East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-06-02

In an interesting article on the
Bannock Indian war, which John w.
Ellsworth OF La Grande, wrote for
the Oregon Sunday Journal of May
81, are sketches of two incidents with
which many Umatilla county people
are familiar-the murder of the three
teamsters on Cayuse hill and Bill
Lockwood's drive with the six-horse
stage.
The following account of these in
cidents will be read again with inter-
est by Umatilla county people:
The Utah. Idaho & Oregon Stage
company, carrying passengers, mail
and eXpressage, operated its four and
six-horse coaches between Kelton,
Utah, on the Union Pacific railroad
and Umatilla, on the Columbia river,
where steamboats, received and dis
charged cargoes.
In 1873 the stage company wGs
handling the largest and most profit
able traffic in its history, owning
1900 stage horses and employing sew
eral hundred drivers, hostlers and
station keepers. The Bannocks
swarmed along the so miles Of over
land road in the Blue mountains be-
tween La Grande and Pendleton. The
Indians were so active that the stage
coaches were blocked from running
and carrying the United States mail
for days at a time. Often n coach.
heavily loaded with delayed mails.
was escorted through the dangerous
territory by regular soldiers.
J Once, huge Bill Lockwood, a veter-
an driver, swore he would take the
delayed mail from Meacham to Pen
dleton, 25 miles. Bill had the habit
OF putting the whip to a six-horse
team and taking the bounding coach
six or eight miles in 20 minutes.
The delayed mail was loaded into
an open hack drawn by four horses
with Bill Lockwood on the drivers
seat and a rifleman in the back seat
Near Cayuse station dozen mounted
Indians dashed from the forest and
gave chase. The rifleman held the
savages in check, enabling Bill to
make good their escape after a record
run of four miles down the mountain
to the station.
Transfers Tortured TO Death.
Among teamsters who were stall
ed" at Meacham. because of the In
dians in the mountains. were Mccoy
Laughlin and Smith OF Union county
Becoming restless and thinking the
cavalry skirmishers had driven the
Indians away from the road, the mer
set out with their heavy wagons and
long string of freight horses to drive
to Pendleton
A few days later scouting troopers
found the mutilated bodies OF the mer
near their burned wagons and slaugh-
tered horses. Laughln and Smith
had been chased into the forest
about 100 yards from the road, where
their disfigured remains mutely told
of their savage butchery.
Poor Mccoy had fled into a clumT
OF trees and brush, where there wa,
a spring. Here he was pounced upor
by the Indians and slowly tortured t.
death. Attached to one foot of hi:
gashed body was horsehair rope
proving that part of the fiendish tor
ture had been to allow the agonizet
victim to crawl away as far as the
rope would permit, then draw hin
back to renewed torture.
George Coggan, a leading stockman
residing with his young wife at Ii
Grande, had incurred the bitter en-
nifty OF some of the Unlatilla Indians
Coggan was the owner of Osce ola {
horse which held the running record
for four miles, west of the Mississippi
river. The Indians accused one o
Coggan's men of shooting and killing
some OF their ponies.