Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1892-01-07

Fourtsen Days Constant watch ana
Fighting. Then Death by Starvation


Fourtssn DAys' Constant watch and
Fighting. Then Death by Starvation
Ont at Trinidad, Colo, inst south OF
the town. Is a huge, fat topped rock
on the top of hill perhaps 300 feet
high. 1t is called Simpsons rock, and
II Is one of the historical points in the
west. Indeed It is a fragment of his
tory from that time when heroic deeds,
made sacred by the spilling of white
mans blc~d, ushered in the safe and
prosperous era of white mans rule.
Simpson was a pioneer and came to
the place before the name of Trinidad
was heard. He was a freighter, and
finding many advantages about the
SPOT he prepared home for his family
on the bank of the Purgatoire river.
He had a wife and two boys in his
home at Santa Fe, and no man ever
more lovingly prepared lodge for his
love than this rough driver fashioned
a dwelling in far away Trinidad. He
had everything in readiness as he passed
through to the east, and meant to bring
out his wife and children on his next
trip west. But the Indians had risen
that fall and swept all the settlements
down the river. They found Simpsons
home Just ready for occupancy, cap
tured the men he had employed to take
care of it, and then lay in wait without
disturbing thing till the owner should
come.
Simpson had seen signs of their raw
ages, and knew the knife and brand
were devastating the country. He cir
cled around his cherished home and
saw enough to warn him. He drove to
the foothills south of the river, and be-
gan preparations for a guarded camp.
The Indians did not wait for barricades,
but attacked at once. The helpers
were slaughtered at the first assault,
but Simpson, with one canteen of
water, fought his way through the line
of screaming Utes and clambered up
the hill They followed him as well as
they could, but darkness favored him,
and he gained the hills. Next morning
early they found him, and he retreated
a little further up the hill, killing sew
eral of his assailants from a better Gov
er. In the afternoon they drove him
from that, and he clambered a little
higher up. So the warfare went on.
He had shot so many they would not
leave him alive, but they could not
capture him. The second night Simp-
son retreated to the very top of the
hill, rolled up shelter of stones in a
spot where he could command the one
approach, and waited. He had eaten
nothing, and could hope for no food.
The only chance for deliverance lay in
the possible coming of soldiers to
avenge the massacre of settlers. Lying
there in the broiling sun by day and
the chilling air by night, the grim old
man watched sleepIessly, picking off
his enemies as they crept one by one
up the path.
Day after day, for a week, without
other food than cactus root, with no
water than that one canteen full, he
stood off his enemies. He never shot
till head was in sight, and he always
killed. Ten days, and he prayed for
death. Eleven, and he lost his cart
ridge belt. He found it, feebly crawl
ing about his little fort, on the evening
of the twelfth He killed three Indians
on the thirteenth. In the thick dark
ness before the dawn of the fourteenth
he felt rather than saw an Indian at
the path, and shot without waver.
He heard the voiceless Ute roll down
the precipice and pumped in another
cartridge.
That was his last They found him
so at noon, his dead eyes wide open,
his rifle lying along the rock, his
pinched, heroic frame starved for food
and famished for water, so thin that
they spurned it with their feet For
fourteen days he had fought them, and
then he died defiant.
Trinidad people have raised a cross
to mark his grave and to perpetuate
the memory of the most hopeless, the
most surprising fight in all the Indian
annals. Chicago Herald.