USA > California > Lassen County > Fairfield's pioneer history of Lassen County, California; containing everything that can be learned about it from the beginning of the world to the year of Our Lord 1870 Also much of the pioneer history of the state of Nevada the biographies of Governor Isaac N. Roop and Peter Lassen and many stories of Indian warfare never before published > Part 42
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The following lived here twenty years or more: Edward Kingsbury, David Houk and Family, Louis Thibault.
The following lived here from two or three to ten or twelve years: Charles Moore and Family, James R. Withington, John L. Martin, James Chamberlain and Wife, Levi Chatfield and Family.
LASSEN COUNTY POLITICS
In April the Board of Supervisors ordered that the Janes- ville and the Stark School Districts be consolidated and called the Janesville District. E. P. Soule was appointed Justice of the Peace for Susanville. In May the Board ordered A. W. Din- widdie to take the proper steps for keeping a toll bridge over Long valley creek in Lassen county. In July the Board declared the office of District Attorney vacant, the person elected having failed to file the bond and take the oath of office as required by law. It was ordered that W. R. Harrison be appointed District Attorney of Lassen county for the balance of the unexpired term of I. N. Roop. November third J. D. Byers was elected Supervisor for the Second District.
INDIAN TROUBLES. 1868
JOHN L. CROW'S HORSES STOLEN BY THE INDIANS Told by Dr. Samuel H. Crow
In the spring of 1868 J. L. Crow of Clover valley was feeding some horses in the Tules in Honey Lake valley. They were fed hay at the ranch of William S. Hamilton and were allowed to run at the Upper Hot spring, perhaps a mile and a half north- east of the ranch. They were in charge of a man named Zeke Nelson. One night not far from the 27th of March the Indians stole twenty head of them, perhaps the whole band. About the same time they also stole some horses from the nighborhood of Mud springs. Nelson went to Clover valley and told Mr. Crow who, as soon as he could conveniently do so, raised a crowd of twenty men in Sierra valley and started in pursuit of the thieves. In Long valley they were joined by Elijah Miller, Frank Din-
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widdie, an Indian called "Crapo Joe," and perhaps some others. The Indian came back in a few days. The first night out they camped at High Rock, twelve miles east of the Lower Hot springs. That was the night after the Pearson Family and Cooper were killed, and if they had known about it, in all probability the next day they would have caught up with the Indians who did the killing. They followed the trail of the Indians into Secret valley and Mrs. L. W. Sharp says that here they found a party from the Tules-Hiram Winchel, "Big" Joe Smith, and several others, part or all of whom went with them. John B. McKissick says that Sylvester Summers, Henry Warden, and himself went with the Crow party from Secret valley. They followed the trail across Madeline Plains and on north and crossed the lower end of Surprise valley. Mr. Crow went from there to Ft. Bidwell and got some soldiers to go with them. They followed the Indians to Steens Mts. and at night, just as they were going to camp, the army scouts came in and reported that they had found the Indians. They all packed up as soon as they could and went after them. When the Indians saw them coming they shot the horses full of poisoned arrows and then ran into the brush. The whites followed them and after going a short distance found some sticks piled up in a peculiar way. When the officer in com- mand of the soldiers saw these he said that the Indians intended to fight and made them all dismount. While this was going on the Indians got so far away that they never got a shot at them, excepting that an Indian named Ralph, who lived with Mr. Crow, shot at a squaw and missed her. She allowed him to get close enough for that because she thought he was one of her own party. The most of the horses died shortly after being shot. They started for home with five or six of them, but one died before they got there. Mrs. Sharp says that Winchel brought home some horses that had been shot with poisoned arrows, but they did not live very long.
THE MASSACRE OF THE PEARSON FAMILY AND S. C. COOPER
The story of this massacre was told to the writer by Mrs. Lurana W. Sharp, the widow of James P. Sharp, who had pre- viously talked the matter over with Mrs. Louisa Fry, the widow of George W. Fry, and Mrs. James Slater, who at the time of this occurrence was the wife of William S. Hamilton. These
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three women lived on the ranches nearest to the scene of the mur- der and took part in the events that followed it, all of the cir- cumstances connected with it were strongly impressed upon their minds, and without any doubt they know more about it at this time than everybody else alive.
In the fall of 1867 Thomas Pearson and his partner, John Sutherland, both Englishmen, moved from their home in Red Rock valley, six miles east of the lower end of Long valley, to the east side of Honey lake near the Lower Hot springs. Pearson had a wife and a daughter named Hattie, a girl about eighteen years old. Sutherland was a single man. Their house was half a mile southwest of where Amedee now stands and not far from the lake. They made this move because very little snow fell dur- ing the winter in the neighborhood of these springs, and there was better feed for their dairy cows. At that time James P. Sharp lived to the southwest of the Upper Hot spring on the south side of the most eastern slough in the Tules, and they hired him to go down and cut some hay for them.
By the middle of April they were getting extremely anxious to go back to their home. Some time during the winter two Indians had been killed between the Lower and the Upper Hot springs. It was supposed that the killing had been done by two white men who were hunting in that vicinity at the time, for one Indian was killed with a rifle and the other with a shotgun and the two hunters were armed with those weapons. Mrs. Pearson was afraid that the Indians would think her husband and his partner killed them because it happened so near to their place; and she told the neighbors that she was careful to be kind to all the Indians who came there, and even allowed the squaws to sleep on the kitchen floor. The stealing of Mr. Crow's horses about the last of March made them still more uneasy. To add to their troubles the lake was rising rapidly and it looked as though the water would be in the house in a day or two.
On the 16th of April Pearson went up to get Sharp to help move him, but the latter had gone to Susanville that morning. Pearson said he was in a hurry to move because the lake was coming up so fast, and Mrs. Sharp told him he had better go over to the Hamilton ranch about three fourths of a mile to the west and see what he could do there. She thought he might be able to get Hamilton's hired man and a team to help him. He went over
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to the other ranch and succeeded in getting the hired man, Cooper, and a team for a few days, and they went down to the Pearson place as soon as they could get ready. That night Mrs. Sharp stayed at the Hamilton place and the next morning he went home with her and helped milk the cows. While he was there they saw a light at the Upper Hot spring and he took a spyglass and went up stairs to see who was there. After looking for a while he came to the conclusion that some Indians were there around a fire. Mrs. Sharp told him not to say anything to his wife about it, for she was afraid of the Indians and it would make her worry. Mrs. Sharp says that she herself had never been afraid of the Indians, but that day she was alone and was uneasy and wandered around outside the house all day until some one came.
As soon as Pearson reached home with Cooper and the team they began to load the wagon and the family made preparations to move the next day which was Friday, the 17th of April. Their hay was all gone and the cows were restless, so the next morning Sutherland and another man, whom J. O. Hemler says was Henry Berryman, arose early and started off with them. The day before they had all been out hunting rabbits and had returned to the house with no loads in their guns, and left them in that con- dition. Sutherland afterwards told that when he got some dis- tance from the house he had a presentiment that he ought to go back and load the guns, but he failed to heed it and went on with the cows. After breakfast they finished loading up their goods and started. Not far from the house was a piece of low land which the rising lake had covered with water. The ground had become soft, and here Hamilton's two-horse team, driven by his hired man, Samuel Cooper, got stuck in the mud and they were a long time in getting out of it. Pearson and his partner had a band of sheep running between the lake and the mountain which they were leaving there for the time being in the care of a young man twenty or twenty-one years old named John Wol- lenburg. Just as they got out onto the firm ground he ran down and asked Mrs. Pearson what time it was. She looked at the clock and told him it was twenty minutes past twelve and he went back to the sheep. The party then went on, Cooper in the lead, followed by Pearson with a spring wagon and behind him his Wife and Daughter in another spring wagon. They took the
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road down the lake to the southeast and before going very far they came to Wollenburg's tent. Just as they drove past it Wollenburg heard the report of some guns and he looked back and saw some Indians run out of the tent and heard the women scream. He saw Cooper jump or fall off his wagon on the side opposite the tent, and saw Pearson jump off his wagon and run back to his Wife and Daughter. He didn't wait to see anything more. He had no weapons, for those his employers had given him were left in the tent and the Indians were using them, so he ran away as fast as he could. He ran down to the lake in order to get behind some high sand bluffs that were close to the shore. The Indians chased him for a ways, but he had the start and naturally did some good running, and they soon gave up the pursuit. He ran into the lake and when his boots got full of water he threw them away. When he left the water he had to travel over ground covered with thorny brush that tore his feet and legs cruelly, and when he reached the end of his journey they were in a terrible condition. Owing to his lack of boots he made slow progress and it was four o'clock, or later, before he arrived at the Sharp ranch. Mr. Sharp got home that day about two o'clock and later on went over to the Hamilton place. Mrs. Sharp was out of doors and saw the young man coming. She saw he was barefooted and knew at once that something was the matter. He came up to the edge of the deep slough that was between him and the house and she asked him what the trouble was. He told her that the Indians had attacked the Pearsons and what he had seen, but of course could not tell the result of it. He then went up the slough toward the crossing and Mrs. Sharp started for the Hamilton ranch. On the way she met her husband coming on horseback and he turned and went back to Mr. Hamilton's. Mrs. Hamilton went about three fourths of a mile west to the Chandler and Fry place and they sent to the lower place on the lake to the south for Chandler. After going to the Hamilton place Sharp immediately rode over to the Shaffer Station and gave the alarm there. George Fry, Dewitt Chandler, Uriah and James Shaffer, Eli Newton, "Big" Joe Smith, and some other men of the neighborhood, gathered at the Sharp ranch and hastily made ready to go to the scene of the tragedy. It was late when they started and darkness had come on before they got there. Wollenburg, who was too tired to go along and who went
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to the Hamilton ranch with Mrs. Sharp and stayed there that night, said that the Indians had fired from the tent. Sharp knew where the tent was and they went there first. They found that Cooper's team had run away during the fight, but they did not go far before one of the wheels went down into the mud and stopped them. While they were hunting around in the tent in the darkness Chandler struck his foot against something. One of the party struck a match and they saw it was Cooper's head. They thought that possibly some of the Pearsons had got back to the house and saved themselves, so they went down to the edge of the water and called to them, but got no reply. They did not dare to go across to the house for fear that the Indians were there wait- ing for them, so they came back to the Sharp ranch and all but Fry, who went home, stayed there that night. The next morning the same men and Hiram Winchel went back to the Lower Hot springs and some one, Mrs. Sharp thinks it was Mr. Fry, took a team along to bring back Mr. Hamilton's wagon, for the Indians had taken away all six of the horses. Before they got to the tent they saw the bodies of Cooper and the Pearsons lying naked on the ground. Mrs. Slater says they found Cooper's body the night before. His body was the farthest away. It looked as though he had drawn his pistol and wounded an Indian before they succeeded in killing him. Appearances indicated that the Indians had carried the wounded one away, for there were little pools of blood showing where they had stopped to rest. When Cooper left home Hamilton told him that he had better take a rifle with him; but he thought it was not necessary, and said he would take his revolver for he "might see a darned Indian." His head was cut off, his heart cut out, and he was otherwise mutilated.
Evidently as Pearson ran toward the women the Indians shot some arrows, perhaps half a dozen, into his back. He was between the Indians and the women, who had jumped out of their wagon and were running back up the valley. It seemed as though he was trying to protect his family as long as he lived, and they must have killed him before they did the women. Mrs. Sharp remembers of no other wounds on his body excepting those made by the arrows. The women lay close together. The Mother was shot in front at close range with a shotgun, and the charge struck her in the region of the heart. Her body was not very badly
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torn in front, but where the shot went out her back was just riddled. She must have fought for her life the best she could, for her finger nails were bloody as if she had clawed with them. Her hair was pulled down and a good deal of it was torn out by the roots, and her gold earrings had been cut out. The girl lay farther away from the wagon than any of the rest of the family. She had a gunshot wound, a bullet, under one eye, and had been struck on the forehead with some blunt weapon, perhaps the head of an ax. She was not mutilated at all-they did not even cut out her earrings. It looked as though the Indians had gone away in great haste and perhaps that is the reason why she was left in that way.
Some sheets had been brought along that morning, and the bodies of the dead were rolled in these, put into the wagon, and the party returned to the Sharp ranch, arriving there a little after noon. Mrs. Hamilton had come home with Mrs. Sharp and the two women got dinner for the men. The dead were in no. condition to be taken into a house where people were living and they were left in the wagon until after dinner and then were taken over to the Shaffer ranch. The two women went along and washed and laid out Mrs. Pearson and her Daughter, and some of the men did the same for the dead men. Mrs. Sharp could not tell who it was, but George Fry helped through it all. Mrs. Slater says she took clothes enough along with her to dress all four of the bodies. Early that morning Mr. Hamilton started for Susanville with a spring wagon and brought back three coffins for the Pearsons. Hiram Winchel had some lumber and he planed it and made a coffin for Cooper. On the 19th they were all taken to Susanville and buried at once. The Pearsons had two daughters older than the one killed who had married two brothers by the name of Jackson. At this time these men were in the hardware business in Sacramento. Mrs. Hamilton had learned this from Mrs. Pearson, and she wrote to them and told them the fate of their relatives. The two women came here at once and took the bodies to Sacramento, and it is supposed that they were buried there. Mr. Cooper still lies in the cemetery at Susanville. These were the last white folks killed by the Indians in Honey Lake valley.
On the 20th, or the day before, Winchel, "Big" Joe Smith, and several others, went down to where the murder took place
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and made a careful examination of the ground. Judging by the tracks of the Indians they came to the conclusion that there were nine of them.
Of course no one knows why the Indians committed this mur- der, but several reasons were given. One was that it was done in revenge for the killing of the two Indians near there the pre- vious winter. Another was that Cooper was a hard man with the Indians, that he abused and mistreated them, and that he was killed because of this. When he was killed he was wearing some kind of a garment he had taken from the Indians a year or two before that in a fight with them out toward the Humboldt river. After the Indians had killed him they killed the others just for the pleasure of it, or because they could not resist the temptation of killing whites when they had a good chance to do it.
"The Eastern Slope" of April 25th says the deed was done in revenge for the killing of the Pit river Indians in Dry valley the previous year by Winnemucca and his braves and the Long val- ley men, that shortly afterwards thirty head of horses were stolen from Winnemucca valley, and that the bodies of four murdered Piutes were found in the same vicinity. Francis C. Dickinson (Tule Frank) says that on the night of the 19th of April the Evans Brothers, the two Graham Brothers, Blum & Barrows (two Spaniards), and himself lost a hundred head of horses from Winnemucca valley, the head of Dry valley, and that vicin- ity: They recovered only a few of them. The Graham Brothers and the Spaniards followed the Indians out to the north of Fish springs, but they found too many Indian tracks and came back.
THE PURSUIT OF THE INDIANS WHO KILLED THE PEARSON FAMILY AND SAMUEL COOPER-THE SUSANVILLE PARTY
The following account was written from what was told by Charles Lawson and Thomas Brown. Lawson's narrative has been followed because he gave a much more complete account of the expedition than Brown did. Where the two men differ both stories are told.
The news of the "Pearson Massacre" was brought to Susan- ville by some one on Friday night. A company of fourteen or fifteen men was raised at once and during the night they made hasty preparations for their expedition. Early on Saturday
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morning, the 18th, they left Susanville under the leadership of Albert A. Smith. (Brown thinks it was Sunday.) Smith was County Clerk and Captain of the Honey Lake Rangers. Some of the men in the company were Thomas Brown, Horace Wright, Elisha Vaden, John McDaniel, Henry Wright, William Corse, Cyrus Lawson, Joseph Meyers, and Charles Lawson. They went down the north side of the river and camped that night at the Shaffer ranch. There they were joined by one man from the Tules. Because he carried two guns they called him "Crossfire" and no other name is known for him. The other men joked him about his weapons, but he was a brave man and did his part well. Brown says that one of the Fairchilds Brothers from Mil- ford joined them here, too. Some of the men wanted to go on out to Mud Flat that afternoon, but Smith would not go. He said they would stay there and start out fresh in the morning. It was supposed that the Indians they were in pursuit of were Pit Rivers and that they would leave the valley by passing around the eastern side of the Hot Springs mountain. It was thought that whether the Indians went north or kept out on the desert time would be gained by taking the emigrant road which ran north of the mountain, and besides that, it would be better trav- eling along the road. Before they got to Mud springs they struck the trail of the Indians going north and after following it a short distance found where they had camped the previous night. The coals and ashes of their fire were still warm, and if the white men had gone on the day before, they would have caught them at this place and the murderers might have received their just deserts. From this place they followed the trail to the north, and somewhere near noon as they were going up the hill on the north side of Secret valley, they stopped for a while. Charles Lawson wanted to fix the sight on his gun and he and his brother went up on the top of a little ridge close by. In a few minutes they saw an Indian mounted on a gray horse, one of Hamilton's, and another one on foot coming toward them. They slipped down the hill and told the others and Smith ran to the top of the ridge and leveled a spyglass at them. Just then they saw him and ran up the canyon at the right of the ridge. The whites pursued them, but kept on up the ridge and followed the tracks of the four horses they had been trailing. Before going very far they reached some junipers, and there they almost ran
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into the main band of the Indians who scattered and ran away as soon as they saw them. Instead of telling his men to charge Smith told them to get behind the bushes so the Indians could not see them. They obeyed his command and stayed there until the Indians got out of reach, and thus another opportunity to "take in" the redskins was lost. The men cursed and growled while they were held there, and one man offered to charge the Indians if five men would go with him. Before leaving home the men had agreed to obey Smith's orders and probably this kept them from making the charge. The men growled about this all night and the next day. When the Indians ran they shot a lot of arrows into two of the horses they had with them and left them there. Their packs had been taken off and cached under some rocks not far away. When the arrows were pulled out of the horses they fell down and died almost immediately. The Indians took the other two horses about a quarter of a mile to the east of the trail and left them there tied to some junipers with their packs on. Charles Lawson wanted to leave them there and see if the Indians would not come back after them, but the others wanted to see what was in the packs and the horses were taken along with them. Their packs and those of the two horses killed contained the things taken from the Pearsons. The Honey Lakers went on up the hill to a place called "Rye Patch," and as it was then getting late, they concluded to camp there for the night. A few minutes after they stopped they heard the lowing of some cattle that were coming up the hill toward them. Meyers and another man went down to see if there were any Indians with them, but found none. They now unsaddled, and as Charles Lawson stood holding his horse he saw through the dusk the Indian on the gray horse riding past about a hundred and twenty-five yards away. He raised his gun and took aim at him, but just as he pulled the trigger Smith struck up his gun and the bullet went into the air. (Brown says they camped in Secret valley that night, and that during the night a party of Indians was heard passing, but it was too dark to attack them. They supposed it was a part of the Indians they were pursuing who had been delayed by the bulk of their plunder. The next morn- ing they found a heavily loaded pack animal that had been abandoned because it was exhausted.) The next morning they started for Madeline Plains six miles distant. When they reached
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the top of the hill overlooking the Plains they could see seven or eight miles ahead of them, but there were no Indians in sight and the Plains were covered with water. It had been a wet, snowy winter and there was a great deal more mud and water than usual in the country at that time. The most of the men were dissatisfied and discouraged because they considered that they had been compelled to lose two good chances of getting the Indians. They thought from the looks of the country ahead that there was little chance of overtaking the Indians again, and if they did it would do them no good. After talking the matter over for a while they determined to turn back and go home. Brown thinks they camped there that night and Lawson is equally certain that they went back to Secret valley to an old stone cabin. Whichever way it was is immaterial, but that night the Long valley party under Newt. Evans, then consisting of twenty men, caught up with them. Evans wanted the Susanville crowd to go on after the Indians with him. Charles Lawson was angry and disgusted because they had turned back and was going home anyhow. After considerable talking had been done Lawson said to Evans, "If you will go ahead with me and let me do the trailing, and the others will follow as far as I go, I will join your party." Evans agreed to this, and Charles Lawson, Brown, Meyers, William H. Crane (whose name was omitted in the list of those who went from Susanville), Horace Wright, McDaniel, "Crossfire," and perhaps another one of the Susanville men, joined the Long valley men. Newt. and "Pete" Evans, the Piute, and enough of the other Long valley men to make up a party of sixteen, prepared to follow the Indians. All the rest of both parties went back taking with them the two horses they had recovered and the goods plundered from the Pearsons. "Uncle Jake" McKissick was among those who went back. The names of the others who went on or turned back could not be ascertained.
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