USA > Montana > Blaine County > In the land of Chinook; or, The story of Blaine county > Part 11
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ernment horse if you are not a soldier?' I told them that I had a small pony which had played out and that Miles had given me this one so I could go down to the river and do some good work for them. I swore to God in the Indian fashion that I was telling the truth, and they shook hands with me and told me to ride and ride fast. I started out but turned back to say something but they motioned me to keep going on and I took them at their word. Miles had offered me twenty-five ponies, the pick of the band, and five hundred dollars for the capture of White Bird, dead or alive."
Bent is at this date, May, 1917, near the reservation.
Ranch Mouth Snake Creek, Fort Belknap Ind. Reservation, 7/30-1915.
Mr. Thos. Dowen, Chinook, Mont.
Dear Sir: Your letter of the 20th just received. In replying I would say the small brass cannon, you mention in your letter, was brought to the territory, now the State of Montana, early in 1850 in mackinaws (boats) cordelled by Choteau's men, or by Alex Culbertson to Fort Union (afterward Fort Buford), then again to Fort Benton by river; then again down the river to Fort Hawley, above the mouth of the Musselshell river, then when this place (Hawley) was abandoned in 1868 it was hauled by bull team to the new Fort Browning, on Milk river. I was then at Fort Browning helping to build this post when the two cannon were brought there by the Northwest Fur company by Louis Hubble and Geo. Boyd in charge. The mate of this gun is at Fort Belknap Agency now. When we abandoned old Fort Browning in about 1870 we hauled most everything up to the new post, Fort Belknap then being built up to near where Chinook is now. As we had hauled about everything our last, next trip, was to be some flooring we had torn up, and the two brass cannon, one in the northeast and the other in the southwest bastions (block houses) corners of the stockade. In making our next to last trip we had not gone ten miles, when, looking back, we saw an immense column of black smoke and a little while after saw a war party of hostile Sioux Indians following us. We then knew they had burnt the abandoned old Fort. We had left nobody there. Afterwards when we went back we found the old Fort partly destroyed; that is the southwest bastion, was completely burned. This cannon you are asking about was in this fire (bastion) ; the other cannon, its mate, was taken up to new Belknap, near where Chinook now is; then afterwards to the new Agency near Harlem. These small guns were used twice at Browning on the hostiles. We also used them to salute the friendlys, when large trading
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All that is left of the oldest building in Blaine County, the "Old Belknap Agency." "Billy" Skillen, the sage of Milk River, in the doorway.
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parties, loaded with buffalo robes and skins, came in to trade with us. There was never any military or soldiers stationed at old Browning, only once, Maj. Freeman with two companies of infan- try stayed at old Fort Browning about one month, no others. The most important man in Indian affairs here then was Maj. A. J. Simons; (Alex Culbertson and myself, his interpreters. )
Yours respectfully,
W. BENT.
Harlem, Montana.
If there is any more information you would like on this sub- ject, please let me know.
JOSEPH MOSSER.
"I was born in Alsace, France, July 10th, 1840. I came to the U. S. in 1846, to New Orleans. We came in an old sailing vessel and were sixty-one days on the ocean. My grandfather was with Napoleon and was one of the few who came back from Moscow. (His name was Joseph Martin.) We did not remain very long in New Orleans, but went to Kenton county, Kentucky. I remember seeing Daniel Boone's name carved on a tree on the Licking river. The date was there but I do not at this time recall it. We farmed in the summer and in the winter took bolting and staves down to Cincinnati in flat boats. I was in New Orleans in '61 when the war broke out, when the first gun was fired at Fort Sumpter. We got a steamboat and were captured at Helena, Arkansas, and held three days. They had a grudge against Cin- cinnati as arms were coming from that city to Arkansas. The boat was the Queen of the West. When I arrived in Cincinnati I tried to enlist but they would not accept me as they said my lungs were too weak. We leased a farm and moved to it in '64. In '64 I left St. Louis for Fort Benton on the steamer Benton. Thomas Ray was captain and Henry A. Dolman chief clerk. We arrived at Benton, June, '64. I did not go to the mines as I saw too many who said provisions were so high that a small amount of money would only last a short time, so I returned to St. Louis on the same boat. I worked up and back and received $65 per month. When we arrived at St. Louis I was put on as watchman for a few trips to Cairo. I was in business in Cincin- nati from the summer of 1864 to 1868, and again went to work on the Success, under the same captain and clerk that had run on the Benton. After reaching Benton I went back to the mouth of the Musselshell, then called Kirtzville, at that time supposed to be the county seat of Dawson county. James Brewer (who was afterwards at White Sulphur Springs) was Sheriff. Bert Whit- son and some other man were the County Commissioners; no
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Judge, just a Justice of the Peace. I was appointed Deputy Sheriff to care for some property (cord wood and a yoke of cattle). There were two stores there at that time, George Clen- denning-Montana Hide and Fur company, and Jacob Smith at the head of a Helena firm. I put in my time at that place till some time early in the winter chopping wood. About Christmas I went to Rocky Point and worked for Lohmire and Lee, who had a wood yard. I worked for them until the spring of '69, when I went down to the mouth of the Musselshell with John Duffy in a skiff. It was only a short time after we arrived there that the fight took place between the men in the post and the Santee Sioux. It was ten or eleven in the morning when about 125 or 150 Indians got themselves in readiness to wipe us out. The first we knew we saw them on a rise a short distance away, waving their blankets and shouting that we were dogs, cowards and everything they could think of to belittle one. They shouted that we dare not fight. Finally one of the boys said: 'Let's give the - a go anyway.' To this the others agreed. Clen- denning said that that would be all right, but not to leave the place in his care all together as we might get into something that we could not carry through in the best kind of shape, or, in other words, we might get wiped out. Some ten or twenty stayed with him.
"There was a deep, cut bank coulee that ran into the Mus- selshell, a short distance from the fort, and fifty or sixty of the enemy got into that thinking to cut us off from the fort when we went after the fellows on the hill. If it had not been for Jake Leader's dog we would no doubt have fallen into their trap. The dog scented the Indians and looked over at them and Jake followed him up and was peaking over when an Indian shot him in the point of his nose and the bullet came out the back of his head. (See the Story of Billy Cochran). After this four men went across the Musselshell in a skiff, and came up opposite this hole and began to throw shots in so fast the Indians could not stand it so that they had to get out. Thirty-one or thirty-two of them were killed. These men were Frank Smith, James Wells, Joe Girard, a little Frenchman, and someone else. (Cochran says Frank Smith, Jim Wells, G. R. Norris and him- self were the four men). The fight did not last long after it got well started, maybe one-half hour. The Indians were too badly scared to return but kept running as long as they could, but some got so full of lead that they had to stop. The last one to get out of the hole was a half-breed boy who ran toward the whites and said: 'Me good Injun,' to which 'Liver Eating' Johnson replied: 'If you are good you are in d-d bad company,' and raising his gun killed him. Then he took out his knife and
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cut out the liver and putting one end of it in his mouth took his knife and cut off a piece and said: 'Boys try a piece of this, it is as good as antelope liver.' This act gave J. J. Johnson the name which he ever afterwards carried, 'Liver Eating' John- son. Soon after this fight I went up to Rocky Point on the first boat. In those days if a person wanted to go any where he was careful not to start till it was dark as the Indians were always lying in wait for him. I was in a good many scraps with the Indians but was very lucky in getting out whole. Three of the boys were killed at Carroll Point. They were old man Lee, Drew Denton and Charlie Williams. These men were going along the river when they saw the Indians and they got into some brush to hide, but the Indians saw the tracks and charged their position. Old man Lee was killed when he rose up and said 'How, How.' He was shot in the head. Williams was flesh wounded in the shoulder; he had a lot of cartridges and a bul- let hit some of them and they exploded and he cried out: 'God, Drew, I'm blown up.' Drew replied: 'Never mind that, keep shooting.' That same bunch of Indians were at my place that morning and had run us into the stockade. (This was in April, 1870.) Drew and Williams came up on the other side of the river from us and shouted across to us and we went over and got them about two o'clock in the morning. They said they had fought the Sioux all day and that old Lee was dead. We went down about two days after this and buried him, close to where he fell. There was evidence of a good sized scrap. The Indians told some one that they lost eleven men at that time. This was at Carroll Point. They were trying to make it the head of navigation, instead of Benton. I quit the river in 1871 as the boats quit running, to any extent, and most all the wood yards were abandoned. I had only made a living during my business career on the Missouri. I had five hundred cords of wood (that went into the river afterwards) and one yoke of cattle which were killed by the Reds, so I backed the wagon into the river and let go too. I did this to keep the Indians from getting the spokes with which they made handles for their whips. I had made more money chopping wood for three dollars per cord than I had in running the business for myself. There were only six boats up the river in 1870 and as high as forty were running in the old days before the railroad was built to Corrinne. The railroad changed the conditions on the upper Missouri. When in the wood business on the river we trapped and hunted and tried to make a little extra money in that way. Wolf hides were $2.50; coyote, $1.25; lynx, $5.00; bobcats, $1.50; foxes, $1.25. In 1870 I went to work for Tom Bogy at Claggett (old Camp Cook). That was the year that Billy Claggett was elected to
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Congress. The vote for him at that place was unanimous. There were only five of us, just enough for three judges and two clerks. That night we sat in a game of freeze out and played to see who would have the pay we were to get as judges and clerks of the election. I won the pot and sold my script to Tom Powers for sixty cents on the dollar. I was helping Bogy at anything needed and would have charge of the store whenever he was away. We had four horses which the Indians swam the Missouri and stole from us. I had gone to get them, not knowing that there were any Indians near. The boys shouted for me to come and, supposing the Reds were right on top of me, crawled under a cut bank. These were Fort Peck Indians, as we got the horses back from them a little later.
"To go back a little in my experience on the river. I will say that in '64 we had left a barge at Fort Benton as he had adver- tised that we would take passengers. We had gone down to Fort Gilpin (Gilpin was an old Indian trader) for freight but could not get back on account of low water. While near this place we were cutting wood when the Indians came and chased us back on the boat-only one man was hit. This was my first experience with wild Indians in their real wild state. I did not think that these fellows meant any trouble till they began to shoot. I made for the boat under a cut bank, stubbed my toe and fell over and over. I heard one of the boys say 'They have got one of our men.' I raised up running and replied 'Not by a d-n sight.' I was soon on board. We cut the line and throwed the anchor out till we could get up steam. We wanted to get an Indian head for a trophy to stick up on the flag staff. We were never able to get it as there were too many Reds out there in the timber and the boys kept shouting for us to come in as they could see the enemy all about us.
"We had to wait for the barge before we could pull out. When it did come it had forty or fifty men who were going down with us. We sold the barge and pulled out. It was no picnic in those days steamboating on the Missouri. In 1872 I left Ben- ton and went to Bismark and from there to Covington, Ky., where I bought a news stand in the postoffice. It was only a short time after this when carriers were established and the peo- ple no longer came after their mail, so it broke me. Jesse R. Grant, the father of General U. S. Grant, was the postmaster at that time.
"In seventy-five I came back to Claggett, as Bogy had kept writing to me. This gave me a job as soon as I got off the boat. (Bogy sold soon after this to Jim Wells.) Bogy was to go north and establish a line of posts so went east for goods. I did not go with him as T. C. Power wanted me to stay with Wells. I
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remained at this place till March, '76, and went to Benton and became a watchman on the levee, as they did not have warehouse room.
"In June I went to Bismark and from there to the Black Hills, Deadwood, seeking a fortune in gold mines, chasing fantoms as it were. I stayed there till '78, but did not succeed. I got into Deadwood a few days before Wild Bill was killed and heard the shot that killed him. That was truly a tough place.
"Those were the days when the Indians were bad. In fact, they had become such a menace that the merchants of Deadwood offered a bounty of $25 for all Indian heads brought in. A greaser brought one in and collected his pay and a short time after this a Texan came riding up the street (Main street) with an Indian head tied to the end of his lariat, quirting his horse all the way up. He made such a show of himself that he could not collect the bounty. He was very angry and said: 'You would pay a greaser but you would not pay a white man.'
"Calamity Jane came in with Crook's soldiers. She was a mighty fine looking girl. She always dressed in buckskins.
"I left the Black Hills and went to Old Fort Belknap and went to work for Tom O'Hanlon. We had come from the 'Hills' on horseback but had no trouble. Major Lincoln was the agent in those days.
"I remained for two years with O'Hanlon and then bought a freight team and began to haul from Benton to Belknap. Fort Assinniboine was started in '79. I hauled freight to it also, from Rocky Point.
"I also hauled grain from Maple Creek, Canada, to Assinni- boine. T. C. Power had had the contract to furnish corn and oats to the post and as the grain could not come up the river on account of low water the grain was shipped in bond to Canada on the Canadian railroad and hauled to Assinniboine by team. Major Field, who succeeded Lincoln at Belknap, was a mighty fine man and though this was an Indian Reservation he told me he had inside information that the reservation would soon be thrown open and that I had better settle some place-any place I chose.
"In 1884 I cut 1260 tons of hay on Big Sandy for the Post at two dollars per ton, cutting and bunching. Broadwater had the contract and got twenty dollars delivered.
"Owing to the advice of Field I went to Clear Creek and located a ranch about thirty miles from Chinook. I put the first trout into that stream that were ever in it, they were furnished by the Government and had come from Colorado, 8,000 finger- lings. There had been no trout in any of the streams that ran
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to the Milk river. There were some on the south side in Eagle and Birch. Birch was full of them in 1876.
"Bear's Paw was full of elk, deer, mountain sheep and buf- falo. One season a party of us had come to hunt elk in the Bear's Paw but the buffalo had eaten the grass off so we had to go back. On this trip I got snow blind and they had to tie me on my horse and take me back to the Musselshell.
"I run cattle and horses on my Clear Creek ranch till 1916, when I sold out and moved to Chinook to reside. I had seen the oats grow in favorable seasons in the tracks of the roundup wagons but could not believe that such land would ever grow crops in paying quantities. I had seen Milk River without any water except what was in holes and the fact that Old Fort Belknap was located where it was, was because there was a large hole there that never went dry.
"The cattle business began in '78 in a small way by Tom O'Hanlon and others. The cattle had to be close herded. Al Shultz was foreman of the company a little later
"Permission had to be gotten from the Government or agent who had secured the privilege from the Government. As to sheep, I can not say who really did try them out first. Frank Sayer brought in some in '89 and B. G. Olsen came in '89 or '90. They had them down on the east end of Bear's Paw.
"Old Fort Belknap was built of cottonwood logs cut on Milk river. I contracted to cut and haul some fir logs with which to construct buildings in '86. This timber was secured in the Bear's Paw and hauled thirty miles. Two of these buildings still stand on the old Agency about 500 yards from the old buildings.
"In trading with the Indians the value was according to the Indian's desire. A sky-blue bead that was purchased at the cost of fifty or sixty cents per gross would be exchanged for a robe worth five or six dollars at the rate of fifteen beads for a robe.
"As we are talking and thinking of these things I recall in a way many things that I could not think of as they appeared, con- secutively, but one thing I now recall was that only a short time after the battle at the mouth of the Musselshell in '69, probably that same fall, a number of Indians came one day without their women or children and said they would like to trade. One of the men who could understand them told Clendenning that they were not there on any legitimate business and that we must watch them. They examined the goods, asked prices, and told what they would be willing to pay for them. They went out and gathered all the bones of the dead Indians and came back to the stockade again. When they all got inside, the gates were closed, as the interpreter heard them say they would kill the
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GEORGE HERENDEEN. The last of the Great Scouts.
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whole bunch. There were only seven or eight men. The closing of the gates was something the Indians could not understand, so they asked the reason for such an act and were told that as they had come there to kill the whites, they, the white men, had come to the conclusion that they could all die at the same time. How is that? The Indians wanted to know. The interpreter said: 'You saw that man go into the cellar-that place is full of powder and when the first shot is fired by you that place will explode and all of us will be blown into eternity at the same time. In fact it will save the trouble of a lingering death by gunshot wounds.
"This was too much for the Red's nature to stand so they begged that the gates be thrown open so they could go on their way to the final burial of the remains of their people who had fallen by the same band of white hunters the spring before."
It must have been a peculiar class of men who were around those wood camps and about the trading posts in those days. Some of them were mighty good citizens but many were only noted for their bravery but not for honor .- A. J. Noyes ( Ajax).
GEORGE HERENDEEN-ONE OF THE LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS.
One of the characters of Blaine county is that most unassum- ing of all men, George Herendeen, the subject of this sketch. He was born in the fall of forty-six on the Western Reserve, twenty-eight miles east of Cleveland. His parents died when he was thirteen. After the close of the war he went to Indiana and lived with an uncle for some time. The hum-drum life that one was to live in the Middle West did not appeal to George, so he came to the conclusion to "Go West" and try to grow up with the country.
Colorado, especially Denver, was a section that was heard of as a mining country more than any other, except California, in the sixties, and to Denver, George went. He does not say what he did while in Colorado. From there he went to New Mexico and while he does not say what he did while there we infer that he was cow punching, as we find that he is headed for Montana in '69 helping to drive a herd of Texas cattle. He came through Wyoming into Idaho via Taylor's Bridge, on the Snake, into Montana via Horse Prairie. These cattle belonged to Housen Cooper. The winter of '69 and '70 George stayed at Horse Shoe Bend near Three Forks, and held the cattle.
From that time on he was engaged in various things until '73, when he went to the National Park with Captain Jackson of Bozeman. In this party were Taylor Blivens and Sam Shank-
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land, clerk of the Crow agency, and several more, ten in all. Their object was to look over the park and blaze trails. This experience gave our subject a knowledge of that most interesting section of the United States so that he knew it so well that he was selected by one of the noted hunters, later as guide.
THE SEVENTY-FOUR EXPEDITION TO THE YELLOWSTONE.
In the spring of 1874, February, 149 men left Bozeman for the Yellowstone expedition. This was one of the dirtiest and most disagreeable springs to the pioneers of Montana.
There were twenty-two teams, of all sizes, from a two-horse to an eight-yoke of cattle. Nels Story furnished the big Prairie Schooners for the big teams and probably most of the cattle. The object of this trip was not given out at the time the boys started, as they would not have been allowed to continue their journey had the object been known to the authorities. Their object was to prospect for gold, but they said they were going to look out a route for travel.
Even their organization was left till they got over to the Yel- lowstone. They followed down that stream and prospected on the Porcupine, where they had been led to believe gold could be found in paying quantities by a man who had deserted from the army. They crossed the Yellowstone with the intention of going south to the Powder river and prospect that stream also. They had no sooner crossed that river than trouble commenced for them. It came in great big gobs and was flung at them by almost the whole Sioux nation under Sitting Bull. Trouble of that kind did not disturb these fellows in the least as they were there looking for it. Seldom has there been gathered together such a band of men. Each one of them was a captain in himself and needed no guiding hand, but they had selected one who was "Johnnie on the Spot," Frank Grounds.
From the moment they got across the river they had to fight, and while they were in several battles only one man was killed.
The Indians thought it an easy matter to wipe them out, but they soon found that it was not possible Even Sitting Bull told his young men that they were wasting their time and too many lives on such a bunch of foolhardy fellows. The story of that expedition is a book in itself and much of it has been written and is in the Historical Society at Helena.
The boys came through in safety, though they did it under difficulties that would have been too serious for any men not toughened to the life of mountain and plains.
In 1875 we find that Herendeen is ready once more to try the Yellowstone country. He has not been deterred by the trials
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and troubles of the year before as they are the things of yester- day, forgotten, in a way.
Nelson Story had some mackinaws built on the Yellowstone for the establishment of trading posts on the lower river, as George said: "We made two boats thirty-six feet long, at Pease's ranch above where Livingston was afterward laid out. There were twenty-eight of us. We were to meet the Coulson line of steam- boats that were to come up the river. The steamer got up the river near where Billings is now on the tenth day of June. They blazed a cottonwood tree and went back. We continued on down the river and camped on an island to be free from the Indians. From there we went to Pease's bottom and built a stock- ade. We were only four or five days putting the logs up.
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