The Following Appeared in 1939 in Both the Portland Oregonian and the Pierre Capitol Journal

The following appeared in 1939 in both the Portland Oregonian and the Pierre Capitol Journal: Scanned from the Capitol Journal in April 2004

AN ILL-FATED WILD WEST SHOW

The following article, written Judge S. C. Polley, appeared in the magazine section ofthe Portland Oregonian early in April:

By SamuelC. Polley

Rending the air with war whoops and dancing to the rhythm of a tom-tom, the first wild west show that ever came out of the west had its birth on the hurricane deck of the steamship John L. Stevens, as she pulled out of the Portland docks, San Francisco bound, on the 29th day of April, 1874.

Made up of a small band of Warm Springs Indians, consisting of26 bucks, four or five squaws and some half dozen small children, they were enjoying great national fame, and much popularity because of the part they had played in bringing the so-calledModocwar to a successful termination.

The time of the embarkation was a warm beautiful afternoon, and a large crowd -of people were assembled on the wharf to watch the ship's departure. About the time the ship cast off one the two head men of the Indians asked the ship's captain if they might give a dance on the hurricane deck while the ship was getting under way. The captain's assent was readily granted, and in no time at all the Indians was assembled on the hurricane deck fully togged out in their war paint and feathers. The first war whoop had scarcely rent the air when apparently every man, woman and child in the city ofPortland was headed for the wharf.

Immediately the wharf, the streets leading toward the river, the house tops, and even the windows facing the river were black with people, excitedly and curiously watching the spectacle, which continued until the ship passed the outskirts of the city. Then the drum stopped beating, and the Indians quieted down. They sat or reclined on the deck talking and visiting until sunset.Darkness fell asthe ship nosed out into the Columbia River and the Indians retired to their sleeping quarters for the night.

At daylight on the following morning the ship was riding at anchor just within the mouth of the river. A terrific storm was raging out over the ocean. The clouds were black and angry, and the breakers, mountain high, were rolling in over the bar.No attempt was made to take the ship out to sea during that day, buttoward evening the storm subsided and early next morning a pilot boarded the ship and steeredher out over the bar.

The remainder of the trip was uneventful. The ship reached San Francisco late in the afternoonof a clear, spring day. She rode in through the Golden Gate and on up the bay to the landing place. Permission had been given to the Indians to put on another dance and shortly after entering the bay they reassembled in their war regalia and the dance began. The scene at the Portland docks was instantly repeated,for the echo of the first war whoop had scarcely faded in the distance until it looked like every body in San Francisco was hurrying toward the waterfront.

From SanFrancisco the Indians continued their journey to the eastern states, where they toured the larger cities as a wild west show. Their success was so great that they grew more ambitious and sailed for England, where they showed in London and other large English cities. After an absence from home of some thing more than two years they grew homesick and decided to return to their native land. They embarked on an ocean liner for New York but while crossing the Atlantic their ship foundered during a severe storm. Nearly everyone on board including all of the Indians was drowned so that not a single one of them ever returned to his homeland.

This colorful pageantry, which ended so tragically, was the direct outgrowth of theModocwar. The Modocs were a small tribe of Indians who inhabited a tract of country along the boundary line between Oregon and California in the neighborhood of Rhett Lake. Part or all of their country was commonlyreferred to as the "Lava Beds."

Sometime during the 1860s the government set aside a tract of something morethan 600,000 acres of land in southwestern Oregon as a permanent reservation for the Modocs and transported them to such new home, but for some reason the Indians did not like it and soon returned to their old home in the Lava Beds.

Long drawn out but fruitless negotiations took place between the Indian department and the Modocs, and finally removal by force was more than intimated. A member of the tribewho was known as Captain Jack was the recognized headman of a small band of these Indians. Captain Jack was an untamed savage. He was bold, treacherous and unscrupulous, an implacable enemy of the whites, and absolutely refused to be moved or to consider going to the new reservation.

Every offer by a peace commission that had been appointed to treat with the Modocs was insolently rejected; and on one occasion he appeared before the commission with the scalps ofseveral white people he had murdered, dangling from his belt.His insolence anddaring grewuntil finally, at a parley held by the commission with Captain Jack and his partisans, and where allparties were presumed to be unarmed, the Indians drew pistols they had concealed on their persons, and deliberately murdered several members of the commission, including General Canby, who was the head of the commission.

Captain Jack and his followers fled to the Lava Beds and defied the whole United States army. The order then went out from army headquarters that Captain Jack and others participating in the murder must be captured and punished for their crime. This was attempted, but the nature of the country in which the Indians were concealed was such a character that military maneuvers were impossible.

At this point the band of Warm Springs Indians introduced at the opening or this narrative adjacent to the Modocs. They were friendly to the whites but unfriendly to the Modocs, and volunteered their services in an effort to capture Captain Jack. The offer was accepted, and this little band went into the Lava Beds to look for Captain Jack. As familiar with the surroundings as the Modocs themselves, these Indians knew where to look for Captain Jack, and how to capture him when they found him.

Presently they returned with Captain Jack and his companions, securely bound, and turned them over to a military commission appointed to deal with the culprits.The Indians were tried by this commission on the fifth day of July 1873. Six of them, namely Captain Jack, Schonchin, Boston, Charlie, Black Jim,Slotuck and Barncho, were convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged.

(Editor's note; the contributor of the above article, Samuel C. Polley, is a judge on the South Dakota Supreme Court. Judge Polley, then a lad of 10, made the trip to San Francisco described in the article.)

MRS. ASKEW'S STORY

(The White Silk Gown)

by John C. Stevenson

Three women were talking in a church lobby after the Sunday Service. The eldest, who was far into her nineties, was saying, "My uncle was Judge Rice in Deadwood." ---We were hundreds of miles from Deadwood and these ladies seemed politely to have never heard of the place. Besides it was 1963 and Deadwood was no longer famous like it had once been. In 1876 Deadwood, Dakota Territory had been the scene of a gold rush.The gold rush to the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory brought a stampede of the young, the restless,the entrepreneurial, the lonely, gunslingers, prostitutes, thieves, refugeesand the get-rich-quick crowd. This bunch was soon followed by a wave of ministers, merchants, teachers, doctors, and even a few attorneys.From among the attorneys and teachers my Maternal Grandparents had met, courted, married (in 1899), and then produced my Mom and two Uncles. — Interrupting the ladies' conversation and addressing the elderly one I said: "My Grandfather was Judge Polley, wasn't Judge Rice his law partner at one time? I had a new friend and she was sixty-three years older than I, she was amazed to find someone who could remember her uncle.The way I remembered him Judge Rice had been akindly old man with snowy white hair.He had given me heaps of gold, actually it was fool's gold but I was only five or six at the time, I thought it was real gold and the year must have been about 1938. We were in his office watching a parade in the street below.It was a Days of ‘76 parade in the main street of Deadwood, Deadwood Gulch, Deadwood City. During the time that I knew Mrs. Askew she told me the most interesting story about herself, it had to do with being a little girl during the 1870's.

She said that she had been born in Ohio where her father was a coal miner. When she was still very young, eight or nine, word came that there was gold in Dakota in a place called Deadwood.Her father who was adventurous knew that he would get rich quick. He persuaded his family to pack as much oftheir belongings as they could into a covered wagon and to go to the gold fields of Dakota.It is never easy for a little girl to put aside all of the things that make her happy and secure like toys and special dresses but covered wagons did not provide much space for personal belongings. She said that she asked her Mother if she could just take one favorite thing, her white silk gown. With all of the necessary staples of life her white silk gown was carefully packed away in the bottom of a wooden crate where it would be safe. Deadwood would be about 1300 or 1400 miles, they would leave in the spring, follow trails, hope to not be robbed, cross Indian country, and cross rivers on ferries. With luck they would arrive before winter. Her father was very anxious to reach Deadwood to begin a new life; he could barely stand not being there already. He was a very impatient man. When finally they reached the Black Hills area they approached Deadwood from the North along approximately the same route that highway 85 now follows, it follows a long grade up from Spearfish and then descends two or three miles into Deadwood. In those days there were no electric lights and there was no pavement. Whenever night came one simply had to spend the night wherever darkness found him.When they reached the top of that grade that was where darkness found them.There was no moon and it was impossible to see the trail.There were cliffs and many other good reasons not to try to go on in the dark.But they could see Deadwood, there were some lights and they could even hear music.It was just possible to see enough to go on foot but it was not safe for the team and wagon.Mrs. Askew's father could not contain himself, having to wait all night to proceed was more than he could bear.The miner made a request of his nine-year-old daughter, would she please put on her white silk gown and make her way along the road - and see if the team could see the light from the gown, and follow her into Deadwood.It worked!The team was able to follow the girl in the white silk gown and the family arrived in the booming little city by midnight!

THE POET AND THE POSSE

by John C. Stevenson

"Aw gee Mom, didn't anything crazy ever happen to you when you were a teenager?" That was my question in response to some issue that my Mother had been trying to instruct me about - lecturing. The issue is long forgotten but Mother's response is well remembered. We were each other's captives traveling somewhere for an hour or two in one of those Buicks that had three portholes in each front fender. I think we were in Iowa and the year was very likely 1950. My Mother was a proper lady who never did anything funny or crazy and I was a teenager who never did anything that was not funny or crazy unless it was stupid.

There was a long and thoughtful pause and finally the admission:

"Yes."

We lived in Missouri but my Mother had grown up in Pierre, South Dakota where her Father had served on the StateSupreme Court for many years. Up until the time when my Grandparents died we had made many summer trips to Pierre and I knew from first hand experience that no place on earth could be duller (or hotter in the summertime) than Pierre, South Dakota. Of course Mom had lived there for years and she had known almost everybody in town.My grandfather had been born on the frontier in Minnesota and had been in the first class graduated by the University of Minnesota School of Law. He became the one of the first qualified and honest attorneys in the Wild West gold-rush town of Deadwood. He enjoyed hunting and fishing throughout most of a long and healthy life but I remembered my Grandfather as a frail and nearly humorless old man. I was filled with doubt, nothing crazy could ever happen in or around Pierre.

"Do you know who Hugh Glass was?" she asked.

"No, who was he?

"He was one of the ‘Mountain Men'" she replied, "a fur trapper. The ‘Mountain Men' were among the very first persons of European descent into much of the Wild West back when it was occupied by the Sioux and other tribes."

"Uh-huh."

"Do you know who John G. Neihardt is?"

"No."

"Mr. Neihardt is a very old man who lives in Nebraska, he is a poet. He writes long narrative epic poetry that has a basis in history. He wrote a long work called The Song of Hugh Glass - Did you know that your Grandfather was also a member of and very interested in the State Historical Society?"

"Where does all of this get crazy?" I asked.

"Well," Mother began,one summer while I was a teenager in Pierre, Doan Robinson, the curator, or manager, of the state historical society and he was out of town traveling on personal business. So when this letter came for the Historical Society it was forwarded to Pop, your Grandfather. The letter was from the editor of the Omaha, NebraskaWorld Herald. The letter offered something very interesting but not exciting. The letter was about John G. Neihardt, the Poet Laureate of Nebraska who had just published The Song of Hugh Glass. The editor considered The Song of Hugh Glass a major artistic and literary milestone completed right there in Nebraska! The only problem for Nebraska was that most of the story line of The Song of Hugh Glassoccurred in the areas of present-day Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas. The work is a long historical narrative in verse form, it runs over one hundredpages in print.

It documents the adventures Hugh Glass, who, in 1823 had a great misfortune. While his companion was away hunting Hugh was mauled by a grizzly bear at the forks of the Grand River, near the place where a town named Lemmon (spelled with two m's) now stands. When Hugh's companion found him, Hugh appeared to be dead so he was left for dead. His companion helped himself to Hugh's rifle andskinning knife. Overcome by grief, his companion and best friend lacked the courage to bury him. In fact, Hugh was not dead, not quite. Deserted in the wild country Hugh Glass recovered slowly and painfully; knowledge of survival skills on the lonely prairie served Hugh well, and he survives.A great portion of the poem is about this torturous painful recovery and (with broken legs) about a long crawling journey before his limbs had healed well enough for him to walk. He was seeking revenge on the friend who left him for dead and lefthim weaponless. After about two years of pain and primitive travel over the area roughly bounded by present-day Omaha, and Yellowstone Park, Hugh finally finds his friend who by this time has been left blind by Hugh's rifle when the rifle had blown-up in the companion's face; a vicarious and poetic revenge indeed. In the very end, after Hugh finally finds his old friend now blind in both eyes,Hugh forgives. It is a colorful story of friendship, tragedy, misdeed, pain, recovery,survival, revenge sought, and finally forgiveness.

"So the Omaha editor decided that a monument should be erected at the forks of the Grand River in what now is South Dakota. It never occurred to the editor that any kind of advanced notice should be afforded the people of Lemmon; in fact, from the timing of his letter to the Historical Society, any kind ofnotification