The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1893-07-05
DUTCH BILL.

DUTCH BILL.
The occupant of this lonely grave was
noted desperate. He had just added
anotbnr victim to his long list of murders
S. tho Town of b una Vista, and slit
out'' to the Gunnison country for safety.
One day. while asleep in tent short
time after the tragedy, a sheriff suddenly
anne and woke him up in order to arrest
him He had his pistols on his blanket
oIonoside him, but, averse to having his
.r,mhers disturbed in that unceremoni-
ans manner, he opened his battery upon
+bo law officer, who ian, but, as he was
Getting out of the way OF the desperate,
shot back through the canvas of the tent
and "Dutch Bill'' was instantly killed by
chance shot.
He was buried on the knoll, and the
simple epitaph, written in pencil on a
dead cottonwood branch, which was
merely stuck in the ground, the next
breeze carried away, destroying tomb
stone, epitaph and all record of whom
the mound of sand covered.
Thirty years ago there tlourished, way
nm in the mountains a little mining town
called Ten Nile At the height of its
prosperity one of its local possessions
was large graveyard. This would nat
urally indicate to the transient visitor
very sickly locality, in the purest atmos-
phere in the whole world.
The town was abandoned long ago and
the wash from the high range above bur-
led it out of sight. Here is one epitaph
from the celebrated burial ground, whose
numerous inhabitants, or least 80 per
cent Of them, if inquests had been held
over the dead bodies, would have had
this record: "Ded from exposure lex
posture to bullets.)
Jack Crane was good fellow,
Who drank his whisky mellow;
But he fell through
On mountain dew,
Aud now he's gone to hello.
In South Park, Col, ten years ago,
could be seen, roughly cut on board,
the following sad lines:
"Snowed in and dying. January Is,
81 l am the last. Peace. Jerry
D-t--t''
As suggested at the time the awful
story the board related was discovered.
This is one of those very rare instances
when an epitaph is written by the hand
Of the individual for whom it is intended.
The board was found by party of
1 United States soldiers in the cleft of
4 rock in the summer of 1870. Strewn on
i the prairie around it were the bleached
bones Of six men, with here and there
Il portions Of the skeletons of their horses.
III the immediate vicinity Were camp
utensils and other equippage together
with pieces of saddles, bits and trap
d pings belonging to the mining party.
d what terrible story was told in the
rude letters cut on that old board!
Until the establishment of a United
States district court, to which Judge
Parker was appointed by President
Grant, with jurisdiction over the Indians
territory, that region was a place of
refuge for all the renegades and tugi
yves from justice west of the Missouri,
auo the territory itself became prolific
mills number of outlaws.
Once the administration of that seven
handed JUSTICE for which Judge 'arker
D@ become famous, the list of crimes,
most dannable in their nature generally,
LAS mater ally lessoned and his speedy
O"' Hshteous judgments have cleared
Ie country, in degree at least, of evil
"0eI"' and put q quietus upon the outr9-
40 formerly SO frequent. Ihe evidence
1lat once era of crime and cold
0o''ed murders still exist in the shape
!0oe Aeadbolrds or stakes, too often
" De met with, half hidden IN the tall
'uD'1 grass Of the little prairie valleys,
VI among the underbrush skirting the
,'''oS OF hatreally magnificent region.
D''e oIter few, which perhaps to-day
~ longer exist:
X
1-,, ONE-EYED MAN,
ieI Sept. y, 1874, Jim Sears,
kIOWA CHARLEY,
March Is, 1878,
Ea, JIM SEARS,