USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 54
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"The Ottoe looked badly cowed, but at last he said the distance was too short, and that if I would go back as far again he could beat me. So I consented and he put up another pack of skins and we ran two hundred yards. I had never run that distance before, but when it came to the last fifty yards the Indian gave out and I beat him further than I did the first race. The Indian then said the Iowas had not told him how fast I could run. I could not understand him, but 'Iowa Jim' told me what he said. I told Jim to tell him the Iowas did not know how fast I could run. I asked Jim what the Ottoe said, and Jim grinning, replied that he says, 'You can run as fast as you please or want to.'
"After this the Indians quit running with me, but would shoot with me for skins. When asked to run they would say, 'Muckeman run lika a muncha,' which in English meant 'White man run like a bear.' They would say of the Ottoe, 'He can run well but not fast enough.'
"The first Indians to visit me after I came to Missouri, did so early in the spring. It being December before I arrived, the Indians had all left their hunting grounds and gone to their towns for winter quarters. John Harris and wife were living with me. Harris and myself had made a very homely cabin without windows and had nailed clap- boards on the insides of all the cracks. When spring came the women pulled off all the boards that covered one crack the whole length of the cabin, to give light in place of a window. My wife and Mrs. Harris were sisters, but not at all alike in disposition. My wife was not easily frightened, while Mrs. Harris was very timid. Neither of them had ever seen an Indian, but had heard many frightful stories about their savage cruelties.
Getting Acquainted with the Iowas.
"One bright Sabbath morning in April, we all were seated at the breakfast table when one of us made the startling discovery that the open crack along the cabin was filled with eyes as close together as one head could be placed by the side of another. When Mrs. Harris saw this collection of eyes she cried out with alarm and jumped like a chicken with its head cut off. As soon as the Indians saw what an alarm they had caused, they all disappeared. One fellow then came round to the door-we had but one- walked in and sat down. None of us knew a word of their language. I asked him sev- eral questions in English such as 'what nation do you belong to,' etc., at which he would put his finger to his ear and shake his head indicating he did not understand me.
"The entire party, some forty or fifty, consisting of men, squaws and pappooses, went down near the spring, unpacked their ponies, stretched their wigwams and stayed there some two weeks. At first I noticed that some of the men appeared saucy and went about where they pleased, frequently invading my rights and interfering with my property. At this time lead was a very scarce article and worth twenty-five cents per pound and hard to get for that. I had a gun which carried a half-ounce ball, with which I had practiced shooting at a mark on a large tree near the cabin. I think I had shot two or three pounds of lead into the tree. One morning I saw a large stalwart Indian chopping the lead out of this tree, and I went to him and made motions for him to stop cutting it out, but he paid no attention to me, and at last, becoming vexed, I jumped at him and caught hold of the axe handle. He jerked it, but I held on and got both hands on the handle when I gave a violent jerk and brought him down on the ground. I then set my foot on his breast and wrenched the axe out of his hands and drew it up as if I intended striking him with it, when he whirled over and ran off on his hands and feet towards the Indian camp. I then walked to my cabin, and passing near the camp I threw the axe toward the
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Indian camp. That fellow never came near my cabin again while they encamped there. None of the rest afterwards interfered with anything that did not belong to them. It is a trait in the Indian character that if they find you will give way to them they will take everything they want, but if you make a manful resistance, they will respect your rights. I knew some timid men who moved out to the frontier and the Indians came and learned from the advances they never fail to make, that they feared to resist them and they took everything they had to eat and compelled them to remove to the settlements.
"I was from home one day helping a neighbor raise a cabin; my wife went with me, leaving three children at home, the eldest of whom was a little girl about nine years old. Soon after the departure of my wife and myself some four or five Indians came to the house, took the head off the bee stand, took out as much honey as they wanted, dug up a lot of potatoes, stole a pet pig I had in the yard and went off. The children ran across to our neighbor and got a boy to come and let me know of the depredations the Indians had committed. I immediately went in pursuit of the red rascals, taking with me a neighbor and a large negro man, and after following on their trail until nearly sunset we overtook two of them, but did not find the one who had stolen the pig. The two we found had some potatoes and honey. I stripped their blankets from their shoulders and pulled their arms around a sapling and held them one at a time until the negro gave them a whipping- or 'hiwassey,' as they called it. I then told them that if the pig was not brought back to my house by the time the sun was up the next morning, I would take their tracks, follow them up and take their scalps. I then went home and sometime during the night I heard the pig around the cabin hunting for something to eat. I was away from home many times afterwards when Indians would pass my cabin, but never knew them to take or disturb anything.
A Fight with a Bad Indian.
"In the spring of 1825, I, with Henry T. Williams, Thomas Williams, John P. Williams (the latter a boy some ten years of age) and Henry C. Sevier went on a surveying expedi- tion up the Grand Chariton river, and while thus engaged we were attacked by an infuriated savage. At first a sober Indian came to us on horseback with a rifle on his shoulder and told us that there was a 'bad Indian' coming and said for us to run. Directly we saw an Indian, yelling the war whoop of his tribe. I told Henry T. Williams what the Indian had said and Williams said, 'Tell him to stop him, for if he comes here we will kill him.' I told the Indian what was said and he rode back to meet the other one, and intercepted him several times. I soon saw he. was afraid of the rabid scoundrel, and would give way whenever the fellow would approach him with his knife drawn in a threatening manner. When the good, or sober, Indian found he could not stop the infuriated red skin he rode off to one side and looked on awhile to see what would happen, no doubt expecting to see one of us killed. The other Indian came ahead, yelling at the top of his voice, and brandishing his knife in a most threatening manner. When the attacking savage got within thirty or forty yards of us, our men became alarmed at him with his large, bright, glittering knife in his right hand, with his thumb on the handle, with it raised over his head, screaming the hideous war whoop, which is enough to chill the blood in every vein of almost any man. I was carrying the hind end of the chain ; Henry T. Williams, the compass ; H. C. Sevier, the fore end of the chain ; John P. Williams, the ax. The boy, John P. Williams, was near me and I called to him to hand me the ax, which he promptly did, but was frightened and crowded up close to me, so close in fact that I had to shove him away from me to get room to draw my ax back in readiness to strike. This was done in great haste, for the Indian with his knife drawn over his head was within ten steps of me and coming rapidly. His eyes looked green like a wounded panther, his distorted features were frightful; there was no time for dodging. I did not know whether the poll or edge of the ax was foremost, but luckily for the Indian the poll was foremost. When he got close enough I struck with all the power in me; and had the edge been foremost the stroke would have sent the ax through his head; nothing could have saved his life. The poll struck him on the right cheek and burst the bone all away, splitting the skin and flesh up into the eye and down in the mouth. The lick was so
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severe and given with such force that the weight of the Indian was not sufficient to stop the force of the ax, which weighed seven pounds. Nor was my grip sufficient to retain the handle. So the ax went with the Indian and when it fell it kept on and turned over several times beyond. I then ran around and picked up the ax, but saw at once that there was no danger of a second attack from that Indian, for he was to all appearances stone dead. But the sober Indian on the pony with his rifle in his hand was the next one to be attended to. We were in an open bottom prairie, and the Indian could ride upon us and kill one or more of us and safely ride away.
"I really expected when he saw his companion lying as if dead he would shoot one of us. In case lie shot at me I intended to hold the ax as well as I could in front of me to protect my vital parts. However, he rode slowly up to within fifteen or twenty steps, stopped his pony, sat there silently looking on for a few moments, dismounted and walked about half way to me, stopped, laid down his gun, held up both hands, walked this way to where I stood and said, 'Arropee,' which in English meant 'I am good.' For fear he might not be so 'arropee' when he saw his comrade was killed, I walked quickly by him and picked up his rifle. Then we all walked up to where the Indian lay, and Henry T. Williams said, 'You have killed him.' I saw that he was lying on his back, with a frightful hole in his cheek up; so no blood could escape except down his throat. I then laid down the ax and gun, took him by the shoulder, turned him over and beat him several times on the back so as to make the blood flow from the lungs, when there issued from the wound a great quantity of blood, some of which was curdled and looked like molded candles ; some pieces being a half-inch long that came out of his wind pipe.
"After beating out the blood as well as I could I turned him on his back again, and shortly saw signs of life like a pulse beating low down in his stomach, which was raised higher and higher until his whole stomach heaved up and the breath blew out of the incision made by the ax, splashing the blood all over us who were standing near him. By this time I had become cool and anxious he should get well, though I thought it very doubtful. The sober Indian then told me that we had better leave there, for said he, 'There are thirteen more out at the camp on the river, all bad Indians; fire water too much,' meaning all were drunk.
"I then told Henry T. Williams what the Indian said, and we agreed after consultation to move our camp into another township, over a large creek that was full of water, as it had been raining the night before. Thomas Williams was sick at camp. I told Sevier and John P. Williams to go on to camp and prepare for moving. After some time, enough for the man and boy to get to the camp, thinking perhaps that when Henry T. Williams and myself, being all left with the Indian, started to leave for camp, the Indian, who was very much grieved at the fate of his companion and was standing crying over him, might attempt to avenge himself and comrade by shooting one of us as we were going away which he could do with impunity, for we both were unarmed, I concluded to leave his gun empty. So I quietly took up the gun and fired it off in the air. The Indian was standing perfectly absorbed in watching his wounded comrade, not thinking of the gun being fired. So, when it was discharged, making a very loud report, he was very badly frightened. He jumped up off the ground and exclaimed, 'Woo.' Seeing that no harm was intended him he patted me all over and said: 'Arropee! arropee! muckeman!' which in English meant, 'good, very good white man.' . I then lay down his gun and we started for the camp, walking pretty rapidly. Every now and then I would look back and see if the Indian was loading his rifle, which I knew would take some time, so we might be enabled, if necessary, to run and we could probably make the camp, where we had an excellent rifle which would have placed us on an equal footing with him. But he never touched the rifle while we were in sight. After a little while he put the wounded Indian across his pony like a sack of meal, and held him by one' leg with one hand, and led the pony with the other. He went out in the direction they came. When we got to our camp the boys had everything ready to leave. I told them I had never known them to be so smart in getting ready to leave before. From there we crossed the east fork of the Chariton river into another township, where we remained at our surveying unmolested.
"Some six months after this occurrence, two Indians came to my house, one of whom
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was named Wahookey, a brother to the one with whom I had the encounter. They both had rifles ; they came into my front yard and Wahookey commenced by saying, 'You killed my brother ; you pay me six ponies.'
When Wahookey Weakened.
"I told him his brother was a bad Indian and tried to kill me. Wahookey said I lied. Henry Ashby, my brother, a young man and living with me, was present. I gave him the wink and walked round to the back door of the house, as the front door was shut. I told him the big Indian had called me a liar, and that I saw he was determined to create a disturbance so as to get an excuse to kill me, for he said I killed his brother. I then told Henry to take his rifle and I would take mine (we had two as good as ever were and both in good condition), and we would go out into the yard, and if they did not go at the word, for him to shoot the smaller one and I would attend to the big one, Wahookey.
"At this point Henry made a suggestion, about which I frequently laughed at him . afterwards. He said, 'Here is a crack by the door; maybe we had better shoot them out of it.' 'Oh, no,' said I, 'we may scare them off without killing either of them, which I greatly prefer. so we will go round the house, ready to shoot, and if they make any motion like resistance. we can shoot before they can.'
"So we went around and prepared to shoot in an instant. I then spoke in an angry tone in their own language, 'Puck a chee. Peas cooney ca ha,' which meant, 'leave or run, you mean scoundrels.' At the words they ran, not even taking time to shoulder their rifles. As far as I could see them, the farther they went the faster they ran. I did not like the signs of the times, for I knew the Indians' great desire for revenge, and many of my friends insisted on leaving the country at least for a while. I did think for a while that I would do so, but never did.
"At another time the same Indians, in company with eight or ten others, came to Judge Morse's, about two and a half miles from my house. Having been drinking so much that it made them outspoken on the subject of being revenged for the death of the Indian I had killed, old Wahookey proposed that they should go to my house and make me sleep, as they expressed it; but in the company was my friend, Iowa Jim, who opposed the plan of making me sleep, saying I was a good warrior and his best friend. Judge Morse could understand some of their language, so he secretly put his little son on a horse and sent him around to let me know that the Indians were going to kill me. It so happened that James Leeper. Champaign Turpin, John Harris and James Bourland, all my neighbors, had just come to my house, bringing their guns with them to go hunting. After the little boy delivered his message, we sent him home around so as not to meet the Indians if they were coming. We also sent my family to a neighbor's house. We saddled our horses and took them round to the back of the farm and there hitched them in the corn, which was very high, it being in September, and concealed ourselves in the corners of the fence to await the coming of the gang. However, fortunately for them, my friends among them prevailed, and they passed on without coming to my house. We waited until sunrise the next morning, having passed a sleepless night in considerable anxiety, expecting an attack from them. Even if we had repulsed them it might have involved the settlements in an Indian war. This was the last raid they ever made so far as I could learn afterward. Iowa Jim always stood by me, and to his last day was a warm and devoted friend of mine.
Panic in the Bluff Settlement.
"I remember another difficulty with the Indians which now may seem a very small affair, after witnessing the terrible battles of the recent Civil war; but at the time it happened it was regarded as a serious engagement, for there were but few small, sparsely populated settlements in our country, and a little disturbance affecting the lives and happi- ness of ourselves, wives and children naturally would create a great commotion. There was a small band of Iowa Indians came into a settlement, on a creek called the Wakenda. And six or eight men in company with the notorious Martin Palmer, who, when drinking, called himself the 'Ring-Tail Painter,' became involved in, a difficulty with them. They got into a fight with the Indians, and I always blamed the 'Ring-Tailed Painter' with
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inciting the difficulty and bringing on the bloodshed. In the fight the whites killed three of the Iowas and wounded one or two more, at which the surviving Indians went on the war path, threatening to get the balance of their band and massacre the entire settlements. "In those times when any trouble took place with the Indians, all the frontier settlers had to leave their homes and flee to the large settlements for safety until the troubles passed over. At this time there was a small settlement called the Bluff settlement, where I lived, which was one of the outposts. At the time of the disturbance I was in Howard county, and on my return to my home I crossed the Bowling Green prairie. This prairie was about six miles wide, being a high, level second bottom, very rich, producing tall, coarse grass.
"The day was very hot and the green head flies fairly swarmed around me. After pushing through the grass in great haste across the prairie so as to get rid of the annoying flies, I got within about a mile of the bluffs, when I saw some kind of a caravan coming helter-skelter towards me. Wondering what on earth it was I hastened to meet it. When I encountered the outfit I found the whole Bluff settlement on a dead run to a larger settlement, my wife and children in the crowd, and all badly frightened over the prospect of an Indian outbreak. Of all I had met with this was the worst. At first I tried to persuade all of them to return to their homes; but I could not do this. I then proposed that we should return to the timber and cut down trees with which to make breastworks and block-houses so we could defend ourselves if attacked, but the excited crowd would not hear to this. Nothing would do but to go on across the prairie, and so on we all went, with the green head flies so bad that they bit the children, making them cry. Some had horses and some oxen hitched to their wagons. My family was in a large sled drawn over the dry ground by a large yoke of oxen. In this shape on we went pell-mell, without system or order, but every fellow trying to be foremost. I made no attempt at order until we entered the thick bottom timber south of the Bowling Green, where we soon got rid of the worst plague, the green head flies.
"After travelling a few miles, we found some empty cabins, where I persuaded all hands to stop their flight. About this season the entire country had the real shaking ague. I have seen twenty-two persons down shaking at one time. There were four families in one of the cabins that had but three rooms, counting an open passage as one room, and here in this bottom and in this crowded condition we remained for ten weeks. During this time every soul, except myself and a black girl, had the ague. I did not stay with the party all the time, but would go up to the bluffs and hunt all day around my cabin, kill some deer, cook and eat at my cabin, and sleep about the centre of my little cornfield, under a large lime tree that had retained its leaves in spite of my having cut it all around in the spring. The leaves of this tree made a dense shade which prevented the dew from falling on me, and I slept comfortably under my blanket.
"Finally the difficulty was settled with the Iowas, and all hands were well pleased to go back to their little homes on the bluffs. All the next winter we had to beat all the meal we ate. But the next fall I was lucky, for I heard of a pair of hand mill stones down in Howard county. I went and purchased them, got them fixed up in a gum about four feet high, and with a small hole on one edge of the upper stone, or runner, as it is called in a mill; but that should have been dubbed by some other name, for there was very little run to it. Still, bad as it was, it was a great relief to all the settlement, and on many a night have I awakened and heard the mill, as we called it, clattering away. The reader may regard this in what light he pleases, but bread got in this manner was as sweet as any I ever ate."
Rules of War in Universal Training Days.
"The Sarcoxie war" was one of the Indian incidents in which no blood was shed. It occurred when the militia law of Missouri was in full force and every able-bodied man from eighteen to forty-five was required to turn out for drill three or four times a year. Osage Indians had been assembling in the vicinity of Sarcoxie and acting suspiciously. Major General Joseph Powell called out
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his whole division and marched against the Osages. The Indians protested that they had come to hunt and fish, and readily consented to be conducted back to their reservation. General Powell marched back again and demobilized, but committed some breaches of military law in the opinion of his subordinates. He was tried by a military commission and dismissed from state service. The charges were made by Brigadier General Smith of the Greene county troops. Smith, himself, did not escape some criticism. He attempted to pass his own lines on this Sarcoxie campaign when the sentry, who had seen some real army service, halted him with. "Who comes there!" "A friend," said General Smith. "Ad- vance and give the countersign," the sentry demanded. "I haven't the counter- sign," said the general, "but I am General Smith from Springfield, and it is all right." "Halt !" the sentinel shouted, "I don't care if you are General Smith from hell, you can't pass here without the countersign."
"Ringtail" Parmer was the hero in one of the most savage Indian fights on record in Missouri history. A band of Osages on a robbing tour camped near the cabin of Widow McElroy, near the mouth of Fishing river, and began roast- ing corn, shooting pigs and trying to drive away the horses. The widow sent her boy of ten years to Parmer, the nearest neighbor. Parmer and his son went to the rescue. When they reached the widow's place only seven of the Indians were there. Both of the Parmers fired and killed two of the Indians. The remaining five ran into the cabin and barricaded the door. Without waiting to reload, Parmer climbed on top of the roof and began to pull off the boards. One of the Indians ran out of the house. Parmer fired and wounded him. His gun · empty, Parmer drew a knife and jumped down from the roof, ran to the wounded Indian and cut his throat. Parmer and his son kept up the fight until they had killed three more. The seventh got away badly wounded. Then they dragged the six bodies to a gully and threw them in.
The Pottawatomie War.
Shelby county's "Pottawatomie war" had its beginning and ending in the coming and going of about sixty friendly Indians from Iowa who helped them- selves to a few pumpkins and some corn for their ponies. But while the scare lasted it was realistic. Settlers mounted their horses and ran them into Shelby- ville. Malachi Wood was one of these, riding one horse and having his wife and child on another. Mrs. Wood dropped the child and shouted to Malachi who was ahead, "Stop' Malachi, stop! I've dropped the baby. Stop and help me save it." Malachi called back, "Never mind the baby. Let's save the old folks. More babies can be had !"
A free fight between the Shelbyville company and the volunteers who had come over from Palmyra to help exterminate the Pottowattomies was the only serious part of the war. This occurred after the Shelbyville men had treated · the Palmyra men. The latter insisted the treating should go on for an indefinite number of rounds and said it was a bad way to "invite men to drink and then make them pay for it." Shelbyville and Palmyra men mixed in a beautiful all around row and then made up, the Shelbyville men adopting a resolution thank- ing the Palmyra volunteers "for the assistance they rendered us and for the entertainment they furnished us."
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