Indian Agent Discourses on “The Snake Indians” [otd 06/01]

On June 1, 1863, J. W. Perit Huntington, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon, addressed a report to his Washington, D. C. boss, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The essay summarized what he had learned about the Indian tribes commonly known as the “Snakes.”

J. W. Perit Huntington.
Image courtesy of
the Oregon State Library.

He wrote, “The word Snake appears to be a general term applied to several bands or tribes of Indians quite distinct in language and characteristic, and inhabiting different tracts of country, but so connected by relationship (having intermarried with each other for long periods), and by long continued friendly intercourse, that they are usually regarded by whites and neighboring Indian tribes as one people.”

The Journals of the Corps of Discovery for 1804 contain the first mention of the “Snake Indians.” Captains Lewis and Clark learned of the “tribe” as a source of horses while they wintered at Fort Mandan, about forty miles north of today’s Bismarck, North Dakota.  The following year, near the Salmon River in Idaho, they traded for horses with the Lemhi Shoshone, one of the tribes collectively known as the Snake.

The next recorded encounter happened in 1811, when a fur company party led by Wilson Price Hunt met some Snakes in Wyoming. Later, two Snakes guided them over Teton Pass into Idaho [blog, October 5].

During the fur trade era that followed, mountain men and the Snakes mixed amicably, some whites acquiring Indian wives. The early flow of pioneers on the Oregon and California Trails through Idaho offered more opportunities for Snake bands to trade profitably. Thus, despite minor incidents, relations between the Snakes and white remained friendly.

However, the discovery of gold in California released a flood of gold-seekers and pioneers on the trails. That further degraded hunting and grazing in those areas, and clashes became more frequent and more violent. Then prospectors found gold in Idaho. Now, the tribes had to deal with miners and merchants who built cabins and stayed.

By the time Huntington prepared his report in 1863, conflict had escalated severely. The Superintendent tried to name the tribes he thought fit under the “Snake” designation. Modern scholarship does not agree totally with his list, which included the Modocs and the Klamaths.

Still, he did correctly identify the groups we now call the Shoshone, Bannock, and Northern Paiute Indians. He estimated their collective population as perhaps “5,000 to 6,000 souls” and said, “They have had but little intercourse with the whites, and that little of a hostile character.”

The worst of that violence, he felt, was between the miners and the tribes: “Many murders and thefts have been committed by the latter, which of course have been retaliated by the whites. In fact an actual state of war has existed there for the last twelve months.”

Shoshone Encampment.
William H. Jackson photo, Library of Congress.

He had conferred with the regional Army commander, and “The general concurred with me in regarding a war with the Indians inevitable, and regretted his inability to send troops to that region sooner than midsummer.”

Huntington strongly recommended that “the Indian Department” meet with the Snakes, hand out presents, and negotiate “the purchase of their lands.” He went on, “In my opinion the public interests urgently demand that an effort be made to accomplish this object.”

Unfortunately, the administration had no attention to spare for his recommendation. Over five years would pass before protracted military action brought a measure of peace with the western Snake bands.
                                                                                 

References: [B&W]

Wilson Price Hunt, Hoyt C. Franchère (ed. and translator), Overland diary of Wilson Price Hunt, translated from the original French Nouvelles Annales des Voyages (Paris, 1821), Ashland Oregon Book Society (1973).

Daniel S. Lamont (Director), The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. (1897).

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Gary E. Moulton (ed.), The Definitive Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (2002).

“The Snake War: 1864-1868,” Reference Series No. 236, Idaho State Historical Society (1966).

Businessman, Attorney, and Idaho Legislator Lorenzo Thomas [otd 05/31]

Lorenzo Thomas. Family archives.

Idaho legislator, attorney, and businessman Lorenzo R. Thomas was born May 31, 1870 in Staffordshire, England. His grandparents had converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints over twenty years earlier. Finally, in 1873, the family moved to the United States and settled in Salt Lake City.  Then, in 1882, they moved to Eagle Rock (now Idaho Falls), Idaho. As a teenager, Lorenzo went on a mission for the LDS church in England.

Upon his return, he began work in a store in Eagle Rock (the town name changed not too long after that). Thomas showed immediate talent for the retail trade and became manager of the Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) store in Rexburg at the age of twenty-two.

In 1895, Thomas was elected to the state House of Representatives, serving during the term of Governor William McConnell [blog, Sept 18]. That session of the legislature dealt with a wide range of issues vital to the young state. Early on, they worked out a reapportionment of the state Senatorial and Representative Districts, and restructured several counties in central Idaho.

The legislature also created several offices within the Executive branch. These included a Horticultural Inspector to oversee fruit grading and suppression of insect pests, and a Sheep Inspector to examine herds for possible infectious diseases. They also devised three amendments to the state Constitution. One amendment called for granting women the right to vote, a key milestone in women’s suffrage [blog, Nov 3].

Lorenzo so impressed leaders in Boise that he was appointed Deputy State Treasurer at the end of his term. Then, in rapid succession he became United States Commissioner and then Register of the Federal Land Office in Blackfoot.

Thomas was active in the LDS church, serving many years as a Bishop in Blackfoot. He also belonged to the Blackfoot Commercial Club, served as Director for several regional corporations, and rose to a captaincy in the Idaho National Guard. For a time, he acted as President of the Southeastern Idaho Fair Association.

Blackfoot, Idaho, ca 1898. Illustrated History photo.

Thomas also operated a mercantile business and owned considerable farm land in the area. Not content with all that, Lorenzo studied law, passed the bar exam, and began a successful legal practice

After ten years in the Land Office, Thomas retired to his law practice, interrupted by a term as a Probate Judge in Bingham County. He served as Blackfoot city attorney, and then was elected in 1915 to the first of his four terms in the Idaho Senate. He served two and two, with one term out of office between. During his final Senate term in 1921-1924, Thomas was selected as President Pro Tem.

Besides his political and legal activities, Lorenzo bolstered his farm holdings by supporting key irrigation ventures. Thus, the Idaho Statesman reported (February 15, 1919) that “Senator L. R. Thomas” and two others were trying to “interest the active support of the Pocatello Commercial Club” in an irrigation project in Bannock County.

Although he held no state public office after his final Senate term, he remained active in the Republican Party. As a sign of his commitment to service, Rotary International acknowledged Lorenzo as one of its three oldest District Governors … in 1939, when he was almost seventy years old. He passed away in July 1944.
                                                                                 

References: [Blue], [French], [Hawley], [Illust-State]

"Jottings from Convention Folk," The Rotarian, Rotary International (August 1939).

Weiser and Boise Physician Joseph R. Numbers, M.D. [otd 05/30]

Weiser mayor and southwest Idaho physician Joseph Reno Numbers was born May 30, 1864 on a farm near Lexington, Ohio, about 50 miles northeast of Columbus. Besides the common schools, Numbers attended prep school at the Ohio Central College (he would have been a classmate of future President Warren G. Harding). He then attended the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, and graduated with his M.D. in 1885.  [See blog, February 12, for a discussion of Eclectic Medicine.]

Dr. Joseph R. Numbers [Illust-State]

Numbers practiced for a short time in Kansas and then in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1888, he moved to Weiser, Idaho, along with his wife (he had married the year before). Joseph prospered in Weiser and, in the summer of 1892, the governor appointed him to a two-year term as Assistant Surgeon for the Idaho National Guard.

Three years later, Numbers became a member of the recently formed Idaho Medical Society. In September 1896, he presented a paper to the society that was later published in the Medical Sentinel journal (Portland, Oregon). The following year, he was appointed to the Idaho State Medical Examining Board. He remained very active in the Medical Society, leading an extensive discussion of important and interesting cases at the 1899 meeting.

The following year, Numbers helped organize the Southern Idaho State Medical Society, an auxiliary of the state society. The annual meeting of the state society met alternately in the north and then south part of the state. Thus, most members (north or south) met with their regional colleagues only once every other year. The Southern auxiliary planned to meet at least twice annually. Coincidentally, that same year Dr. Numbers was elected President of the Idaho State Medical Society.

In 1901, at the end of his term, Numbers sold his Weiser practice and moved to Chicago to do graduate work at the Rush Medical College. Unlike the Eclectic Medical Institute, Rush taught a curriculum of standard medical practice, so Numbers evidently planned to meld both approaches in his practice. Afterwards, he returned to Weiser and partnered with the doctor he had sold his practice to.

In 1907, Numbers was elected to a two-year term as mayor of Weiser. Two years later, he helped organize the Washington County Board of Health, and became secretary of the Board.

In 1910, Dr. Numbers moved his family to Boise, and then went to New York City for further medical education. For a couple years after his return, he apparently split time between his Weiser office and at least some cases in Boise. In the spring of 1911, he was a featured speaker in Boise at a conference on tuberculosis. Then, in August 1913, he moved the family into a home on Franklin Street in Boise and focused on his practice in that city.

Saint Alphonsus Hospital. Library of Congress.

During World War I, Numbers was one of several physicians selected to provide medical examinations for draftees. In May 1920, Saint Alphonsus hospital implemented a major reorganization to better align its operations with recommended national standards and best practices. Dr. Numbers was listed as one of their “visiting staff.”

In 1922, Numbers sold the family home on Franklin Street and moved into a suite next to his offices in the Idaho Building. Three years later, his son, Joseph Reno, Jr., joined him in practice as “Numbers & Numbers,” physicians. They continued in practice together until late 1939, when the elder Joseph’s wife died. Joseph, Sr. then returned to Weiser to live. He died in early 1942 (in Boise) and is buried in Weiser.
                                                                                 

Reference: [Hawley], [Illust-State]

“[News for Joseph R. Numbers, M.D.],” Idaho Statesman, Boise; Salt Lake Tribune, Utah (July 1892 – June 1929).

“[Joseph R. Numbers, M.D. – Contributions],” Medical Sentinel, Portland, Oregon (1896, 1897, 1908).

Political Operative, U. S. Senator, and Public Servant Fred Dubois [otd 05/29]

Senator Dubois. Library of Congress.

Idaho Senator and political operative Fred Thomas Dubois was born May 29, 1851 in a tiny Illinois town about thirty-two miles south and a bit west of Terre Haute, Indiana. Dubois graduated from Yale in 1872, then worked in a Chicago dry-goods store for about three years.

More inclined toward politics and public service, DuBois wrangled an appointment to a low-level Illinois administrative post. He resigned a year later, shortly before the death of his father, a prominent Illinois politician.

He kept himself busy until 1880, when his brother was appointed resident physician at the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Fred and his brother were very close, so he decided to move west also. After their arrival, Fred rode on a cattle drive and then worked various jobs around Fort Hall.

Possessed of remarkable political instincts and skills, DuBois began by using family connections to obtain an appointment as U.S. Marshal for Idaho Territory in 1882. The job took him all over the Territory. He then parleyed all those contacts into election as Idaho’s Delegate to Congress in 1887. For the first but not the last time, his campaign promises exploited an undercurrent of anti-Mormon sentiment in the Territory.

DuBois played a key behind-the-scenes role in arranging for the selection of the state’s first U. S. Senate slate [blog, Apr 1]. In the end, DuBois became one of Idaho’s first two Senators, as a Republican. By all accounts, he put his extraordinary political skills to good use there.

Silver mining was then a mainstay of the Idaho economy, so DuBois quite naturally became part of the 1896 Silver Republican Party. Their Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, won overwhelmingly in Idaho, but lost nationwide. Meanwhile, a Democratic-Populist party “fusion” ticket won the Idaho legislature, which elected a Populist to replace Dubois in the U. S. Senate.

Dubois returned briefly to his ranch near Blackfoot, and then traveled in the Orient with two friends from the Senate. They stopped in Hawaii, where private U. S. interests had overthrown the indigenous monarchy and were pushing for annexation. The situation only fueled Dubois’ opposition to groups that advocated American expansionism.

As the Silver Republicans withered away nationally, DuBois resuscitated his career with a clever end-run. His skillful manipulation of factions in Idaho’s Democratic Party won him control of that group, which he then led into a fusion with the state’s remaining Silver Republicans. This peculiar amalgam gained control of the Idaho legislature, which then elected Dubois to replace Senator Shoup in the 1900 election.

Filipino rice field, ca 1905. Library of Congress.

For various reasons, DuBois switched to the Democratic Party for his term in the Senate. He particularly opposed the continued American presence in the Philippines. DuBois and other “anti-imperialists” pushed independence for the islands. On the other hand, DuBois supported Republican President Teddy Roosevelt’s proposal to expand national forest reserves, and a program to encourage irrigation projects for arid western lands.

Meanwhile, Idaho’s Republicans had re-unified to gain an overwhelming majority in the state legislature. Thus, DuBois didn’t even bother to run for reelection. (Even with his skills, he probably felt he’d burned too many bridges.) He remained active in Idaho politics until about 1918, but never again ran for public office himself.

DuBois spent the rest of his career in various appointive Federal positions, and sometimes as a lobbyist. Although his wife still operated the Idaho ranch, Dubois spent most of his time in Washington, D. C. He died there in February 1930.
                                                                                 

References: [B&W]

Richard J. Beck, Famous Idahoans, Williams Printing, (© Richard J. Beck, 1989).

Leo W. Graff, Jr., “Fred T. Dubois – Biographical sketch,” Fred T. Dubois Collection, MC 004, Idaho State University  Special Collections, Pocatello.

"Fred Thomas Dubois,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, online.

"Fred Thomas Dubois: May 29, 1851 - February 14, 1930," Reference Series No. 541, Idaho State Historical Society.

Western Film Maker and Adventure Writer Oliver Drake [otd 05/28]

Prolific writer, producer, and director Clarence Oliver Drake was born May 28, 1903 in Boise. While not especially “wild” by that time, Idaho retained much of its Western character: Cowboys rode the range on horseback, and many packed a gun. Stagecoaches still linked outlying towns.

Stage headed for Boise, 1908. Elmore County Historical Research Team.

Oliver reportedly left “the city” at an early age to work on a ranch. However, by 1920, he was picking lemons near Chula Vista, California. Enthralled by silent film entertainment, he began working in the industry in the early Twenties. He apparently acted in several low-budget Westerns, but we know the name of only one: Red Blood and Blue, in 1925.

Drake eventually turned more to the production side: writing, producing, and directing silent films and then talkies. The earliest producer/director credit listed by the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) was Texas Tornado, released in 1932. The IMDb lists a total of 55 films that he produced or directed (14 in which he did both).

Republic Pictures.

He was an even more prolific writer, contributing original stories, scripts, songs and soundtracks for over 130 movies. He is credited with the original story, screenplay, and songs for the 1936 movie Oh Susanna! starring Gene Autry. At that time, Autry was in the second year of what would be a long career as the prototypical “singing cowboy.”

Drake essentially perfected the “B-Western” approach to movies: formulaic – but action-filled – scripts, low-cost performers, and streamlined production. Often disparaged as low-brow “oaters,” such films nonetheless offered good entertainment value to the movie-going public right into the 1950s.

Not blessed with budgets that could afford stars who had “made it,” Drake worked with a number of stars on their way up. These included Sebastian Cabot, Denver Pyle, and John Paine, among others.

In 1949, he directed a film in which Emmy-winning actress/singer Polly Bergen played a cantina singer. Bergen was still active until 2012.  She played an on-going role in the TV series Desperate Housewives and acted in another film after that. She passed away in 2014. In 1956, Drake wrote a small part for Slim Pickens, later noted for cowboy-riding the dropped nuclear bomb in Dr. Strangelove.

However, the advent of television, with its “free” content, doomed the B-Western. Whereas Drake directed and/or produced 46 movies in 1941 through 1950, he did only 8 over the next twenty years. His last “standard” B-Western was The Parson and the Outlaw, released in 1957.

Clarence Oliver Drake. Internet Movie Database.

Ironically, but perhaps fittingly, the film was also the last movie role for Charles “Buddy” Rogers (who played the parson). A musician and band leader as well as an actor, Rogers had entered the movie business about the same time as Drake. Rogers was never a big star, and was perhaps better known as Mary Pickford’s husband for over forty years.

Drake continued to write, both for movies and for television. He wrote nearly thirty TV episodes, including spots for such popular shows as The Adventures of Superman, The Gene Autry Show and Lassie. He also produced or directed at least 16 TV episodes, including some for Sky King and Lassie. His last IMDb movie title appeared in 1970. He ended as he started … with credits as writer, producer, and director. Drake passed away in August 1991.
                                                                                 

References: [French]

"Oliver Drake," Internet Movie Database, imdb.com.

Snake Indians Defeat U. S. Army at Battle of Three Forks [otd 05/27]

The afternoon of May 27, 1866, a force of white infantry and cavalry encountered a band of about 500 “Snake” (Shoshone-Bannock-Paiute) Indians at the Three Forks of the Owyhee River. Major Louis H. Marshall had led the U. S. Army Regular infantry out of Boise Barracks in an attempt to “pacify” the tribes. Indian attacks on outlying ranches and passing stagecoaches had intensified as prospectors and ranchers poured into the Owyhee area.

Three Forks of the Owyhee.
Photo posted on flickr.com by L. A. Price.

The Army had sent the Regulars west in response to what the newspaper called the “Snake War” [blog, Nov 25]. This generally low-level conflict with tribes in southwest Idaho, Nevada, and southeast Oregon had flickered off and on since 1862. Released from the East by the end of the Civil War, the troops arrived in Boise City in late 1865. Totally unused to Indian warfare, the soldiers had little early success.

From Boise, Major Marshall led his infantry across the Snake River and south to Camp Lyon. This Army outpost straddled the Idaho-Oregon border, 16-18 miles west and a bit north of Silver City. From there, the troops moved south and west into Oregon. Around the 23rd, a troop of Oregon Volunteer cavalry had joined Marshall. They soon discovered fairly fresh Indian sign and followed it south, using trails over the plains high above the Owyhee River.

Marshall and the cavalry commander suspected that the Indians at Three Forks were those who had massacred about fifty Chinese a week earlier. They hurried to attack despite the obstacles and dangers. At Three Forks, the river twists through an 800-foot canyon, where the walls are practically vertical in places.

The soldiers had to clamber over loose rocks and through shifting gravel in their descent along a ravine. Heavily outnumbered (about 85 versus 250-300 warriors), they deployed along the west bank and began exchanging fire across the river. They inflicted a few casualties in four hours of fighting, but the Indians easily replaced the perhaps 15-20 wounded and dead who were carted off over the ridge. Even some shots from their mountain howitzer failed to create an opening to advance.

Battle diagram, soldiers entered initially from left.
Overlaid on U.S. Geological Survey relief map.

As the shadows grew long in the canyon, Marshall moved downstream in hopes of outflanking his adversary. However, they lost their cannon trying to ferry it across. In the morning, the Indians ambushed the flanking attempt, killing one soldier. They kept the troops pinned down throughout the day.

Marshall finally realized the futility of trying to attack a superior force in such rugged country. He later wrote that “Ten men can hold a hundred in check and prevent their ascent.”

He ordered a risky night withdrawal. Although they had inflicted more casualties than they took, Marshall’s force had lost its artillery piece and been forced to retreat. Their performance surely did little to inspire fear or respect in their adversary. Nor were civilian observers impressed. Editorial writers were scathing in their criticism of the Army’s ineptitude, poking fun at them for the drowned cannon.

Within a week after the battle, Indian raiders struck at three widely scattered spots and ran off over 120 cattle and horses. All told, they made seven or eight attacks in about a month after the debacle. Finally, in November, the Army appointed a new commander, Lieutenant Colonel George Crook, to prosecute the war [blog, November 25].
                                                                                 

References: [B&W]

"Battle of Three Forks and the Owyhee Cannon," Reference Series No. 239, Idaho State Historical Society.

Gregory Michno, The Deadliest War in the West: The Snake Conflict, 1864-1868, Caxton Press, Cakiwell, Idaho (2007).

"The Snake War: 1864-1868," Reference Series No. 236, Idaho State Historical Society (1966).

Idaho Territory Reduced in Size to Create Montana [otd 05/26]

On May 26, 1864, the U. S. Congress passed legislation that reduced the previously-massive Idaho Territory by creating Montana Territory and splitting off most of future Wyoming. President Lincoln signed the bill two days later. By this action, they solved one of the major problems with the original structure of Idaho Territory.

Original Idaho Territory.
Adapted from J. H. Hawley with future borders tinted in color.

When Congress created Idaho Territory in 1863 [blog, Mar 4], it encompassed today’s Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. It was, in fact, larger than Texas and Illinois combined. Put another way, the direct distance from Fort Laramie, in the southeast corner of the Territory, to the Territorial capital in Lewiston was almost as much as that from St. Louis, Missouri to Washington, D. C.

Aside from the sheer size, geographical reality made the Territory practically ungovernable. The Continental Divide separated two-thirds of all that area from the capital. Most of it was, of course, largely empty of whites. They were concentrated in the rich gold finds around Bannack and Virginia City. Still, over a third of the Territory’s population lived east of the Divide.

The first Idaho Territorial legislature convened on December 7, 1863. The handful of elected officials from east of the Divide had no particular trouble getting to Lewiston. However, when the legislature adjourned in February 1864, deep snow totally blocked the massive ranges to the east and south of the capital.

East-side officials first rode a stagecoach west to Wallula, where they could board a Columbia River steamboat. (Due to ice and low water, the first Snake River steamer would not reach Lewiston until April.) From there, they could proceed to Portland. They then embarked on a coastal ship to San Francisco, where they caught the regular overland stage to Salt Lake City. From there they split, some continuing to Fort Laramie, the others heading north.

Territorial map, 1866. J. H. Colton & Company.

Congress knew of this “ludicrous arrangement.” Even the Eastern newspapers, such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, remarked (March 4, 1864) on Idaho’s problem: “It will be impossible to establish good government there until the Territory is divided. The seat of government is in the extreme northwest corner of Idaho, from which the eastern part of the Territory is cut off by a mountain range, placing it quite beyond the control of the authorities while stationed so far away.”

Fortunately, Federal officials were already devising a solution. The easy answer would have been to partition the area along the Continental Divide. That would have put the border just east of today’s Butte. However, settlers in the Missoula Valley rejected the notion that their government would still be in Lewiston. (The final Idaho-Montana boundary followed the path we see today.)

By early May, 1864, legislators were deep in discussions of a bill to create this new Territory, to be called “Montana.” One final point held up passage, however. The House Committee proposed wording that restricted voting in the first Territorial elections to white men only. The Senate opposed that provision. Finally, after weeks of argument, they settled on the “color-blind” wording that ended up in the Territory’s Organic Act: “all citizens of the United States and those who have declared their intention to become such … shall be entitled to vote at said first election.”

Of course, Montana didn’t get everything Congress split off. They also put Wyoming (more or less) back in Dakota Territory. Note also that Idaho’s southeastern border ran along the 33rd longitude west of Washington, D.C. That changed to the 34th in 1868, giving Idaho its present odd shape.
                                                                                 

References: [B&W], [Brit], [Hawley]

"The Creation of the Territory of Idaho," Reference Series No. 264, Idaho State Historical Society (March 1969).

Michael P. Malone, Richard B. Roeder, and William L. Lang, Montana: A History of Two Centuries, Revised Edition, University of Washington Press, Seattle (1991).

“Map of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana,” General Atlas, J. H. Colton & Company, New York (1866).