Along The River Trail - part 3

By Dan R. Conway

(First published in the Hysham Echo on April 14, 1927

“The Woodhawks”

The most serious problem with which the Missouri river navigator had to deal was that of fuel. Wood alone was used and was procured from the river banks. Cottonwood was the principal fuel used because it was found nearly everywhere, but in many respects it was poor fuel. When green cottonwood was used it was necessary to burn rosin with it too. It was often found impracticable to carry the boat from one regular wooding place to another and it was then necessary to gather drift logs or anything else that could be found. Whenever a trading post was abandoned, its palisades and buildings were quickly seized for fuel by boats. This accounts for the fact that it is impossible to find a single trace of most of the early trading posts on the river.

When the first steamboats ascended the Missouri the wood was mostly cut by the crews as the boats proceeded upstream. But as traffic became more regular, wood yards were established, either by the boat owners or by other who cut wood for sale. These latter men were known as “woodhawks,” and they led a life filled with danger from Indian attacks. For a time the Indians, themselves, found the business a profitable one and refused to let the whites cut wood at all. The sale of their wood thus became a source of considerable revenue to the red men.

In later years, during the Sioux wars, the wooding of boats was a serious undertaking. Crews were attacked at the landings, and only the most vigilant precautions prevented the loss of many men.

LaBarge’s Sawmill

In order to reduce the danger as much as possible, Captain LaBarge equipped one of his boats with a sawmill, and took along a yoke of oxen. When he had to have wood he swung out a large stage, drove the team ashore and dragged logs aboard with the oxen. Then the boat swung out into the channel again and the crew cut the wood up with the mill.

The “Tacony”

Some of the most thrilling stories of pioneer days have had to do with steamboat traffic on the “Big Muddy,” and one of these was graphically related a few years ago by Colonel William R. Norris, who was a former army scout under General Custer and for many years a well known trader at Fort Claggett at the mouth of Judith river.

In 1869, says Colonel Norris, low water on the Missouri was experienced somewhat early, and a steamer, the Tacony, bound for Fort Benton from St. Louis was forced to stop at Fort Peck, an early-day trading post on the north bank of the Missouri, opposite the mouth of the Big Dry. This Fort Peck should not be confused with the Indian agency established at the mouth of the Poplar river, also known later as Fort Peck.

It happened that Colonel Norris was in Helena in the fall of 1869, when word was received by United States Marshal William F. Wheeler that the Tacony had been seized by its crew in payment for their wages, and subsequent action by the owners required the boat to be taken into the possession of the federal marshal. Colonel Norris was deputized for this work. He bought a black saddle mare at Helena to make the trip with, and with his warrant and the necessary attachment papers, set out on this long ride of several hundred miles.

By the time he reached Fort Benton the going was extremely bad on account of a surface of ice along the trail, caused by thawing and freezing after early snows, but he kept on going until he reached the mouth of the Musselshell, where he left his mare and decided to finish his journey in a light skiff. The river was running slush ice, making progress dangerous and difficult, but he managed to keep going until he ran onto a big upstream snag, against which his craft stuck fast.

Colonel Norris was in a precarious condition. He had little or no food and would soon freeze to death if he remained on the river, while he found that he could not get his boat loose and push it around the snag, against which a lot of ice had drifted. After many efforts he was forced to climb onto the snag, holding to the boat’s rope, and at length managed to pull the boat back into an eddy behind the snag. The current, however, had pushed the boat up on one side until water had half filled it. His only hope was to get into the partly submerged boat and try to get ashore, and this he succeeded in doing, although not until a box containing his deputy marshal’s warrant, his other papers and his matches had gone overboard and were swept down stream. He managed to save his rifle and a package of tobacco and his pipe which he had in his coat pocket.

In Desperate Situation

On reaching shore, he found himself in a desperate situation. Without food or fire, wet to the skin and with his clothes frozen, he had the better part of 100 miles to travel through a hostile Indian country before reaching Fort Peck. His immediate need was a fire, for unless he could dry his clothing - and particularly his moccasins - he could not hope to get far. He figured that he had one chance, and that lay in being able to find a good sized log that had rotted inside and was dry enough to make good tinder. By good luck he discovered just such a log, and poking the barrel of his rifle into it he shot three times in rapid succession. The flame from the black powder set fire to the rotten wood, and on scraping it out he found embers that he was able to blow into a flame. He spent the night beside a roaring fire, drying his garments and his moccasins, and then set out for Fort Peck as fast as he could travel, his hunger appeased only with numerous cigarettes that he rolled.

At nightfall he calculated that he had made half of the distance, and finding a convenient coulee and another rotten log, repeated his experiment of the day before and again slept beside a fire. At daybreak he started out again and before night he reached the post.

An old man, Farwell, was in charge of the post, and to him Colonel Norris explained his predicament; he had been commissioned to take charge of the steamboat, but had lost his papers. What was he to do?

Farwell’s advice coincided with his own judgement, which was to go to the man in charge of the boat and by force, if necessary, take possession. He learned that the captain had gone down the river leaving a watchman in charge of the vessel. This watchman, it appeared, had been under instructions to set fire to the craft with a view to the owners getting the insurance. Some of the crew, however, caught the fireman in the act and shot him, inflicting a slight would. The boat’s engineer had then taken possession on behalf of the crew, the members of which had not been paid off.

Indians Killed Mate

The captain had gone on down the river in a mackinaw boat with some of the crew, and had taken the silverware from the steward’s pantry and such other valuables as they could conveniently carry. The mate had been killed by the Sioux while hunting near the fort.

The following morning Colonel Norris went down to the boat, which was tied up to the “hitching post” at the bank, and explained his mission to the engineer, The latter studied over the matter a few minutes and then gave possession of the boat to the colonel. The latter went aboard the almost deserted craft and fixed up a sleeping room for himself which opened out on to the after deck. There he was destined to remain for the next five or six months, but, as it turned out, his visit was not to be a peaceful one.

It happened that when the Tacony was forced to stop at Fort Peck because of the low water in the Missouri, the passengers bound for Fort Benton and other points in Montana were obliged to remain there for a couple of weeks until the freight teams from Benton arrived to take them up the river. Among the tenderfeet from the east was a husky young Missouri lad, who was much in love with a girl among the passengers, who was accompanying her parents to Montana. This boy, whose name Colonel Norris has forgotten, determined to go out and kill a buffalo, notwithstanding that he was warned of the danger from Sioux war parties who were constantly hanging around the trading post and occasionally attacking it. Finally he was loaned a muzzle-loading Springfield, of a type that had just come out and he started off on foot down the river toward Gilpin flat, some three miles below, to kill his buffalo.

Tenderfoot Gets a Sioux

He saw a number of old bulls hanging around the chokecherry patches along the river, and spent all of his ammunition blazing away at them, but killing none, as he did not know where to shoot them. At last, with only one bullet left, he threw his gun over his shoulder and started back to the fort, his mind on his girl and the life they would lead together in the new country if he could win her. Suddenly he heard the beating of horses’ hoofs on the grass and looked around just in time to see three painted Sioux braves charging down his at top speed.

One of the Sioux fired at him and grazed his face and ear, making a slight wound, the boy shot at this Indian and hit him in the body, blowing a hole through him that a man could stick his arm through. The other two Indians had dashed on a hundred feet before they could pull up their horses. The Missourian raised his gun, as though to take aim again at them and they rode off. The exhibition of marksmanship he had given was enough to convince them that the youngster’s medicine was good.
The plains Indian frequently used to ride his horse with a short rawhide rope half-hitched on the animal’s lower jaw for a bridle, and tie the other end of the rope to his own belt. Then, if thrown from the pony or shot off, the animal did not get away and leave its rider afoot. The dead Sioux had done this, and as he lay on the ground dead, his pony stood beside him, unable to move off without dragging his late master. The young Missourian unfastened the pony, mounted him, and taking the dead brave’s pistol, knife and other belongings he rode into Fort Peck, the proudest youth west of the Mississippi. It is easy to believe that the young man was a hero in the eyes of the damsel that he loved, and that they were married after they reached the Gallatin, whither they were bound.

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