Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1889-03-28
LAST OF THE SCOUTS.
Old Jim Baker, Kit Carson's Rival Who
Blazed the Pixies Peak Trail

Old Jim Baker, Kit carson's Rival Who
Blazed tho Pixies Peak Trail.
Jim Baker, the far-famed scout,
hunter. trapper and guide, is now
about eighty years of age and the
oldest scout in the West, having lived
over half century on the frontier.
He is hale and vigorous, but time Is
doing it's work and he has changed
rapidly during the past two years.
When saw him not long ago in Dem
yer he presented decidedly broken
appearance. Dressed in dark suit
and blue flannel shirt, and wearing a
white sombrero, he was standing on a
street corner talking with some fifty
miners of the days of the great Pixies
Peak excitement. But it was long be-
fore that time that he came to the
then wilderness of the Rocky Mount
aims. 1t was about 1886 that he started
out from the little hamlet of Indepen-
dence, Mo-, now a suburb of Kansas
City, which was not laid off until fifteen
years later. For fifty-two years he
has led an eventful life on the frontier.
Contemporary with Kit Carson and the
famous scouts of that period, he came
before Fremont and Gilpin, Harvey
and kearny, and will ever be historic
figure in the early settlement of the
Rocky Mountain country.
Jim Baker has secuted for Fremont
and Ex-Governor Gilpin, and was with
them on the St. Vrain, July 4, 1S43,
when Fremont's old howitzer thun-
dered the first salute ever given the
American flag in Colorado. He was
with Doniphan on his famous march
in the Mexican war, and one of the
hardest fights he ever had was in this
campaign, engaging hostile band of
Indians in the Panhandle. He was
also a scout with the veteran General
Harvey at Ash Hollow, when the
Sioux were driven back after terri
BILE battle. He was with General
Johnston's command in that unfortu-
nate expedition sent out by the Gov
eminent against the Mormons in 1857.
No living scout has a record like
his, and but few of those dead ever
led so eventful a life. He is the last
of that old type of hunters that will
live in the romance that always links
itself with the borderland between
civilization and the home of the saw
age.
AS I stood watching the veteran
hunter and scout I wondered not that
some Denver school-boys, in passing,
oh 81 l., l. l.
with an inquiring glance. They knew
not who he was, but any stranger
would stop to look at him. Not for
any popularity in dress, but for his
characteristic face and appearance. 1t
is truly wonderful face. His beard
is white and grizzled. The long wavy
hair reaching down on his shoulders is
now almost silken white. When first
knew him there were heavy streaks of
dark, mingled with the gray. but they
are now nearly white. There are deep
wrinkles on the forehead and in the
face. The eye, which in bygone years
was unerring in the aim of the rifle, is
now getting dim, but still possesses
much of the eagle glance of half cent
ury ago. Nature has chiseled his feat
ures rugged. like the granite rocks.
Bronzed and tanned by sunshine and
mountain storm, with wrinkles, made
heavy and deep by great age; with hair
white, like mountain SHOWS; grim-vis-
aged; brave as a lion, yet gentle and
modest as child; the hero of thou
sand thrilling adventures on the plains
and in the mountains, he looks verify
what he is-the last and truest type of
the American hunter that for three
hundred years has been blazing a trail
for civilization from the Atlantic to the
Pacific.
When Jim Baker came West there
were no white women in the Rocky
Mountains and he married Shoshone
squaw, by whom he has raised fam
lily. 1t was squaw Or no wife in those
days. Some of the pioneers say that
Jim Baker married two squaws one of
whom he sent back to her tribe in later
years, and the other was stolen from
him. 1t was good thing for the
squaw thief that he was out of the
range of Bakers rife, for the old scout
would have killed him. Love did not
always run smooth even in those early
days on the frontier.
Jim Baker knew every phase of In
dian life and was known to all the
chiefs of the great tribes. Next to Kit
Carson he was the crack rifle shot on
the frontier, and Carson often acknowl-
edged that Jim Baker was his only
rival in the use of the rifle. His last
work as q scout was during the Ute
outbreak about ten years ago. when
Father Meeker was massacred. With
plenty in his old age he lives on his
ranch on Snake river, near the North
ern Colorado boundary line, occasion
ally hunting and fishing and following
his favorite sport trapping the beaver,
and about once a year he comes to
Denver, hunts up some of the pioneers.
talks over "reminiscences of the early
days and then returns to his mountain
aome.-Cor. Philadelphia Times.