INCIDENTS OF THE INDIAN OUTBREAK OF 1864

FREIGHTING ON THE PLAINS-PLUM CREEK

MASSACRE

BY JAMES GREEN

In the spring of 1860 I went with my parents to Pike's Peak where I resided until January, 1862, when my brother-S. S. Green, now of Schuyler, Nebraska-and I, each with an ox team, started to Omaha after freight. From January to November, 1862, we made three round trips, traveling 3,600 miles in eleven months by "oxomobile."

In the spring of 1863 my brother went to Montana. At this time I exchanged my cattle for a mule team and made one trip with it in the early summer. While in Omaha I became entangled in the famous trial of Judge Tator for the murder of his friend, Isaac H. Neff, and I think I was the most important witness in the case. The accused was convicted and executed sometime in the fall of 1863. It was, I believe, the first legal execution in the territory.1

Being well pleased with the country around Shinn's ferry, about seven miles west of the present city of Schuy ler, I came back from Denver and squatted on a piece of land where the present station of Edholm now stands.

2

'Charles H. Brown, prosecuting attorney for Douglas county, assisted by George B. Lake, conducted the famous case against Cyrus H. Tator, and he was defended by Andrew J. Poppleton and William A. Little, both brilliant lawyers. Further accounts of this famous trial may be found in Sorenson's history of Omaha, page 125; Johnson's history of Nebraska, page 290; history of Omaha by Savage and Bell, page 136. -ED.

Shinn's Ferry was situated about one mile west and two miles

On May 30, 1864, I was married to Miss Elizabeth Garrett, who lived with her parents in Saunders county, twenty miles east of my claim. Not long after this, some time in July, I got a hankering for the old Rockys again, so we loaded our traps in the wagon and started across the plains, expecting to make our future home somewhere along the foot of the mountains. At the time we started there was a faint rumor that the Indians were going to cause trouble, and on arriving at Fort Kearny, 125 miles west, the officers there were advising the emigrants to travel in large companies for self-protection; but, being perfectly familiar with the country and also with the Indians along the route, we proceeded as far as Cottonwood Springs, afterward Fort McPherson. On our arrival at this point the air was full of rumors of depredations farther west, and it was said that one man had been killed and his stock run off. After due consideration we concluded the best thing to do was to go back and wait a year, when perhaps the Indian troubles would be settled.

So, early in the morning of August 6, we turned our oxen to the east and drove twelve miles to Gilman's Ranch and went into camp on the bank of the river, half a mile beyond. The river here was full of little towheads and small channels, a few inches deep, trickling over the sand. When we had been in camp perhaps an hour and a half and I was sitting on the wagon tongue thinking of hooking up, suddenly and silently nine of the biggest, blackest war painted Indians I ever saw suddenly appeared out of the river, all riding good horses. They at once began to parley, some of them talking pretty good English, for a trade of ponies for my "squaw." While my wife sat on the wagon in plain sight of them, they raised their bids from one to four ponies for her. All at once the whole party struck out for the bluffs on the full run, which for the moment

south of the subsequent site of Schuyler and about a mile and a half north of the site now occupied by Edholm, Butler county.-ED.