A never-ending source of surprise to river runners penetrating the canyons. Of the Green River, before the turn of the century was to encounter a hermit living in the depths of this strange and isolated world. Although they questioned the grizzled old character as to his reasons for abandoning civilization, he refused to tell history, or to reveal his origins. Only after some serious and educated research was his story finally teamed.        

 Amos Hill owned a ranch adjoining that of Robert Harvey near Mountain View, Wyoming. From the beginning, Amos was a moody and cantankerous character that got along with no one. The Harvey family was perhaps his closest friends, and Ralph Harvey, a long-time friend of mine, recalled that Amos never left his ranch except to purchase "groceries and whiskey." 

Amos Hill was constantly in and out of trouble with one neighbor or another. He was simply not amenable to friendship. On one occasion, a man by the name of Bill Mount was staying at the Harvey ranch, and, having nothing to do, went fishing through the ice on a Stream, which, unfortunately for him, was on Amos Hill's property. When Amos discovered him, he beat the man so severely that it was amazing to all that Mount recovered. Mount threatened to bring charges, but

 

Inasmuch as mount had been trespassing, there was little he could really do about it. Link Gray lived not far from Amos's ranch. Gray had married the widow of Bill Lamb, a neighbor who in times past had had great difficulty with Amos Hill. Amos had no kind words for Lamb's 

Widow or any man who would marry her. When he was so indiscreet as to say so to Link Gray, Amos received his first sound beating from Gray's hands. On his way home, Amos passed by the Harvey place, and Ralph Harvey recalled that he was "really beat up."

From that time on Amos Hill was even less agreeable and was avoided whenever possible. He kept a loaded rifle against his doorjamb and posted his property with NO TRESPASSING signs at every conceivable place. It was clear that he was spoiling for trouble, and the First opportunity was not long m presenting itself. Above Amos's ranch was that of a man named Dell Watson who, unfortunately, had to share his Irrigation water with Amos on "terms"; that is, Watson would use a portion of the water at the same time as Amos, division being made by a head gate in the irrigation ditch.

Amos encountered Watson at The head gate one day and accused him of stealing more than his allotment of water, whereupon Watson called Hill a "cantankerous old so-and-so." Amos laid Watson out soundly with a severe blow from the blade of his shovel.

Watson went over to Evanston, county seat for Uintah County, Wyoming, and preferred Charges. Sheriff John Ward and his deputy, Bob Calverly (who gained fame as the only lawman to arrest Butch Cassidy and send him to prison), came down to Mountain View via Fort Bridger and arrested Hill, who submitted quietly except for a few choice remarks about the legitimacy of Watson..

The Watson vs Hill trial brought hundreds of spectators from the surrounding region to Evanston. Many of them had had encounters with Hill and wanted to see him receive his "just desserts." From the beginning of the trial it was apparent that Amos was going to lose. Before final sentence could pass, the defendant disappeared and was never seen around Mountain View again. Speculation reigned supreme as to his whereabouts, and those whom the old man had grudges against kept their curtains tightly closed at night and their rifles well oiled. But Amos Hill never showed, and after several years he was all but forgotten.

The next that anyone heard about Amos was in the mid 1890s when Nathan Galloway a trapper, explorer, and river‑runner extraordinary encountered the old man trudging along the river bottom in Red Canyon in northeastern Utah with traps slung over his shoulder. Galloway transported the old hermit down the Green River in his boat to appoint about three miles below Little Hole to a place since called Devil's Hole. Here, about eight miles below present Flaming Gorge Dam, Amos Hill had made his home, a crude dugout in the hill with a small garden patch irrigated by a trickling spring coming down from the nearby mountains.

Galloway later reported the presence of the hermit to Sheriff John T. Pope of Vernal because the strange actions of the old man left little doubt in Galloway's mind that he was wanted by the law, but inasmuch as Utah law officers had nothing on record against the man, he was unmolested.

During this period of isolation, Amos Hill had some unusual visitors. Amos emerged from his dugout one day to the sound of gunshots reverberating through the canyon walls. The gunfire was coming from Little Hole, three miles up‑river. Picking up his rifle and some ammunition, Amos trudged up the canyon trail, then up the valley to a place where several log cabins were situated. Amos was familiar with the place, having lived in one of the cabins during his first winter in the canyons, but finding it too drafty and cold, had moved down river and constructed his dugout.

The cabins had been constructed in 1869-70 by the Tom Crowley Gang, from railroad ties floated down the river from the building site of the Transcontinental Railroad in Wyoming. (I lived in one of these cabins for about a year during the 1960s.)

The men whom Amos Hill encountered in Little Hole were none other than Butch Cassidy, Harry Longabaugh (The Sundance Kid), Cleophas Dowd, Alonzo Atwood, and a mean surly character who called himself Harry Bliss‑but who was, in reality, outlaw Harry Tracy, recently escaped from Utah State Prison. Old Amos came to be as friendly with Cassidy and Longabaugh as he had ever been with anyone in his mean and ornery past, but was onless than friendly terms with hot tempered Tracy.

Amos made two or three trips a year into Vernal or north to the little settlement of Linwood, Utah, for supplies. Each time he took two or three pack animals, loading them down heavily with such things as slab bacon, flour, beans, coffee, and frequently ammunition. What most of the residents of the region were not aware of or if they were they wisely never mentioned it was that old Amos was supplying the Wild Bunch as well as himself. 

But Amos Hill soon tired of this company; he had become so accustomed to the peace and serenity of his solitary existence that he came to resent any intrusion upon it. Therefore, sometime near 1900, Amos packed up his few possessions and moved up the river, settling in a little depression in the canyon walls between Trail and Allen Creeks. Here he lived for more than twenty years.

His "home," not much bigger than a large doghouse, was a mere wickiup constructed over a hole in the ground with earthen seats which provided him with a place to sit around a small fire. He planted a small garden and an alfalfa patch which he watered by a series of zig­zag ditches, as well as a small patch of corn that was almost always smothered with sweet clover. In addition, he had a few head of cattle that he cared for, but most of his time was spent in trapping or panning for gold along the river bottom.

For clothing, Amos was not very original. He wore ragged overalls and apiece of canvas with a hole cut out of the center that he slipped over his head. His boots were made of fifteen inch squares of heavy rawhide laced to old rubber overshoe uppers. He made a beaver hat for himself, much like the old raccoon tail caps worn by the early frontiers­men, except for the long flat tail of the beaver hanging limply on the back of his neck, slapping him with every sudden movement.

During this time a small settlement had grown at Greendale, a meadow like valley high in the timber on the rim of the canyon above Amos Hill's "residence." 

Here the families of John Green, country or go with his adopted James Swett, and Lewis Allen family. He eventually chose the settled, and Amos became quite latter and died at an advanced old friendly with them, especially James age in the companionship he never Swett for whom,' the old man had a knew in early life. Strange fondness .The Swett children built a trail down the canyon side to Amos's wickiup on the river bottom, and were constant visitors. Amos never seemed to resent this intrusion, but instead looked upon these children as his very own; possibly replacing the family he never had. When Amos Hill grew very old he left his secluded canyon and went to live with the Swett family. To them he was "Grandpa Hill," and he enjoyed his last years. Frequently he could be seen, in his eighties, roaming around near the crest of the canyons, looking off into their depths, remembering the old canyon home his age prevented him from revisiting. When James Swett moved away and went over the mountains to the Uintah Basin, Amos Hill was faced with a difficult choice‑whether to remain in his beloved Green River    

All that remained of Amos Hill's secluded canyon home near Allen Creek was eliminated with the construction of Flaming Gorge Dam, but his old domicile and daces of his garden still exist farther down the river at Devil's Hole, seldom visited. Somehow, one imagines that this is the way Amos Hill, cantankerous hermit of the Green River, would have liked it.

 

 

Sources:

"Cantankerous a Man as ever Lived," by Kerry Ross Boren, True West Magazine, May‑June 1972.

Author's interviews with: Ralph A. Harvey, Evanston, Wyoming James Swett, Greendale, Utah, Jack Atwood, Manila, Utah, Charles G. Dowd, Barstow, California, James Rogers Lamb and Archie Lamb, Manila, Utah