The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-03-14
LONG-HAIRED SAM.
Sketches of Life in Nevada in the
Sixties.
Doing Up a COwardly Desperate with q
Double Barreled ShOtgun-It Wasn't
just Fair, But 1t Was
His Deserts.

just Fair, But 1t Was
His Deserts.
Sam Brown, or 'LOng-Haired Sam,
during the summer of 1859, the first year
of the s'WashOe'' excitement, rode over
the mountains from MaripOSa to Carson
City. Where he hailed from originally
or what were his antecedentS nobody
knew or cared His sole companion was
the animal he rode-a gray mare, fleet
and powerful, which he called Betsy. 1t
was the opinion Of nearly every body
that Brow 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 1S59-60, when
neither hay nor grain could be had in
Virginia City at any price, he bought
crackers for the mare at a dollar pound
and fed them to her without stint. He
was. nevertheless, quarrelsome, over
bearing, bloodthirsty brute in heart,
and by repeated killings a murderer.
On the whole he was a coward, though
on one occasion, when every body else
was panic-stricken, he was cool and dis
played genuine grit"
He wore an Indian-made buckSkin
coat with double fringes around the
bottom, and carried long rife on his
saddle-bow and two large revOlvers and
a 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
eye.
He made his first stop at Genoa and
spent a week or ten days among the
short-card fraternity of that place, at
the end of which time he had made him
self so obnoxious that there was not a
gambler who could be induced to play
with him. He went away to Carson,
where he had not tarried long before he
shot and killed an Italian over game
of cards. The murdered man, BelbOa
might have been somebody's darling
over in Italy, but in Carson City no one
loved or cared for him, and his slayer
got off without even an examination
After this killing Brown went up to
Virginia, New, and spent the winter
disreputably.
1t was long, hard winter, and as
soon as the spring opened the Piutes be-
gan raiding the outside settlements of
Carson valley, numbering men, burning
stage stations and running off stock.
After they had reduced Williams Sta
tinp 10 hoe nd 1yi11oI no Exo 70
men there Major Ormsby called for
volunteers to go 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-
ty. When the fight, or rather the
slaughter. began, Brown was by Cap
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
as hopelessly as cattle in 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. Blackb burns horse had
been shot from under him, and he was
left in the struggling mass afoot and
helpless. ''BrOwn," he said, ''for Gods
sake catch one of those loose horses fol
metz Riderless steeds were plungine
about wildly in all directions enc
time for horse hunting now," answered
Brown, 1--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 off, pursued by mob OF
yelling redskins, but their ponies were
no match for Betsy, handicapped though
she was, and she bore her two riders, al
least $50 pounds, from the Truckee tt
the Carson river, and thence across the
twenty-six-mile desert to Miller's sta.
ton in safety.
When the second body of volunteers
mo cd To ~
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 were disbanded
Brown returned to his old haunts tc
drink, gamble and buster In Virginia
New, he killed man named Woodruff
but as in the case of his previous murder
the crime was passed over without Legal
notice. Brown now seemed infiamed
by passion to kill because he
could do so with impunity, and
little later on he knitted one Mckenzie
to death at 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
Long Haired Brown excited detestation
whenever mentioned. Some of the gen
tlemanly desperadoes of Carson and tn:
Comstock tried to draw Brown into a
quarrel, and having got the drop on him