Lander, WY.[30] He was not very active in the voting, but he made comment he would marry either one that won the watch,[31] at least that is one of the stories. The other story goes on to say that Farlow had met Lizzie before and she was not impressed by him.He mentions in his memoir that this was the first time he had met his future wife and that roughly a year later he went to the Christmas Eve fair and saw her agin.[32] Both stories could be correct. He may have met her previously and he may have gone to the fair. Incidentally, she was the girl that won.

After the two were acquainted, Farlow began working for Jules Lamoreaux. In1883 while working for him, one of Farlow’s saddle horses went missing and was discovered at a Shoshone Indian Village. He and Smiling Fox (Willow, Lizzie’s brother) went to gather the recently found horse. Farlow went to put his loop on his horse and take the horse away when My Cat Johnny came out to protect his horse. An altercation broke out between the two over the possession of the horse. They decided to take the matter back to the agency. The pathway became lined with Shoshone Indians at the call of My Cat Johnny. They met the Agent, Dr. Irwin and discovered that the horse had been stolen from My Cat Johnny and that the bill of sale that Farlow had was for a stolen horse. It was decided that the horse should remain with My Cat Johnny. The dispute was settled, but it continued to weigh on Farlow’s mind, until he decided to apologize for the altercation. He was directed to Chief Washakie and at the end of the discussion Farlow had become a son of Washakie and Washakie’s son Dick was his brother.[33]

The connection that Farlow made with the Shoshone Indians and the connection he made when he married Lizzie are greatly important as they brought more security to both the Shoshone people and Farlow. When the Shoshone and Arapahos were placed together on the reservation and part of the reservation was to be signed over to the whites it was Farlow that the Indians trusted.

During the negotiations the white men tried to explain how much money they were offering, for the trade of almost a million acres. The Indians would receive $400,000. The government tried to explain it by how many squaws it would take and by how many horses it would take to carry that much money.[34] The number was too high for the Indians to understand, but sounded like enough to be set. So they planned to agree. Before Chief Lone Bear signed the treaty he asked Farlow his opinion, Farlow had none, but it peaked the interest of the U.S. Indian Inspector, James McLaughlin. McLaughlin approached Farlow and said,[35] “Mr. Farlow, I have seen these Indians ask you a couple of times what you thought of the treaty. They seem to have great faith in your judgment and you have refused to answer. I myself would like to hear your opinion.” [36] Farlow’s reply would shape the treaty that would soon be re-drafted. His changing words were,

“ Well, Mr. Laughlin, since you have asked me for my opinion I feel free to give it. I have refrained from expressing myself for I might have changed the opinion of some of the Indians and this is my opinion. The government sends its shrewdest and ablest and most experienced diplomats out here to treat with these Indians. They are clearly outclassedin that respect. You have been trying to show these Indians how much money $400,000 is and it is beyond them and they think it is enough. I will say this. You are offering these Indians this money for an empire. If this body of land belonged to a party of white men you could not buy it for four million dollars.”[37]

This opposition quickly caused the U.S. Government to rewrite the treaty.[38] Had Farlow not been there who knows what would have happened to the Wind River Indian Reservation. Farlow’s connection with the Indians served the Indians in a way that money could not buy, and helped the Indians gain some bargaining room to protect their livelihoods.

Along with helping the Indians with their negotiations, Farlow started a Wild West Show in 1894. Farlow mentioned it would have been the first Wild West show that he knows of. [39] He presented this Wild West Show in Lander, using the Indians as showmen. He had a few struggles with instructing both parties as to how to act, but in the end he got the program running.[40]Farlow states that in 1908 Charles Irwin from Cheyenne brought up running and bucking horses for the Wild West celebration.[41] These Wild West shows were a family event as Farlow’s sons helped with the events of the celebrations.[42] These Wild West shows would move throughout Wyoming and Colorado for a few years and eventually landed the Indians in the motion pictures.

In September of 1922, Colonel Tim McCoy contacted his friend E. J. Farlow to request his help,

“Dad, I have the biggest Indian proposition I know of and I want you to help me. They want five hundred Indians to make the movie The Covered Wagon and we have been turned down by the agent at Fort Hall in Idaho. You can handle this if anyone can.”[43]

Farlow was able to talk to Agent Donner and gather some Arapahoe and Shoshone Indians despite some were working on the roads, the ditch, and they had yet to have planted the crops.[44] During the production of the movie Tim McCoy and other directors asked for Farlow’s advice on difficult scenes.[45]

The movie was a success and the producers asked Farlow to bring the Indians to Hollywood for the prologues. The Indians were not too impressed with Hollywood and Farlow’s son Jules went to gather the Indians to bring them back to Lander. The movie’s success grew so much that the Famous Players Lasky Company wanted the movie to be opened in London.[46] The producers asked for a price, and Farlow came up with the price of $200 a week for him and all expenses plus 5.00 a day for each Indian. The producers agreed.[47]

Farlow was met with opposition when trying to gather the Indians for the trip to Europe. He contacted the Arapahos. Chief Yellow Calf was very uneasy with the idea that the Arapahoe Indians would be on a boat for many days. He had heard that Buffalo Bill’s group had thrown a dead Sioux overboard. He finished in signing, “no Arapaho would ever be thrown in the big water if he could help it.”[48] Farlow used a number of tactics to convince the Arapahos to come along, including saying,

I was going across the big waterand was going to leave my wife and family home; that I was not going into any danger. that I was going to take some Indians with me --- Maybe Sioux, maybe Shoshone, maybe Arapaho--- but I had come to the Arapahos first as they were my best friends and I had known them the longest.

Farlow convinces a few of the Arapaho to go with him. The Arapahos that went with him had a number of experiences. They saw monkeys, which one Arapaho signed was half white and half dog. They experienced shopping at a Macy’s store, escalators, and subways. All of this before they had even left the United States.[49] The boat ride was uneventful, minus Farlow and a few of the Indians becoming very sea sick and the boat not reaching the harbor in the expected time.[50]

The show in London was a success and it included twenty-seven Indians, Tim McCoy and Farlow, which at first concerned the manager.[51] Not only did the Indians get to see the sights of London, they also got to see the sights of Europe.[52] The Indians left Europe to return to the reservation on March 1, 1924.[53] Farlow notes that,

In the last twenty years I have had the Indians off the reservationtwenty- seven times. There were never less than eight Indiansand sometimes as many as 150. I have had them to Denver twice, in Fort Collins, in Casper, in Rawlins, Salt Lake, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cheyenne, Hollywood, Omaha, Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, London and Paris, And I have never lost an Indian or had one seriously sick.

E.J. Farlow may have married the beautiful Lizzie Lamoreaux, been friends with both the Shoshone and Arapaho nations, but he also did something that was so wonderful. He brought the Indians out of the reservation and gave them a chance to earn money that would help support themselves. He gave them life experiences that only a few people have ever known. The Native American’s trust that they instilled in him, gave the Native Americans a voice. Farlow was adopted into the Arapaho Tribe on June, 21, 1931 and given the name of Red Eagle.[54] The Wyoming State Journal is quoted in Farlows book as saying,

“Red Eagle was a noted warrior and leader of the tribe before the time of Black Coal and Sharp Nose. His memory has been carried down to the present tribesmen in tradition and story for he was brave and wise, always kind but fearless and exemplified in his life all the ideals of Indian manhood. Farlow has been known as Nish ki ah, the whip, meaning a fast worker, a driver, a giver of inspiration, a leader, a man who gets things done and done quickly. Others call him Naw te Neh Baa e, Sioux old man.”[55]

The statement shows more than what one person can say about E.J. Farlow. He was very honored by the people of the Lander Valley.

Stub Farlow

Albert Jerome “Stub” Farlow was the son of E.J. and Lizzie Farlow. He was born on February 2, 1886.[56]He followed in his father’s footsteps and was a cowboy. His 1940 census lists his occupation as Livestock[57] and in the 1930 census as a Dude Rancher.[58] These census records also show an interesting change of race, in the 1930 census Stub was listed as being Sioux[59] and in the 1940 census he was listed as white. This change of race seems odd, but it could be explained by the census taker.

Another interesting inconsistency is the draft cards between Stub and his brother Jules. Stub was listed as a Sioux[60] and Jules was listed as white[61]. This is odd considering both have the same bloodlines. On Jules’ draft card the signature of registration was that of another Farlow.[62] Whereas Stub’s was signed by someone completely unrelated.[63] The two signed up on the same day, so this seems fascinating being the two had different races. Whatever the reason, people of Lander remember Jules Farlow as “a very distinguished looking Indian.”[64] Stub Farlow is also remembered in Lander, WY as being a good old cowboy.