Fruitland Physician and Army Medical Veteran Crispin Wright, M. D. [otd 07/16]

The biography of physician Crispin Wright in French’s History of Idaho states that he was born July 16, 1882 in Chatham, Virginia (about 43 miles southeast of Roanoke). That date may be off by a couple days, but it does provide an opportunity to discuss a young man who made a notable impression in just two or three years.

Dr. Crispin Wright.[French]

After high school, Wright enrolled at the Virginia Military Institute for the 1900-1901 term. However, in 1902 he switched to the University College of Medicine in Richmond to pursue a medical degree. He continued there into the 1905 term, but then had to withdraw due to poor health.

After a period of recuperation, Wright took a job with the U. S. Forest Service. He spent a good many months working in what is now the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. But in 1909, he enrolled at the Medical Department of the University of Denver. He completed his M. D. degree in 1910 and immediately began an internship at Denver’s St. Luke’s Hospital. That summer, he also got married, with a ceremony in Colorado Springs. They had a son the following spring.

They moved to Fruitland, Idaho in the summer of 1911. By the time French’s History was published in 1914, Crispin had already made an impact. Not only was he local Health Officer, he was Deputy Health Officer for all of Canyon County. Wright had also completed the process to obtain a license to practice in Oregon, to go along with his licenses for Colorado and Idaho.

Finding himself far from the activity of Boise, Dr. Wright joined with physicians in the region to create the Idaho-Oregon District Medical Society in late 1915. Members included doctors from Ontario and three other Oregon towns, as well as three towns in Idaho. Crispin was also active in local politics. In September 1916, he was named the Democratic Party Committeeman for the South Fruitland precinct.

Sadly, in February 1917, his wife died. She was just 34 years old. A few months later, Dr. Wright applied for a position in the Army Medical Corps. Oddly enough, while he waited for a reply, he attained another responsibility. Earlier in the year, the legislature had split off a new county, Payette, from Canyon County. On June 1, the governor appointed Dr. Wright to fill the County Coroner’s position, pending elections in the fall.

But before the month was out, Crispin received word that he had been recommended for a commission in the Medical Corps. He quickly made arrangements for his son to live with a brother back in Virginia. That fall, he traveled east with the First Idaho Field Hospital to join the newly-constituted 41st Infantry Division. Elements of the division began sailing to France in late November. The trip across on the over-crowded troopship was grim, with rampant sickness and one death due to pulmonary tuberculosis.

Troopship USS Madawaska. U. S. Navy photo.

In early January 1918, the medical contingent began operating a hospital in south-central France. The weather was “bitterly cold” and only part of their medical supplies had arrived. Worse yet, they were swamped with thousands of sick soldiers, many of whom were contagious and had to be quarantined.

It’s hardly a surprise that Lieutenant Crispin Wright, M. D., became a victim himself. He was sent back to the U. S. at the end of April on the troopship Madawaska and transferred to an Army hospital near Ashville, North Carolina. He died there in February 1920 from pulmonary tuberculosis.
                                                                                 

References: [French]

“[News for Crispin Wright],” Ontario Argus, Ontario, Oregon; Idaho Statesman, Boise (November 1915 – June, 1917).

“Obituary Record,” Virginia Medical Monthly, Medical Society of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia (March 1920).

Report of the Surgeon General, U. S. Army, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. (1920).

The Kynewisbok [Yearbook] of the University of Denver, Denver, Colorado (1911).

Idaho County Pioneer Association Holds First Organizational Meeting [otd 07/16]

The first organizational meeting of the Idaho County Pioneer Association was held on Saturday, July 16, 1887. Within a few weeks, the group adopted a constitution, elected officers, and recruited its first members.

L. P. Brown with his wife and daughters, 1882.
Historical Museum at St. Gertrude, Cottonwood, Idaho.

The Association selected Loyal P. Brown as its first President. In 1862, L. P. (as he was often called) decided to move his family from Oregon to the Florence, Idaho, mining district. On the way, he saw opportunity at a road waystation. He and a partner purchased the holding, which became the town of Mount Idaho.

Brown eventually promoted "his" town into the county seat of Idaho County. Besides many businesses in Mount Idaho, Cottonwood, and elsewhere, Brown owned extensive herds of sheep and considerable productive farm land.

The first Association Secretary, Michael H. Truscott, took up mining around Elk City in 1865. Five years later, he went to work as an engineer for L. P.'s lumber and flour mills. Truscott moved to managing one of Brown's hotels in 1882, and was appointed Mount Idaho postmaster in 1886. In 1892, he became manager of the Vollmer & Scott mercantile store.

Jay M. Dorman, the first Association Treasurer, began mining around Elk City in 1862. Moderate success kept him in that area until 1871, when he moved to Mount Idaho. There, he helped build most of structures in the town, including a jail when Mount Idaho became the county seat. Dorman also operated a ranch in the area, where he grew hay and grain for his stock.

The Illustrated History of North Idaho lists the names of 37 men it calls "charter members" while Elsensohn's Pioneer Days says the Association "was organized with twenty-three original members." The difference perhaps reflects men who were not active after that first meeting.

Two original members, John M. Crooks and Aurora Shumway, were the first substantial stock raisers in the region. In 1863, they bought a claim on the Camas Prairie and imported a thousand cattle to stock the original Crooks & Shumway Company ranch. By the time of the Nez Perce War, in 1877, Crooks was considered the "cattle king" of north Idaho.

Historic Grangeville. City of Grangeville.

In 1874, Crooks donated land to build a Grange Hall and for what would become the town of Grangeville. Another Pioneer Association charter member, John H. Robinson, was among the leaders who approached Crooks about a donation. Robinson had staked a claim on Camas Prairie in 1865. He taught in the first school in the area and became the first Secretary of the Grange.

Most of the charter members played a role in the Nez Perce War of 1877. (John T. Riggins, who gave his name to the current town, was persuaded to serve in the home guard rather than the scouts because he had just arrived in Grangeville with a young family.) Many also served in a wide variety of local and state offices.
                                                                                 

References: [Hawley], [Illust-North]

M. Alfreda Elsensohn, Eugene F. Hoy (ed.), Pioneer Days in Idaho County, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1951).

Naturalist John Kirk Townsend Describes Fort Hall Area [otd 07/15]

Naturalist Townsend.
Oregon Historical Society.

On July 15, 1834, naturalist John Kirk Townsend described the site selected by Nathaniel Wyeth for the Fort Hall trading post [yesterday's blog].

Townsend wrote, "This is a fine large plain on the south side of the Portneuf, with an abundance of excellent grass and rich soil. The opposite side of the river is thickly covered with large timber of the cottonwood and willow, with a dense undergrowth of the same, intermixed with serviceberry and currant bushes."

The Philadelphia-born Townsend was one of two naturalists who accompanied Wyeth's second trip west of the Rockies. He had been invited along by Thomas Nuttall, a well-known naturalist who had resigned a position at Harvard University to join the expedition. The much younger Townsend – he was 25, Nuttall 48 – had a growing reputation as an ornithologist. The year before, he had collected a previously-unknown species, which was later called the Townsend's Bunting.

The primitive conditions of the march made sample preservation difficult. Even so, Townsend recorded many detailed observations, not just of birds but also other natural history features. About a week before the party reached the Fort Hall site, he recorded his first observations about Idaho birds.

Camped near Beer (Soda) Springs [blog, July 8], he wrote, "in a thicket of common red cedars, near our camp, I found, and procured several specimens of two beautiful and rare birds which I had never before seen – the Lewis woodpecker and Clark's crow, (Picus torquatus and Corvus columbianus.)"

Audubon Society image, audubon.org

The naturalist was known as an expert marksman. Thus, as construction of the fort began, he joined the hunting party Wyeth sent out. Townsend decided to test the claim that a shot directly to the forehead would not harm a bull buffalo. Using a double-barrelled weapon, he planted one bullet to the forehead, then killed the “monster” when it turned to escape. He found his first 0.8-ounce (350 grain) slug “completely flattened against the bone” having not produced “the smallest fracture.”

Townsend left Fort Hall with Wyeth's party early in August. He wrote, “We crossed the main Snake or Shoshone river, at a point about three miles from the fort. It is here as wide as the Missouri at Independence, but, beyond comparison, clearer and more beautiful.”

His Narrative records many natural history features observed as they marched west across Idaho. On August 19, after a “hard days travel," they descended into the Boise Valley and camped along the river, which he described as "a beautiful stream."

He also wrote, "it is literally crowded with salmon, which are springing from the water almost constantly. Our mouths are watering most abundantly for some of them."

He recorded nothing about birds until they reached the Columbia River in Oregon. There, Townsend commented, “The mallard duck, the widgeon, and the green-winged teal are tolerably abundant in the little estuaries of the river. Our men have killed several, but they are poor, and not good."

The descriptions that Townsend, and Nuttall, made of southern Idaho flora and fauna were the first recorded by trained observers. Based at Fort Vancouver, the ornithologist traveled extensively in Oregon and southern Washington, collecting numerous bird specimens.

He took ship in 1836 and returned to Philadelphia by way of Hawaii and Cape Horn. To defray costs, Townsend sold over ninety specimens to John J. Audubon. In fact, Townsend collected over one-seventh of the species shown in Audubon's famous Birds of America book. Townsend died in 1851, apparently poisoned by an arsenic-based specimen preservative he had concocted.
                                                                                 

References: John Kirk Townsend, Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River (1839), reprinted, Reuben Gold Thwaites (ed)., in Early Western Travels, Vol. VIII, Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland (1905).

“John Kirk Townsend (1809-1851),” The Oregon History Project, Oregon Historical Society (2002).

Fur Trader Nathaniel Wyeth Selects Old Fort Hall Site [otd 07/14]

On July 14, 1834, Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth wrote in his journal: "Went down the river about 3 miles and found a location for a fort."

This event occurred on Wyeth's second fur trading and trapping expedition west of the Rockies, discussed in my blogs for January 29 and December 20. After his customer at the rendezvous reneged on their contract, he took his unsold supplies on into Idaho. By then, defections had reduced his column from seventy to about forty men.

Explaining this move to his long-suffering backers, Wyeth wrote, "I shall proceed about 150 miles west of this and establish a fort in order to make sale of the goods which remain on my hands."

Old Fort Hall, interior. Library of Congress.

He selected a spot on the sandy plain a few miles from what was then the confluence of the Portneuf and Snake Rivers. They built the original structure from the abundant cottonwoods. Each log was sunk about 30 inches into the ground and stood 15 feet above the surface. The work proceeded well, considering that Wyeth had to send off a hunting party of a dozen men. Others had to maintain a guard against the hostile Blackfeet Indians. The finished fort consisted of a roughly 80-foot square with 8-foot square bastions at two diagonal corners.

The job was completed on August 4, and the next day trapper Osborne Russell [blog, Dec 20] wrote “the ‘Stars and Stripes’ were unfurled to the breeze at Sunrise in the center of a savage and uncivilized country over an American trading Post.”

On the 6th, Wyeth wrote, "Having done as much as was requisite for safety to the Fort and drank a bale of liquor and named it Fort Hall in honor of the oldest partner of our concern, we left it." Twelve men remained at the Fort while the rest continued on to Fort Walla Walla  in Washington.

Initial prospects for the Fort seemed promising. However, costs for resupply proved too high for Wyeth's venture to make a profit. He finally sold the site to the rival Hudson's Bay Company, which took over operation during the summer of 1838.

Business with religious missionary parties grew in importance after that. Then, more and more wagon trains full of settlers passed through after the first small party in 1841. That flow soon became the major source of income for Fort Hall. The fur trade dwindled to a minor sideline.

The discovery of gold in California boosted traffic to vastly greater levels, peaking at around 60 thousand in 1852 alone. Most of them – 80-90 percent – went to California, but substantial numbers also ended up in Oregon. Amusing today, but deadly serious then, early “boosters” for the two destinations fought a propaganda war near the Fort. Each offered glowing accounts, and sometimes promised inducements, to persuade trains to come their way.

Wagons on the Oregon Trail. Utah State Historical Society.

At first, the native inhabitants, mostly Shoshone and Bannock tribes, actually welcomed travelers. That changed, however, as they saw the emigrants taking more and more game and cutting a wider swath through the forage grasses along the Trail. As the decade passed, friction between Indians and emigrants escalated.

The increased danger of attack made operations at Fort Hall more and more costly. Finally, changes in the Trail route reduced emigrant traffic. The HBC abandoned (Old) Fort Hall in 1856.

Fourteen years later, the U.S. Army built a new Fort Hall, but it was located about 25 miles away from the old site.
                                                                                 

References: [B&W]

“Fort Hall,” Reference Series No. 121, Idaho State Historical Society (January 1968).

Osborne Russell, Aubrey L. Haines (ed.), Journal of a Trapper, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (1965).

John D. Unruh, Jr, The Plains Across, University of Illinois Press, Urbana (1979).

Nathaniel J. Wyeth, Don Johnson (ed.), The Journals of Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth's Expeditions to the Oregon Country 1831-1836, Ye Galleon Press, Fairfield, Washington (1984).

Stagecoach Robbery, and Murder, in Portneuf Canyon [otd 07/13]

On the afternoon of July 13, 1865, the stagecoach traveling south from the Montana gold fields towards Salt Lake City reached a point about ten miles southeast of today's Pocatello. They entered a stretch of Portneuf Canyon favored by bandits because heavy willow thickets crowded the road.

Portneuf Canyon, ca 1872. National Archives.

Five of the seven passengers had got on in Virginia City while two more had boarded at Taylor's Crossing (today's Idaho Falls). Among them, the men carried gold generally valued at $60-75 thousand ($4-5 million at today's prices) plus at least $5,000 in cash. The exact details of the robbery that happened next have been distorted over time, but the bloody nature of the event remains.

One key discrepancy involves what “participant” Frank Williams was doing on the coach. Later narratives asserted that he was actually driving the stage. But the contemporaneous Idaho Statesman account (July 22, 1865), gleaned from an earlier Utah newspaper item, said, “The passengers booked for Boise were Frank Williams (a former stage driver) …” [and others]. That article also identified the driver as one Charley Parks, whom later accounts claimed was the “shotgun messenger.”

Suddenly, a heavily armed man leaped onto the road and ordered the driver to “Halt!” Then, according to the same report, six more bandits sprang from the brush along the sides. Wanting to protect their treasure, several passengers drew revolvers and fired. The blast of return shots wounded the driver and killed or mortally wounded four passengers. One of the murdered men was merchant David Dinan (sometimes referred to as Dignan). East Idaho pioneer Alexander Toponce recalled, "My friend Dignan had twenty-seven buckshot in his body."

In the confusion, Frank Williams and another passenger, James B. Brown, escaped into the thick brush. The bandit fusillade missed the last passenger, a man named Carpenter, but he was covered in blood from those who had been shot. A few more men appeared, leading horses, and the robbers galloped off. They left the severely wounded driver and Carpenter, figuring both would soon die. After the robbers disappeared, Carpenter freed two stagecoach mules, helped the driver onto one, and they rode for help.

Unfortunately, the greater part of eastern Idaho – 10 million sparsely-inhabited acres – had virtually no conventional law enforcement at the time. Driven to desperation by the rampant crime, citizens formed vigilance committees. Thus, it was the vigilantes, along with agents from the stage line, who pursued the perpetrators.

Investigators first carefully checked the two passengers who had somehow fled unscathed through a fusillade of shots. When Brown was cleared, suspicion focused on Williams, who had since left the area. The vigilantes trailed him first to Salt Lake and then into Colorado.

Clipart,
Florida Educational Technology Clearinghouse.

Watchers observed that the man was throwing money around with abandon – far beyond the means of an ordinary stagecoach employee. Then Williams must have spotted the surveillance because he abruptly fled toward Denver. Caught on the trail, he quickly confessed his role, which was to tip off the gang when the stage carried a big haul.

Williams named his accomplices, who he claimed had told him there would be no violence. Unmoved by the man's purported remorse, the vigilantes hanged him, and pinned a warning note to the body. They then tracked down five of the men Williams had identified and unceremoniously strung them up too.

The fate of the remaining 2-4 bandits is unclear, although two may have met their fate for other crimes. Investigators had much less success with the loot, which the crooks apparently spent even faster than the clueless Williams.
                                                                               

References: Barzilla W. Clark, Bonneville County In The Making, (Idaho Falls 1941).

J. V. Frederick, Ben Hollady, the Stagecoach King, Arthur H. Clark Company, Glendale, California (1940).

N. P. Langford, Vigilante Days and Ways, Montana State University, Bozeman (1957). Original publication in 1890.

Alexander Toponce, Reminiscences of Alexander Toponce, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman (1971).

R. Michael Wilson, Great Stagecoach Robberies of the Old West, a TwoDot® Book, Morris Book Publishing (2007).

Strong Earthquake Rocks Central Idaho [otd 7/12]

In the early afternoon of July 12, 1944, a quick double-punch of earthquakes hit south-central Idaho. Later analysis placed the epicenter about forty-two miles west, and slightly south, of Challis, Idaho. Oddly enough, the quake was apparently not noticed there – at least the Challis Messenger carried no report.

The magnitude 6-7 quake severely impacted the Seafoam Ranger Station, located about ten miles north of the estimated epicenter. Witnesses there thought the station building might collapse, and several said “they were unable to walk.” They also observed drastic rock dislocations, a slumped canyon wall, and one- to three-inch cracks running several hundred yards along the forest service road. At Cascade, 45-50 miles to the west of the epicenter, the quake toppled two chimneys.

Newspapers in southwest Idaho and over into Oregon had many reports, although none mentioned such dramatic affects. At Garden Valley, about fifty miles distant, people simply reported feeling a tremor. Yet at Idaho City, a few miles further from the epicenter, the County Clerk said the county building shook "noticeably." McCall was about sixty miles northwest of the epicenter. There, witnesses distinctly felt the shock and a housewife said her kitchen floor “danced.” None of these locations reported any damage.

Epicenter and locations where reports originated.

At Fairfield, 70-75 miles south, witnesses reported swaying structures, swinging light fixtures, and rattling dishes. Again, there was no damage in that area. In Emmett, the tremor caught two workmen trying to handle a barrel of chilled water. Each suspected a prank as water sloshed onto one and then the other. The story claimed that the two "almost came to blows" before they figured out what was going on.

Residents in Nampa, Caldwell, Payette, and Weiser mentioned no such drama, but said they distinctly felt the tremors. Ontario, Oregon and another village about fifty miles further west also reported feeling the shocks. Observers in Helena, Montana, about 220 miles away, reported a minor tremor about the same time, but that may have been a local quake.

As might be expected, Boise produced numerous stories. Jolts strong enough to dump dishes on the floor sent some people rushing into the streets. At one fire station, the firemen themselves joined the general rush when their building began to sway and shake. Calls swamped switchboards at police stations, fire departments, and newspapers offices, wondering if there’d been an explosion.

A few folks even wondered if there had been an air raid. Quite a leap of imagination: Allied troops had staged the "D-Day" landing in Europe about six weeks earlier, and the U. S. Navy had crushed Japanese forces at the "Battle of the Philippine Sea" less than a month earlier.

A dental patient bolted from her chair at the first movement. Elsewhere, furniture scooted around and clocks stopped. One woman saw an empty rocking chair suddenly began to sway back and forth. Having no other clues, she found the sight “the most frightening experience of her life.” Some witnesses thought they were ill, and having a sudden dizzy spell. At least one older man remarked, "I thought I was having a heart attack when my chair started shaking."

Seismographs across the West recorded the shock, including stations in Salt Lake City, Spokane, and Pasadena. A seismologist at the University of Utah opined that had the epicenter been closer to a city with larger structures, "it would have toppled a lot of chimneys."
                                                                                

References: "Central Idaho Earthquake," Daily Bulletin, Blackfoot, Idaho (July 12, 1944).

“Idaho Earthquake History,” Earthquake Information Bulletin, Vol. 4, N. 2, U.S. Geological Survey (March - April 1972).

“Newspaper Articles for 1944 Central Idaho Earthquake,” University of Utah Seismograph Stations.

Labor Clash in Coeur d'Alene Silver/Lead Mines Kills at Least Twelve [otd 07/11]

On the morning of Monday, July 11, 1892, striking union miners and a crew at the Frisco Mine exchanged gunfire. This lead-silver mine is located about four miles northeast of Wallace, Idaho. The crew consisted of replacement workers imported by the mining company and guards to protect them.

Frisco Mill, ca. 1890. University of Idaho Digital Archives.

The conflict had started early in the year, when the mine owners reduced the wages paid to lower-skilled workers. Their jobs could be learned “in a few days,” the owners pointed out, and it was hardly fair to pay them the same as an experienced lode miner. But many union men were sure this was just the opening wedge for broader cuts. So they called a strike. After much negotiation, with no resolution in sight, the companies imported replacements and a protective force.

Although the replacement workers received the (new or old) standard wages, the union claimed that was just a temporary ruse. Most of the crews were short-handed, perhaps because of the extra costs for guards. June passed in an uneasy semi-truce, with much name-calling between union men and company supporters. Occasionally, fist fights broke out between union men and replacement workers.

Finally, the building pressure of the various confrontations, and days with no paycheck, pushed the strikers over the edge. Armed union men began to gather late Sunday evening in the vicinity of the Frisco mine. Shots rang out around 5:00 a.m. the next morning. Reporting on the flareup, the Illustrated History of North Idaho declared, "it is said by both sides that the shooting was not intended at first to do other execution than to frighten the men out of the mine."

Unfortunately, with so many tempers on edge, an exchange of warning shots quickly escalated into a "pitched battle." Caught in the open, the union attackers pulled back. Then, circling up the hill, they slid a charge of "giant powder" down the emptied water-supply flume and blew up the Frisco ore mill.

Badly outnumbered and fearing the attackers would begin bombarding their positions with explosives, the defenders surrendered. In the end, three men on each side were killed. Managers on the spot agreed that the strike-breakers would be sent away. Emboldened, the army of union men then marched to mines in Gem and Wardner and forced the same conditions on them.

Senator Heyburn. Library of Congress.

The next day, a considerable band of armed men assaulted the non-union men as they waited for a boat to carry them out to Coeur d’Alene City. One man was badly wound, but recovered. Many others were reported missing, having probably vanished into the mountain wilderness. ‪Weldon B. Heyburn‬, later U. S. Senator from Idaho, reported directly to the Governor about the incident (Idaho Statesman, July 14, 1892). Witnesses told him that twelve bodies had been recovered from Fourth of July Canyon, about 15 miles southeast of Coeur d’Alene City: “They were riddled with bullets.”

The union denied any involvement in this violence, and it may well have been a “free lance” mob outburst. Authorities made many arrests related to the original violence as well as the aftermath. However, none of the prisoners spent much time in jail: Trials overturned all the arrests on technicalities or for lack of evidence.

In fact, the union was never held accountable for the property destruction, and no one was punished for any of the deaths.
                                                                                 

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