A GUIDE TO HISTORIC SITES IN BROWN'S PARK
Historical Pictures of Crouse Canyon and Browns Park
by:
Kerry Ross Boren
with:
Lisa Lee BorenBROWN'S PARK INTRODUCTORY
Brown's Park originally belonged to the Indians - the Kohogue or Green River Shoshones. They called it O-Wi-U-Kuts, "Big Canyon," and called the river Seeds-Kee-Dee, "Prairie Hen," later known as the Green River. They lived in the valley more-or-less unmolested until the coming of the Spaniards in the late 1500's. The Spaniards built a fort in the valley, probably near Lodore Canyon, which was burned and its occupants massacred by the Indians in about 1650.
It was nearly 200 years before the Indians saw another white man in the valley. This time it was the American Fur Trappers, arriving in the region in about 1825. The first of these of record was William Henry Ashley, who brought a party of trappers down the canyons of the Green River in two buffalo-hide bull-boats, made by stretching green buffalo hides over a willow frame.
It was on the morning of May 5, 1825 that Ashley noted from his bull-boat that "the mountains gradually recede from the water's edge, and the river expands to the width of two hundred fifty yards, leaving the bottoms on each side from one to three hundred yards wide, interspersed with clusters of small willows."
The party made camp there, probably near the mouth of Red Creek or a little below. On May 7th the men floated ten miles into the valley, where they set up camp "on a spot of ground where several thousand Indians had wintered. Many of their lodges remained as perfect as when occupied. They were made of poles two or three inches in diameter, set up in circular form, and covered with cedar bark."
Next day, Ashley's party entered the Gates of Lodore, and he recorded the following in his journal:
As we passed along between these massy walls, which in a great degree excluded from us the rays of heaven and presented a surface as impassable as their body was impregnable, I was forcibly struck with the gloom which spread over the countenances of my men. They seemed to anticipate a dreadful termination of our voyage, and I must confess that I partook in some degree of what I supposed to be their feelings, for things around us had truly an awful appearance.
We soon came to a dangerous rapid which we passed over with a slight injury to our boats. A mile lower down, the channel became so obstructed by the intervention of large rocks over and between which the water dashed with such violence as to render our passage in safety impracticable. The cargoes of our boats were therefore a second time taken out and carried about two hundred yards, to which place, after much labor, our boats were descended by means of cords.
After three weeks, Ashley and his men abandoned the river and returned to the fur rendezvous held that year at the mouth of Henry's Fork.
Over the next several decades Brown's Park was visited by numerous trappers, including Kit Carson, Uncle Jack Robinson, Joe Meek, Jim Bridger, Jim Baker, Doc Newell, and many others. In the early 1830's, the trappers constructed Fort Davy Crockett in the Park, where a brisk trade was conducted with the Indians and among the trappers.
Perhaps one of the most amazing feats ever recorded among these daring adventurers occurred one winter when the snows were too deep to cross the mountains; Joe Meek and a few of his more daring followers went through the canyons of the Green River by horseback, on the ice, from Brown's Park to present Jensen, Utah, in the Uintah Basin!
The origin of the name "Brown's Hole" remains uncertain. Some attribute it to either "Old Cut Rocks" Brown or Charles Brown, both early trappers; others state is was Henry "Bo'sun" Brown, a member of Ashley's expedition. However, the usual acceptable origin of the name is credited to a French-Canadian fur trapper named Baptiste Brown - real name, Jean-Baptiste Chalifoux, a member of Henry Fraeb's band who battled Indians east of Brown's Park on the Little Snake River. Baptiste built a cabin in Brown's Park where he lived with his Blackfoot wife, and carved his name on some ledges in 1835. He was colorful character, who led a group of horse thieves in California in the early 1830's, and later operated a trading post in New Mexico, and in 1869 built the first house in Trinidad, Colorado. Chalifoux had an adopted son, a hunch-back, who carried a Bible in a ruck-sack over his shoulders everywhere he went. He was a familiar figure in the region for many years, and earned the sobriquet "Bible Back" Brown; some give him credit for attaching his name to the valley.
On May 24, 1869, Major John Wesley Powell - a one-armed veteran of the Civil War - and a party of nine men, left Expedition Island just below the town of Green River City, Wyoming, in four wooden boats named the Emma Dean, the Kitty Clyde's Sister, the No Name, and the Maid of the Canyon. Their intent was to explore the canyon systems of the Green and Colorado Rivers.
Four days later they passed a "brilliant red gorge," which they named Flaming Gorge, and entered the first canyons. On June 1st they entered Red Canyon. Powell wrote: "An old Indian named Pariats told me about one of his tribe attempting to run this canyon. 'The rocks heap high; the water go hoo-woogh' water pony heap buck. Water catch 'em; no see 'em Injun any more! No see 'em squaw any more! No see 'em papoose any more!'"
They entered Brown's Park a few days later. Powell is the first man to record the name as "Park," as follows: "June, 1869 -Brown's Park is a valley, bounded on either side by a mountain range, really an expansion of the canyon." Indeed, Major Powell gave names to many of the landmarks in Brown's Park, and elsewhere along the river system.
June 4, 1869 - A spur of red mountain stretches across the river, which cuts a canyon through it. A vast number of swallows have built houses on the cliffs...We call this Swallow Canyon.
June 7, 1869 - When I came down at noon, the sun shone in splendor on its vermillion walls shaded into green and gray when the rocks are lichened over. The river fills the channel from wall to wall. The canyon opened like a beautiful portal to a region of glory...
One of the boaters, Andrew Hall, remembered the last line of a poem by Robert Southey..."and this way the water comes down to Lodore." So, the canyon was called Lodore. They also gave name to the little stream which enters near the canyon mouth - Vermillion Creek.
Their introduction to Lodore Canyon was violent. One of the boats met with disaster. "I see the boat strike a rock, careen and fill with water. The men lose their oars; she strikes another rock with great force, is broken in two, and the men are thrown into the river. We are as glad to shake hands with them as though they had been around the world and wrecked on a distant coast."
Powell named this place Disaster Falls. One of the crew, Frank Goodman, vowed he had had enough. He left the party there and returned to Brown's Park where he made his home for the rest of his life, leaving his name to Goodman Gulch. He sold his original holdings to Matt Rash.
By the end of August, 1869, Powell and his men, reduced to five in number, walked out of the canyons on the lower Colorado. Two years later, Powell was back in Brown's Park on a second expedition, where he ran into two "Texas gentlemen" named Harrell and Bacon, "and a dozen or so Mexican herders." They were driving a herd of 2200 head of cattle from Texas to California. Powell went on to fame, not only as a river explorer, but as director of the U.S. Geological Survey and the head of documenting Native American culture for the Smithsonian Institute.
Space does not permit a full recounting of the visitors and settlers of Brown's Park. Suffice it to say that the history of this amazing valley spans the history of Indians, the Spaniards, fur trappers, explorers, cattlemen, settlers, outlaws, rustlers, and many others to an extent unknown anywhere else in the American West.
Site - 1 UNCLE JACK'S CABIN
When Flaming Gorge Dam was constructed in the early 1960's, the encroaching waters of the lake threatened the destruction of a landmark at Linwood, Utah, some 35-40 miles west of Brown's Park. The cabin had been lived in by Keith Smith as his home for more than 60 years. It was constructed of hewn logs, dirt roof, and rough board floors. To save the cabin, Mr. Smith had the cabin moved to Greendale and attached to his summer home. It was a propitious and fortuitous move, for the cabin is one of the most famous and most unique of its kind.
Uncle Jack Robinson (John Robertson) came to Brown's Park in 1826-27 with his relative, Kit Carson. He traded with the Indians and trappers at Fort Davy Crockett, and at the various rendezvous held throughout the region. In 1834, Uncle Jack Robinson constructed a cabin on Upper Black's Fork, around which a sizeable Indian settlement grew; today the place is known as Robertson, Wyoming, in his honor. In 1843 Uncle Jack encouraged Jim Bridger to build his famous post near this place.
In 1836, Uncle Jack Robinson constructed the cabin on Lower Henry's Fork, about four miles above its confluence with the Green River, where he lived about six months of each year. When the cabin was built, it was situated in the Mexican provinces. Following the War with Mexico in 1848, it reverted to the Western Territory of the United States. With the advent of the Mormons, it became a part of the State of Deseret, then reverted to the Territory of Utah as part of massive Green River County. For a time it was attached to Sweetwater County, Wyoming, and was reduced thereafter to belong to Summit County, Utah Territory; then, in 1880, became part of Uintah County, Utah Territory, and, at last, on January 7, 1918, became part of Daggett County, Utah - all without ever having moved from its original site!
The cabin is thus the oldest cabin in Utah, and the oldest permanent residence in Utah, and the second such west of Fort Laramie in the Rocky Mountains. It outdates Miles Goodyear's cabin on the Weber River (present Ogden, Utah) by several years.
By virtue of his cabin on Black's Fork, Uncle Jack Robinson was also the first permanent resident of Wyoming, and Robertson was the first agricultural settlement west of Fort Laramie in the Rocky Mountains.
The list of visitors to Uncle Jack's cabin reads much like an American Who's Who: Major John Wesley Powell, Jim Bridger, Jim Baker, Joe Meek, Kit Carson, Major John C. Fremont, Buffalo Bill Cody, Calamity Jane, S.V. Hayden, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Kid Curry, Frank and Jesse James, Sacajawea, Chief Washakie, Chief Walker, Zane Grey - to name but a few.
Site - 2 DUTCH JOHN
Dutch John Flat, Dutch John Gap, and Dutch John township, adjoining Flaming Gorge Dam, are named for "Dutch" John Honselena (Henselini, etc.), an enterprising horse thief who operated a gang of rustlers in that region.
Dutch John Flat was, for many years, the site of numerous corrals made of cedar posts which the Dutch John Gang used to corral their stolen stock. The Flat was once the scene of large herds of roving horses, brought from the three-state area by Dutch John's far-ranging gang of rustlers.
More than one local rancher who tried to range his own stock in the region found himself confronted by Dutch John's armed gang, comprised of a number of Mexicans and renegade whites. Cleophas Dowd, who claimed all the range on the south side of the Green River, had an "arrangement" with the Dutch John Gang whereby neither would cross the river nor molest each others herds or range.
Then one day Dutch John hired an 18 year-old youth named Mark Anson, from nearby Henry's Fork, to tend his herds on Dutch John Flat while he and his gang raided in Southern Utah. They returned late one summer, driving a covey of stolen horses before them. Hot on their trail, but unknown to them, Sheriff William Preece of Uintah County, Utah, led a posse across Diamond Mountain, through Little Hole, then forded the Green River in the canyon and rode up to Dutch John Flat via Dripping Springs.
The Dutch John Gang was taken by surprise. A gunfight ensued on horseback across the Flat westward to Dutch John Gap. Near the latter place, Dutch John Honselena and two of his gang were killed; they were buried near the crest of a ridge near the Gap, among the cedars. The Dutch John Gang was scattered, never more to be heard of.
Mark Anson witnessed the gunfight from a pinnacle above Dutch John Gap, and when the battle was over, he fled on foot across Antelope Flat, swam the Green River, and walked nearly 40 miles up Henry's Fork to his ranch home. The episode convinced the youth to avoid any further connection with outlaws, and in future years, he became a respected lawman in Uinta County, Wyoming, and in Daggett County, Utah.
Site - 3 MINNIE'S GAP
When Mary Crouse Died in Brown's Park in 1902. Charley Crouse gave up his place at Bridgeport and went with his daughter, Minnie, to file on a homestead at Spring Creek Gap - sometimes known as Grindstone Springs - north of Dutch John,, and just east of Linwood, across the Green River. Here Charley Crouse lived until his death in 1906. Charley Crouse was buried in Rock Springs, Wyoming. Mary Crouse, who had originally been buried by the Farm Ford in Brown's Park, was removed from her grave and reburied next to her husband at Rock Springs.
For some years thereafter, Minnie Crouse lived at Spring Creek Gap, and eventually it came to be known after her - Minnie's Gap. When Marius N. Larsen and Keith Smith opened hotels at Linwood, Minnie moved there to operate one. Eventually she married Knud Ronholdt and, later, George Rasmussen. Minnie continued to operate the ranch at the Gap for many years. Eventually it passed through several ownerships to the present Williams family. In its day, Minnie's Gap was a favorite stop-over for travelers between Brown's Park and Linwood.
Site - 4 CHEROKEE BILL PIGEON'S GRAVE
Cherokee Bill Pigeon was a Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma, and a one-time member of the Dalton Gang, who had fled to Brown's Park after killing a man in a gunfight in the Nations. For a time he lived at Little Hole with the Tom Crowley Gang, where they distilled whiskey to sell to the Indians on the reservation at Fort Hall, Idaho, until driven out of Little Hole by Cleophas J. Dowd, who claimed it as his range.
Cherokee Bill was a some-time member of several local gangs thereafter, notably the Bassett Gang, led by impetuous young Ebb "Kid" Bassett. He was a friend of John "Judge" Bennett, until that erstwhile companion was hanged from the gatepost of the Bassett Ranch by an irate mob for assisting Harry Tracy, Dave Lant, and Pat Johnson, after the murder of Brown's Park rancher Valentine Hoy in 1898.
Pigeon had a falling-out with young Ebb Bassett and moved into the sheep-wagon of another friend in a little valley northwest of Clay Basin, which has since been known as Pigeon Basin in his memory. He got into an argument with the sheepherder, who summarily shot him to death, his body falling out of the sheep-wagon and over the wagon-tongue. After an inquest, the body was buried on a nearby knoll.
That was not the end of Cherokee Bill Pigeon's story, however. Ebb Bassett, who was feeling irate about being cheated out of his revenge upon Pigeon, for real or imagined wrongs, found a posthumous vengeance. A Rock Springs doctor had offered a reward for a human skull to complete a skeleton he was constructing for display purposes. Kid Bassett saw his opportunity. He rode to Pigeon Basin, dug up Cherokee Bill's body, and cut off the head.
Carrying the severed head in a gunny-sack, Bassett stopped at Jesse Ewing's old abandoned cabin and put the grisly relic into a pot on the stove, to boil away the skin. While waiting, Bassett took a blanket outside and spread it beneath a cedar tree and lay down in the warm sunshine to take a nap.
Meanwhile, four or five of Bassett's friends rode up Jesse Ewing Canyon from Brown's Park, looking for him. Seeing the smoke coming from the cabin, the men stopped and went inside, waiting for Bassett to return. After a while, Ebb Bassett awoke from his nap and sleepily ambled back into the cabin, where his friends awaited, seated at the little wooden table.
"Well, hello, Ebb," said Joe Davenport, one of the men. "We helped ourselves to some of your soup; hope you don't mind!"
Site - 5 CLAY BASIN
Anyone who has attempted to negotiate the muddy roads of Clay Basin after a rain storm will appreciate why it bears the name, for the muddy clay is nearly impassable. However, the actual origin of the name comes from John Clay, Wyoming cattle baron, before the turn of the present century. Clay operated the great Middlesex Land & Cattle Company.
This small basin on the northwest rim of Brown's Park has had a long and varied history. In 1849 a group of Cherokees, displaced from their homeland in Georgia, migrated along the "Trail of Tears" to Oklahoma, and then to California. They camped for a time in Clay Basin, before going "down in" to Brown's Park to spend the winter before continuing their arduous journey. Several of the tribe died and were buried in Clay Basin, several more in Brown's Park, and others later drowned while fording the Green River when they renewed their march.
In 1865, Clay Basin served as a military camp for a company of engineers and cavalry under Major Noyes Baldwin out of Fort Bridger. Major Baldwin had been commissioned to build a military road through Brown's Park to Colorado. Later, he established a camp at the mouth of Red Creek in Brown's Park, several miles above (west) the Jarvie ranch.
In later years Clay Basin became renowned for production of oil and natural gas. It is notable that the first oil well to produce oil in Clay Basin was brought in through the efforts of William Ellsworth "Elzy" Lay, former member of the Wild Bunch. When Lay was released from prison in New Mexico a few years after the turn of the century, he became an oil geologist for several major companies.
Site - 6 JESSE EWING CABIN
After crossing Red Creek and leaving the eastern end of Clay Basin, visitors to Brown's Park enter the upper reaches of Jesse Ewing Canyon. At the top of the canyon, a few yards west of the road, are the ruins of Jesse Ewing's cabin, constructed in 1868.
Jesse Ewing was a native of Pennsylvania who came West to seek his fortune around the mining camps of South Pass and Atlantic City, Wyoming. At some point in his early travels, Ewing had an encounter with a grizzly bear which disfigured his face so badly that he was known as "the ugliest man in South Pass City."
At South Pass, Ewing had an argument with a man named Coulter over a mining claim which resulted in Coulter landing in the South Pass City jail. The jail had only one cell, with a barred window high on one wall, and Ewing stationed himself on a high knoll close by and shot at Coulter through the bars.
Old Jesse fled southward to Green River City where, not long after, he learned that Coulter had settled. Once again Ewing determined to kill his foe. He learned that Coulter was on his deathbed in a cabin on the edge of town, and wanting to cheat the Grim Reaper of his prize, commenced to shoot at Coulter again through a window. Jesse must not have been much of a shot, for he succeeded only in putting several bullets into the logs several inches above Coulter's head. This time it was Old Jesse who went to jail.
Upon his release, Ewing learned that H.M. Hook, first mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and several companions, were proposing an expedition southward to the Uintah Mountains in Utah to prospect for gold. Jesse decided to join them.
At that time the Union Pacific Railroad was building its way across Wyoming, and the men stole a few railroad ties which were being floated down the Green River from the Wind River Mountains, and constructed a raft. With it, they floated down the Green River, starting a mile of two south of Green River City.
Leaving in the middle of the night to insure secrecy, the raft was loaded with adequate provisions for a lengthy prospecting trip. But they were not long underway when disaster overtook them. In Red Canyon the raft broke up on a rock, submerged and hidden by high and muddy spring water, and Hook was drowned. His body was washed up on a sandy beach a few miles below where it was recovered by his companions, and as soon as they emerged into Brown's Park, they buried it on the south bank of the river, near the ruins of old Fort Davy Crockett.
Hook was the moving force behind the expedition, so when the party reached Brown's Park, they abandoned the project, and all of them except Jesse Ewing returned overland to Green River City. For several weeks Ewing poked around the hills at the western end of Brown's Park, and finally discovered a showing of copper ore at the upper end of Red Creek Canyon - thereafter known as Jesse Ewing Canyon.
J.S. Hoy, early Brown's Park rancher, wrote about Ewing that "he was a hard worker...In the course of time he dug a tunnel about 500 feet in the mountainside in an endeavor to reach the rich copper vein that, according to all indications, he knew to be there. Jesse was what is usually described as of powerful build, 175 pounds, slightly stooped, and about fifty years of age. He was accustomed to outdoor life, and capable of physical endurance in proportion to his size and strength. During the years I knew him, I never saw him with a coat on. He was a quiet man, slow of speech; a man who was not quarrelsome nor ever interfered with other men's affairs unless they crowded him...He did not mix much with his neighbors; in consequence he was left pretty much alone. Coupling what people did not know about him with what they did know, they concluded he was a good man to keep away from..." William G. Tittsworth, another early Brown's Park resident, described Ewing as being a "brown-baked, moody, odd freak of humanity, who cared but little for his own life, and less for the lives of others."
Being perennially hard up for funds with which to purchase such necessary supplies as blasting powder, caps and fuse, and groceries, Ewing perfected a technique for extracting money from strangers. He took them into partnership one at a time, putting both the man and his money to work, and when the money ran out, he picked a quarrel with the partner and ran him out of the country with gun or knife. Whoever refused to leave, mysteriously disappeared. Then Jesse would visit Green River City or Rock Springs to take on another partner.
About this time there arrived in the area a brash young prospector named Charles Robertson (called Robinson) who staked some mining claims in the same vicinity. Not only that, but Robinson had the unnerving habit of sitting atop Table Rock and spying on Ewing through field glasses. Old Jesse got so nervous, he constructed a log cabin over his mine shaft to hide his activities from view. Ewing highly resented the intrusion.
That winter the two chanced to be in a poker game together in the old rock saloon (ruins of Fort Davy Crockett) above the Jarvie place, and Ewing lost a bundle to the youth. Shortly afterwards, when crossing the river on the ice, Jesse Ewing stabbed young Robinson to death. Then Ewing stuck his head through the door of John Jarvie's little store, saying: "Go on up the river a ways Jarvie, and you'll find the purtiest corpse you ever saw."
According to J.S. Hoy, when John Jarvie investigated, he "found Robinson stretched out full length, dead, stabbed to the heart. Where Robinson came from nobody seemed to know. I believed Jesse had some sort of judicial examination before a justice of the peace, claiming self-defense. There being no witnesses to the tragedy, the defendant was discharged." John Jarvie, Brown's Park's unofficial undertaker, brought Robinson's body down-river and buried it on the hillside behind his store.
Among those Ewing had lured to his mine and bilked of their money, was the Negro rustler Isom Dart. This took place shortly after Isom's arrival in the country, and it caused bad blood to exist between the two. As it happened, fate landed them together in jail at the same time! This occurred at the time when Ewing was jailed for the attempt on Coulter's life at Green River City. Isom Dart was thrown into the cell on suspicion of murder following the disappearance of his erstwhile employer, a Chinese cook at Carmichael Gap, who vanished after a fracas over a crooked card game in which the young Negro lost several hundred dollars. When Ewing and Isom were thrown together in the same cell, bets were taken on which one of them would emerge alive in the morning.
During the night, Ewing beat the Negro into submission with his boot, and in the morning Old Jesse forced the young black man to get down on his hands and knees while Ewing ate his breakfast off his back, there being no table in the cell. Shortly thereafter, Coulter having died of natural causes and the Chinese cook having reappeared unharmed, both men were released; but bad blood continued to exist between them, and, for the most part, they gave each other wide avoidance.
Then one day Isom Dart rode up to Jesse Ewing's cabin in the company of Cleophas J. Dowd, and the two men called for the grizzled old character to come out. Ewing came outside and demanded to know what the two interlopers wanted. Dowd was the spokesman on this occasion. He was a partner with Lewis Allen in a ranch above Red Canyon (the present Swett Ranch) and claimed all the range on the north slope of the Uintah Mountains for fifty miles westward from Brown's Park.
"I found your horses on my range above Red Canyon," Dowd said, "and I drove them off."
"Where in hell did you drive them off to?" asked Ewing, getting red in the face.
"I drove them off the cliffs of Red Canyon into the Green River," Dowd retorted matter-of-factly. "Their carcasses should come floating by any day now."
With that, Ewing exploded, grabbing Dowd and pulling him off his horse to the ground. At the same time, Jesse pulled a large skinning-knife from a sheath between his shoulder blades, and attempted to cut Dowd's throat. He succeeded only in cutting a deep gash across Dowd's right cheek, when the latter pulled his gun, and, from a prone position, shot Ewing in the groin.
Leaving Ewing writhing on the ground in a pool of his own blood, Dowd and Isom Dart rode down the canyon and notified John Jarvie of the incident. Jarvie hitched up his wagon and drove up the canyon to retrieve the body for burial, but to his amazement, found Jesse Ewing very much alive, but in great agony. He loaded the tough old character into the wagon and took him home with him, where he nursed Ewing back to health.
Not long thereafter, on another of his trips to Green River City, Ewing made the acquaintance of a red-haired woman known as Madame Forrestal, and convinced her to accompany him back to his cabin as his nurse and companion. Nothing is known of Madame Forrestal, except that at one time she had been a contortionist in a circus sideshow.
Things went well enough for a time until one day a young man named Duncan arrived in the Canyon, one jump ahead of the law. Noting his muscular build, Ewing asked Duncan if he would like to do some mining, and Duncan, exchanging meaningful glances with Madame Forrestal, allowed as how he would. A partnership was formed, openly, between Duncan and Ewing, and secretly between Duncan and the Madame.
One day Duncan informed Ewing that he was sick, and wouldn't work in the mine tunnel that day. Jesse took his lunch-pail in hand and trudged off alone up the trail, while Duncan spent a leisurely day alone at the cabin with Madame Forrestal. That evening, as Jesse Ewing plodded back down the trail towards the cabin, Duncan ambushed him, shooting him several times with his own Winchester, one shot nearly decapitating him. He died in 1885.
No one knows what became of Madame Forrestal. Duncan headed down the outlaw trail to southern Utah, where he killed himself several months later. The body of Jesse Ewing was brought on its final ride out of the canyon by John Jarvie, and buried, ironically, in a grave next to his victim, Robinson.
Some time before his death, Jesse Ewing sent some ore samples out of Brown's Park with his prospector-friend, Pick Murdock, to be assayed in Denver. After his death, the results came back, showing that Ewing had struck it rich! However, the secret of the location of the fabulous vein of gold and copper ore died with Old Jesse. Since that time, the "Lost Ewing Mine" has been searched for, in vain, by thousands.
Site - 7 BAKE OVEN FLAT
At the base of Jesse Ewing Canyon there is an alluvial fan, caused by intermittent floods which, in years past, roared out of the canyon, depositing silt on the valley floor on the north bank of Green River. Here, as early as 1879, Dr. John Parsons, a recent newcomer to Brown's Park from Denver, where he minted gold coins, erected several ore kilns, from which the Flat received its name.
Today, visitors to Brown's Park, entering via Jesse Ewing Canyon, cross over Bake Oven Flat without recognizing anything significant there, except for a few sagebrush. However, from very early years - 1826 onward - this place was a burial ground for Indians, trappers, and, later, outlaws and ranchers.
Over a period of time, evidence of the graves became obliterated by weather and neglect, until few of them can presently be discerned. Nevertheless, a survey of historic sites in the Park made some years ago, noted that there were two trappers of the old American Fur Company, several children of Squawmen Jimmy Goodson and Jimmie Reed, and three Mexicans killed in a gunfight with members of the old Tip Gault Gang.
A walk among the sagebrush will reveal rounded stones marking some of the lonely and forgotten graves.
Site - 8 JARVIE RANCH & MUSEUM
Just below the mouth of Red Creek, where it empties into the Green River, in the western (Utah) end of Brown's Park, lies the remnant of the old John Jarvie Ranch, on the north bank of Green River.
John Jarvie, the amiable Scotsman, immigrated from Scotland with a kinsman, George Law, to Rock Springs, Wyo., where he engaged for a time in the mercantile business. Sometime between the years 1876 and 1880, both Jarvie and Law migrated "down in" to Brown's Park. Jarvie constructed a rock house on the bank of the river and began a small store and post office there. The post office, "Brown's Park, Utah," was established on February 14, 1881, at Bridgeport (Jarvie's ranch) with John Jarvie, Sr, as postmaster. His office was abolished on June 8, 1887. For two years, Brown's Park was without a post office, until the post office of "Lodore, Colorado" was established on June 3, 1889, and on January 8, 1890, Herb Bassett became postmaster.
John Jarvie was one of the most beloved and revered residents of Brown's Park, and his ranch and store at Bridgeport was, for many years, the hub of the community. Frequently, Herb Bassett would load his organ into a wagon and bring it to the Jarvie place, where John Jarvie would pound out more than a hundred different tunes, all played by ear, accompanied by Herb Bassett on the violin, to which the young people danced, while the women-folk prepared a midnight supper.
In addition to being rancher, postmaster, store-keeper and entertainer, Jarvie operated a ferry across the Green River, was station-keeper for a stagecoach line from Colorado to Brown's Park, and served as unofficial undertaker and some-time doctor for want of these services. Brown's Park's only actual doctor, Dr. Parsons, died 1879. Thereafter, Elizabeth Bassett performed this duty for residents in the Colorado end of Brown's Park, while John Jarvie served the Utah end.
During the 1890's, Jarvie's little store became the supply point for Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch and other outlaw gangs which used the Park as a refuge from the law. On at least two occasions, Jarvie permitted Butch Cassidy to hide out in the root cellar a few yards west of his store.
Jarvie's store continued to supply Brown's Park with the necessities of life until several years after the turn of the century. He never turned anyone away. It was difficult to find anyone who did not like the amiable old Scotsman; but there was one who didn't.
One day in early July, 1909, C.M. Taylor and his family were staying overnight with the Harold King family at Bridgeport. Just after sundown, while C.M. Taylor was chopping wood at the woodpile, a man rode up, whom he recognized as a newcomer to Brown's Park named George Hood. Hood asked if he might stay the night. Taylor told him that he was guest there himself, but there was no more room. He suggested that Hood ride on up the river to Jarvie's, where he would likely find a bed for the night.
"Well, I guess I don't have much choice," Hood said sullenly. "But I don't know if the old son-of-a-bitch will let me stay there or not."
On the afternoon of July 6, 1909, young Jimmy Jarvie, the old man's youngest son, rode up to the store and tied his horse to the hitching rail, expecting his father to step out of the door to greet him, as was his custom. But the old man did not appear, so the boy walked to the door and went inside, to find the place in total disarray. A meal, apparently prepared earlier, had not been cleared from the table, on top of which were three plates and an open jug of whiskey.
Searching the grounds, Jimmy saw drag marks and dried puddles of blood in the dirt, leading toward the river. He found a patch of long, white hair snagged on a bush beside the river path.
As it neared sunset that same day, C.M. Taylor and Gordon Wilson were putting up hay in the Park Livestock Company fields; Charley Taylor's wife, Nina, who was pregnant, was in the house on the Tolliver place, several miles up-river; his son, Jesse Taylor, was hunting rabbits nearby with Walter Hanks, Jr. Taylor and Wilson stopped working when "Luckin" Bill rode up fast.
"It's old man Jarvie fellas. Somethin' bad has happened. I just saw Nina. She said Jimmy Jarvie was at the house wanting a gun. Nina said he was in an awful state and she was afraid to give him one. She said Jimmy told her he thinks somebody has robbed and killed his dad!"
The word spread fast throughout the Park and by morning most of the Jarvie boys and Park residents had gathered to decide what to do. All brought their guns with them, but they were concerned that there was a shortage of ammunition among them. They rode en masse to the Jarvie place and began piecing things together.
It was learned that the day before Harold King and his wife had seen two men walk out of Jesse Ewing Canyon and head toward Jarvie's place. It became apparent that these were the two men who had eaten from John Jarvie's plates, drank from his jug, robbed him, murdered him, and apparently threw him in the river.
Someone noticed that several ropes and a pair of hobbles were among the missing items, and it was surmised they were planning to steal a couple of horses upon which to escape. They had robbed Jarvie's safe and were hauling some grocery items, and the men assembled believed the killers must still be in the area. The mood among them was sullen and mean. One of them cried out:
"To hell with the law! After we capture those two birds we'll strip them and put 'em naked in the willows of the river bottoms. We'll leave the buggers there for the mosquitoes to eat on until they confess. And when they do admit to it, by damn, we'll hang 'em from ferry cable post!"
As a body the men tracked the fugitives until they found the rope and hobbles in a pile in a draw below Bridgeport. The trail from that point indicated that the men had gone out of the Park directly by way of Jesse Ewing Canyon. The pursuers stopped at the mouth of the canyon, afraid that to enter, especially being short of ammunition, might subject them to ambush.
John Jarvie, Jr. volunteered to go alone to notify the sheriff in Rock Springs to be on the lookout for the murderers, traveling by way of Red Creek Canyon, rather than by Jesse Ewing Canyon. The rest of the makeshift posse returned to the Jarvie place, built a raft, and dragged the river in search of the old man's body, with no success.
On the next morning, July 8th, Harold King's brother, Bill, returned from a freighting trip to Rock Springs to learn what had happened.
"Well, hell, I saw them," he exclaimed. "Both when I was headed to town and then again when I was on my way back. I never saw the one fellow's face because he never came near. But I talked to the other man both times. When I saw him the first time, he said they were headed down here to look for jobs. Then yesterday he said they had both changed their minds and were going to Rock Springs to find work on the railroad. I think most of you know him, it was George Hood."
Hood's partner in crime proved to be his brother-in-law. They had arrived at Rock Springs about one o'clock in the morning, and both checked into the Park Hotel. The Vernal Express, dated July 23, 1909, stated:
One of them left a call for seven o'clock in the morning; the other was heard to get up about 10 o'clock. The latter had inquired about the first train east and had been told it would pass through about 11 o'clock. John Jarvie, Jr. had reached Rock Springs at about 10 o'clock that morning to give the alarm; but it took an hour or so before he could get hold of the officers, and in the meantime, the two fellows had gotten away.
Meanwhile, in Brown's Park, the search for John Jarvie's body continued. Eight days after the murder, and twenty-nine miles downstream, Archie Jarvie found his father's swollen body, tied and still bound to his overturned rowboat; one of his arms had entangled in the willows. He was buried in the nearby Lodore Cemetery.
With the discovery of the body, the story of how John Jarvie died emerged. The two men had first beaten the old man, ostensibly to secure the combination to his safe. Apparently he would not give it, and they struck him over the head. The old man had run outside, and one of the men had shot him in the back, between the shoulders. Still not dead, he had then been shot at close range through the side of the head. He was then dragged by the heels along the path around the house, across the west step, out the west gate and past the old cellar where he and Nell had made their first home, and where he had hid his old friend, Butch Cassidy, and then dumped into the rowboat. The body was tied to the boat, and the boat was kicked adrift onto the river. The two men then robbed the safe and took what they wanted from the store and home.
Jarvie had recently been to Rock Springs to make his deposits and the safe contained only a hundred dollar bill. In their haste, Hood and his cohort overlooked a cigar box full of change on a shelf, but they rifled Jarvie's trunk and stole his Pearl-handled .44 six-shooter, together with other items.
Later it was learned that George Hood had gotten off the train for a short stop at Point of Rocks east of Rock Springs, where he pawned the six-shooter and a new pair of shoes. He was overheard asking if anyone could change a hundred dollar bill.
The people of Rock Springs offered a $500 reward for the killers, and Governor Cutler of Utah put up an additional $500. Nevertheless, George Hood and his brother-in-law had vanished, and by the middle of August, the posse had given up their search.
Jimmy and Archie Jarvie were determined never to rest until they brought their father's murderers to justice. They followed them to the East, then back to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and then to Pocatello, Idaho. Archie went to work in the coal mines in Idaho to gain information on Hood and his partner, whom they suspected worked there under assumed names; but not long after, Archie was killed in a suspicious mining accident. Jimmy Jarvie caught up to them in a hotel in Pocatello, but was thrown from a second story window, and died instantly of a broken neck.
Tom Jarvie went to Idaho to retrieve his brother Jimmie's body, then set out on the trail of the killers himself. He traced them to Chicago, and reportedly lost them. However, in later years, Tom would wryly smile and say that it was just possible that vigilante justice had been exacted.
Tom Jarvie eventually took his father's cattle into the Dutch John area where he ranged them for several years. He then married Alice Finch, half-breed daughter of Henry's Fork cattleman George Finch, and bought a ranch near Linwood, Utah.
John Jarvie Jr. remained in Brown's Park. He didn't want the store and tried to sell it. Charlie "Whitey" Roller lived there for a while and considered buying the store and reopening it. One of his more memorable characteristics was that he always took two steps backward to spit. For a time he "sparked" Elmer Bradshaw's daughter, Bessie.
One winter Whitey started to ride his favorite horse, Pap, across the river on the ice, but it was too weak; horse and rider fell in and went under the ice. Whitey managed to save himself, but Pap was trapped in the bitter cold water and killed. For the remainder of the winter, Pap's frozen head could be seen protruding above the ice.
The Jarvie place seemed cursed, and rumors were rampant that old John's ghost was haunting the place, irate because someone was trying to take his place in the store. One day Whitey was examining the guns in the store when one of them misfired, blinding him in one eye. He was convinced that the place was jinxed, married a Templeton girl from Maybell, Colorado, and moved away to Vernal.
John Jarvie Jr. eventually tore down the store and the home, and with the help of his retarded uncle "Crazy" Jarvie, he replaced the old home with a five-room whipsawed log house. He and his wife, Ollie Mae, spent most of their time at the "Little" Jarvie place on lower Beaver Creek. In 1924, John Jr. sold the place to Charlie Sparks.
The front page of the Vernal Express, July 30, 1909:
It is hard to imagine John Jarvie dead. Harder still to think of him murdered. He was the sage of the Uintas, the genius of Brown's Park. He could almost be called the wizard of the hills and river. He was not only a man among men, but he was a friend among men...
He kept a ferry; but he was more than a ferryman; he kept a store, but he was not circumscribed by the small scope of a store-keeper. He as a broad and generous as far reaching in his good deeds as the stream which he knew and loved as a brother and over whose turbulent waters he had helped so many travelers and upon whose unwilling bosom he was set adrift to seek an unknown grave...
Behind the Jarvie house and rock-store, now a visitor's museum kept by the Bureau of Land Management, are at least six graves, two of which are those of Jesse Ewing and his young victim, Robinson.
Nearby can be seen the remnants of an old stagecoach, one of the last to run in Brown's Park, and surrounding these, bordering upon the slow-running Green River, are the ranch's out-buildings. One grisly relic to be seen here is the gatepost, which formerly framed the gate of the Bassett Ranch, from which an angry mob hanged Jack "Judge" Bennett in March, 1898. Bennett, a fringe member of the Wild Bunch, had attempted to aid Harry Tracy, Dave Lant and Pat Johnson following the murder of fifteen year-old Willie Strang, by Johnson, on February 28, and the murder of Valentine Hoy, a member of the pursuing posse, by Harry Tracy.
Most of the preservation efforts were due to the foresight of Duward and Esther Campbell, owners of the Jarvie property for many years. Following the death of Duward, Esther Campbell, turned the property over to the BLM who presently maintains the museum and visitor's center there.
The stone building, erected in 1881 as a store-house for the original Jarvie store, which now houses the visitor center and museum, was constructed by none other than John Bennett, who was later hanged at the Bassett ranch.
Site - 9 FORT DAVY CROCKETT
There is strong evidence that a Spanish Fort may have been erected in Brown's Park, probably near Lodore Canyon, prior to 1650. In that year, according to Spanish archives at Madrid, the Indians burned the fort, and a series of others, and massacred the Spaniards. There is no record of another Fort in Brown's Park for nearly 200 years.
Space does not permit a full recounting of the white fur trappers who visited Brown's Park during the interim. The earliest visit of record was by General William H. Ashley of the American Fur Company, who navigated the canyons of the Green River in buffalo-hide "bull boats" for some three weeks in 1826.
Between 1826 and the late 1840's, Brown's Hole was an important fur trading center. Among the trappers who stationed themselves there were: Uncle Jack Robinson; Joseph "Joe" Meek; Robert "Doc" Newell; and Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson. Kit Carson arrived in Brown's Hole (prior to becoming known as Brown's Park) with "Uncle" Jack Robinson - probably his cousin - in 1829.
Kit Carson was born in Kentucky the day before Christmas, 1809, a son of Lindsey and Rebecca Robinson Carson. He moved with his family to Missouri when he was a year old. When he was nine, his father was killed by a falling tree-limb while burning timber. Kit Carson wrote:
For fifteen years I lived in Missouri, and during that time I dwelt in Howard County. I was apprenticed by David Workman to learn the saddler's trade, and remained with him two years. The business did not suit me and, having heard so many tales of life in the mountains of the West, I concluded to leave him. He was a good man, and I often recall the kind treatment I received at his hands. But taking into consideration that if I remained with him and served my apprenticeship. I would have to pass my life in labor that was distasteful to me, and being anxious to travel for the purpose of seeing different countries, I concluded to join the first party that started for the Rocky Mountains.
On October 6, 1826, David Workman offered a one cent reward for the return of Kit Carson, but the youth was already on his way West in the caravan of Charles Bent to Santa Fe. In 1838 Kit Carson, now a full-fledged Mountain Man, attended the rendezvous on the Popo Agie River in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming. Carson wrote:
In twenty days the rendezvous broke up, and I and seven men went to Brown's Hole, a trading post, where I joined Thompson and Sinclair's party on a trading expedition to the Navajo Indians. We procured thirty mules from them and returned to Brown's Hole. After our arrival Thompson took the mules to the South Fork of the Platte, where he disposed of them to Sublette and Vasquez and returned with goods suitable for trading with the Indians. I was now employed as hunter for the fort and I continued to this service during the winter, having to keep twenty men supplied with meat. In the spring of 1838 I joined Bridger.
The fort mentioned by Kit Carson was Fort Davy Crockett, built by William Craig, Phillip Thompson, and a man named St. Clair (Sinclair) in the early 1830's, and named in honor of Davy Crockett, recently killed at the Alamo.
A description of the fort has been left by Thomas Jefferson Fairham, leader of the Oregon Dragoons, who visited there in August 1839:
The dark mountains rose around it sublimely, and the green fields swept away into the deep precipitous gorges more beautiful than I can describe. The Fort is a hollow square of one-story log cabins, with roofs and floors of mud, constructed in the same manner as those of Fort William (William Bent's Fort on the Arkansas). Around these we found the conical skin lodges of the squaws of the white trappers, who were away on their "full hunt," and also the lodges of a few Snake Indians, who had preceded their tribe to this, their winter haunt.
Here also were the lodges of Mr. Robinson, a trader, who usually stations himself here to traffic with the Indians and white trappers. His skin lodge was his warehouse, and buffalo robes were spread upon the ground and counter, on which he displayed his butcher knives, hatchets, powder, lead, fish hooks, and whiskey. In exchange for these articles, he receives beaver skins from trappers, money from travelers, and horses from the Indians.
Thus, as one would believe, Mr. Robinson drives a very snug little business. And, indeed, when all the "independent trappers" are driven by approaching winter into this delightful retreat, and the whole Snake village, two or three thousand strong, impelled by the same necessity, pitch their lodges around the Fort, and the dances and merry makings of a long winter are thoroughly commenced, there is no want for customers...
There is in this valley a fruit called bulberry...of these berries I obtained a small quantity, had a dog butchered, took a pound of two of dried buffalo meat which Mr. St. Clair kindly gave, and on the morning left the hospitality of Fort David Crockett.
Dr. F.A. Wislizenus, who would become U.S. Minister to Turkey in 1854, arrived at Fort Crockett less than a week after Farnham, has recorded a somewhat diminished opinion of the Fort than his predecessor:
The fort itself is the worst thing of the kind that we have seen on our journey. It is a low one-story building, constructed on wood and clay, with three connecting wings, and no enclosure. Instead of cows, the fort had only some goats. In short, the whole establishment appeared somewhat poverty-stricken, for which reason it is also known to the trappers as Fort Misery.
The last rendezvous held in Brown's Hole was in November, 1842. William T. Hamilton, an eye-witness, recorded what occurred:
Several traders had come from the states with supplies, and there was quite a rivalry among them for our furs. Bovey and Company were the most liberal buyers, and we sold them the entire lot. Besides the trappers, there were at the rendezvous many Indians - Shoshones, Utes, and a few lodges of Navajos - who came to exchange their pelts for whatever they stood in need of. Take all in all, it was just such a crowd as would delight the student were he studying the characteristics of the mountaineer and the Indian. The days were given to horse racing, foot racing, shooting matches; and in the evening were heard the music of voice and drum and the sound of dancing. There was also an abundance of reading matter for those inclined in that direction.
After 1842, Fort Davy Crockett fell quickly into decay and disuse. When John C. Fremont, with Kit Carson as his guide, passed through Brown's Hole a few years later, he merely noted "the ruins of an old fort" on the left bank of the river, and nothing more.
There remains much dispute as to the location of Fort Davy Crockett in Brown's Park, most scholars preferring to believe the logical situation would have been near Lodore Canyon, in the Colorado (eastern) end of the Park, where the valley is wide and filled with lush meadows.
However, all available evidence indicates that the fort was in the Utah (western) end, and on the south bank of Green River, opposite the mouth of Red Creek. Dr. Wislizenus gives the best evidence, describing his route from the west, coming down Red Creek Canyon, and seeing the fort as the first landmark encountered upon entering the valley.
Farnham, too, describes the fort as enclosed about by mountains, "...The dark mountains rose around it sublimely..." Anyone familiar with the early fur trade will also realize that forts were seldom built in the fields and meadows, which would have destroyed valuable grazing.
Moreover, early settlers were familiar with the ruins across from Red Creek, just above the Jarvie place, which consisted of two or three log cabins and an old rock house. There were no windows in the rock building, having only slits in the rocks about six inches wide and two or three feet in length, about the size for several rifle barrels to fit through. It was utilized as a saloon, but had been constructed from the ruins of Fort Davy Crockett by Major Noyes Baldwin in 1865, to protect the military road which crossed the river at Indian Crossing, then went up Jackson Draw and on to Ashley Valley. Major Baldwin's report, in the National Archives, confirms the location of Fort Davy Crockett at this place. His report states, "...we constructed a stone blockhouse, for the protection of supplies, from the foundations of an old trapper's fort which formerly stood at this place, several cabins, still in evidence."
In 1902, Charley Crouse and a few others tore the upper stones from the walls of the ruins and tossed them into the river above Indian Crossing to divert water from the Green River into irrigation ditches. Charley's daughter, Minnie, reported in later years that John Jarvie, Sr. had taken her to the site in 1906 and pointed it out as the ruins of Fort Davy Crockett, and showed her the grave of H.M. Hook, which is nearby. Minnie also confirmed that her father, Charley Crouse, had told her his "ditch" was made by damming the river with stones from "Old Fort Crockett."
One who should have known, having been there during its heyday, was the old Trapper and squaw man Jimmie Reed, who reported to members of his family that old Fort Crockett was "about two or three miles west of my claim," i.e. the Crouse ranch.
The last vestiges of a recognizable Fort Davy Crockett disappeared in the early 1930's when, as a part of Roosevelt's Civil Conservation Corps efforts to provide job projects, the last remaining stone remnants were thrown into the river to create a diversion irrigation dam. A line of stones may still be seen in the river bed at periods of low water.
Site - 10 HOOK'S GRAVE
In 1867, as the Union Pacific Railroad pushed its way westward to a union with the Southern Pacific near Promontory Point, Utah, the camp at Cheyenne soon burgeoned into a full-fledged city, and needed a mayor. The man elected was H.M. Hook.
Hook's term was short-lived, however, and by the spring of 1868, he had moved on with the railroad to Green River City, Wyoming. Here, Hook joined Jesse Ewing and others in a prospecting expedition southward to the Uintah Mountains.
The raft upon which they sailed down the Green River, made of railroad ties, lashed together, struck a submerged rock in Red Canyon, and Hook was thrown into the muddy waters and drowned. His body was recovered by his companions a few miles below, and when they emerged into Brown's Park, they buried it several yards east of the ruins of Fort Davy Crockett, on the south bank of the Green River.
The gravestone, marked by a stone, was pointed out and identified by John Jarvie to Minnie Crouse Rasmussen in 1906. By some accounts, the gravesite is identified as being that of Charles Robertson (Robinson) who was killed by Jesse Ewing on the ice of the river. However, Jarvie indicated quite clearly that he brought Robinson's body back to his store for burial. Moreover, Hook could not have been buried at the Jarvie place, as some believe, inasmuch as Jarvie had not yet arrived in Brown's Park at the time of Hook's death.
Site - 11 DOC PARSONS GRAVE
On June 22, 1854, Warren P. Parsons and his wife, "Snapping" Annie, arrived in Brown's Park. Annie was the first known white woman in Brown's Park. Uncle Sam Bassett noted in his diary: "Man's freedom in paradise is doomed." Warren P. Parsons was the father of Dr. John D. Parsons.
Dr. John D. Parsons was born at Quincy, Illinois, on February 26, 1818. He came West in 1858, four years after his father settled in Brown's Park, and operated a ranch at what is now the central part of Denver.
Losing a large fortune in the construction of a large irrigation project, Dr. Parsons left Colorado in 1862 and settled on the Green River below Green River City, Wyoming. Here he became a successful cattleman and established a ferry on the Green River over which many travelers on the Oregon Trail crossed.
In 1865-66, Dr. Parsons returned to Denver where, in 1866, he aided in establishing the Colorado Stock Growers Association, and compiled the by-laws of that association. He was also a mine and smelter owner, and brought the dies to Denver which established the Denver Mint. He aided in the minting of $2.50 and $5.00 gold coins. He also operated a dairy in the vicinity of the present Denver Stock Yards. The 1872 directory of Denver lists Dr. John D. Parsons as a practicing physician at Spring Bank House.
Dr. Parsons moved to Brown's Park between the years 1874-76, and maps of the A.D. Ferron Survey, dated August 15, 1878, showed the location of his cabin in Section 36, Township 2 North, Range 24 East, Salt Lake Meridian.
Dr. Parsons constructed his cabin near the mouth of Sears Creek, near its confluence with the Green River. Constructed between 1874-76, the cabin was 15 x 33 feet, of logs hewn to the square, with a frame gable roof of sawed boards. The cabin consisted of two rooms, but unexplainedly there were no doors in the partitions separating the rooms.
Forty-five feet east of the cabin is a 7 x 10 feet log cabin springhouse, over a natural cold spring. This building is reconstructed, the original having been of logs with a dirt roof. Sixty-five yards west of the cabin is a 15 x 18 feet log structure which served as a blacksmith shop. The logs were joined with saddle-notching, with a roof of cedar and cottonwood poles covered with dirt.
A third cabin was separated by the Doc Parsons cabin and the blacksmith shop by a small grove of fruit trees surrounded by a fence. It lies 85 yards south-southwest of the Doc Parsons cabin, and is 15 x 18 feet with a front porch on the east constructed circa 1920, and was used as a bunk and guest house. Fifteen yards east of this cabin is a rock-faced dugout used for storage. Two houses built circa 1930 and a windmill used to produce electricity have since been torn down. These structures sat on a total area of 2.5 acres. The claim had originally been part of that belonging to the squaw man, Jimmie Reed. Prior to the arrival of Dr. Parsons, old Louie Simmons, son-in-law of Kit Carson, had resided there in a wickiup.
Dr. Parsons' wife was named Daphne Dunster Parsons; they had a daughter, Helena, born in California Gulch, Colorado, on May 17, 1861, and a son, Warren D. Parsons, on August 11, 1879. Helena Parsons married Lewis Allen, who later operated a horse ranch with Cleophas Dowd between Eagle and Cart Creeks, above Red Canyon (later called Greendale). Lewis Allen was born in Wales in 1847, was orphaned at an early age, and brought to the United States by Mormon converts when he was eleven. In later years he was a merchant and postmaster at Ashley (Vernal) and eventually went to Pinedale, Wyoming.
When Dr. John D. Parsons died (by some accounts 1879 - by others 1881), he was buried about ½ mile north of the cabin. An infant daughter of Lewis and Helena Parsons Allen is buried next to her grandfather. Upon the occasion of Dr. Parsons' death, J.S. Hoy wrote that it was the first "natural" death in Brown's Park - a somewhat dubious tribute to its violent history. The Parsons family left Brown's Park in 1884.
After the cabin was vacated, it became a favorite stop-over for travelers along the Fort Bridger - Green River City to Vernal road. The cabin also became a temporary residence for various persons, including many of the transient outlaws who inhabited the Park. The McCartys resided there for a time, as did Butch Cassidy, the latter of whom carved his name on a ledge of rock not far from the cabin.
Matt Warner resided in the cabin during the winter of 1895-95 with his wife, Rosa Rumel, and young daughter, Hayda, while he developed his ranch on Diamond Mountain. It was at the springhouse at the Parsons place that Rosa, who was pregnant at the time, slipped on the wet slope and fell, injuring her hip, which resulted in the cancerous growth with caused her leg to be amputated, and from the effects of which she subsequently died.
In November 1896, Etta Place, Maude Davis, and Elzy Lay celebrated their birthdays in the cabin (their birthdays being close together), while Cassidy and Lay finalized the organization of the Wild Bunch. That same winter, the two young women would "honeymoon" with Cassidy and Lay at Robbers Roost.
In 1901 the Chew family lived in Doc Parsons cabin when they first arrived in Brown's Park, and when the Charles Taylor family arrived in 1904, they, too, lived there until they constructed a spacious house nearby. Marie Taylor married Bill Allen, and they built a home and ranch headquarters across the river, and preserved many relics from the Parsons and Jarvie places. To Marie Allen goes extensive credit for the preservation of many historic sites in Brown's Park, including the Parsons cabin. Unfortunately, not long after getting the cabin on the register of historic sites, it was burned to the ground by parties unknown.
Site - 12 GOODSON - HERRERA CABIN
Juan Jose Herrera dressed and acted the part of a gentleman. He was lighter skinned than his Mexican companions, and he made it known that he was the descendant of pure Castillion aristocracy, and the fact that he often acted the part with fiery temperament had gotten him into trouble more than once.
Juan couldn't help but get involved in the war between the United States and Mexico, and a year after the war started he became involved in the deaths of three prominent men, including a militia officer in the New Mexico territory. Realizing he would have to leave the area, he encouraged some of his Mexican followers to accompany him, using as inducement and old map from an early expedition of his ancestors, to the gold mines of the Uintah Mountains of Utah. He promised his brother Pablo and the other Mexicans that they would find the gold, build a rancho, and maybe an empire - over which he would, of course, rule, due to his royal blood.
Driving a large head of cattle before them, made even larger by rustled cattle picked up along the way, Juan Jose Herrera and his band arrived in Brown's Hole in 1847. When they settled at a spring at the base of O-Wi-U-Kuts Mountain (later, this became the Bassett Ranch), giving Brown's Hole its first permanent cattle herd, the Mormons were trekking north of there, on their way to Salt Lake Valley. But Herrera's dream of starting his own empire busted a year later when, in 1848, Brown's Hole was included in the land ceded to the United States by Mexico.
Headquarters for Herrera's "rancho" was merely a cabin at Joe's Spring - he was called "Spanish Joe" to his face, "Mexican Joe" out of hearing - which housed Joe and eight or ten of his band. They built a dam across Vermillion Creek in an effort to irrigate some cleared ground.
In the summer of 1867 a party of Mormon prospectors who had spent the winter on Willow Creek, a tributary of the Sweetwater River in Wyoming, returned to Fort Bridger with $15,000 in gold from the Carissa Lode. A rush of 200 Mormons and Gentiles flooded to South Pass. By 1868, thousands flocked to South Pass City, Atlantic City, and Miner's Delight, and among them was Mexican Joe. With a pair of sturdy oxen and a wagon, he began hauling freight from the newly constructed Union Pacific Railroad to South Pass City.
Here he made an unlikely friend in Asbury B. Conway, a down-on-his-luck attorney from Iowa. Conway, who was born October 13, 1837, in McLean County, Illinois, and moved with his family to Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, completed the four-year liberal arts program at Wesleyan University in three years. He received his LLB degree from the University Law School in 1860. For a time he served as justice of the peace at Mt. Pleasant, where he earned the title "Judge," and for a time was a school teacher.
The Civil War saw him serving as a captain, and at its close, he was promoted to major for "meritorious conduct." He returned to his law practice and soon held a seat in the Iowa State Legislature. Although the reason is unknown, Conway was soon after in Wyoming, drunk a good part of time, and broke. It was then that he struck up a friendship with Mexican Joe.
Joe fell for the charms of a pretty saloon girl who swindled him of his wagon, oxen, and money, and left South Pass hurriedly. His ego crushed, Joe began to drink and gamble to excess. He became morose and dangerous, and the local citizenry wanted rid of him, but didn't dare attempt to make him leave. They hired a tough Negro to do the job.
The adversaries met in a saloon. Joe, as was his custom, sat at the table, running his knife slowly back and forth across the whetstone, his cold eyes making the black man sweat with nervousness. The war of nerves continued at length until the Negro got up quickly to depart. Joe pulled hi gun and shot the man in the heel of the foot. Although Joe hadn't intended to kill his adversary, blood-poisoning soon set in, and the man died. Joe fled back to Brown's Hole, accompanied by his new friend, Judge Conway.
Conway brought a few tears to Joe's eyes every time he played his violin, and Indian children, attracted to the strains of music, came around to dance. But Conway, ever enigmatic, soon left Joe's camp to ride with the Tip Gault Gang along the Overland Trail. Eventually, Conway moved to Green River City to practice law, quit drinking (somewhat), became Sweetwater County Attorney and, eventually, Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court. He dressed even then in his shrunken buckskin trousers, worn Prince Albert coat, and top hat. He occasionally returned to visit Brown's Park, usually staying with the Bassett family.
Even before the Bassetts settled at Joe's Spring, Mexican Joe and his group had removed up the valley to a cabin on Willow Creek. It was here that the famous fight between Mexican Joe and Valentine Hoy occurred (See Hoy Site 16).
Mexican Joe was eventually killed in 1885 and his murderer, Juan Gallegos was tried before Judge Conway. Gallegos was sentenced to five years in the Wyoming State Prison at Laramie. He was age 60. Pablo Herrera, Joe's brother, after running away briefly with Maggie, the wife of George Baggs, returned to Brown's Park where he was shot and killed by Cleophas J. Dowd in a dispute over a horse race on the Crouse ranch; he is buried on the flat a few yards southwest of the Crouse ranch house.
After Mexican Joe's departure, his cabin on Willow Creek was taken over by Jimmy Goodson and his wife, Mary Jane "Molly." They raised a patch of vegetables, a passel of kids, and a menagerie of hogs. Some of the latter escaped and ran wild, wallowing in the mud of nearby Hog Lake, which takes its name from them.
Site - 13 KELVINGTON'S GRAVE
George Kelvington was an old Brown's Park bachelor. He was an old soldier who raised fruit including nectarines, at Birch Springs on Beaver Creek. For many years he lived a solitary existence in an old cabin on the upper reaches of Willow Creek, near the foot of Cold Springs Mountain. His only companions, for as long as anyone could remember, was an old horse and an old dog. The horse was too sway-backed to ride, and the dog so old and infirm that he could not walk. When both died within days of each other, old George was heart-broken.
Someone took pity on the old bachelor and brought him a puppy to keep him company. After a year or so, the two were inseparable companions. Shortly after the turn of the century, Minnie Crouse, who was homesteading at Grindstone Springs (Minnie's Gap) with her father, Charley, began to wonder why she had not seen George Kelvington in several months.
She decided to go down to the Park and pay him a surprise visit. As she rode up to the little cabin, Minnie could hear the dog barking wildly inside, and noticed that it was leaping frantically against the window. Alarmed, she summoned up enough courage to peer through the window, and what she saw remained a gruesome memory for the rest of her life. On the bed in the otherwise scrupulously neat cabin was the dead body of George Kelvington, torn and mangled and half-eaten by the starved dog.
Minnie rushed down to Willow Creek Ranch for help. The men who came back with her assessed the situation and decided the dog would have to be shot. There was no telling, they avowed, whether or not the dog was mad, or whether having tasted human flesh it might not attack a child, or even a man. One man cautiously opened the door while another shot at the dog as it ran out. But in his anxiety, the man's aim was bad, and he missed, and the dog yelped off into the cedars.
Turning their attention from the dog to Kelvington's body, the men broke out shovels and began to dig a grave. Minnie perched herself on a nearby rock to watch the men at work. Suddenly she felt a wet tongue on her elbow, and she leaped up in prickly fear; there was the dog, wagging its tail in friendly anticipation.
The dog didn't appear to be mad, but they agreed that it might still be dangerous, so at last they shot it. Then they buried Kelvington; but before they covered the grave, they laid the dead
dog beside its master, and buried them together. They deduced that old George Kelvington wouldn't hold a grudge against the only friend he had, and would not object in death to the companionship of one he had sustained, by his own flesh, in life.
Site - 14 CASSIDY RACECOURSE
In 1885, Robert Leroy Parker - soon to be famous as Butch Cassidy - was a youth of nineteen. That same year he arrived in Brown's Park from Telluride, Colorado, and went to work for Charley Crouse, just as the latter had arranged a horse race between his sorrel gelding and Ken Hatch's much-touted black mare. Crouse could see that young Cassidy knew horses, and he hired him to ride the sorrel gelding. The race was run on an old Indian Track at Valentine Hoy's ranch. Cassidy, and the sorrel, won, and Crouse threw a big spread at Charley Allen's place, to celebrate.
After a while, someone noticed that the young hero of the occasion was not present. Mary Crouse went out to the bunkhouse and there found him all by himself. He declined to join the celebration, saying he wasn't much for partying. She finally urged him to come in and at least get a bite to eat, which he did, but remained only long enough to finish up his plate, before returning to the bunkhouse.
Charley Crouse was an inveterate horse-racer and gambler. Next to dancing, horse racing was the favorite pastime in Brown's Park. Whenever any group of men got together, the topic of horseflesh was bound to come up, and if a man ever got hold of a good horse, he couldn't wait to try it out against the established champion. Discussion inevitably led to argument and ultimately to a challenge, the setting of a time and place, and to heavy betting.
Each contestant went through an elaborate ritual of oating, grooming, and training, to put his mount in top condition; and, just as important as the horse was its rider.
For many years Phil Mass had the fastest horses around, beating out all comers. This had rankled Charley Crouse for a long time, and he determined to do something about it. Crouse went into partnership with Aaron Overholt to purchase a renowned race horse called the "Brown Stud." Young Cassidy had recommended the purchase of the Brown Stud, suggesting that under certain conditions this horse could beat Mass' famous champion, "Sorrel Johnny."
Crouse spared no expense. Cassidy had intimated that Mass' horse had always prevailed because he ran on a grass-track, such as the one most frequently used on the Hoy Meadows. He suggested to Crouse that he should make a dirt track of a quarter-mile length, with an extension at one end to be used as a starting line; i.e., the riders would race together towards the actual starting line, and if they were even when they reached the line, the race would continue to a finish.
Crouse located a flat stretch of ground on the north bank of the Green River, just east of the confluence of Beaver Creek with that stream. He hired Speck Welhouse to plough and harrow the track, and by July 4th, the day of the big race, all was ready.
Cassidy was hired to ride the Brown Stud against Mass' champion. He spent several weeks oating and training the horse on the fresh track, always in the strictest secrecy. On the day of the race, hundreds of people congregated from as far away as Rock Springs, Vernal and Steamboat Springs. The big race was enhanced by a day-long barbecue, an evening dance, and a midnight supper.
Betting was never heavier than on that day. Crouse promised Cassidy a new Winchester as a bonus if he won the race. The race was close - the Brown Stud nosed out Mass' champion for a win, and Cassidy became the hero of the day. That night he collected his wages and his new rifle, attended the midnight supper, and went to sleep in the bunkhouse. In the morning, he was gone. Such was his way.
For many years thereafter, races were held on the track near Beaver Creek, and it was ever afterwards referred to a "Cassidy's Racecourse."
Site - 15 MEXICAN GRAVES
Shortly after the year 1890, Sheriff John T. Pope at Uintah County, Utah, became the first sheriff brave enough (or foolish enough!) to venture into Brown's Park to make arrests. At first, it was not easy.
Buckskin Ed Carouthers was a bad man by any standard. He was called Buckskin Ed because he always wore buckskin trousers that were bent stiff at the knees making it appear that he was always ready to jump. He carried two long-barreled six-shooters, and was constantly in trouble with the law.
Sheriff Pope found Buckskin Ed holed up in a cabin on Beaver Creek, and waited all night; when Ed came out early in the morning, Pope arrested him at gunpoint, handcuffed him, and headed south towards Vernal. They had to cross the Green River in a rowboat at Parsons Ford, just above the Crouse Ranch. Pope tied the horses behind the boat, settled his prisoner inside, and seated himself with his back towards Buckskin Ed in order to row.
At a point mid-way of the river, when Pope was occupied in rowing, Buckskin Ed pulled his pocket knife and plunged in into the sheriff's throat. Pope drew his six shooter and fired over his shoulder, striking Ed in the face with the bullet, which sent him toppling into the river, gushing rivulets of blood. Pope tied his handkerchief around his throat to contain his own wound, and continued on to Vernal.
At Vernal, Charley Crouse asked Pope what had happened to Buckskin Ed, whom he was supposed to bring in. Pope shrugged and replied, "the last time I saw him he was on his way to Arizona." Thereafter, anyone who disappeared in Brown's Park was said to have "Gone to Arizona." A year or so later, Speck Welhouse found Buckskin Ed's body in a pile of driftwood in Lodore Canyon.
In 1893, Pope added insult to injury by moving into Brown's Park and starting a ranch on Red Creek, above the Jarvie place; Butch Cassidy and Elzy Lay were frequent visitors there, maintaining a respectful friendship with the Sheriff. Other outlaws, however, resenting the sheriff's presence in their midst, placed a reward of between fifteen hundred to four thousand dollars on Pope's head. From that day onward, Sheriff Pope became the target of numerous ambushes.
One such ambush occurred as Pope entered Brown's Park one morning via Sears Canyon. A shot from a rocky ledge shot Pope's horse through the head, bringing both horse and rider to the ground. Pope jerked his rifle from the saddle scabbard even as he fell, and lay flat on the ground behind his dead horse. He tossed the flap of his saddle blanket over the barrel of the rifle, and waited. The ambusher kept firing bullets into the body of the horse in an effort to penetrate the carcass and hit the sheriff. Upon getting no return fire, the ambushed raised his head slightly above the rocks to survey the scene, at which time Pope shot him through the head.
On the bench a mile or two southwest of the Davenport Ranch, are the graves of two Mexican horse thieves killed by Sheriff Pope. Sheriff Pope of Uintah County, Utah, and Sheriff Charles W. Nieman of Routt County, Colorado, trailed three Mexican horse thieves to a cabin just below the Davenport place. Finding them asleep, Pope yelled, "Hands up!" Only one obeyed; the other two reached for their rifles, and Pope killed both instantly with his Colt's six-shooter.
The third Mexican took advantage of the confusion to leap onto a horse and ride away, amidst a hail of lead from the guns of the two sheriffs. One of the bullets struck its mark, but still the lawmen trailed the bandit more than sixty miles before they found him dead in an abandoned log cabin. Sheriff Pope's report stated succinctly: "Died on the trail from wound he received by resisting arrest." John T. Pope died at Vernal, Utah, on January 1, 1943, at the age of eighty-three.
Site - 16 HOY RANCHES
Perhaps the most prime meadow-land in Brown's Park lay along the Green River in the eastern (Colorado) end of the valley, just before the river plunged into the yawning maw of majestic Lodore Canyon. These lush lands, known as Hoy Meadows or Hoy Bottoms, were the domain of the Hoy brothers' ranches.
The Hoy brothers originated in Hoy's Gap, Pennsylvania, and came West about the time of the opening of the transcontinental railroad to seek their fortune. The first of the family to come West was J.S. (Jesse) Hoy, who arrived in Brown's Park in 1872 and spent the winter.
Among other residents in the Park at that time were George Baggs and his common-law wife, Maggie, she being the second known white woman to venture into that wild and pre-eminently male domain. Maggie had eyes for Pablo Herrera, a member of the Mexican gang headed by his brother, Juan Jose Herrera - better known as Mexican Joe. When George Baggs went south for another herd in 1872, Maggie stayed behind with Pablo.
Juan Jose Herrera was probably the best - or at least the most effective - knife fighter in northwestern Colorado. Awake or asleep, Mexican Joe carried a ten-inch knife in a sheath between his shoulder blades, where he could retrieve it by pretending to scratch his neck. Often he would hone the knife while arguing with an adversary, ending the dispute abruptly with a deadly assault. Sometimes it was a threat calculated to intimidate; sometimes the threat was carried out.
When J.S. Hoy came to Brown's Park, Mexican Joe monopolized the Indian trade. The Indians came to Hoy with prime buckskins, saying "Joe heap steal." Mexican Joe took exception. Early in the summer of 1873, while Hoy was away from the Park, Mexican Joe and his gang, on their own initiative, proceeded to harvest a quantity of hay along the river bottom with scythes, which they stacked in Hoy's corral without his knowledge.
When Hoy returned in the fall of 1873, Mexican Joe demanded payment at the highly usurious rate of $15.00 a "cord" - Joe being unfamiliar with any other form of measurement. Naturally Hoy refused to pay, and Joe was upset, this being the third effrontery he imagined he had suffered at the hands of the young rancher. Hoy then added insult to injury by bringing in a horse-drawn mowing machine - the first of its kind in Northwestern Colorado - and putting up as much hay in one day than Joe and all his friends had accomplished in two weeks of hard labor.
At about the same time, Hoy discovered one of his fattest steers missing. Accompanied by one of his cowpunchers, Hoy rode into the Mexican camp on Willow Creek and began to examine brands on discarded hides. Concerning this, Hoy wrote:
"If a bomb had been thrown in their cabin and exploded, it could not have created greater consternation and call to arms; a worse insult could not have been offered Joe or any other horse or cattle thief. They surrounded me chattering and jabbering in their own language, of which I understand but little, Joe saying: 'You t'ink me steal, eh? Examine de hides! Look more! Here is annoder one,' and like exclamations. He fairly danced in his rage, while his eyes scintillated steel and lightning."
Mexican Joe, as he was prone to do in such circumstances, took out his long knife and began to hone it. The sight of it, wrote Hoy, "had a tendency to make cold chills run up and down one's back, and gooseflesh crawl.." Hoy's companion quickly retreated, but Hoy brazenly attempted to ride out the situation, and probably would have been killed if not for the timely intervention of Asbury B. Conway, who had some influence with the Herrera gang. Hoy was permitted to leave, but Joe's pride had been injured and he had no intention of letting the matter lapse. With innuendoes, half-threats, and strong hints, he kept the war of nerves alive: "...after bearing the mental strain as long as I could," wrote Hoy, "I concluded discretion was the was the better part of valor, and without telling anyone my intentions, one day...I saddled my horse and started back for my old camp on Bear River...As an emergency existed, it did not take me more than fifteen minutes to get ready..."
J.S. Hoy then reveals a startling commentary on the extent of his manhood: "I arrived in camp (on Bear River)...at the close of the fifth day of my journey. I changed places with Valentine, who, the following morning, started for Brown's Hole, where he arrived in good time..." Hoy obviously had no qualms about sending his brother back to face the danger from which he himself had fled.
J.S. Hoy obviously lacked something in physical courage, but the cause is known. Coming from a well-to-do family, Hoy had been sent to Paris, France in his youth to further his education. Sexually precocious by his own admission, he was caught in the act of intercourse with the wife of a man who, accompanied by two medical students, castrated him on the spot. Therefore, when, forty years later, during the course of a fist-fight, Hi Bernard referred to Hoy as a "damned old steer," it was not simply a figure of speech.
Valentine Hoy had known Mexican Joe at South Pass City during mining days, and was well aware of his reputation. Valentine Hoy was a very innocuous character, and Joe believed him to be easily handled. Indeed, with his arrival in Brown's Park, even more of the Hoy cattle disappeared.
Valentine surprised Mexican Joe by confronting him in the midst of his gang at Jimmy Goodson's cabin on Willow Creek and charged him with the theft of the cattle. Joe, of course, started honing his knife. Suddenly he called Hoy a lying S.O.B. and lunged at him with the knife, but Valentine adroitly dodged the downward thrust and slugged Joe soundly on the jaw with a hay-maker punch. Mexican Joe went down, and Hoy pulled his own knife from a sheath in his boot. Hoy "aimed with one slash to rip the Mexican from end to end. As the blow was descending, two or three men...caught his arm so that the blow only split one of Joe's buttocks...this laid Joe up for a month or two..."
Mexican Joe had been humiliated by a mild-mannered man much smaller than himself, and in a medium where he had formerly considered himself supreme. J.S. Hoy summed it up thusly:
"The news of Joe's defeat...spread rapidly throughout the country where (he) was known, all predicting that one of the other would be killed the first time they met, with heavy odds that Joe would come off the winner. They avoided a chance meeting by keeping away from the neighborhood of their respective camps. The inevitable meeting took place at last near the Hoy camp at the head of Willow Creek while the summer roundup was there. Of the fifty men that composed the roundup force, Joe was the quietest and most peacefully inclined. All he wanted was to make a treaty with his late antagonist. He had met his match."
Meanwhile, J.S. Hoy had purchased a small ranch near Evanston, Wyoming, and ingratiated himself with officials of the Union Pacific Railroad to the extent that he was elected to the Wyoming Territorial House of Representatives. Ultimately, he rejoined Valentine in Brown's Park; thereafter Mexican Joe and his henchmen bothered the Hoys no more.
In 1875, the Hoys were joined by a third brother, A.A. (Adea) Hoy, and by their uncle, Frank Hoy. The Hoys, having subdued the Herrera influence, set about making Brown's Park their exclusive preserve, making enemies of many old settlers and relative newcomers to the vicinity.
It was Elizabeth Bassett who, resenting the Hoys' manorial ways, created an organization loosely known as "The Bassett Gang," to bring the Hoys down a notch or two. They set about to burn the buildings on the Hoy ranch, after which they held a big celebration at the Bassett ranch.
Henry Hoy was the prosecuting witness who brought the arson charge against Angus McDougal, Isom Dart, and Jack Fitch, while Adea Hoy charged McDougal and Dart with altering brands on three of his horses. Among witnesses subpoenaed for the defense were Elizabeth Bassett, Sam Bassett, Jr., and Thomas Davenport. Angus McDougal was convicted on both counts and was sentenced on October 8, 1890 to serve five years in the Colorado State Penitentiary. Isom Dart escaped from the Hahn's Peak jail and was never brought to trial, and the indictment against Fitch was quashed.
The power of the Hoys was at an end, however. After the untimely death of Elizabeth Bassett by appendicitis, on December 11, 1892, at the age of 37. J.S. Hoy is quoted as saying: "We came to Brown's Park to run the nesters out. We started it, but Elizabeth Bassett finished it, and she finished it good!"
Site - 17 RASH RANCH
Madison M. "Matt" Rash was born near Acton, Hood County, Texas, on January 4, 1865. His mother, a younger sister of the famous Davy Crockett, died when Matt was twelve years of age, and he left home not long after, and for the next few years wandered the Southwest. Sometime in the early 1880's, he showed up in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma in a shiny new buggy with bright yellow wheels, driving a pair of high-stepping sorrel trotters he allegedly had stolen from a banker of Arkansas.
William G. "Billy Buck" Tittsworth, an early resident of Brown's Park, wrote that when Rash appeared in Oklahoma, he had "no particular home and a self-oiling tongue...had plenty of money, dressed well...and was a lady's man from way back." One blossoming young thing who caught Matt's eye was a pretty Indian girl named Mincy.
Mincy was the half-breed daughter of a Shoshone woman named Tickup, by her white trapper husband. Tickup had then become the woman of an Indian named Pony Beater. Pony Beater disliked Mincy because her father had been a white man, and whenever he became drunk on Mexican Joe Herrera's trade liquor, he would beat up on Mincy; when Tickup tried to protect her child, he beat up on her too.
It was while Madame Forrestal was shacked up with Jesse Ewing that Tickup and her child came on foot to Jesse Ewing's cabin seeking help. Pony Beater would soon be after them, on horseback, as soon as he sobered up. It had happened before. It was the spring of the year, and the Green River was in full flood; they needed help in getting across before Pony Beater caught up to them. Madame Forrestal did not hesitate to lend them one of Ewing's best ponies.
Having been given a good meal and fortified with extra food, warm clothing, and matches, Tickup and Mincy were able to ford the river, where they left Ewing's horse and continued on foot. They were soon taken by a squaw man named Ike Frop who had a camp, with several other squaw men, at Charcoal Bottom, a long day's ride up the Green River. Tickup and Mincy were hoisted aboard two of Frop's horses and brought to his camp.
In addition to Frop and his squaw, there were also at Charcoal Bottom a man named Fogarty and his Shoshone wife, Billy Buck Tittsworth, and Isom Dart. For some weeks they had been engaged in rounding up wild horses into cottonwood-log corrals, and breaking them as saddle and pack animals, for which there was a good market. Isom Dart - who was then known as Ned Huddleston - was an expert horse-trainer, and later trained get-away mounts for the Wild Bunch. Before long, Tickup and her daughter moved into Isom's wickiup and set up housekeeping.
Isom Dart was happier than he ever had been in his life. In Tickup's pretty little nine-year-old daughter he found someone he could truly cherish, and who returned the affection he lavished upon her. Then one day one of Isom's friends reported that the Ute Indian Pony Beater was aware of Tickup's whereabouts, and was on the warpath. Isom packed up his little family and headed for the hills; but Pony Beater, an excellent tracker, was soon on their trail.
Isom was a huge man of six feet two inches, with a forty-six inch chest and a thirty-two inch waist, and one would think he could take care of himself in any situation. But Isom was a black man, a former slave, whose insidious memories of his origin caused almost immediate obedience to others. Consequently, when Pony Beater rode into his camp demanding that the Negro deliver over Tickup and Mincy, he did so without argument. Furthermore, Pony Beater forced him to lie on the ground beside a cedar log, and made Tickup hog-tie him with leather thongs. Isom's friends found him there after Pony Beater had departed with Isom's tepee, his possessions, and his little family.
As soon as they were back in Brown's Park, Pony Beater commenced to get drunk, and beat Tickup and Mincy nearly to death. While he was sleeping off this binge, Tickup nearly severed his head with his own butcher knife, then packed up a considerable amount of plunder on several horses and set out with Mincy to her own people in the vicinity of Fort Hall, Idaho. Tickup soon took on a new lover of her own race.
By this time, Isom had regained his resolve, and set out with Tip Gault, Casimero, Terresa, and several other of his friends to retrieve his possessions, and, at least, little Mincy, whom he missed. Isom overpowered Tickup's young Shoshone lover in his wigwam, and was straddle of him, reaching for his knife in his belt, when Tickup knocked him cold with a stone axe, the blow severing all of his left ear except the lobe. He thereafter narrowly escaped being burned alive at the stake in the Shoshone village.
Isom Dart then joined the Tip Gault Gang, and, in August 1875, raided the Anderson horse herd and walked away with five fat money belts from the proceeds. Learning that the ex-Arkansas convict Jack Bennett was using, Tickup and Mincy in connection with his business of peddling liquor to the Shoshone Indians, Isom paid Claude Casebeer to spirit them away to Oklahoma. Mincy was there placed in a boarding school, and Isom footed the bill. Not long thereafter, he joined them in Oklahoma, where he and Casebeer raised cotton in the Indian Territory.
Thus matters stood when, as it has been related, the prepossessing young Texan named Matt Rash appeared on the Oklahoma scene. As soon as Rash began paying attention to Mincy, Isom Dart became irate; but this was Oklahoma, and Isom Dart, unable to cross the color lines, was unable to interfere. However, Claude Casebeer stepped in, receiving two black eyes and several knife cuts for his trouble. Then one morning, Matt Rash, with Mincy at his side in the fancy buggy with the sorrel trotters, disappeared from Oklahoma.
When Matt Rash next appeared some weeks later at Trinidad, Colorado, somewhat the worse for wear, Mincy was not with him. What happened to her is unknown, but old Tickup had died of smallpox shortly before their departure, and it was supposed that Mincy had contracted the same symptoms of the dread disease, and that Matt Rash had abandoned her to a grisly death on the prairie.
Isom Dart and Claude Casebeer set out on Rash's trail, but in the Texas panhandle Casebeer dropped out; Isom followed Rash back to Brown's Park, where, quite ironically, they both found work with John Clay's Middlesex Cattle Company, Rash as a range-foreman, and Dart as a horse-wrangler. Although bad blood existed between the two ever after, Isom never tried to exact vengeance upon Rash - again, the Negro's former slave training intimidated him against going after a Southern white man.
After a few months, Matt Rash left the Middlesex and went to work for Tim Kinney. Isom Dart made the acquaintance of the Bassetts, and soon moved to the ranch, cutting firewood, carrying water, cooking and tending to the five small Bassett children, whom he adored, having probably replaced his affection for Mincy.
When Kinney's Circle K outfit went out of business, Matt Rash showed up in Brown's Park driving more than seventy head of cattle which numbered only four cows, all the rest being young stock. He picked a piece of ground two or three miles west of Joe's Spring (where the Bassett's settled) and built a cabin on it. Soon he was "solid" with the Bassetts, and Elizabeth Bassett even gave him a fine sorrel filly which became his favorite saddle horse.
Quite early on, Matt Rash became very attentive to pretty Ann Bassett. A few weeks prior to Elizabeth Bassett's untimely death in the autumn of 1892, the following item appeared in the Craig, Colorado Pantograph:
