Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1922-02-08
Interesting Interview With
One of Pioneer Western
Settlers.
Dear Advertisers:

jDear Advertiser:
Yesterday J. had the rare privilege
of talking to one of the "old timers
Eof the early west, and getting some
I first hand knowledge of pioneering
which was doubly interesting, for !
knew that it was true. 1t had not been
handed down to me by any magma
tive story writer. He spoke of fighting
the Indians as 1 would of fighting
mosquitoes. +
Immediately after the Civil War
in 1857, he came from Pennsylvania
out to Leavenworth, Kansas, being
the wagon master for a train of fifty
four covered wagons. He was then
twenty-one years of age. Mr.. Mason,
for this is the gentleman's name, now
lives in Iowa. Perhaps there are
some old timers around Tonkawa, but
this is the only opportunity 1 have
had of talking to an early settler.
During General Clusters encoun-
ters with the Indians, Mr.. Mason car
ried supplies for the use of Clusters
soldiers from Kansas to fort in Ok
lahoma, by covered wagons across
the plains.
The Indians were fighting for what
they considered to be their inalien-
able rights, for in 1867 the Union
Pacific Railroad was being built
across Kansas, and this meant that
the wild game, more especially the
buffalo, would be driven from the
state.
The Indians felt this to be an in
justice, and consequently made war
on the whites.
Mr.. Mason said that on one occa-
sion he, with hundred and five other
men, had battle with the Cheyenne,
Sioux and Kiawa Indians in the
north western corner of Kansas ad-
joining Colorado and Nebraska. For
lty out of his one hundred and five
Icomrades were killed, and at present
there lis a monument erected on the
battlefield by the three states, to the
TiiiSe / men Who Wefe killed there. ssssSs5
He left Kansas with seventeen
friends, and they rode horseback all
the way to the gold mines of Arizo-
ma. There he kept stage station with
fresh horses for the stage drivers on
their way from Los Angeles to San
Antonio. During his stay of four
years there, all of the eighteen COM
rades who had come with him from
Kansas, were killed by the Indians,
except four, his brother being among
the victims. The .Apaches, of Arizona,
were very sneaking Indian WHO al
ways came upon them unawares. 1t
seems that these particular Indians
practiced camoufaging long ago.
They dressed to suit the foliage OF
the season, so that they could not be
detected near at hand by the enc
mics. The Apaches were the last In
dians to surrender.
The Cheyennes and Sioux were
the bravest fighters of all. They
fought fairly and in tie open, and
took great chances.
When travelling across the prai-
ries as many as twelve mules would
be hitched to a wagon and there
would be perhaps fifty wagons in the
train. On stopping to camp the wag-
ons were arranged in huge oblong
position with the wheels of each wag-
on locked together. The mules were
placed within this space to protect
them from the stampede of the buff
falo and from attacks of Indians.
Using the wagons as barricade, they
could fight the Indians off.
Many times he said he had seen
thousands of buffalo, the plains black
with them as far as the eye could
see. When one of these enormous
herds would approach, the sound
would be like that Of distant thunder
coming nearer and nearer. The buff
falo in their mad stampede would
rush over the encampment as though
it were a spider web, if the men
did not go far out into the plain and
shoot into them, thus scattering the
drove on either side of the wagons.
This pioneer is now eighty years
of age, but his memory is as clear as
if it had happened yesterday. He was
extremely modest in all of the refer
ences to his experience. He confirm