The Saint Paul globe., 1902-04-13
Last of Fremont's
Pathfinders. Chief of
the S n ak c S, and
Slayer of Many In
dian Warriors ;s3t,

quarters of century in the woods and
fields. 1t was an old mans story.
He was born in 1SO8 and in a few
weeks will be ninety-four years old This
i5 substantiated by the records of the
war department. He was, as he says a
Kentucky Irishman," born on the
border, of an Irish father and an Ameri-
can mother. His father was one of the
frontiersn1en who followed Andy Jack
son, and as first sergeant he fought the
last fight with the mother country be-
h1nd the cotton bale fort. AS a boy the
future Buckskin Joe was taken to Mis-
souri, and became a hunter from the time
that ne could carry gun. From the first
ne pushed forward and ever forward into
the unknown country, trusting upon his
friendship with the Indians, whose ways
ne knew and whose life he has lived dur
ing the most of his own century of life
Even now there is an Indian Tilt to his
carriage, and he has a way at times of
falling back upon Indian phrases when
he cannot find his words in English or
Spanish
Finally, in the year 1881, when he was
a young man Of twenty three he made
his way with eight other hunters over the
great plains across the Sierra and into
California. They crossed in the spring,
making friends with the Indians on the
I.
Then he ranged the West from the Da-
kotas to the South, until the year 1843,
When Fremont, under the guide of Kit
Carson, made the third of his exploring
expeditions, the most eventful one in
that it resulted in the opening of Cali
fornIa to American rule. At a distance
Buckskin 10 heard of the expedition.
lie hurried to Missouri. thinking to enlist
as a guide, and found that the Fremont
party had gone on. Determined to fol-
low, he Joined a party of settlers under
the command Of one Lewis, acting as
guide and hunter. They crossed the
Sierra in the summer of 1914, six months
after Fremont made his famous winter
passage of the snowy Sierra, and met a.
Fremont scouting party on the San
Joaquin. There DucKskin Joe Enlisted as
a scout.
Maj. Buchanan, OF Fremonts expedi-
ton, who is now living at the house, de-
scribed his first meeting with Buckskin
Joe as follows:
He came into camp one morning
dressed all in buckskin, a Kentucky rifle
over his shoulder. and asked to be a.
hunter for the expedition. He was a
Wlry, stout little man, who never tired
and was afraid Of nothing He scrambled
around horses like a monkey, mounting
While the horse was In full gallon and
ne knew every Indian trick and dodge
He would sneak through the underbrush
like weasel until he got a chance 1or
shot, and he never missed He is alb
solutely the best shot that I ever saw and
Is AFRAID OF nothing. He did great service
as scout and sharpshooter and used to
Keep US IN fresh meat / saw a great
zeal or him through the war He was
more of an Indian than a white man.
Ihen followed the attack of Castro on
the little band of revolutionists, their
rescue by Fremont and the outbreak Of
the Mexican war in California At this
point he enlisted regularly as a scout and
was close to Fremont through all the
operations on California soil. Exnari
enced with the Indians as he was. and
already chief of the Snakes. he kent
MS eye on the Mexican irreeulars In
the course of this campaign he received
his first wound at the action th..t he
calls the battle of Natividad No action
OF that name appears in the history of
California and he is doubtless giving his
own name to one of Fremont's fights
Iaken out of the vernacular, his story
OF the wound is something like this:
fremont sent me ahead to scout T
was on my horse, the one that carried
me over the plains / came on them All
OF sudden and started back NV horse
was better than theirs, but they all took
after me. They began shooting guns and
arrows. L slid down the side of the
morse away from them and rode that
way lodging from side to side.
wondered then why they didn't hi1 me or
MI the horse, anyway. After the war
zen. Castro told me why. He said ne
called out to kill the man, but not shoot
the morse, because he was a good one and
they needed horses They got him
though, just as 1t was getting into camp
DoWn he tumbled, and [ started To
sneak through the bushes and thew elm
ped me in the ankle. Our men came ont
and drove them back"
When the old days began to pass thew
Ieft Buckskin Joe-passed him bv. a
remnant OF an older age. All his life he
mated towns. He was a man Of the
woods. He has never been in San Fran
cisco since it ceased to be Yerba Buena
10 the new conditions he could not adant
himself. In the seventies, already an
old man, he settled down on the San
Joaquin river and continued to hunt and
hsh until he was taken in charge last
fall, placed under guardianship and sent
to the home His land, a strip on tha
river where he had ferry between hunt
ing seasons, was lost through a fauEfv
title. But his greatest grievance was that
they took away his gun, "Old BETSY"
the Kentucky rife that he carried into
California. When the days Of the flint
lock were over he had a percussion lock
put on Betsy and carried and used her
from the time forward until last wear.
Perhaps his separation from this old
friend of his youth and the regulations
which will not permit him to hunt are the
two things which he feels most at the
nome. The Springfield rifle which he was