The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-07-25
THE BORDER OF CIVILIZATION.
A Summer Trip 20 the Terminus OF the
North Pacific Railway Bismarck and
"a P0rmlacas

THE BORDER OF CIVILIZATION
summer Trip 30 the Terminus OF tn.
its POpulaces
George Alfred Townsend.l
About eight o'clock in the evening
broad daylight, we came to Bismarck,
an assemblage of canvas-tents, plank.
houses, turf-huts, military structures
of frame and log, with fort-like in
closure, and broad plaza, Spanish.
fashion, between the railroad and the
town, on which the entire population
was assembled to hail the new arrivals.
In the enormous expanse of this Dar
kota country, the hilarity of the Bis
marckers and the sizable bulk of their
town affected me like the most solitary
place had ever known. To see, in
this far corner of the world, two hun
dred miles from any settlement worthy
of the name, and Immediately opposite
hostile bands of indians who had taken
scalps the day before, the huddled ava
4 rice, enterprise and rRffianism of civili-
zation standing gallously out in the van,
was somewhat like presentiment of
the day of judgment. Omnipotent,
ubiquitous nature was all before them,
and on either side; and yet the bully of
the slums, and his Moll beside him
the old army -suttler, little the worse
for his probation the shiftless negro
barber, who has come as far as he dared,
and, with all his record, was permit ed
twenty times day to lay his razor at a
gentleman's throat the great, quiet
gambler, from the gulf whom every
body in the Mississippi Valley has
sometimes seen, now smoking his cigar
in front Of his premises, where, per-
haps, forty sweat-cloths invited the
stranger here was society's refuse
mixed with many men of official posi-
ton and deliberate purpose, 1900 miles
northwest of Chicago, and the nearest
neighbors of the Sioux
In this town, there was no law or iu-
risdiction whatsoever There was no
mayor. There was not even vigilance
committee. The territory of Dakota
has as yet taken no steps to extend its
authority to this new town. And the
military authority, close at hand, had
made up their minds that what hap
pened among the civilians of Bismarck
was none of their business, and, there
fore, nobody has been arrested for fight
ing or shooting. But there may have
| been something in the very loneliness of
this colony which kept crime down and
humanized it. Perhaps the conscious
ness of the laws non-existence made
even the criminal feel unprotected.
Certainly more subdued settlement of
the kind I have never found in our
country. All the desperadoes who had
infested the Union Pacific Railroad, and
had survived such lapse of time, were
here at Bismarck but, with the excep-
ton of two or three scuffies of no con-
sequence, life had been safe and proper
ty secure. The organic spirit of the
American, unexercised, but still extant,
made law in Bismarck without code
or magistrate.
Right opposite the place where the
cars stop, saw new sign, "The Capt.
tol Hotel" .
Therein was a register, a BARRIERS
chair, a bar, and a well-spoken proprei-
tor. Carpet-bags lay in terraces against
the paper sides of the room. Supper
was smoking at the inner table where
women from New England were doing
the cooking and the men who handed
You the dishes had arms like ship-car-
penter's. .. .
MISSOURI.
After supper, we strolled down to the
Missouri, about mile from the town
and right across the way was Fort Abra-
ham Lincoln, an imposing post, with
long barracks and quarters of painted
lumber, a parade-grOund, Notifications
and landing. Standing ON high bluff
of the river, it was an object to be seen
for perhaps thirty miles.
The Missouri river rolled beneath,
nearly as wide as at Omaha, a great,
sprawing red-man's river, full of oxide
and mire, living, as it rolled along,
upon its own banks, biting concavities
from them, so that they fell, and
splashed, and were borne away every
day in the year. 1t seemed to me to be
natures greatest gutter around which
she had assembled her red canaille to
soak the feet in her pools and eddies,
and mediate grand larceny on civiliza-
ton. A river tawnv and bemired like
this for full 1900 miles, it had yet de-
scended from some of the sublimest
sceneries in the world, and begun its
course under the best motherhood, but
had, been spoiled by the length of its
career. No longer the laughing, leap
ing thing which drew its milk from the
splendors of the Yellowstone, and
washed bare the gold veins beyond the
great upper cataract, it has become in
sensate, heavy and heather, like these
very children of the plains, whose ORR
gin was perhaps no worse than ours at
the beginning of time.
A NIGHT AT BISMARCK.
In the evening I strOlled around
among the cabooses. L found one ira
ding firm which had made q sale of
$40 worth of goods the previous Sun
day for there Sunday is like every day
in the week, only more so. Another
firm had made sale of $16, 900 worth of
goods in June, and in twelve months
had sold $75, 900. In the neighborhood,
6,4OO acres have been pre-empted
already, and the railroad brought
500, 900 worth of freight the first
week it was opened to Bismarck, or
1000 tons.
Among the desperadoes at Bismarck is
MR.. sHANG,
said to have been christened Charley
Stanton. He is huge, youthful piece
of flesh, with lazy, easy face, and
loud voice. He goes around attended
by admiring boys; for he has killed his
man. He killed Mr.. Shumley, whose
christian name L am not informed of.
They kept saloons, that noblest of occu-
pations in new country, and gambled
between drinks. A disagreement occur
red at the town of Thompson. Mr..
Shumley threatened Mr.. Shang killed:
He shot, believe, from the inside of
his pocket, obeying the precept not to
let his left hand know what his right
hand was doing. After this, they said
CT tell you, Shang will shoot as well
az talk about it !"
So Shang fell in love with himself,
and found he had word and a charac-
ter to be respected. His voice has in
sensibly grown higher in key, his strut
little more pronounced, and l wonder
ed how he could sleep well at nights,
having so good an opinion Of himself
Ed Morton is also prince OF Bismarck
1 must call him Ed because every body
I,