St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-02-04
SKULL OF LITTLE CROW.

Crow and his small son, a lad of per-
haps thirteen years, picking and eating
blackberries in a patch about twelve
miles from Hutchinson, where a COM
pany of soldiers, commanded by Lieut.
James D. Farmer of Spring Valley,
and to which the Lampsons belonged,
was in camp. The Indian chief and
the Lampson boy saw each other,
raised their guns and fired simultane-
ously. Lampson's ball hit Little Crow
squarely in the breast, while the shot
from the Indians gun tore the butt
of Lampson's gun into fiinters, but in
ficted not even the. slightest injury
The white men, fearing there were
other Indians about, hurried back to
their camp, and returning with rein
forcements, found the chief dead, with
his head resting in the lap of his dumb
founded SON. .
Ignorant that their victim was Lit
tie Crow, the soldiers hitched a lariat
to his legs and dragged him back to
camp, twelve miles off, to Hutchinson,
where they cut off his head and, jam
ming a fence rail into the skull. carried
IT about the camp triumphantly at the
head OF mock procession. The body
was thrown into a refuse pit, where it
was soon followed by the head but in
few days a visitor to the camp, who
knew Little Grow, saw the head and rec
ognlZed 1T as that of the Sioux chief
by the peculiar formation of the teeth
etc. identification was still further
strengthened when the headiess trunk
was found, and the stranger found that
both wrists were broken. 1t is incOr-
rectly stated in history that this was
the result of fall from his horse, but
the facts are these: Little Grow and
brother were rivals for tribal author
ity They rowed, and on one occasion
70 hysnf hnI
tie Crow was unframed. The brother
threatened to shoot, when Little Crow
threw back his blanket, folded his
hands across his breast and said
shoot The bullet ploughed it's way
through both wrists, breaking them.
and it was in this way that the strang-
er knew for sure that the body was
Little Crow. DIR. Twitchell, of Chat
field, took the trunk, dismembered it
and lowered it into a stream to allow
the flesh to disintegrate In the mean
time Lieut. Farmer had secured the
head, and when he went home to
Spring Valley on leave he took it with
him.
Lieut. Farmer is a brother of Judge
Farmer, of the district court, and also
of Frank Farmer, banker and post
master of Spring Valley.
when the lieutenant arrived home
he borrowed his wife's wash boiler and
boiled the flesh off the Indians skull
and placed the skull into a gunny
sack.
Taking advantage of the presence of
plasterers in the house, he pulled out
several laths in the ceiling of the
kitchen, hid away the gunny sack and
had the hole lathed and plastered up.
| This was in 1862, and the skull re-
| manned there until 1875. 1 was sta
toned at Fort Laramie, in Wyoming.
as post and field surgeon, and then
went East on leave of absence. l
brought with me several rare speci-
mems Of moss agate. / saw Farmer,
whom l liked, and selecting rare yell
| low agate, had made signet ring.
and presented it to him. He had seen
the odd curios in my room on the bor-
derland between Iowa and Minnesota
thing, and that is the skull of Little
Crow He went to his home and
| brought it back to me in person twenty
years ago. The balance of the skeleton
and part Of the scalp are now in the
possession of the historical society
and | mean to give the skull to COM
plete the thing.
Little Crow was the head and front
of the terrible havoc wreaked during
the early summer of 1852 near New
| Ulm, and had for companions such
wicekd Sioux and Chippewas as Cut
Nose, Hole in the Day, Other Day and
! He Who Forbids His House. The lit
| tie story l have given you is histor-
ically correct, has never been in print
and will be recognized by many of the
old settlers of the state who recall the
murderous times at New Ulm."