Oxford eagle. (Oxford, Lafayette Co., Miss.) 1876-current, 1890-01-30
LONG-HAIRED SAM.
Sketches of Life In Nevada in the
Sixties.
Dsl1S Up . Covardiy Desperate with .
Double fsarretcd >hotSun-It wa.n.t
Just Fair. But 70 Was
His Deserts

~afn hruNn- OF L0n--ttalrtl sam
| during the summer Of is59. the first year
| OF the ''Washoe~ excitement. rode over
the mountains from Mariposa to Carson
City. Whore he hailed from originally
or what we're his antecedents nobody
knew or cared His sole companion was
the animal he rOde-a gray mare. feet
and powerful. which he called Betsy Il
was the opinion of nearly every body
that Brown had not spark of affection
| FOR any living thing except this pet
horse. | Am not so sure Of this; but at
any rate. in the winter of isJ9-50. when
neither hay nor grain could be had in
Virginia City at any price, he bought
| crackers for the mare at adollar pound
and fed them to her without stint. He
was. nevertheless. a quarrelsome. over
bearing, bloodthirsty brute in heart,
and by repeated killings a murderer
| On the whole he was = coward. though
on one occasion when every body else
was panic-stricken. he was cool and dis
played genuine grit"
lie wore an Indian-made buckskin
| coat ~ith double fringes around the
bottom. and carried long rife on his
| sadd.s-bow and two large reviewers and
| = knife stuck in his belt When you
add To this striking equipment luxu-
| RANT growth Of fiery whiskers and long,
tawny hair hanging loosely over his
neck and shoulders. like strands Of
faded yarn you get some idea of Sans
| personnel of course. he had bad
| eve
He made his first stop at Genoa and
| spent week or ten days among the
short-card fraternity of that place, at
the end Of which time he had made him
self - obnoxious that there was not a
| gambler who could be- induced to pIav
with him. He went away 10 Carson.
where he had not tarried long before he
shot and killed an Italian over a game
of cards The murdered man. BeIhoa.
might have been somebody's darling
over in Italy, hut in Carson City no one
loved or cared for him. and his slayer
got of without even an examination
After this killing Brown went up to
Virginia. New, and spent the winter
disreputably.
| IL was long, hard winter. and a.
soon as the spring opened the Piutes be
gan raiding the outside settlements of
Carson valley, numbering mer. burning
stage stations and running of stock
After they had reduced Williams sta
tion To ashes and killed the five white
men there Major Ormsby called for
volunteers To 90 with him and fight the
Indians at Pyramid lake Among the
one hundred and six mounted men who
responded to his Gala heterogeneous
mass of pioneer humanity - no one
looked more formidable or better able
to cope with savages than Long Haired
sam Those who had not been able to
see any thing but unmixed devil in this
desperate denied that he knew the
meaning of the word friend. = but he
must have had sort of liking for
John l. blackburn. who was Captain of
his company and sheriff of Carson Coun-
". When the fight, or rather the
slaughter, began. Brown was by Zap
tain Blackburn's side. In the first
onset many of the volunteers fell
at the hands of the Indians.
who swarmed from the rocks
above them. and the rest were thrown
into the widest confusion Ormsby
knew nothing of Indian fighting: his
men had no leader, and they stampeded
a. hopelessly as cattle in a corral In
their miserable efforts to escape from
the canyon into which they had been
enticed they were nearly all shot from
their horses or dragged to the ground
and butchered. Blackburn's horse had
been shO, from under him. and he was
left in the struggling mass afoot and
helpless. Brown he said, .sfor Gods
sake catch one of those loose horses for
me-. Riderless steeds were plunging
about wildly in all directions. No
time for horse hunting now" answered
Brown. we must trust to Betsy
Quickly stripping her of his heavy Mex
lean saddle and roll of blankets and
breaking the stock of his rifle before
casting it away. he leaped upon
the mares bare back and
blackburn got up behind him.
They galloped of. pursued by mob of
yelling redskins. but their ponies were
no match for Betsy, handicapped though
she was. and she bore her two riders. at
least $50 pounds. from the Truckee to
the Carson river, and thence across the
twenty-six-mile desert 10 MiIler's sta
ton in safety
| When the second body of volunteers
marched 10 the Truekee under Colonel
Jack Hays big sam Brown and Betsy
were with them and helped To punish
the savages on the same ground where
Major Ormsby and his followers had
been butchered- The Hays expedition
settled the Piute business for the time.
and when the volunteers we're disbanded
Brown returned 20 his old haunts TO
drink gamble and buster. In Virginia.
New, ne killed a man named Woodruff:
but Is IN the case Of his previous murder
the crime was passed over without legal
notice Brown now seemed innAmed
By a passion 20 kill because he
could do 50 with IMMUNITY, and
little later on he knitted one Mckenzie
20 death AZ Gold Hill. The terror was
not even arrested. and he went around
! Dragging about the graveyard he had
{ started; but this crime was so cold
/ blooded and brutal that the name Of
/ i,ong-Haired Brown excited detestation
whenever mentioned Some Of the gen
tlemanly desperadoes Of Carson and the
I Comstock tried 10 draw Brown into a
quarrel and having gOs the drop on him