Mower County transcript., 1890-02-05
LONG-HAIRED SAM,
Sketches of Life in Nevada In the
Sixtiea

Doing Up = Cowardly Desperate with u
Double Barreled shotgun-It Wasn't
just Fair, But 1t Was
His Deserts.
Sam Brown, or Long Haired Sam,"
during the summer of 1859, the first year
of the "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, feet
and powerful, which he called Betsy. It
was tho opinion of nearly every body
that Brown had not a 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 dollar pound
and fed them to her without stint He
was, nevertheless, a quarrelsome, over
bearing, bloodthirsty brute in heart,
and by repeated killings 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"
He wore an Indian-made buckskin
coat with double fringes around the
bottom, and carried long rifle on his
saddle-bow and two large revolvers 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
eye.
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
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 of without even an examination.
After this killing Brown went up to
Virginia, New, and spent the winter
disreputably.
It 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
ton to ashes and killed the five white
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 meff 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. Blackburn's 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 for
mel" Riderless steeds were plunging
about wildly in all directions. 'No
time for horse hunting now," answered
Brown, I'VE must trust to Betsy"
Quickly stripping her of his heavy Mex
ican saddle and roll of blankets and
breaking the stock of his rifle before
casting it away, he leaped upon
LQ0 "Hre b U6E0 DdCk dUO
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 to Miller's sta
ton in safety.
When the second body of volunteers
marched to the Truckee under Colonel
Jack Hays big Sam Brown and Betsy
were with them and helped to punish
the sayages 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 to
drink, gamble and bluster. In Virginia,