The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-04-06
San Francisco Chroniclel

tSdn EauClScO GnrOnlCle.l
Ending his days in the Veterans
home at Yountville there dwells the
last member of the most distinctive
type that ever fourished on this west
ern continent-the pathfinder, the
leather stocking, the hunter, Caucasian
IN VIII and Indian in method, who
round a way through the forests and
over the mountains and made a way
for the conquest OF the west. In all
probability, also, he is of all men now
alive the first to cross the Sierra Ne
Vada mountains. When Kit Carson
guided Fremont across to found the
new commonwealth of California this
man had already been an old traveller
in these parts. He has killed more IN
dams than are worth while n0tching
upon his gun, and for fifty years he
slew big game as a regular part OF his
days work. He speaks two Indian Ian
guages and is chief of the Snakes.
He remembers Kit Carson and the men
of the Alamo better than he remembers
his associates of yesterday at the home.
And yet he hah had but one adven-
ture Of which he is proud and bosstful.
he once speared a whale in Monterey
bay.
I first saw BUckskin Joe O'DonneH
upon the veranda OF the Veterans
home at YOuntville. I was watching
the veterans come and 60 across the
broad field, when little old man came
shufiling down the steps. He was not
over five feet in height and carried
himself q bit stopped, but very well
withaL His feet, as he put them down
carefully one after the other, were
pointed straight forward like the feet
of an Indian. and there was something
of habitUal caUuonness in their tread
His face, scared, lined and battered
with age. was aquiline and haWklike,
and within there burned two of the
most wonderful blue eyes that 1 have
ever seen. Gray in shading, large, di-
rect, piercing, they were as clear as
the eyes of a boy. He was a man
whom you would watch among all the
hundreds at the home.
That is our oldest man." said DR..
McAllister, the assistant surgeon.
THAT is Buckskin Joe O'Donnell, FIRE.
mOnts scout"
I talked with him later. heard the
story in little flashes of reminiscence,
little memories that had survived his
three-quarteFs of a century in the
woods and fields. It was an old mans
story.
He was born in 1908, and in a few
weeks viii be "a years old. This is
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
American mother His father was one
of the frOntiersmen who followed Andy
Jackson, and as a first sergeant he
fought in the last fight with the moth
er country behind the cotton bale fort.
AS a boy the future Buckskin Joe was
taken to Missouri and became a hunt
er from the time that he could carry
a gun. From the first he pushed for
ward and ever forward into the Un-
known country, trusting upon his
friendship with the Indians, whose
ways he knew and whose life he has
lived during the most of his own cen
fury of life. Even now there is an IN
dian lit to his carriage, and he has q
way at times of falling back upon In.
words In English or Spanish.
Finally, in the year 1881, when he
dian phrases when he cannot find his
was a young man of %. 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