| Dundy County Nebraska Genealogy Trails |
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Worst Indian Scare I Ever Got by Fred Schwartz (Researcher note: The following stories were typed by Everett Sutton, relating
information told to him by Fred Schwartz. These and other stories and pictures
were sent to the Nebraska Historical Society in about 1930.) Worst Indian Scare I Ever Got My first trip to the Republican was 1870 when me and Gus came to Plum Creek and trudged across to The Falls where we looked over the post-office, a tin can nailed to a tree. I recall a piece of bark had been peeled from a tree and written with a burnt piece of stick ..."gon Forks." We had picked up a pony at Plum Creek to carry our traps and possibles, so we headed for the Forks, too....did some trapping up at the 'muskrat swamps' (sic present Arrowhead Lake). We camped back from the swamps in a "holler", kept as little fire as possible as too much injun sign. Gus said his scalp hurt and best we move on. We didn’t move quite quick enough...come morning and our nag was gone, with too many tracks for us to follow. Instead, we buried what we couldn’t tote and hit south for the Forks. (note by ESS, wonder if the ladel found by Herman Borchert in 90's could have been theirs). We hit the old Traders Trail and rounded what was later called Blue Point, overlooking the Forks—some buffalo and too much injun sign... for us. 1872 we came across from Plum Creek to Indianola, that was the year before we moved in...Old man Buck had a cutbank-soddie and a few groceries and Biefield even less, a cutbank with some buffalo hides tent fashion over it. We bought what we figured we needful for a hunt up the Republican, and to recover what we cached on Indian Creek but the injuns beat us to it, we expected to lose the muskatts anyway but we cached the other 'possibles' in another “holler”. In 1873 me and Gus decided on a fall hunting affair up on the Arickaree. Jimmy Gray had a camp at the Arickaree Fork. The bedbugs run us out of his cutbank ..so we tossed down our blankets out under the cottonwoods...Jimmy has a big laugh, saying the bedbugs lived in the cottonwoods, we said they were dropped by Indians. Jimmy said who ever heard of Indians and bedbugs until the whites came..Indians had LICE and Lice killed bed-bugs. That started an argument so we hunted up some bedbugs and some fine fat lice and put them on a piece of bark to see the battle. No fight in them, all they wanted to do was get away. Jimmy said to come back later, he would thin them down and make them hungry. Next morning we went across to the site of the Beecher Island battle. There was a number of bleached horse heads scattered about, but others had been formed in a large horseshoe shape with the opening to the east, with ashes of a fire in the center. We figured the Indians came back to perform a ceremony. There were a lot of the heavier horsebones strewn about too which the wolves had not worked on. We returned down the South Fork and made camp up one of the draws. After getting located we prospected a bit as we thought we smelled a fire. We run into the campsite of a small Indian group, the ashes were yet warm. Nearby, in the branches of a tree was the body of an Indian, wrapped in blankets and robes. He was ripe enough to cause a stench. Nearby were some of his personal effects. I secured a fine rawhide rope and a pair of buckskin leggins. All the time we felt sure we were being watched, and both Gus and me were sure we seen a disturbance in some tall grass on the hillside. We placed a couple of shots that way, hurriedly broke camp and traveled down stream all night. Getting back to the Forks, we looked for Fouts camp, supposedly a short distance up Big Timber. We found a deserted camp but our injun scare was still bothering.. We had killed several buffalo, the hot sun seared the freshly cut meat at once. There were no flies and the meat cured sweet. At one place some hunter had killed a buffalo cow, took out tongue, picket-pin steaks and a quarter..The carcass laid long enough for the hide to shrink and wrinkle but the meat had no odor..we cut in it..it was fresh enough to eat..if hungry. Gus did take a sample bite and declared it 'tender'. It was our luck to arrive at the site of the Pawnee-Sioux Indian battle a few weeks after the event transpired. We came up over the hill from the west..and the breeze warned us what to expect...not the odor of putrefying human, but more a sickly musty odor. Below were the scattered remains of Indians, their bodies yet exposed, altho there seemed to have been a weak attempt at burial, the high banks had been caved off and the dirt dropped on bodies laying against the canyon edge. Many bundles of meat was scattered about, altho the coyotes and wolves had things pretty well in hand. Dead horses a plenty but I do not recall seeing buffalo hides or robes. Trappers Camp...Indian Creek Two trappers used to make this creek the Fall lay-out... Setting their lines up the creek as far as the swampy meadows and muskrat village where Pierce Lake has since been constructed. Other trappers and hunters used the same camp as it was favorably situated, the big spring just above kept the branch, Little Indian, open in the coldest weather..It was subject to the sunshine nearly the entire day..and hard for a warrior to sneak in. We used this camp three different times, either as a night camp, or on two other occasions, as a trapping exhibition. In 1870 we were told it received its name due to being a favorite camp for the Indians to winter in... At one time there must have been a small forest on the bottom leading out on the Republican valley but at that time the valley was nearly bear, except for wild grapes, cherries and willows along the creek banks. Hundreds of large stumps were fire burned, holes large enough for a man to hide in. Later, in 1874, we made a hunters camp and were told two hunters had, a year or two before, made this their hunting lodge just above where the north fork emptied into Indian creek. While those hunters were located here, a large band of Sioux were camped on the Frenchman near Three Buttes and a smaller band were on the meadows at the top of Indian. They were feeling mean.. The Pawnees had raided their pony herd and stole 15 or 20 ponies and in recovering the herd, a Sioux was killed... Then the Sioux hopped on a small band of Indians on the Arickaree, Jimmy said the band was mostly mopped up but an Indian squaw escaped and some buffalo hunters up stream rescued her. Three Indians came down the camp of Wild Bill Kress and another trapper, demanding food and got to acting mean. One of the Indians ransacked their food box, Wild Bill kicked the lid down on his hand and in the shuffle shooting started and the three bad indians got converted into good indians. Their bodies were taken to the Republican and chucked under the ice. Expecting trouble as soon as the rest of the band missed their comrades, camp was immediately broken...and the men pulled out for Arapahoe, where they were then living. While this affair happened several years before I came to the Oxford Country (1883) I had lived nearer Arapahoe and settled on a little creek, which took the name of "Schwartz Creek" after myself. These men were in the country at that time, and I became acquainted with them...and heard this story from their own lips. As for the Indians names, all I recall, it was something like “Singing” or Whistling something. Fred and Gus Schwartz came from Indianola to Indian Creek, camped on Little Indian where Doc Carver was reported to have the cutbank on a hunting spree...and where they were told Whistler and two nephews of the Cut-Off Brules were killed by Wild Bill Kress and Newt Morland. Altho Morland had Whistlers horse it is now doubtful he was in on the killing. F.N. Lockard's story placed the killing of Whistler near the Arickaree. At first the blame was laid on the Pawnees by whites who would profit, this touched off the age long bitter fued between the tribes and some historians believe it led to the Sioux-Pawnee fight in August. The Schwartz brothers visited Jimmy Grey at the Arickaree fork. They tell of the bedbugs routing them out of the cut-bank– but found them as bad under the cottonwoods. They went on up to Beecher Island where they found the bleached horseheads formed in the shape of a large horseshoe, the opening being toward the East. Perhaps another ceremony. Returning, they stopped on the Big Timber in an attempt to find Fouts, who was reported as having a trapper camp. They did find the broken down cutbank on the Creek (on north line Magnani place.). Near the mouth was some indications of a traders camp they termed Biefields, a trader at Red Willow, who run a wagon west with supplies for the buffalo hunters and to pick up their hides. An old newspaper item indites Biefield as being more interested in liquor sales and horse stealers. This is doubtful... altho he did leave Red Willow in a hurry. Near present Trenton a musty odor caused the Schwartz brothers to turn north and they stumbled on the unburied bodies of the Pawnee killed by the Sioux some two months earlier. There had been a feeble effort to bury the corpse, dragging some up against the canyon sides and caving dirt over them. Wild Bill Hickok was on the burial squad..about what one would expect from a gambler. The Schwartz families moved up from Oxford in 1885 and took homestead on the Republican west of Max. 1873-74 F.N. Lockard tells of a buffalo hunting party in vicinity of present Sanborn when a squaw staggered into their camp, seriously wounded, a breast infected. By signs and pigeon language learned she was a survivor of a Sioux attack on their small village on the Arickaree Forks. First aid was given. She was sent to Ft. Wallace on a load of hides and turned to the Post Surgeon. |
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