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THE MODOC WAR
A Story of Genocide at the
Dawn of America’s Gilded Age

RO B E RT AQUINAS M C NAL LY

University of Nebraska Press

Lincoln & London
© 2017 by Robert Aquinas McNally
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America

Publication of this volume was assisted by the Virginia

Faulkner Fund, established in memory of Virginia Faulkner,
editor in chief of the University of Nebraska Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McNally, Robert Aquinas, author.
Title: The Modoc War: a story of genocide at the dawn of
America’s Gilded Age / Robert Aquinas McNally.
Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2017] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2017011122 (print)
lccn 2017034893 (ebook)
isbn 9781496201799 (cloth: alk. paper)
isbn 9781496204226 (epub)
isbn 9781496204233 (mobi)
isbn 9781496204240 (pdf )
Subjects: lcsh: Modoc War, 1872–1873.
Classification: lcc e83.87 (ebook)
lcc e83.87 .m37 2017 (print)
ddc 973.8/2—dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011122

Set in Garamond Premiere by John Klopping.

 For my remarkable family:
Gayle Eleanor, Darren McNally and
Sara Pollock, Brian McNally and Renee Lucas
McNally, Ali Smookler, Aimée Smookler
and Arnaud Schneider.
And for the Modoc Nation, a people who,
though once slated for destruction, exhibits
still the bravery of resilient survival.
May we all continue.
 CONTENTS

List of Illustrations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Prologue: Duel at Lost River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Part 1. Holy Lands Here and There
1. Bad to Worse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
2. Stone and Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3. Running the Pagans Out of the Promised Land . . . . . . . . . 23
4. Death Squads, Sex Slaves, and Knights of the Frontier . . . . . 29
5. The Peace That Wasn’t, the Treaty That Was, Kind Of . . . . .49
6. The Bacon of Three Hundred Hogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
7. Gray-Eyed Rancher to the Rescue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Part 2. True Fog, Real War
8. Glove and Fist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
9. Modoc Steak for Breakfast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90
10. A Look Inside. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
11. First Fog of War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
12. Celebration and Postmortem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Part 3. Firing into a Continent
13. Give Peace a Chance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
14. The News That Fits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
15. Heroic Reporter Dens with Lions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
16. Talking for Peace, Lying for War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
17. The Warrior Takes Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
18. Squeeze Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
19. A Homeland to Be Named Later . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
20. Pride and Prejudice in the Peace Tent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
 21. Martyrs at Midday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
22. The War Goes Cosmic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
23. Girding for Battle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
24. Half-Empty Victory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
25. Scalps and Skulls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
26. Into the Volcanic Valley of Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Part 4. Things Fall Apart
27. The Center Cannot Hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
28. Hounds and Scouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
29. Hang ’em High . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
30. Varnishing Vengeance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
31. Still Small Voices Swell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
32. Strangled Necks, Severed Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
33. Exile and Showbiz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
34. Requiem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Maps
1. The Klamath Basin in the 1870s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. The Modoc War battlefield, November 1872–June 1873 . . . 126
Figures
Following page 260
1. Kientpoos before the Modoc War
2. Shacknasty Jim, Hooker Jim, Steamboat Frank, and
John Fairchild
3. Jesse Applegate
4. Brigadier General E. R. S. Canby
5. The killing of Canby, according to William Simpson
6. Toby and Frank Riddle
7. Scarface Charley
8. Colonel Jefferson C. Davis
9. The women in Kientpoos’s life
10. Schonchin John and Kientpoos
11. The Modoc Touring Company

ix
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

You have heard it before: no writer ever fashions a book wholly on his
or her own. It takes a village, from library denizens who find obscure
materials to manuscript readers who ask, with more editorial savvy
than you have, “Sure you want to tell it like this?”
Cheewa James, whom I met some twenty years before the idea for
this book germinated, was always gracious and helpful in answering
my questions about her Modoc ancestral line, which leads to Shack-
nasty Jim in the Lava Beds. Taylor Tupper, public relations manager
for the Klamath Tribes, informed me, wisely, that “murder” applied
to the Good Friday killings is a dirty word since it turns an act of war
into a crime.
Daniel Woodhead III was kind enough to provide his self-published
collection of contemporary newspaper accounts. Carol Chomsky of the
University of Minnesota and Maeve Herbert Glass of Princeton Uni-
versity each dug out their monographs on the United States–Dakota
military trials of 1862 and reviewed my draft chapter on the Fort Klam-
ath trial with the trained eyes of lawyer and historian. Benjamin Mad-
ley of the University of California at Los Angeles gave me a proof of
his groundbreaking paper on genocide and Modoc resistance and later
read the entire manuscript. Greg Sarris also read my nearly last draft,
generously taking time from the demands of his academic, writing,
and tribal leadership positions.
Several fellow Golden Bears from the University of California at
Berkeley proved invaluable. Claire Holmes, then associate vice chan-
cellor for Public Affairs at the university and a former professional
colleague, directed me to Robert David, a Klamath Tribes member
who did his doctoral research at Cal on the archaeology of Klamath
Basin rock art. Robert filled in various bits of missing information,

xi
shared his dissertation and monographs, and read my entire revised
manuscript, catching numerous niggling errors and giving me a wel-
come thumbs-up. Mark Juergensmeyer, with whom I attended grad-
uate school at Cal in the late 1960s and who is now a distinguished
professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, deepened
my understanding of cosmic war and reviewed my chapter on that
subject. Boyd Cothran, a historian now on the faculty of York Uni-
versity in Toronto, met me for coffee in Berkeley to share his analy-
sis of the Modoc War and later reviewed portions of the manuscript
with an historian’s eye for detail and a writer’s instinct for story. His
enthusiasm for the project helped me through some of the doldrums
of self-doubt that beset all writers.
Boyd also went out of his way to introduce me to Matthew Boko-
voy of the University of Nebraska Press, who became first the book’s
champion and then its editor. Several other superb professionals at
the press helped turn the manuscript into this book: Heather Stauffer,
Sabrina Stellrecht, Rachel Gould, Roger Buchholz, John Klopping,
and Rosemary Vestal. And freelancer Jonathan Lawrence did a great
job of copyediting. I owe them all.
The late Carole Fisher brought me into the circle of the Shaw His-
torical Library at the Oregon Institute of Technology and introduced
me to Lee Juillerat of the Klamath Falls Herald and News, Ryan Bar-
tholomew of the Klamath County Historical Society, and Jim Comp-
ton, a retired journalist who was working on his own Modoc War book
at the time of his sudden death. Stephen Most pointed me to his play
on the war and answered my questions about the Klamath Basin from
his expertise as the author of River of Renewal.
The people of the National Park Service gave new meaning to the
title “public servant.” Mike Reynolds, then superintendent for Lava Beds
National Monument and the Tule Lake Unit of the Pacific National
Monument, opened the doors to his facilities and staff. Beth Sand-
ers, an intern at the time, located the archival materials I was looking
for. Mary Merryman, curator of the Museum & Archives Collections,
generously came down from her usual haunt at Crater Lake to allow
me to spend two rainy, winter days in the library and archives of Lava
Beds National Monument. And Park Ranger Angela Sutton had an

xii Acknowledgments
unerring eye for pulling books off the library’s shelves that I had no
idea existed and that proved helpful indeed.
Research on this book would have been impossible without the
repeated help of the staff of the Bancroft Library at the University
of California, Berkeley, an unrivaled archival source on California’s
history. Debra Kaufman of the California Historical Society, Mar-
ilyn Van Winkle of the Autry Museum of the American West, Coi
Drummond-Gehrig of the Denver Public Library, and Scott Rook of
the Oregon Historical Society unearthed and scanned photographs
of the Modoc War’s principals.
Finally, yet most importantly, my partner, Gayle Eleanor, demon-
strated again that she is the world’s best first reader. And she listened
to my stories when, more than once, I showed up at the dinner table
shaking my head over some newly excavated outrage. At such moments
I realized yet again how blessed I am to share my life with her.

Acknowledgments xiii
 Prologue
Duel at Lost River

S econd Lieutenant Frazier A. Boutelle kept a close eye on the

two Indians stripped to the waist, loaded rifles in hand, faces
set, eyes glaring. The pair were shouting in the Modoc tongue, words
whose meaning the lieutenant failed to grasp but whose hostile tone
he could never mistake. Boutelle was a career cavalryman, come up
twice through the ranks, an experienced campaigner who had fought
Confederates from Second Bull Run to Cold Harbor, and Indians
from Texas to Oregon. In every twitching fiber of his body, Boutelle
felt a fight coming on.1
His commander, Captain James Jackson, Troop B, First Cavalry,
shared the same opinion. And he was ready to be done with this, feel-
ing sicker by the moment, a growing weakness that the overnight ride
through twenty straight hours of cold rain and sleet had only worsened.
“Mr. Boutelle, what do you think of the situation?” Jackson asked,
his voice weak.
“There is going to be a fight,” Boutelle answered, “and the sooner you
open it, the better, before there are any more complete preparations.”
Jackson agreed by ordering Boutelle and four enlisted men to disarm
and arrest the two Modocs. A mixed-race lieutenant who kept secret
the African American portion of his heritage in order to command
white troopers, Boutelle knew more than a little about playing a role.2
He unholstered his revolver and locked eyes with the Indian whose
heavily scarred right cheek pulled an otherwise strong and handsome
face into a perpetual sneer. His Modoc name was Chick-chack-am
Lul-al-kuel-atko,3 something local settlers wouldn’t even try to wrap
their mouths around, so they dubbed him Scarface Charley. Boutelle
saw something of himself in Charley. They were much alike: lean and
quick, as threatening as pumas on the prod.

1
 In the same split second, each made the move both knew was com-
ing. Charley raised his rifle and Boutelle snapped his revolver up. The
two weapons erupted as one, spewing black-powder smoke and heavy-
caliber lead at a range of only a few yards.4 In that instant the Modoc
War—violent climax to a start-and-stop genocide that had spanned
the better part of three decades—began.
The day was Friday, November 29, 1872, the time a soaked and gloomy
8 a.m. It was a day that so far had gone badly for both Scarface Char-
ley and Frazier Boutelle. Things were about to get even worse.

2 Prologue
 PART 1
Holy Lands Here and There

We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills,
and winding streams with tangled growth as “wild.” Only to the
white man was nature a “wilderness” and only to him was the land
“infested” with “wild” animals and “savage” people. To us it was tame.
Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the
blessings of the Great Mystery.
—Luther Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle
map 1. The Klamath Basin in the 1870s. Courtesy Erin Greb Cartography.
 1
Bad to Worse

The enterprising white man, having seen and appreciated this

land of green meadows, silvery lakes and crystal streams,
determined to possess it.
—Ivan D. Applegate, “The Initial Shot”

F or much of the next year, the Modoc War occupied center stage
in the American public mind. Fought on a remote, volcanic
steppe against an Indian nation few whites had ever heard of before,
this unlikely war rattled the administration of President Ulysses S.
Grant to its core, especially when it claimed the life of the only gen-
eral officer to fall in a western Indian conflict. The Modoc War was
also the sole Indian fight in the West that drew an on-the-ground inter-
national correspondent. And it was the only Indian war in which a
reporter from a leading East Coast newspaper interviewed the lead-
ers of a Native resistance in the middle of the conflict. Because of this
unrelenting media attention, the Modoc War prompted a powerful
debate over the fate of the fast-disappearing Native nations, the future
of the West, and the soul of the United States.
The day before his duel with Frazier Boutelle, however, Scarface
Charley had no idea that he was about to become historical. Although
he and the Lost River Modocs had been the target of military sur-
veillance, heated negotiations with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and
growing hostility from their white neighbors, they had no reason to
believe that matters were coming to an armed head. Instead, Charley
and other Modoc leaders were sitting down with Henry Miller, the one
settler the Indians trusted, a man who lived alongside the Indians and

5
attested to his complete lack of trouble with them.1 On that Thursday
afternoon, about fourteen hours before the cavalry stormed into Lost
River, Miller told the Modocs truthfully that he had no knowledge
of military plans to roust the Indians. He vowed, too, that, should he
learn of such a raid, he would warn the Indians.2 That promise would
soon prove fatal.
The Modocs felt so secure that, as dark fell, they posted no sentries.
The men in the village on the east bank of Lost River organized the
gambling game they loved for whiling away nights like this one: cold,
windy, rainy with sleet. Scarface Charley left his house in the larger
village on the west bank and canoed across the stream. He was feel-
ing lucky.
Like Charley, Boutelle saw no momentous encounter headed his
way a day earlier, even when Ivan Applegate galloped into Fort Klam-
ath, Oregon, bearing orders from Thomas B. Odeneal, state superin-
tendent for the Indian Bureau. A little over a year and a half earlier, a
large band of Modocs had decided they were done with abusive Indian
agents and the scanty food and clothing allotments that left them cold
and hungry. Under the headman Kientpoos,3 whom whites nicknamed
Captain Jack, many of the Modocs left the Klamath Reservation. Most
settled into traditional village sites on Lost River about a mile from its
mouth on Tule Lake and rebuilt their substantial winter houses. The
Lost River Modocs hoped to resume something of the nomadic and
communal life they had known for unnumbered centuries.4
Most of the settlers flooding into the Lost River valley were less
than enamored with living alongside Natives. In their eyes, there was
nothing noble about these “savages.” The settlers blamed the Modocs
for every fence that fell and steer that disappeared. Responding to the
rising hostility of his fellow Oregonians, Odeneal won approval from
F. A. Walker, the commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, dc,
to move the Modocs back to the reservation: “peaceably if you possi-
bly can, but forcibly, if you must.”5
Odeneal left his office in Salem and arrived at the Klamath Reser-
vation on November 25, determined to bring this Modoc business to
a head. He dispatched Ivan Applegate, an Indian Bureau employee, to
Lost River. Applegate was to invite Kientpoos to meet with Odeneal in

6 Holy Lands Here and There

Linkville—the closest Oregon settlement, which would change its name
some twenty years later to Klamath Falls—or lead his people directly
to the reservation. Kientpoos refused the invitation. It was, he knew,
a ruse to arrest or kill him away from Lost River. Nor was he about
to submit himself and his people to the reservation’s cold and hunger
once again. Applegate rode back to Linkville with Kientpoos’s refusal.
Odeneal turned it into a pretext. He drafted a letter to Major John
Green, the Fort Klamath commander, ordering him to dispatch a patrol
to Lost River, arrest the Modoc leaders, and force the Indians onto the
reservation.6 Applegate gathered up Odeneal’s letter, leapt back into
the saddle, and galloped through the night to Fort Klamath, nearly
forty miles north. He arrived about 5 a.m.
Awakened by the sergeant of the guard, Boutelle told Applegate to
make himself comfortable until Major Green was up. Applegate let
Boutelle know why he had come and asked the lieutenant whether he
thought the major would send a force south. No way, Boutelle said.
Green had clear instructions from up the chain of command that he
was to confront the Modocs only with an overwhelming force, not
Fort Klamath’s single cavalry troop. The needed reinforcements could
come only from frontier outposts two hundred miles to the east, and
they would take a good two weeks to arrive.7
So it was one surprised Boutelle who at 8 a.m. received orders from
Major Green, an officer who often confounded impetuosity with brav-
ery, to prepare to ride to Lost River immediately. Boutelle reminded
Green about the need for overwhelming force and said he was certain
the Lost River Modocs would resist rather than surrender. The troop,
Boutelle went on, was so small that it was sure to provoke a fight, not
prevent one. The major refused the lieutenant’s sound advice, con-
cerned more about the army’s reputation among the settlers of the
Klamath Basin. “If I don’t send the troops,” he said, “they will think
we are all afraid.” Troop B was to proceed to Lost River—almost sixty
miles away—and arrest Kientpoos and the other Modoc leaders first
thing the next morning.8
By noon, Captain Jackson, Lieutenant Boutelle, and thirty-six
enlisted men, along with Fort Klamath’s assistant surgeon, headed
out. Ivan Applegate came along as guide and interpreter. A couple of

Bad to Worse 7
hours behind the troop, a pack train with four enlisted men carried
food, ammunition, and medical and surgical supplies. The ride prom-
ised to be an ordeal. The weather deteriorated into a sleet and rain
storm that soaked men and mounts and mired the roads.9
Rain was falling hard and wind whipping cold when Jackson’s troop
reached the outskirts of Linkville. The settlement, only five years old,
was small and primitive: forty permanent residents, hotel, store, saloon,
blacksmith’s and carpenter’s shops, and livery stable.10 In minutes, the
little town was buzzing with the news that soldiers in full fighting fet-
tle were riding hard toward Lost River.
Oliver Applegate, Ivan’s brother and a sub-agent on the Klamath
Reservation, happened to be in town, as was Odeneal. Both rode out
to meet the cavalry. Applegate claimed he wanted to rescue two of his
reservation Indians from any fight, enlisted two helpers, and headed
out in advance of the cavalry.11
Meanwhile, Odeneal took Jackson aside for a pep talk. The super-
intendent assured the captain there would be no fight; surely the feck-
less Modocs would cave before the least show of military force. And,
he insisted, “If there is any fighting, let the Indians be the aggressors;
fire not a gun except in self-defence, after they have first fired upon you
or your men.”12 Odeneal planned to wrap feigned innocence around
the aggressive act of showing up uninvited on the Modocs’ doorstep
at dawn.
Odeneal also told Dennis Crawley, the settler whose homestead
lay closest to the Modocs’ Lost River villages, and James “One-Arm”
Brown, an Indian Bureau employee, to alert the settlers along Tule
Lake in case the Modocs decided upon revenge. Crawley and Brown
left Linkville behind Jackson’s cavalry troop, joined by four other civil-
ians eager to help run the Modocs out of the neighborhood.13
After riding through the freezing night, soldiers and civilians
rendezvoused in the 4 a.m. darkness at the last ford across sluggish,
deep, and steep-banked Lost River, some four miles upstream from
the sleeping Modocs. Jackson dispatched Oliver Applegate and the
civilians down the east bank. He told them to move into the vil-
lage on that side of the river if they heard firing from the village on
the west. Boutelle was happy to see the civilians go. He knew them

8 Holy Lands Here and There

for what they were: volunteer vigilantes “without order or author-
ity,” hot to kill Indians.14 Even as this pick-up posse splashed across
Lost River, Jackson led his cavalrymen and Ivan Applegate down
the west bank.15
With the leading edge of dawn lightening the gloom, the cavalry
halted a mile from the large Modoc village. The mounts, breathing
hard, milled in the cold mud and filled the air with steam, fatigued
muscles twitching beneath soaked hides. Lieutenant Boutelle, the sea-
soned fighter, announced that he wanted to strip the decks in case of
action. He took off his overcoat and strapped it to his saddle, leaving
him more exposed to the weather but freer to move fast. Something
about Boutelle’s combative eagerness enlivened the yellowlegs. The
soaked, sleep-deprived, saddle-sore soldiers all stripped off their over-
coats and cinched them to their saddles. Jackson took his troop at a
trot to the edge of the sleeping village.16
On the east side of Lost River, civilians numbering nine or ten men,
some with their families, gathered at Crawley’s homestead.17 They left
the few women and children in the cabin and headed across sagebrush
and bunchgrass to a gully some four hundred yards from the smaller
Modoc village; all were armed. In the rising tide of adrenaline, Craw-
ley and Brown forgot Odeneal’s instructions to alert the unknowing
settlers along the eastern shore of Tule Lake. That omission would
prove disastrous.
At the western village’s edge, Captain Jackson called halt and dis-
mount, then designated a handful of troopers to hold the horses. The
remaining soldiers formed into a skirmish line, loaded carbines at the
ready, and moved forward.18
•••

Snug in their winter houses, the unsuspecting Modocs slept. On the

east side of the river, men who had spent the night gambling were just
breaking up their game. As the sleety sky lightened and Scarface Char-
ley canoed back across Lost River, he spotted blue-shirted soldiers
advancing in a line toward the winter houses of the western village.
Startled, he tied his canoe and climbed the steep bank, tripping on the
way up. His rifle’s blast cracked the stillness. The advancing cavalry-

Bad to Worse 9
men tensed and double-timed while the Modocs on the west stirred
from sleep and peered out into the gloom, rain, and sleet.
Already the soldiers had made it inside the village. Captain Jackson
shouted commands in English, and Ivan Applegate echoed the orders
in Chinook Jargon, the trade tongue of the Pacific Northwest. Jack-
son demanded to talk with Kientpoos. The chief, sleeping naked, rum-
maged about for something to pull on. He sent Bogus Charley out to
talk in his unclothed stead.
Women and children knew to lie flat on the floor in their houses,
which, partly dug down into the soil and subsoil, afforded protection
against rifle fire. Some of the Modoc men emerged and milled about
in the rainy open, waiting to see what the unexpected soldiers would
do next. Scarface Charley, Bogus Charley, and several other men dis-
appeared into their houses, then emerged stripped to the waist, each
brandishing several loaded single-shot rifles. Sporting a red bandana
tied into a headband, Scarface Charley handed a weapon to Black Jim,
laid two at his feet, held another ready at his waist.
Seconds later Scarface and Boutelle fired at each other at a dis-
tance of but a few yards. Boutelle’s pistol shot clipped Charley’s ban-
dana, skimming the side of the Modoc’s head without breaking the
skin. Charley’s rifle slug traveled up the sleeve of Boutelle’s left arm,
his gun side, slicing blouse and cardigan yet missing flesh. Both men
remained standing for the next instant, staring at one another, aware
that death had passed them by.19
In the next fraction of a second every armed Indian and every armed
white man was shooting and reloading and shooting again. The Modoc
called Watchman went down dead in the first volley, as did a Sergeant
Harris. Indians took cover behind the houses to shoot. Soldiers stood
in the open and returned fire. Two or three Modocs were hit, none
fatally, and seven more troopers fell, one wounded mortally. With all
the racket, the soldiers holding the cavalry mounts dropped the reins,
and the panicked horses stampeded.20 One of the frightened mounts
took a slug and went down, whinnying pitifully as it bled out.
Boutelle did what came naturally to his temperament: he ordered a
charge. The Modocs fell back before the soldiers, less to retreat than to
lure them into the open. Boutelle refused the bait. He had his troop-

10 Holy Lands Here and There

ers collect the women, old people, and children in the village and send
them off toward their men. The lieutenant figured that the Modoc men
would cease fighting if they got their families back. Indeed, the gun-
fight fizzled out after only a few minutes.21
The soldiers raged through the empty Modoc village, shattered
every abandoned weapon and threw the pieces into Lost River, then
torched the houses.22 With Lieutenant Boutelle covering the rear, Cap-
tain Jackson and his troopers fell back toward Crawley’s homestead,
bearing dead and wounded. Half the fight was over.23
•••

Scarface Charley’s accidental warning shot had roused the Modocs on

Lost River’s east side as well. Men grabbed their weapons, came out-
side to see what the ruckus was about. Oliver Applegate ordered the
white settlers to mount up and ride into the village, where he jumped
off his horse and shook hands, no doubt awkwardly, with a surprised
Curley Headed Doctor, the shaman. Applegate announced his bona
fides in the stilted English whites affected with Natives: “I have come
to save you, & befriend you. You know I am chief at Yainax [on the
Klamath Reservation], and that I use your relatives well that are there.
Come to me and lay down your arms, and I will see that the troops
do not trouble you.”24
The Modocs were unconvinced. Hooker Jim, who was Curley Headed
Doctor’s son-in-law and leader of the eastern village, broke, ran, and
pushed a canoe into the river. A civilian pursued, drew a derringer, and
demanded that Hooker return to the circle of whites and give up his
rifle. Then a wrestling match broke out between a Modoc and one of
Applegate’s men over Hooker Jim’s weapon.
At the very moment when Scarface Charley and Frazier Boutelle
blasted at each other in Kientpoos’s village, the gunfight on the east
side of the river erupted as well. A white man fell dead in the first
exchange, and one Modoc was wounded. George Small, one of the
vigilantes, shot down a six-year-old child, then turned his shotgun
on a mother with an infant. Most of the blast missed the mother yet
cut her child in half.25 Outnumbered and exposed, the civilians fell
back toward Crawley’s cabin. The Modocs gave chase, then stopped

Bad to Worse 11
to launch distant potshots into the little structure, more for .50-caliber
terror than lethal effect.26
Two neighboring settlers, who wondered what all the shooting was
about, rode over for a look and stumbled into Modocs who were in
no mood for white visitors. Wendolin Nus, the first full-time settler
in the Klamath Basin, died in the volley. His companion, Joe Pennig,
was maimed for life.27
•••

The Modocs chased out of the now-burning western village gathered

at the mouth of Lost River, where the stream fanned out into Tule
Lake. Hooker Jim sent his old, women, and young to join them. All the
assembled Indians—Kientpoos and his men, including an unscathed
Scarface Charley, plus the women, old people, and children from both
sides of Lost River—piled into small canoes and pole-driven rafts.
They faced a miserable all-day and all-night passage: wind-whipped
and cold, soaked by rain and sleet. The fleeing Indians paddled and
poled around the lake, holding to the shallows along shore, navigat-
ing toward the southwestern corner of Tule Lake and the Lava Beds,
their traditional refuge in times of peril.28
Hooker Jim intended to go there, too, but first he had business to
take care of: retribution for the shooting of women and children in his
village. He and eight other men—Long Jim, Schonchin John and his
son Peter Schonchin, Weium, Dave, Slolux, Billy, and Curley-Headed
Doctor—made their way toward the Lava Beds the long way around,
riding down the eastern shoreline. They were hunting settlers.29
The first to be shot down were the men of the Boddy family, immi-
grants from Australia who had settled on Tule Lake only three months
earlier: William Boddy, his son-in-law Nicholas Schira, and Boddy’s
stepsons William and Richard Cravigan. The Indians surrounded yet
spared Louisa Boddy and her daughter, Katherine Schira, then rode
away. Whites killed women, Hooker Jim made clear; Modocs did not.30
Then it was the Brothertons, father William and sons W. K. and
Rufus, who were cutting wood. Next the Indians set upon Henry
Miller, the friend who had promised to warn them of impending mil-
itary action. He died still ignorant of what had happened, of why the

12 Holy Lands Here and There

Modocs thought him a traitor. From Miller’s place the Indians rode
on to shoot down more men whose names vary from one account to
another. William Shearer or maybe Adam Shillingbow. A Collins or
a Follins with no given name. John Tober, or was it Saper? And possi-
bly Robert Alexander as well as C. Erasmus.31
Attacked by settlers, Hooker Jim and his men killed other settlers
in response, somewhere between eleven and thirteen. The logic of ret-
ribution came out clear, cold, and deadly.
Yet when Hooker Jim and his riders arrived at the Lava Beds and
told their friends and relations about the havoc they had wreaked,
Scarface Charley and Kientpoos felt their stomachs turn over. The
issue was not that the revenge was unjustified. It was rather that the
whites would see the killings as atrocities demanding the extermina-
tion of every Modoc.
•••

November 29, 1872, along the border of northeastern California and

south-central Oregon delivered a major setback for the United States’
effort to people the continent from sea to shining sea with white home-
steaders. The settler dead numbered between thirteen and fifteen. In
addition, the army suffered two killed and six wounded, two of them
hurt too badly to return to duty. The Modocs suffered one fighter dead
and three wounded yet able to recover and fight again.32
The body count favored the Modocs, so the Natives might appear
the victors. Yet that day they lost their last villages and became a ref-
ugee band targeted for destruction, a people gone to ground in the
sacred center of an ancient world.

Bad to Worse 13
 2
Stone and Story

That dark mysterious plain . . . compelled attention. Here you trace

yawning fissures, there clusters of somber pits. Now you mark where
the lava is bent and corrugated in swelling ridges and domes, again
where it breaks into a rough mass of loose blocks. . . . [T]he Modoc
Lava Beds have for me an uncanny look. As I gazed the purple
deepened over all the landscape. Then fell the gloaming, making
everything still more forbidding and mysterious.
Then, darkness like death.
—John Muir, “Shasta Rambles and Modoc Memories”

I n the days following the cavalry’s raid on the Lost River villages,
the Modocs took stock. They had the clothes on their backs, the
outdated weapons in their hands, edible roots and dried beef cached
in nearby caves. And they had the land.
Americans detested and feared the convoluted, deceptive landscape
of the Lava Beds. They classified the place as badland, malpaís, unin-
habitable pedregal. Even John Muir, who sought out the loneliest wil-
derness and celebrated its glory, found the Lava Beds disturbing. Jesse
Applegate, uncle to Oliver and Ivan and among the area’s earliest Amer-
ican explorers, likewise described the Lava Beds as violent and infernal.
“Imagine a smooth, solid sheet of granite, ten miles square, and 500
feet thick, covering resistless mines of gunpowder, scattered at irreg-
ular intervals under it,” he wrote. “These mines are exploded simulta-
neously, rending the whole field into rectangular masses, from the size
of a match-box to that of a church, heaping these masses high in some
places, and leaving deep chasms in others. Following the explosion, the
whole thing is placed in one of Vulcan’s crucibles, and heated up to a

14
point when the whole begins to fuse and run together, and then suf-
fered to cool. The roughness of the upper surface remains as the explo-
sion left it, while all below is honey-combed by the cracks and crevices
caused by the cooling of the melted rock.”1
Applegate was right about the upheaval and heat of the Lava Beds’
creation. They arose in a series of lava flows dating back approximately
thirty thousand years and continuing into the most recent few cen-
turies. Much of the lava came from eruptions of Mammoth Crater,
about ten miles to the south and one of the many vents of the Med-
icine Lake shield volcano. Rising to but 7,921 feet, this forested vol-
cano is far less majestic in appearance than snow-capped, 14,179-foot
Mount Shasta to the west. The Medicine Lake volcano, though, is big-
ger, some 150 miles around at its base. Its volume of 140 cubic miles—
more than one and a half times that of Mount Shasta—makes it the
largest volcano in the Cascade Range.2
Lava flowed from Medicine Lake’s many vents in eruptions that aver-
aged one or two every hundred years. Melted rock coursed through
underground tubes and then onto the surface. Some flowed all the
way to Tule Lake, where it turned into pillow basalts that made the
southern shoreline look more sudden than shelved. Other flows moved
across the surface, sometimes collapsing downward as tubes formed,
then gave way, often before the prior layer had cooled and solidified.
The net effect was to create a plateau raised somewhat above the level
of Tule Lake and surrounded on three sides by huge cracked and tilted
blocks of lava.
The northeast corner of the plateau, an area about 165 yards in diam-
eter known as the Stronghold, offered a number of cave-like hollows
where people could shelter against rain, snow, and strong wind. Deep
cracks served as defense trenches, and beyond them fissures in the lava
blocks provided outposts for scout-snipers. An enemy could approach
the Stronghold only on foot and very slowly, always under the guns of
the outposts and the trenches. The lava block closest to the lake gave
defenders a path down to water, and snipers hidden there could pre-
vent anyone from infiltrating along the lakeshore. The Stronghold even
boasted a corral, a small, deep basin naturally enclosed on all sides but

Stone and Story 15

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 264 Family Genealogy. Eramus Darwin Finney, married
second wife, about 1847, Lariana Peck. They then lived in Fond du
Lac. Children: 4. Ada, married Kendel. 5. Bieda, married Taylor. 6
and 7. Two girls died in infancy. Erasmus Darwin Finney, married
third wife (probably about 1853), at Menasha, Wis.; Nancy Maria
Green (daughter of Elijah D. Green and Eliza Weathby Copeland),
born March 17, 1828, in Oswagatchie, St. Lawrence County, N. Y. ;
died Oshkosh, April 23, 1881. Children: 8. Roland Piatt, born in Fond
du Lac, Wis., March 27, 1854; married in Oshkosh, January 18, 1883,
Jessie Helen Goe; daughter of Dr. James Goe. He is asistant cashier
Old National Bank. No children. 9. Luretta, died young. 10. Ole
Alton, died young. Erasmus Darwin Finney, in partnership with a
man named Darling, established and ran the first stage lines in
Wisconsin. They ran lines from Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Green Bay,
Portage to Fond du Lac. In 1859, he was living with his wife in
Brillion, Wisconsin. In the spring of that year, he went to Menasha to
transact business at the land office; and to visit his son, Edward,
who was employed at the dry dock. While there, he was taken sick;
was moved from the hotel, to the home of a family by the name of
Bates, who had formerly lived in Henderson, N. Y. , where they were
acquainted. Here he died in April, 1859. The roads were impassable
for teams, so his son, Edward, walked to Oshkosh, to notify the
relatives there of his father's death. As walking was the only way of
reaching Menasha, none of the others went up; Edward walked back
and was the only relative present at his father's funeral. He was
buried in the lot of the Bates family, in the Menasha Cemetery; and
it was weeks before the news of his death could be sent to his wife
in Brillion. REV. CHAS. G. FINNEY. Rev. Charles Grandison Finney,
was the son of Sylvester Finney and Rebecca Rice, of Warren,
County. This noble character in American religious effort, in his life
long work for mankind, and passion for winning souls, has
imperishably connected his name, with America's greatest men. The
beginning of such a life is interesting. We quote his own words, from
Rev. Finney '/Memories." I was born in Warren, Litchfield County,
Conneticut, August 29, 1792. When I was about two years old, my
father removed to Oneida County, New York, which was, at that
time, to a
 The Finney Family. 265 great extent, a wilderness. No
religious privileges were enjoyed by the people. Very few religious
books were to be had. The new settlers, being mostly from New
England, almost immediately established common schools; but they
had among them, very little intelligent preaching of the Gospel. I
enjoyed the privileges of a common school summer and winter, until
I was fifteen or sixteen years old; and advanced so far, as to be
supposed capable of teaching a common school myself, as common
schools were then conducted. My parents were neither of them
professors of religion, and, I believe, among our neighbors, there
were very few religious people. I seldom heard a sermon, unless it
was an occasional one, from some traveling minister, or some
miserable holding forth of an ignorant preacher, who would
sometimes be found in that country. In the neighborhood of my
father's residence, we had just erected a meeting house, and settled
a minister; when my father was induced to remove again into the
wilderness, skirting the southern shore of Lake Ontario, a little south
of Sackett's Habor. Here again I lived for several years, enjoying no
better religious privileges than I had in Oneida County. When about
twenty years old I returned to Connecticut, and from thence went to
New Jersey, near New York city, and engaged in teaching. I taught
and studied as best I could; and twice returned to New England, and
attended a high school, for a season. While attending the high
school, I meditated going to Yale College. The teacher to whom I
have referred, wished me to join him in conducting an academy in
one of the southern states. I was inclined to accept his proposal,
with the design of pursuing and completing my studies under his
instruction. But when I informed my parents, whom I had not seen
for four years, of my contemplated movement south, they both
came immediately after me, and prevailed on me to go home with
them to Jefferson County, New York. After making them a visit, I
concluded to enter, as a student, the law office of Squire Benjamin
Wright, at Adams a few miles away in that county. This was in 18
18. Up to this time, I had never enjoyed what might be called
religious privileges. I had never lived in a praying community, except
during the periods when I was attending the high school, in New
England; and the religion in that place was of a type not at all
calculated to arrest my attention. The preaching was by an
 266 Family Genealogy. aged clergyman, an excellent man,
and greatly beloved and venerated by his people; but he read his
sermons, in a manner that left no impression whatever on my mind.
He had a monotonous, humdrum way of reading, what he had
probably written many years before. To give some idea of his
preaching, let me say, that his manuscript sermons, were just large
enough to put into a small bible. I sat in the gallery, and observed
that he placed his manuscript, in the middle of his bible; and
inserted his fingers, at the places where were to be found, the
passages of scripture to be quoted, in the reading of his sermons.
This made it necessary to hold his bible in both hands, and rendered
all gesticulation with his hands, impossible. As he proceeded, he
would read the passages of scripture, where his fingers were
inserted, and thus liberate one finger after another, until the fingers
of both hands, were read out of their places. When his fingers were
all read out, he was near the close of the sermon. His reading was
altogether unimpassioned and monotonous; and although the
people attended very closely and reverentially to his reading, yet I
must confess, it was to me not much like preaching. Thus when I
went to Adams to study law I was almost as ignorant of religion, as
a heathen. I had been brought up mostly in the woods. I had very
little regard for the Sabbath, and had no definite knowledge, of
religious truth. In studying elementary law, I found the old authors,
frequently quoting the scriptures; and referring especially to the
Mosaic Institutes, as authority for many of the great principles of
common law. This excited my curiosity so much, that I went and
purchased a bible, the first I had ever owned; and whenever I found
a reference, by the law authors, to the bible, I turned to the
passage, and consulted it in its connection. This soon led to my
taking a new interest in the bible, and I read and meditated on it
much more than I had ever done before, in my life. However, much
of it I did not understand." After meditating on what he had read for
several weeks, much disturbed; he went alone into the woods, and
after long prayer, was converted. He then began revival work, and
left the law forever. "After a short time I went down to Henderson,
where my father lived, and visited him. He was an unconverted man;
and only one of the family, my youngest brother, had ever made a
profession of religion. My father met me at the gate, and said, How
do you do Charles?" I replied, I am well, body and soul. But
 The Finney Family. 267 father, you are an old man; all your
children are grown up, and have left your house; and I never heard
a prayer in my father's house." Father dropped his head, and burst
into tears, and replied, I know it, Charles; come in and pray
yourself." We went in, and engaged in prayer. My father and mother
were greatly moved; and in a very short time thereafter, they were
both hopefully converted. I do not know but my mother had had a
secret hope, before; but if so, none of the family, I believe, ever
knew it." Mr. Finney's views of religion, were obtained from the bible
alone, and he differed from the accepted Princeton doctrine; and
also from the Universalist. This occasioned some opposition to him,
among the settled ministers; but he was admitted among them; and
authorized to preach. Then began the most remarkable revival
labors, ever successfully carried, on by any man, in all the world. He
was licensed to preach, in the Presbyterian church, in 1824. His
revival sermons met with great success in Utica, Troy, Philadelphia,
Boston and New York. On his second visit to the last City, in 1832,
the Chatham street theater was bought, and made over into a
church for him, and the New York "Evangelist" established as an
advocate of the revival. His labors here, resulted in the
establishment of seven "free Presbyterian churches." In 1834, he
became pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle, which had been built
especially for him. Mr. Finney accepted, in 1835, the Professorship,
of Theology, at Oberlin, which had just been founded, by his friends,
and retained it until his death, at eighty-three years of age, August
16, 1875. Here he assisted in establishing the 'Oberlin Evangelist,"
and afterward, the ' 'Oberlin Quarterly." He also became pastor of
the Congregational church, at Oberlin, in 1837; but continued, at
intervals, to preach in New York, and elsewhere. He spent three
years in England, as a revivalist, in 1849-51; and 1858-60, adding to
his reputation, for eloquence; in 1851-66, fifteen years, was
president of Oberlin College. Mr. Finney relied greatly, on doctrinal
sermons, in his revivals, as opposed to animal excitement; and his
sermons were plain, logical and direct. He was an abolitionist, an
anti-mason, and an advocate of total abstinence. In October, 1824,
he was married, at Whitestown, near Utica, to Miss Lydia Andrews.
He left for Evans Mills, to obtain a conveyance to transport their
goods; then he was so much sought after, that he could not get
back, to his wife,
 268 Family Genealogy. for several months. Finally, when he
did get within sixteen miles of where his wife was, he was obliged to
have his horse shod; and the people finding out who he was,
insisted on his preaching that noon; which he did. Then the
demands on him became so great, he finally consented to remain if
some one would go and bring his wife, which was agreed to. His
wife died, December, 1847, and his great sorrow is eloquently* and
pathetically described in his Memoirs. Children born to them: 1.
Charles G. Finney, second, who was admitted to practice law, and
lived in California. 2. Frederick Norton Finney, president of the
Wisconsin Trust Company, since 1890; was born at Boston, March 7,
1832. He had a common school education, at Oberlin, Ohio;
admitted to the bar, 1857. In December, 1863, he married Willieanna
W. Clarke, of Oberlin, Ohio. He practiced in Oshkosh, Wis., 1857-60;
and in i860, joined the Engineers' Corps of Chicago & Northwestern
Railway Co. He had charge of construction, two years; city engineer,
Toledo, Ohio, two years; first assistant engineer, Union Pacific,
Mountain Division, in 1864. He was a resident engineer and
superintendent, Jamestown Division, Lake Shore & Michigan
Southern, 1864-7; chief engineer, Erie & Pittsburg Railroad, 1867-70;
and as chief engineer and general superintendent, located and built
Canada Southern, in 1870-4. In 1874-8, he was chief engineer and
and superintendent of the Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw Railway; general
manager of Wisconsin Central, 1878-89. He is a director, member of
the executive committee and superintendent construction, Missouri,
Kansas & Texas Railway. He had charge of building extension, San
Marcos to San Antonio, Texas, 1900-1. His residence is No. 34,
Prospect Avenue, Milwaukee, and his office is No. 112 Mason Street,
Milwaukee. 3. Helen Finney, who married General J. Dolson Cox, of
Cincinnati, O., a lawyer, Member of Congress, and a general in the
Civil War; after which he was Secretary of the Interior in President
Grant's Cabinet. His widow resides at Oberlin. 4. Julia Finney, was
second wife of Honorable James Monroe, A. M., L. L. D., Member of
Congress, Minister to Rio de Janeiro, and Professor of Political
Economy, in Oberlin College. She still resides at Oberlin.
 CHAPTER X. Robert Williams, of Roxbury. Was the head of
this family of Williams. Much of the history of the numerous
distinguished descendants of Robert Williams, of Roxbury, has been
often written in books, newspapers and periodicals. A forthcoming
work promises to discover, to which of the historic family of Williams,
in England, this Robert of Roxbury, belonged. For the present we
may be content to know, that in his veins was the congenital blood
which animated many a celebrated soldier and statesman of
England, included in which historic list, are Oliver Cromwell, and the
illustrious Queen Elizabeth. The family of Sir Robert Williams, Ninth
Baronet of Penrhyn, was lineally descended from Marchudel of Cyan,
Lord of Abergelen, in Denbihshire, one of the fifteen tribes of North
Wales, who lived in the times of Roderic the Great, King of the
Britons, about 849. From him was descended, Eduyfid Fycham,
ancestor of the royal house of Tudor, which commenced in 1845,
with Henry Tudor, who after the battle of Bosworth Field, was
proclaimed King Henry VI. He was succeeded by his son, Henry VIII,
whose son, Edward VI, followed him; then his sisters, Mary, and the
celebrated Queen Elizabeth, the last Tudor. The above, Marchudel,
was descended from Brutus, the first King of the Britons; who began
to reign about 1,100 years before the birth of Christ. In the
"William's Family," 1847, by Stephen W. Williams, M. D., there is a
picture of the Williams' Coat of Arms, which they assumed after
union with the Matthew's family; and supposing this Robert of
Roxbury may have descended from this Williams, of Flint, this would
be the coat of arms. I have seen the pamphlet of Mr. Edward H.
Williams, Jr., of Bethlehem, Pa., "Robert Williams," in which he
seems to doubt, the descent of this coat of arms as proper, though
he intimates he may produce
 270 Family Genealogy. one from the vicinity of Norwich,
England. Much interest has been manifested in the family of Robert
Williams, of Roxbury, because of the romantic and partly obscure
history of Eleazor Williams, the Lost Dauphin, who it is claimed is a
descendant of this Robert, through Eunace, a captive at eight years
of age, a daughter of Rev. John Williams, of Deerfield, a grandson,
whose family were all victims of its destruction, by the French and
Indians. Mr. W. W. Wight, in his, "Eleazer Williams," has listed nearly
all the publications, on the Robert Williams' descendants. His history
of Robert Williams is so concise and correct that I copy it: "in the
parish church, of St. Nicholas, in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, Norwich
County, England, Robert, eldest son of Stephen and Margaret
(Cooke) Wilyams, was baptised on December n, 1608. Robert's wife,
Elizabeth Stalham, was a year, or thereabouts, her husband's junior.
Robert was a cord wainer and plied his trade in his native shire, from
1623, until he deserted his ancestral shores. On April 8, 1637, he,
with his wife and their four children, Samuel John, Elizabeth and
Deborah, were examined, preliminary to emigration to New England.
One week later, the family sailed, in the "Rose of Yarmouth," for
Boston. Others of the same surname, from the same neighborhood,
followed their example. Forthwith Robert made permanent
settlement, in Roxbury, where in 1643, nis household, now
augmented to six children, dwelt upon an estate of twentyfive acres.
As a member of the church of the Rev. John Eliot, and as otherwise
qualified, Robert was made a freeman, May 16, 1643. He was a
personage of strong fibre, a rigid Puritan. Self exiled for conscience
sake, his conscience was his constant mentor. A single incident will
picture his character. The magistrates of Massachusetts Bay, sent
letters to the several towns, in 1672, requesting pecuniary
assistance for Harvard College; and inviting criticisms upon the
conduct of the institution. Roxbury, while not refusing the aid,
replied, on March 5, 1672, complaining of an evil in the method of
education; that the youth were brought up in pride, ill fitting persons
intended for either the magistracy or the ministry, and particularizing
their wearing longhair, even in the pulpit, to the great grief and fear
of many godly hearts. Prominent among the endorsers of this
indictment were Robert Williams, and his son Samuel."
Robert Williams, of Roxbury. 271 «
 272 Family Genealogy. Captain Benajah Williams, born at
Stoneington, Conn., August 28, 170Q; died in 1808, at one hundred
and eight years of age. Was an inn keeper and farmer. He married
Deborah Fanning whom we suppose, was also of Stoneington, Conn.
Their oldest son was: Major Joseph Williams, born at Stoneington,
Conn., December 5, 1725; baptized in the First church of
Stoneington, September 3, 1732; died 1808; married Hannah Fuller
at Stoneington, who was born in Connecticut 1726, died 1810. He
moved to Pownal, Vermont, to perfect his New Hampshire grant
title," 1762. Moved his family to Pownal, when his son, Isaiah was an
infant, probably 1764 or 1765. On May 8, 1763, the day of the first
meeting in Pownal, for the election of town officers, of which there is
any record, Thomas Jewett, Joseph Williams and Eli Noble, were
elected the first justices. (Vermont Hist. Gazetteer, Vol. I. p. 218).
This office he filled for thirty three years. Major Williams was a
member of the General Convention, that assembled at Westminister,
January 15, 1777. (Page 39, Vol. I. Record of Governor, and Council
and of the General Conventions.) This convention, by resolution,
proclaimed and publicly declared: "That the district or territory
comprehending, and usually known by the name and description of
the ' New Hampshire Grants," of right ought to be, and is hereby
declared forever hereafter, to be considered as a separate, free and
independent jurisdiction or state, by the name, and forever to be
called, known and distinguished by the name of "New Connecticut."
(Records, Vol. I. p. 41). On the 4th day of June following, this name
was changed to Vermont. (Records, Vol. I. p. 41. Note). This
convention also petitioned the Continental Congress, that the said
territory, be ranked among the free and American States; and
delegates there from, admitted to seats in the Grand Continental
Congress. Of the convention that met at Windsor, July 2, 1777, Major
Joseph Williams was a member from Pownal. (Records, Vol. I. p.
62). "This convention was unsurpassed in importance, by any other
in the State, in that it established a Constitution, and frame
Government." (Records, etc., Vol. I. p. 62). This Constitution made
Vermont, 'the first of the States to prohibit slavery by constitutional
provision, a fact of which Vermonters may well be proud."
 Robert Williams, of Roxbury. 273 On the 13th day of
August, 1777, the Council of Safety, then sitting at Bennington,
issued an order to the Commander of each regiment of the State
Militia, requiring him, without a moment's loss of time, to march one
half of his regiment to Bennington. In the manuscript journal of Rev.
Benajah Williams a grandson (Vol. IV. p. 298) which was in the
possession of his son, the late A. J. Williams, of Cleveland, Ohio; it is
recorded that his grandfather, Major Joseph Williams, of Pownal, a
Major in the Vermont Militia, called out his men, and marched them
to Bennington, arriving in time only to assist in burying the dead,
and removing the wounded. In the year 1794, twenty families
moved from Pownal and settled in Madison County, New York;
Joseph sold his land in Pownal for $2400.00, receiving full payment
in silver dollars, and entrusted the proceeds to his son, Isaiah, to
invest in land in Madison County, which was done accordingly, in
Cazenovia, and in 1802 or 1803, he and his wife moved to
Cazenovia, N. Y., with Isaiah, in whose family they resided, until their
death, both dying in Cazenovia; he, being eighty-five years of age
and she about ninety years of age. Isaiah Williams, son of Major
Joseph Williams and Hannah Fuller his wife, born in Galesburg,
Conn., February 19, 1764, and died at Vermont, 111., January 26,
1853. He was a farmer; moved, when a small boy, to Pownal,
Vermont, with his parents. He married there, Anna Matteson, of that
place. She was a daughter of Abraham Matteson and Martha his
wife, of Pownal. She was born at West Greenwich, R. I., April 26,
1767, and died at Henderson, N. Y., August 25, 1842. They resided
at Pownal, Vt., until about 1794, when they moved to Cazenovia,
Madison County, N. Y., having purchased lands there, where they
remained until about, 1829, when they moved to Henderson,
Jefferson County, New York, where his wife died in 1842; and two
years after, he moved to Belvidere, 111., then to De Pere, Wis.; then
to Vermont, 111., where he died. After her fathers death, Abigail
Hitchcock (Finney,) being then quite young, went to live with Isaiah
and Anna his wife, who were her grandparents and then at
Cazenovia. She relates of them, that they were, "well to do" farmers,
and very staunch Methodists. The "Circuit riding" minister always
stopped with them, during quarterly meetings.
 274 Family Genealogy. They always entertained the
ministers. Those were the days of the big fire place, spinning wheels
and looms. Thanksgiving day was the great day of the year. Many
days were devoted to making preparations for the event. The old
fashioned brick oven was kept hot day and night. When
Thanksgiving day came, the fatted turkey was hung in front of the
fire place; and it fell to the lot of grandpa Isaiah, to sit near, and
baste the turkey, with a long handled spoon, from a pan of drippings
beneath. He also had to turn it from time to time, to secure an even
brown color, on all sides. They taught Abigail, their grandchild, the
art of primitive spinning and weaving. Warm bed blankets, beautiful
coverlets, table linen, towels, flannels for dresses, and shirts were
not only woven, but the yarn was spun from the wool and flax.
Isaiah and his wife Anna were fond of singing Methodist hymns. He
would spend much of the time during the long winter evenings,
singing with his children and grandchildren. His wife Anna always
sang while at her work. It is said she had a fine voice and was called
a splendid singer. Their granddaughter, Abigail Hitchcock, moved to
Henderson, with them, when fifteen years of age, where she
became acquainted with Mr. Finney, whom she married there. The
children of Isaiah and Anna Williams were: i. Lydia Williams, born
January n, 1785, at Pownal, Vt. ; married Bela Hitchcock. 2. Hannah
Finney Williams, born May 11, 1787, and died in DePere, Wis., July
30, 1850; married her cousin Abel Vail, who died October 12, 1849.
He was son of Warren, of Warren County, N. Y. 3. Rev. Benajah
Williams, born at Pownal, Vt., August 24, 1789; died January 22,
1864, at Dayton, Ohio. He was a Methodist Minister. His children
were: (a) Louisa, born January 18, 1810; died December 15, 1879.
(b) Levisa, born July 3, 181 1; died February 12, 1893. (°) Lorenzo
Dow, born March 7, 1813; died October 14, 1878. (d) John Wesley,
born July 12, 1815; died July 7, 1886. (e)Wm. McKendree, born
February 18, 1818; died December 6, 1892. (f) Benajah, Jr., born
April 17, 1820; died April 9, 1890. (g) Francis Smith, born February
17, 1823; died March 20, 1897. (h) Adam Clarke, born February 19,
1826; resides in Columbus, O. (i) Andrew Jackson, born February 8,
1829; died August 5, 1901, Cleveland, Ohio, (j) Nancy Maria, born
February 13, 1833; died March 13, 1833.
 Robert Williams, of Roxbury. 275 4. Abraham W. Williams,
born in Pownal, Vt., March 24, 1792; died April 24, 1873, at Grand
Island, Mich. His wife died July 18, 18 19. There was one son,
Abraham, by a second marriage; he had eight children. 5. Rufus
Williams, born May 14, 1796, and died October 23, 1836. 6. Hyram
Williams, born September n, 1798; married Hannah. Children:
Lorilla, born January 21, 1844, died at Locke, N. Y. ; Adeline, born
July 7, 1828, died at Henderson, N. Y. 7. Susannah Williams, born
July 15, 1800; married J. Briggs. She died in Crawford County, Wis.
He died May 5, 183 1, aged thirty-five. 8. Aaron Williams, born
November 20, 1802; died August 29, 1846, at Belvidere, 111. By his
first wife, the children were: Samuel and Walton; by his second wife:
Eaton, who died March 26, 1832, and Sabelia, Marial and Perry. 9.
Sarah Williams, born June 10, 1806, was twin to Dr. Abiather. She
died October 4, 1859. 10. Dr. Abiather B. Williams, twin brother of
Sarah, was born June 10, 1806, at Cazenovia, N. Y. Lydia Williams,
born in Pownal, Vt., January 11, 1785, died at Henderson, N. Y., April
16, 1868, where she was buried in the Carpenter" cemetery. She
was the oldest child of Isaiah Williams, and moved with him, in
1794, to Cazenovia, N. Y. ; where she was married to Mr. Barton,
who died, leaving her with two little boys, one of whom was Isaiah
Barton, who had children. The other was Gideon O. Barton, who
died April 16, 183 1. She married for her second husband, Bela
Hitchcock, the soldier, at Cazenovia, N. Y. Their four children: 1.
Abigail Lonsberry Hitchcock, born July 23, 1814; married Sylvester
Finney. She lives at Lakota, N. Dakota. 2. Anna Hitchcock, born
October 19, 1811; she married George Kilby, January 20, 1833. Their
son, A. E. Kilby, is a practicing attorney, winning marked success at
Carthage, Jefferson County, N. Y. 3. Joseph Hitchcock; first wife, was
Jane Wilson, October 29, 1837; second wife, Sarah Barton,
December 4, 1844. His widow and daughter, reside at Woodville, N.
Y. 4. Olney Hitchcock died young. • After the death of Bela
Hitchcock, Lydia married, as a third husband, John Van Alstine, by
whom she had one child,
 276 Family Genealogy. Marion Van Alstine, who lived in
Wisconsin, near Watertown, and married Jacob Hackett. She died
young of consumption. Dr. Abiather B. Williams, youngest son of
Isaiah Williams and Anna, born in Cazenovia, Madison County, N. Y.,
June 10, 1806. He studied medicine with Dr. Meyers, an old,
experienced Doctor; then with Dr. Madison, and attended school. In
183 1 and 1832 he practiced in Chicago, for the soldiers. He married
for his first wife, Abiah M. Mackson, who was born November 15,
1808, and died September 18, 1826. They were married November
10, 1825, at Cazenovia, N. Y. For his second wife, he married Harriet
Sanford, March 3, 1827. She died December 19, 1841. Her children
were: 1. Mariah, born September 30, 1828; died February 15, 1830.
2. Horace, born May 27, 1830; died December 6, 1850, in California.
3. Oliver, born September 4, 1832; died January 18, 1884, in
Depere. 4. Cordelia, born December 13, 18315; died August 18,
1837. 5. George, born January 27, 1838; died November 24, 1838.
6. Alonzo, born October 7, 1841; died August 29, 1844. For his third
wife he married Lucy Ann Munger, April 8, 1842. She was born
August 9, 1824, and died January 10, 1900. Children: 1. Almira
Eugenia, born in Nauvoo, 111., November 13, 1843. 2. James, born
September 4, 1845; and died December 1, 1845. 3- Aaron, born
September 2, 1846; died same day. 4. Mary, born July 19, 1848;
died in DePere, March 20, 1850. 5. Charles, born February 17, 1850,
in DePere; died next day. 6. California, born December 13, 1852;
died January 20, 1853, in California. 7. Andrew, J. A., born
November 8, 1854, in California; married. 8. Flora Bell Irene, born in
DePere, July 19, 1858; and died March 14, 1893, in Chicago. 9.
Charlotte Raymond, born in DePere, March 6, 1862. Dr. Abiather
Williams was a very successful doctor. In the spring of 1850, he
concluded to go to California, by the overland journey with his
family, requiring six months to make the trip. In the fall of the next
year, he returned to
 Robert Williams, of Roxbury. 277 the States by water, and
stopped at Vermont, 111. The next year he again went overland to
California and returned to the states in 1855, by water, and
remained during the summer at DePere. In the fall of 1855, he went
back to California by water. He returned again to DePere in 1857,
where he remained. In 1858, he built the California House in
DePere. He died in DePere, February 28, 1875. Oliver Perry Williams,
born September 4, 1832; and died at DePere, January 18, 1884,
third son of Abiather Williams and Harriet Sanford; married Lucinda
Amanda Munger, July 4, 1852. Children: 1. Lucy Ann, born April 20,
1853; died July, 1854. 2. Oliver Perry, Jr., born June 12, 1854; died
July 8, 1857; buried at sea. 3. Emma Violet, born November 13,
1858; married F. Smith; one child, Marion. For second husband she
married Clarence Buell. Their children were: Frank, Laura, Clara and
Nellie. 4. Abiather N., born March 16, 1861; married and had five
children. 5. William Thomas, born January 2, 1863, was drowned
October 13, 1880. 6. James Carleton, born March 16, 1869. 7.
Hyram Bird, born June 9, 187 1; died August 22, 1872. 8. Almira
Eugenia, born October 12, 1873. 9- Mary, born September 3, 1875;
died September 9, 1875. Almira Eugenia Williams, born in Nauvoo,
111., November 13, 1843, tne second child of Abiather B. Williams
and Lucy Ann Munger; married in the fall of i860, to James W.
Childs, born February 20, 1834. Their home is in Depere, Wis.,
where they have lived for many years, and where all their children
were born. Children: 1. Charles G. A. born July 29, 1861; married
Emma Matthews, February 2, 1891. Their child, James W., was born
November 22, 1891. 2. Ellen Virginia, born October 6, 1862; resides
at DePere. 3. Lucy Ann Daisy, born January 9, 1864; died April 17,
1865. 4. Grace Eugenia, born December 2, 1865; married her
cousin, Charles R. Williams, June 8, 1892. Born to them: Jennie,
November 5, 1893; Helen, December 12, 1894; Gladys, August 12,
1897. Residence, Denver. He was son of Abraham Williams and his
wife, E. Beattie. His brothers Eddie and Clifford Williams, reside in
Antigo, Wis. He had a half brother, Merritt, who married Nellie
Stewart, and who died April, 1901, at Antigo; and a half sister
(Amanda Freeborn, mother),
 278 Family Genealogy. Emogene, of Antigo, who married
Charles Beattie. 5. Florence Lillian, born December 11, 1868. Is
teaching kindergarten in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 6. Gladys Eugenia,
born February 9, 1880, resides at DePere, Wis.; attends Normal
School at Oshkosh, Wis. ; is also perfecting herself in music. James
Wilkinson Childs, the husband of Almira Eugenia Williams, has a
distinguished lineage as follows: At the time of the settlement of
Baltimore, Md., by Lord Baltimore, (1634, or soon thereafter), a
younger son of a rich and titled family in England, by the name of
Childs, obtained from Lord Baltimore, a grant of a large tract of land,
in Maryland; and came over and settled on this land, raising a large
family of boys and girls. One of his descendants, in the latter part of
the Seventeenth century, settled in the wilderness of the
Shenandoah Valley, in Virginia, eight miles north of the place where
now stands the old town of Winchester. One of his descendants,
Benjamin Childs, had issue: Mordecai, Stanley, John, Mason and
Griffin. Griffin, the youngest son, was born 1798; married Mary Ann
Cole, 1824. Their children were: Ann Rebecca, Isaac Benjamin, Mary
Ann, Griffin, Wm. Ridgely, John Alexander, James Wilkinson, Thomas
Warren and Sarah Susan. Living today: Isaac B. Childs, West Liberty,
la. ; James W. Childs, DePere, Wis.; and Sarah Susan Clevanger,
Stephenson, Va. Benjamin Childs, in 1815, moved to Ohio, with his
sons, Mordecai, John and Stanley; Mason and Griffin remaining in
Virginia. Mason died in 1864; Griffin in 1875. Flora Bell Irene
Williams, eighth child of Abiather B. Williams and Lucy Ann Munger,
born July 19, 1858; was married first, to Edward W. Hammarskold,
April 25, 1877. Their children: 1. Flora Hedda Ingaborg, born
February 19, 1878; died April 22, 1901. 2. Marjorie Hazel, born
December 6, 1 881; married Harry Bolles, at DePere, Wis.,
September 19, 1901, 3. Raymond Hyalmar, born March 6, 1884. 4.
Druella Loealth, born July 9, 1891; died June 15, 1892. Flora Bell
Irene Williams married second, Edward D. Clarabut, February 18,
1892; she died March 14, 1893, in Chicago, 111.
 Robert Williams, of Roxbury. 279 Charlotte Raymond
Williams, ninth daughter of Abiather B. Williams and Lucy Ann
Munger, was born in Depere, March 6, 1862; married C. M. Derrick,
March 9, 1887; their child, Mildred, born March 13, 1888, and died
May 9, 1888. She married second, William Loudon Turkington,
December 29, 1891. Present address, 4954 Forestville Ave., Chicago,
111. Their children: 1. Norman Munger, born April 16, 1893, died
August 5, 1894. 2. Flora Clare, born May 29, 1894. 3. Norman
Loealth, born July 16, 1899.
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