New light on Old West -- Dusty essay sheds new light on Hitchcock County history

Thursday, October 21, 2004

By CONNIE JO DISCOE

Regional Editor

CULBERTSON -- Hitchcock County once stretched all the way to the Colorado line, and squealing pigs alerted some of the county's very first settlers to the flooding Blackwood Creek.

The county's first sheriff thumped a disgruntled voter in the head with a 2x4 and he and election officials rolled him up in a buffalo robe and left him for dead outside the election hall. The man wasn't really dead, though, and two years later, in Deadwood, South Dakota, he killed "Wild Bill Hickok."


These little snatches of Hitchcock County history came to light as Pat and Peggy Roach of Holdrege cleaned out Pat's dad's estate, and discovered an essay, called "The West in the Early Days from Iowa to Nebraska," written in 1923 by G. E. Baldwin.

Pat's dad, Jim Roach, was a barber in Culbertson for many years, according to Peggy's mother, Claudetta Peck of McCook.

"Peggy found the papers in an accordion file of Jim's," Claudetta said. "We have no idea the connection between Jim and G.E. Baldwin."

Baldwin died May 13, 1925.

Baldwin's tale started in March of 1871, as he "bundled my wife and two children into a covered wagon, hitched up a pair of mules and started west to find a home."

They stayed in Republican County, Kan., until September and then, with another "home-seeker," hunted buffalo and a place for a home on the Salmon River.

They crossed the north fork of the "Sappy" and Prairie Dog rivers, hitting the Republican River, "about where Stratton now stands."

They camped on the Blackwood. "As the rivers were full of fish, and game was plentiful, we decided to locate around there some place."

The first settler they came across was at the mouth of Deer Creek, "where Arapahoe now stands," and they stayed there until March 1872. The family discovered that the land office had moved from Lowell to North Platte, and they -- now with brother-in-law Lafe Talkington, his brother Sam, John Miller and George Foster, all from Iowa -- returned to Hitchcock County.

About April 1, they found George Gesleman in a small dugout.

"We drew lots for choice of lots," Baldwin wrote, and they all began dugouts and Baldwin bought 30 head of cattle and two Chester white pigs in Republican County.

About June 2, the Blackwood flooded.

"The first we heard of the flood was about 2 o'clock in the morning, when the pigs began to squeal," Baldwin wrote. "Looking out, we saw that we were surrounded by water so high it was leaking into our dugout, but by spading up the floor, we managed to bank up the door and thus keep the water out. The next morning, I had to swim out about 100 yards south of the dugout where we had the corral, and to my surprise, found my pigs."

The calves could keep their heads above water, Baldwin wrote.

"If the water had rose a foot higher," he wrote, "it would have swept us all off the face of the earth, and that could have meant a lot to the population of Hitchcock County."

About six miles up the river, Baldwin wrote, he found John Kleven, Dan Hagen, Even Bacon and John Murphey in the tree-tops.

The bodies of five soldiers were taken to Fort McPherson for burial the next day. The body of a sixth was found several days later, and also taken to the fort for burial, some time in July.

Baldwin wrote that Will Taylor and several more men representing the Lincoln Land Co. then came to organize the county and elect officers.

Baldwin was elected sheriff. "A little lawyer by the name of Lucus Carr was elected county judge," Baldwin wrote. "Will Taylor, county clerk, and John Kleven, W.W. Kelly and George Gesleman, county commissioners and Lem Carington, surveyor."

Baldwin wrote that he returned to Iowa to take care of some business and his wife was left behind with his sister, Marian, her husband, Lafe, and the other three men from Iowa.

While Baldwin was gone, Sioux Indians entered the Baldwin dugout and took everything they could carry. "They took a Sharps 45 caliber, 120 grams of powder and two 45 shooters," Baldwin wrote.

"When my wife and sister saw them coming, they thought they could reach the timbers a short distance away, as our dugout was on the back by the buyo and near the mouth of the Blackwood, near Culbertson, but the Indians saw them and rode their ponies after them, driving them back as one does cattle."

One Indian stole Baldwin's wife's earrings. She screamed at the men working up the creek, and the Indians rode away.

"I dread to think what might have happened if the men had not came when they did. My wife sent a man to North Platte to wire me to notify the soldiers at Fort McPherson of the raid. The soldiers reached our place the day of the Sioux-Pawnee fight. That is the kind of protection the government gave us."

The "Sioux-Pawnee fight" Baldwin refers to happened about six days after the raid on his dugout, he said, and he called it the "historical Massacre Canyon Battle."

Baldwin wrote: "My wife and sister stood on the dugout and could see the smoke and hear the guns of the battle. I guess the Sioux were using my Sharps rifle too. I reached home three days after the fight."

In 1874, Baldwin was challenged as sheriff by a man named Tom Grimes, who was backed, according to Baldwin, by "horse-thieves working under the disguise of hunters."

"They all had a vote," he wrote, "as all the unorganized territory west to the Colorado line was under the jurisdiction of Hitchcock County."

According to Baldwin's chronicle, the band of rustlers included "Fat Jack," "Long Jack," "Curly Jack" and "Big Jack."

Curly Jack let it be known, Baldwin said, that if it looked like Baldwin would win the election, he (Curly Jack) was prepared to use his gun.

"At my wife's plea, I had left my guns at home," Baldwin wrote. "I had no weapons except the one Judge Lucus had, and it was only a .22. I told the Judge to keep it, as it would only make Jack mad to shoot him with it."

Baldwin told the 10 men in the store he would take care of Jack himself. "I picked up a piece of a two-by-four about three feet long, and when he rode up to the door and yelled ... I holler for him to come in, and he came with a gun in each hand. As his head came in sight, I hit him on the head with the two-by-four, and he dropped like a log, not even so much as pullin' a trigger."

Baldwin continued, "Dr. Banderslice pronounced him dead. They wrapped him in a buffalo robe and laid him outside as we were short of room, and went on with the election."

Later, however, they discovered the man wasn't dead. They carried him inside and wrapped him up again. Baldwin wrote, "About 12 o'clock that night, he called for water."

Baldwin wrote, "I rigged up a bed on my wagon and took him home with me, and my wife nursed him for about two months, then he was able to go back to camp. About two years later, he killed "Wild Bill Hitchcock" in Deadwood, South Dakota, and was hanged in Yankton, S.D."

Baldwin said, "Grimes and I had 13 votes each, and the county commissioners had to decide between us, so they gave it to me."

Grimes was killed in a gun fight in North Platte a year later, according to Baldwin's recollections.

Baldwin tells of driving a team of oxen to Nappanee for supplies, getting caught in a snowstorm and camping on the trail for 10 days. "We got back with a load of meal and flour, all fine and dandy," he wrote.

He wrote of homesteaders in the eastern part of the state who came to hunt buffalo, "but they usually had to hire some of us old-timers to kill for them, as their guns would hardly tickle a buffalo's hide."

The first white man buried in Hitchcock County, Baldwin wrote, was a nab named Wess or Ness, who died of rabies after he was bitten by a skunk. Baldwin's wife was the first white woman in Hitchcock County, he said.

Baldwin tells that Will Taylor built the first store-building out of cottonwood lumber hauled from Republican City. John Kleven built the first post office out of cedar logs that he cut and hauled with oxen from the Driftwood.

"It was one and one-half stories high. I don't know what became of it, but I would give a lot to see it standing in Culbertson today, in honor of one of the most honorable men that came to Hitchcock County. Will Taylor was another man that was never appreciated as he should have been, for, as I know, those days showed who was who."

Related story:

http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1077962.html

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