The San Francisco call., 1896-09-09
Dissertation of Burial Grounds
Avenged by Northern
Redskins,
JAMES KARTLEY'S MANGLED
BODY FOUND.
The Victim Spitted on Hazel Stake
as He Lay Bound in a
Canoe.

PORTLAND, Or, Sept. S.-Two miners
who have been prospecting in the region
of Mount Hood arrived in Portland to-day
and reported that the body of James
Hartley, a collector of Indian relics and
curios, was found last Thursday by Henry
Peterson, a timber cruiser, on a small
island in Dead Mans Lake in the dense
forest which stretches from Mount st.
Helens to the Columbia River. The con-
dition of the body, which was found in an
old canoe, the hands and feet bound by
withes of hazel and fastened to the stem
and stern of the canoe, with a stake OF
hazel driven through the corpse just be-
low the breast bone, showed conclusively
that Hartley had been put to death with
cruel tortures such as were inflicted upon
white men taken prisoners by Indians in
the early history of this country.
Hartley has been missing for over a
year, but the body was in a com paratively
good state of preservation and was readily
recognized by the clothes of peculiar
greenish- colored corduroy which he in
variably. wore and by letters and papers
found in his pocket. Some such dreadful
ending had often been predicted for him,
as he had been for years engaged in col.
lecting Indian relics and curios and had
probably robbed more Indian graves and
scattered broadcast the remains of more
redskins than any other man.
There is scarcely an Indian burying-
ground on the Columbia River or the
islands therein, or along the coast of Ore
gon, where such places are numerous,
which Hartley had not ransacked in
search of stone knives and hammers,
beads, flint arrowheads and other articles
which Indians bury with their dead; and
in several places, notably at Long Island,
in the Upper Columbia, deadhouses of
modern construction were torn down by
him and the only partially decayed bodies
of those buried there dragged out and
thrown about to bleach in the sun and
wind In his search for any articles which
hight have been buried with them.
II was the custom of nearly all the
tribes of Indians in Oregon to dispose of
their dead by placing the body in canoe,
with the most priced effects of the de-
ceased, and then iEverting another canoe
over it. This made the burial places very
easy to be discovered and very easy to be
robbed.
Since the Indians have been removed to
burying grounds of their ancestors, such
men as Hartley have piled their horrible
business without much fear of being dis
turbed. Hartley had been so long and so
actively engaged in the business, and his
operations had extended over such scope
of territory, that he was known by reputa-
ton at least to many Indians, and when
ever it was known that he was in any part
of the country Indians from that section
sent out guards to protect their old bury
ing places.
Some two years ago, while he was oper.
ating in an extensive Indian burying-
ground at the mouth of the Alsea River,
he was shot at and narrowly escaped being
captured by guards sent down from the
Siletz Reservation to keep watch for him,
the Indians having learned that he was on
his way to that place. Another time,
when collecting Indian skulls at q burial
place on Little Memaloose Island, in the
rapids at the foot of The Dalles, he mar
nowly escaped being captured through the
canoe of his pursuers having been upset by
their over-eagerness to catch him.
Owing to dread of Indians he had for
some time kept his movements as secret as
possible, and so his disappearance at
tracted no attention until some six months
ago, when his brother came out from the
East to inquire about him. When last his
brother had heard about him he was col
lecting Indian curios along the banks of
the Cowlitz River, where there were many
Indian villages in early days, and where
thousands of Indians from the interior
gathered during the spring and summer
to put up smoked salmon for winter use.
He had written to his brother that he in
tended to go to some islands In Silver
Lake, over toward Mount ST. Helens. to
examine an old Indian burying.ground
there, and that was the last that was
known of his whereabouts. His brother
visited the islands in Silver Lake and
found scattered remains of Indians and
canoes, and here all traces of him ended.
1t seems probable that he learned of the
burying-ground on the island in Dead
Mans Lake, some twenty miles farther in
the forest, where, tradition says, the ch iefs
and medicine men OF several tribes along
the Columb bia are buried, and, lured by the
prospect of a rich find of carlos. he
ventured to visit the place, imagining
that he would be safe from molestation in
the depths OF tnat great forest, The
Indian guards evidently caught him and
put him to a cruel death, and his fate
might never have been known had not the
timber-cruiser Peterson been led bv
curiosity to visit this island.
Hartley's brother, who returned East
several weeks ago, has been notified of the
discovery of the remains, and will prob
ably come out here again to take them
home.
CHz MREHILJN Avn OrHn-