Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1889-04-10
LAST or THE SCOUTS.
OLD Jim Bakcr, kit Cars0n's Rival. VIII
!. Blazed the Plka,R Peak Trail.

q LAST Or THE SCOUTS.
Old Jim Baker, Kit Carson's Rival. Who
Blazed the Pixies Peak Trail.
Jim >ker, the far-faned. scout,
hunter apper and guide, is now
about eighty years of age and the
Oldest scout in the West, having lived
over half q century on the frontier.
lie hale and vigorous, but time Is
doing its work and he has changed
rapidly during the past two years.
When saw him not long ago in Dem
YER he presented q decidedly broken
appearance. Dressed in a dark suit
and blue flannel shirt, and wearing o
white sombrero, he was standing on .
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, NO., 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, 184a
when Fremont's old howitzer thun
dered the first salute ever given the
American flag in Colorado. He wa.
with Doniphan on his famous march
in the Mexican war, and one of the
hardest fights he ever had was in this
campaign, engaging a hostile band o.
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
bic battle. He was with General
Johnston's command in that unfortu.
nate expedition sent out by the Gov.
| ernment against the Mornons in 1857.
No living scout has a record like
his, and but few of those dead ever
led so eventful 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 say.
| age.
AS 1 stood watching the veteran
hunter and scout I wondered not that
some Denver school-boys, in passing
should stop and look up into his face
with an inquiring glance. They knew
not who he was, but any stranger
would stop to look at him. Not fo1
any popularity in dress, but for his
characteristic face and appearance. L
is truly wonderful face. His beari
is white and grizzled. The long wavy
hair reaching down on his shoulders is
now almost silken white. When frs
knew him there were heavy streaks O.
dark, mingled with the gray, but they
are now nearly white. There are deer
wrinkles on the forehead and in thu
face. The eye, which in bygone years
was unerring in the aim of the rifle, il
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 an6
mountain storm, with wrinkles, made
heavy aid deep by great age; with hal,
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 o.
the American hunter that for three
hundred years has been blazing 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 a fam
! lily. 1t was squaw or no wife in those
days. Some of the pioneers say that
Jim Baker married two squaws. one O.
whom he sent back to her tribe in later
years, and the other was stolen from
him. It was good thing for the
squaw thief that he was out of the
range of Bakers rifle, 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 XII,
Carson he was the crack rife shot or
the frontier, and Carson often acknowl.
edged that Jim Baker was his only
arrival in the use of the rifle. His last
work as a 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 year he comes tc
Denver, hunts up some of the pioneers
A. =