Cattleman David Shirk Owns Longhorns Driven from Texas [otd 10/14]

“The next day, October 14th, 1871, after all were mounted, we proceeded to divide the cattle,” rancher David L. Shirk said in his memoir.

Ridin' drag. Library of Congress.

Shirk was one of two junior partners with prominent Idaho cattleman George T. Miller. The three of them had purchased 1,500 longhorns in Bell County, Texas and driven them into Idaho.

Born in Indiana in 1844, David Shirk grew up on farms there and later in Illinois. Shortly after the end of the Civil War, he headed west, drawing wages for driving a freight wagon to Denver. From there, he traveled to Silver City, Idaho, arriving in August 1866. He started off well, but then almost died from “mountain fever.” That left him in debt for his care.

Determined to be debt-free, Shirk labored steadily for a farm-ranch operation, and was fortunate … and astute … enough to do well with some small cattle investments. Fifteen months later he found himself ahead by $1,150 – a considerable sum at a time when cow hands made $30 a month.

He spent another year herding cattle for a Silver City butcher. Then the butcher tasked him to drive a flock of sheep south to the gold camps in Nevada. Despite his limited experience, the latter drive was very successful. But Shirk commented, “After getting through with that drive, I could hear a sheep bleat for five years.”

By early 1871, Shirk had accumulated the capital to combine with Miller and the other partner. They bought horses and other equipment in Texas, and then bargained for cattle. The drive finally headed north in mid-April. Their trek was fairly typical: That is, months of punishing work and constant danger – from rustlers, Indian raiders, and the elements.

About a week out of Fort Worth, a severe nighttime storm stampeded the herd and Shirk rode off an embankment into a swollen stream. He struggled onto the dubious safety of a scant island. Still, he said, “All that saved me was the cessation of the storm, otherwise I should not now be relating the venture.”

David Shirk.
University of Oregon Library.

 
The herd-split noted above took place on the rugged plains south of Bruneau, Idaho. Shirk drove his band to a grazing area on the Snake River about five miles north of today’s Murphy. He eventually sold the animals for a net return of over $2,000. Considering that outcome, Shirk observed, “When one considers the risk, dangers of the drive, and the risk of losing every dollar you had in the world, not to mention life itself, the profits were not unreasonable.”

He made another successful drive from Texas in 1873. The Owyhee Avalanche in Silver City, Idaho reported (September 27, 1873) the arrival: “Two drovers, named Dill and Shirk, each with about 1,900 head of cattle, have arrived from Texas, and will hibernate in the northwestern portions of our county … Dill is at present at Salmon Falls, and Shirk has reached Bruneau valley.”

A few weeks after his arrival, Shirk made a deal for his cattle at a nice profit. Within a couple years, Shirk had established his own ranch in Oregon, having concluded that the Owyhee region in Idaho lacked room for the operation he wanted.

Ready to ease off in 1896, he bought a winter home in Berkeley, California. The family eventually moved there permanently. Shirk died there in 1928.
                                                                                                                                     

References: Mike Hanley, with Ellis Lucia, Owyhee Trails: The West's Forgotten Corner, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1973).

Byron DeLos Lusk, Golden Cattle Kingdoms of Idaho, Master’s thesis, Utah State University, Logan (1978).

David L. Shirk, Martin F. Schimdt (ed.), The Cattle Drives of David Shirk, Champoeg Press, Portland, Oregon (1956).

Cattleman Bower Describes “Self-Defense” Shooting of Sheepmen Wilson and Cummings [otd 10/13]

On October 13, 1898, James E. Bower, Superintendent for the Sparks-Harrell Cattle Company, appeared before a Cassia County Justice of the Peace and made a sworn statement about the killings of sheepmen John Wilson and Daniel Cummings.  The two had been found shot to death at a spot about 25-30 miles south of today’s Twin Falls, Idaho. The bodies had been discovered in mid-February 1896 [blog, Feb 16].

Sheep wagon. Library of Congress.

Bower stated that he and cowboy Jeff Gray had ridden into a sheep camp between 11 o’clock and noon on February 4th [blog, Feb 4]. The sheepmen had located their wagon well west of the “dead line,” the boundary established by gentlemen’s agreement between sheep and cattle range.

The cattlemen did not recognize either of the herders, leading them to suspect that they were “tramps” out of Utah. So-called “tramp” stockmen – who could be running sheep or cattle – grazed their herds on range normally used by settled stockmen, but hurried the animals away before a tax assessor showed up.

Bower stated that they were invited into the sheep wagon, where he queried the sheepmen about their status in the area. One herder asserted positively that the flock owners did pay taxes in the county. The cattleman, who felt sure the animals were not on the county rolls, said, “I think you are mistaken about that.”

The sheepman angrily leaped at Bower and grabbed his coat collar near the throat. The older man tried to pull a revolver to protect himself. His opponent wrestled it away from him, although Bower still had his arm. Meanwhile, the sheepman’s rush had dumped Gray out of the wagon. Gray yelled at the attacker to stop. When he persisted and the other man lifted a rifle, Gray fired two shots … frightening the sheepmen and ending the attack on Bower.

Bower claimed that when they left the camp the two strangers seemed all right, except for a superficial scrape on the man who seized Bower’s gun. Both sheepmen had, of course, been fatally wounded. Later, Bower realized that he had left behind a new corncob pipe. That pipe had been found along with the bodies of Wilson and Cummings, but prosecutors never attempted to explain its presence.

Diamondfield Jack Davis.
Denver Public Library, Western Collection.

The deposition, with its self-defense assertion, caused a sensation. Eighteen month earlier, a jury had convicted cowboy-gunhand “Diamondfield” Jack Davis of the killings. His attorneys easily answered the prosecution’s flimsy and deeply flawed circumstantial evidence. Yet, despite “reasonable doubt,” Jack’s reputation and earlier threats against sheepmen led to a quick conviction … by a jury made up of sheepmen, farmers, and one miner.

That verdict was under appeal – but several appeals had already failed and Jack was scheduled to hang on June 4. Incredibly, the confession, supported under oath by Gray, only bought time, it did not win Jack’s freedom. After more legal fireworks, the Idaho Board of Pardons set a new hanging date of December 16, 1898.

In fact, Jack Davis twice came within hours of  being hanged for a crime he had nothing to do with. In July 1901, the Board revisited the physical evidence. Then, totally ignoring the Bower-Gray confessions, they decided Davis could not have done the shooting … so they rescinded the death decree and imposed a sentence of life imprisonment!

Davis was not pardoned and released until late in 1902 [blog, Dec 17].
                                                                                                                                     

References: David H. Grover, Diamondfield Jack: A Study in Frontier Justice, University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada (1968).

Mike Hanley, with Ellis Lucia, Owyhee Trails: The West's Forgotten Corner, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1973).

Byron DeLos Lusk, Golden Cattle Kingdoms of Idaho, Master's thesis, Utah State University, Logan (1978).

William Pat Rowe, “Diamond-Field Jack” Davis On Trial, thesis: Master of Arts in Education, Idaho State University (1966).

Bishop Tuttle Arrives in Boise, Rancher and Businessman Peter Pence [otd 10/12]

Bishop Tuttle.
Utah State Historical Society.

On October 12, 1867, the Right Reverend Daniel S. Tuttle, missionary bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, arrived in Boise. In the Episcopal Church, a missionary bishop is basically like any other bishop except that his stipend is paid by the parent church, rather than through local or regional collections.

At that time, Tuttle acted as bishop over Idaho, Montana, and part of Utah. He had first visited Virginia City, Montana, returned to “base” in Salt Lake City, and then headed north. It was not a happy experience: “I arrived at Boise Saturday afternoon, October 12, with broken neck, bruised head, aching bones, sore throat and disturbed temper.”

Still, he also said, “As the name implies, the river on which this town is situated is wooded with willows and cottonwoods. It is very pleasant to see these green growths.”

During his visit, Tuttle helped the resident missionary establish a parish school. He actually bought a full city block for the the church, “fencing it at a cost of $325.88.” Over his many years in the region, he endured thousands of miles in jolting, dusty stagecoach rides to cover his territory. Not until 1881 did the church assign a separate bishop for Montana.

Possessed of a “commanding presence” leavened by a practical and unassuming demeanor, Bishop Tuttle won the respect and admiration of even the rough element in his territory. During his 19 years in the mountains, he personally visited, held services, recruited local leaders, and generally grew the church at over 50 sites in Idaho alone. When church leaders moved him to Missouri in 1886, he had organized missions in Boise, Silver City, Idaho City, Lewiston, Blackfoot, Bellevue, Hailey, and Ketchum.

On October 12, 1837, Idaho pioneer Peter Pence was born in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburg. As a young man, he worked for a time in Kansas and freighted into Denver. In the early 1860s, spillovers from the unrest in the states further south persuaded Pence to moved west. The wagon train he joined arrived in Oregon in September 1862, about the time the Boise Basin gold rush had really begun to boom.

Rancher Pence. H. T. French photo.

Pence followed the rush to Placerville and then to Idaho City. He prospected there, but made more money whipsawing lumber. Pence returned to packing for a time, then threshed grain in the Boise Valley.

In early 1867, he invested his grain-threshing returns in a band of fifteen hundred cattle. These were then moved to a spread he purchased where Big Willow Creek joins the Payette River, about twenty miles downriver from today’s Emmett. His was the first substantial herd set grazing on those ranges.

Pence helped organize several irrigation systems that drew water from the Payette River. In 1899 the Illustrated History said he was “President of three ditch incorporations.”

Pence later branched out into real estate, banking, and other investments … and was elected to the state legislature in 1901. He played a significant role in the development of the city of Payette and served as the first chairman of the town Board of Trustees, staying on the Board for several terms. (In a common practice for the times, news reports after that began referring to Pence as "The Honorable," as though he were the mayor of Payette.) The ranch he established in 1867 is on today’s list of “Century Ranches” – properties that are still operated by descendants of the original owners.
                                                                                                                                     

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

Melville Knox Bailey, The Right Reverend Daniel Sylvester Tuttle, Church Missions Publishing Company, Hartford, Connecticut (1923).

Daniel Sylvester Tuttle, Missionary to the Mountain West, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City (1987).

Packer Lloyd Magruder and Others Murdered on Nez Perce Trail [otd 10/11]

On the night of October 11, 1863, conspirators murdered packer Lloyd Magruder and four other men. The killings took place on the South Nez Percé Trail. The Trail – now also called the Magruder Corridor – twists crazily through the deep Central Idaho wilderness to cross a regional divide into Montana at Nez Percé Pass.

Magruder Corridor segment. U. S. Forest Service.

Scion of a prominent Maryland family, Lloyd Magruder had fought in the Mexican War and earned a promotion from private to second lieutenant. He resigned that commission to try his hand in the California gold fields. Bad luck reversed his initial success, so he moved to Lewiston, Idaho in July, 1862.

Within a year, the hard-working and intelligent Magruder owned both a pack train and a store. In August, Magruder’s string of mules headed east from Elk City on the South Nez Percé Trail, which provided the most direct route across the Bitterroot Mountains. Their initial destination might have been Bannack, the first gold camp in the area. But rumors had reached Lewiston of a new, richer strike at Alder Gulch, 40 to 50 miles further east.

So Magruder took his train straight there to a brand new Virginia City, where he soon profitably sold his goods. He returned by way of Bannack, where he bought more mules at bargain prices. Then he headed home, leading a train of six horses and about forty mules. Eight other men accompanied him.

About fifteen trail miles into Idaho from Nez Percés Pass, the party encamped on a side stream at the base of a ridge. They released the stock on a good forage area about a half mile up the slope. Magruder and a man named Christopher Lower drew the sundown-to-midnight watch over the animals.

When they left camp, Lower carried an ax, purportedly to clear some brush intruding on the pasture. Before midnight Lowe, or another conspirator who had joined them, split Magruder’s skull from behind with the ax. Those two and a third conspirator then slaughtered four other innocent bystanders. Hunter and guide William “Billy” Page knew about the plot but kept quiet through fear or greed. He later turned state’s evidence.

The men disposed of the evidence and headed surreptitiously for Lewiston. A few days later, they waited until after dark to enter the town. Page arranged to corral the animals out of sight. With no steamboat scheduled any time soon, they decided to take the early morning stagecoach to Walla Walla.

Luna House, ca. 1868. Illustrated History.

The nearest ticket office happened to be at Luna House, the hotel operated by Hill Beachy, a friend of Lloyd Magruder. Beachy, schooled on Mississippi River steamboats and in California gold camps, knew how to read men, and situations. When a conspirator bought tickets for four men, his furtive manner caught Beachy’s attention: Perhaps they planned a stage robbery.

Beachy passed a warning to the other passengers and watched them leave the next morning. That’s when he realized the strangers had considerable gold themselves. That induced other suspicions: Where had that gold come from? Investigation soon uncovered some of Magruder’s animals and gear that had been stashed with a friend of one of the conspirators.

Beachy's pursuit of the men became the stuff of legend, as he just missed them when they sailed from Portland on a coastal packet. Beachy had to race overland to apprehend the killers in San Francisco. He then returned them to Idaho for trial and execution.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [B&W], [Illust-North]

Julia Conway Welch, The Magruder Murders: Coping with Violence on the Idaho Frontier, Falcon Press Publishing, Helena, Montana (© Julia Conway Welch, 1991).

British and American Fur Trapper Bands Have Friendly Meeting in Central Idaho [otd 10/10]

On October 10, 1830, a party of trappers working for the American Fur Company met the bulk of the “Snake Brigade” – trappers and camp keepers of the British-Canadian Hudson’s Bay Company. The encounter apparently took place on the Little Wood River, west of the lava flows and probably not too far from today’s Carey. (One must account for travel time estimates and reconcile different geographical names to locate the probable meeting place.)

HBC Leader John Work.
British Canadian Archives.

Such encounters did not happen every day, but they were not uncommon during the height of the region’s fur trapping era. What made this event unusual was the fact that it was documented by members of both of the respective parties.

Irish-born John Work, a sixteen-year HBC veteran, had been appointed in August to lead the Brigade [blog, Oct 23]. They crossed from Oregon into Idaho in late summer. On September 9th, Work wrote, “Reached the discharge of Payette’s River, up which we proceeded.”

After trapping the Payette and Boise rivers, they moved east to the Camas Prairie, down the Big Wood, and then up the Little Wood.

On October 10th, Work said that a few of his trappers had met the Americans, who had “just arrived from Snake River across the plains.” His daily note ends with the statement: “Americans are encamped within a short distance of us.”

A day or so later he wrote, “Crooks & Co. are the outfitters. A Mr. Fontenelle, who manages this business, is now at Snake River with 50 men.”

American trapper Warren Ferris mentioned “Mr. Fontenelle” several times in his account of Life in the Rocky Mountains. Born in New York state, Ferris joined the American Fur Company and headed west early in 1830. Besides the hope for adventure, he said his motives were economic: “For times are hard, and my best coat has a sort of sheepish hang-dog hesitation to encounter fashionable folk.”

Lava near Craters of the Moon. State of Idaho photo.

Lucien Fontenelle was one of the principals for the AFC. According to Ferris, a band of AFC trappers “travelled north of west, through a barren desert, destitute of every species of vegetation, except a few scattering cedars, and speckled with huge round masses of black basaltic rock. … It was doubtless lava, which had been vomited forth from some volcano, the fires of which are now extinct.”

This is an accurate description of the lava plain that covers great tracts south of the Craters of the Moon National Monument. Almost too late for some of the men, the Americans staggered out of the barrens onto a “pure cool reviving stream, a new river of life.”

Although Ferris himself was not with this particular party, he recorded a detailed account based on talks with several men who were there. A day after escaping the lava, they heard gunshots in the distance and sent a scout to investigate. Ferris then reported that the scout "shortly after returned, accompanied by several trappers who belonged to a party of forty, led by a Mr. Work, a clerk of the Hudson Bay Company.”

After this chance encounter, the Brigade headed north along the Little Wood. Knowing the country, Work then succeeded in ditching the Americans somewhere deep in the mountains. They continued to the prime beaver country along the Salmon River. The AFC party had to settle for stumbling upon the Little Lost River, which disappears into the ground southeast of today’s Arco.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [B&W]

W. A. Ferris, Leroy R. Hafen (ed), Life in the Rocky Mountains, Old West Publishing Company, Denver (1983).

William R. Sampson, “John Work,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.

John Work, T. C. Elliott (Ed.), “The Journal of John Work,” Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. X, No. 3 (1909).

Kitty Wilkins, Horse Queen of Idaho and North American Supplier [otd 10/09]

On October 9, 1936, the Idaho Statesman announced that “Kittie” Wilkins had died the day before at her home in Glenns Ferry. The Statesman then reminded its readers of her place in Idaho history, when newspapers celebrated Wilkins as the “Horse Queen of Idaho” and the “Queen of Diamonds.”

Kitty Wilkins. Elmore County Historical Research Team.

Katherine “Kitty” Wilkins was born in the Rogue River area of Oregon, in 1857. The family moved around a great deal after about 1861 – with stops in Florence (Idaho), Boise City, and then Tuscarora, Nevada. During those years, Kitty received an excellent education at Roman Catholic schools in Utah and California.

In the 1870s, Kitty’s father John developed an interest in stock raising. An acquaintance pointed out the fine grasslands available in Idaho’s Bruneau Valley, so John grazed a band of horses there as a sideline to their hotel in Tuscarora.

Shortly after the hotel burned down in 1879, he moved the family to the Valley. At that point, Kitty found her true calling: She discovered a special ability and affinity for raising topnotch horses. Her father and brother raised cattle, but in an interview (one of many) she said, “I haven’t got a bit of use for cattle, though I love horses.”

She had an active role in the business by the time she was twenty years old. Thus, the Owyhee Avalanche in Silver City, Idaho, reprinted (June 18, 1887) a Mountain Home item that said, “The Wilkins Bros., and Miss Kitty Wilkins, of Bruneau, come [sic] over to the city Tuesday, and shipped two carloads of horses to the Omaha market.”

Later that year, the Evening News in San Jose, California (December 14, 1887) described Kitty as “one of the most noted women of the West.”

By around 1890, she was basically in total charge of the horse operation. Historian Adelaide Hawes, who knew Kitty personally, wrote, “Contrary to public belief she did not don male attire. … When demonstrating her horses she rode a sidesaddle and wore the usual feminine riding skirt of those days. When riding the range she always rode a sidesaddle.”

Ride the range she did … being very much of a “hands-on” manager. And her personal “marketing” and sales appearances caused a sensation everywhere she went. Well-schooled, attractive, and quietly charismatic, Kitty dazzled reporters who interviewed her.

She sold only the best horses, and her knowledge impressed even professional horse dealers and breeders. In 1891, an article in the St. Louis Republic observed: “Miss Wilkins is a horse trader, and what she does not know about a horse is not worth knowing.”

Kitty Wilkins with carriage horse.
Elville Wilkins photo posted at GlennsFerry.org.

The ranch operated under the Diamond brand, which sparked another colorful nickname: “The Queen of Diamonds.” As early as 1890, the famous King ranch in Texas purchased 750 Diamond Ranch horses. For three decades, Kitty shipped horses all over North America, including train carloads for the U. S. Cavalry.

The ranch did well during World War I, but motorized vehicles had even then begun to depress markets for horses. Not long after the war ended, Kitty retired to a fine home in Glenns Ferry. She spent her later years associating with her closest friends and performing quiet acts of charity.

She last appeared in a public event in 1934, leading a parade for the Fort Boise Centennial Celebration (commemorating the older Hudson’s Bay Company trading post, not the Army fort built in 1863).
                                                                                                                                     

References: L. E. Bragg, More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Idaho Women, The Globe Pequot Press, Guilford, Connecticut (2001).

Arthur Hart, “Meet Kitty Wilkins, the Horse Queen of Idaho,” Idaho Statesman, February 10, 2009.

Adelaide Hawes, Valley of Tall Grass, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1950).

Sandra Ransel, Charles Durand, Crossroads: A History of the Elmore County Area, Elmore County Historical Research Team, Mountain Home, Idaho (1985).

Queen of Diamonds – blog about Kitty.

Guy Bowerman: Bank Organizer and Investor, and Banking Official [otd 10/08]

East Idaho banker Guy Emerson Bowerman was born October 8, 1866, in Coldwater, Michigan, about forty miles south of Lansing. Armed with just a public school education, Bowerman found bank employment in Dell Rapids, South Dakota (about 20 miles north of Sioux Falls). For fifteen years, he advanced into higher and higher positions at the bank.

St. Anthony in 1907. Vintage postcard.

Then, in 1899, Bowerman moved to St. Anthony, Idaho, the county seat of Fremont County. There, he and some partners organized the Idaho State Bank, and Guy became Cashier* of the firm. In two years, the company designation changed to the First National Bank of Saint Anthony. Bowerman moved up to be President in 1907. Five years later, he sold his interest in the bank.

That did not, however, take Bowerman out of banking. He owned stock in the Rigby State Bank, and held high offices in a number of others: director of the First National Bank of Rexburg, vice president of the Fremont County Bank (Sugar City), and President of the First National Bank of Ashton. He helped organize two of these banks – in Ashton and Sugar City – as well as the First National Bank of Driggs.

Often, he would see a firm through its formative stages and then either divest his holdings or limit his involvement in management. Still, even in 1920, Bowerman held interests in eight different banks around the state of Idaho, as well as two in Salt Lake City. He also had other business interests in Salt Lake.

According to Hawley’s History, Bowerman could have had an extensive political career, but chose to be selective in his public service activities. He did serve one term as mayor of St. Anthony, and one term in the Idaho House of Representative. While in the House, Bowerman chaired the Committee on Appropriations and was a member of the Committee on Banks and Banking.

In 1919, Governor Davis appointed him to be State Commissioner of Finance. Hawley’s History of Idaho asserted that he had to be talked into accepting the appointment, but that “the choice has been most strongly endorsed by public opinion, for Idaho's citizens recognize in Guy Emerson Bowerman a man whose initiative, enterprise and progressiveness have been, and will continue to be of the greatest value to the state.”

Guy Bowerman. J. H. Hawley photo.

Bowerman resigned the Commissioner position within a few months, however, to become General Secretary of the American Bankers Association (The New York Times, November 26, 1919). He had been active in that Association for some time, serving on its Executive Council. (Bowerman also  helped organize the Idaho State Bankers Association and served one term as its president.)

At the Association’s 1927 Annual Convention, he declared that the U. S. was – to use his coined term – “overbanked.” Quite prescient, in retrospect, Bowerman spotted one of several factors that led to the Great Crash of 1929 – too many profit-hungry banks fueling wild stock market speculation.

Bowerman later held an executive position with a Los Angeles investment firm. He died there in March 1940.

* Bank Cashiers held a much higher position than is commonly perceived today. They were significant company officers and could personally write and sign “cashier’s checks” backed by the bank’s reserves. Such a note might circulate like “real” money for some time before being presented for redemption. 
                                                                                                                                     

References: [Blue], [French], Hawley]

“Business & Finance: At Houston,” Time Magazine, (Nov. 07, 1927).

Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People, Oxford University Press (1965).