Billy Dixon By ELMO SCOTT WATSON IXTY occurred a fight, has become or the Western fro ntier. That was the Battle of Adobe Wal h began on the early morning of June 27, 1874, when a war party of several hundred Comanche, Kiowa, Chey- enne, Araj and Kiowa Apache Indians a ked a buffalo hunters’ occupied by 2 men and one woman, located on the south fork the Canadian river in what is now Hutchinson county in the Texas Panhandle. Characteristic of its rankin gic is the number of men who_at another i “survivors” Adobe Walls fight. Seemingly every who was ever a buffale hunter on the So years ago this month there the story of which we of the classics of is whicl camp, have been old timer western plains in the "70s has been accorded the distinction of “He fought at Adobe Walls" by amateur historians and imaginative newspaper reporters, and this, despite the fact that there has been in existence for many years an authen. tic list of the actual participants which might easily disprove the claim advanced In favor of spurious defenders of that outpost of the fron. tier. Under the terms of the Medicine Lodge treaty of 1867, the federal government fixed the Arkan- sas river as the northern boundary of the Indian country for the tribes of the Southwestern plains and guaranteed that white hunters should not cross that stream, But they did. In 1872 the mushroom town of Dodge City, Kan., sprang into existence dnd became the out- fitting point and center of activity of the hide hunters who, with their big Sharps buffalo guns, were constantly Invading the red man’s country, By the spring of 1874 the slaughter had been so great that the buffalo had been virtually wiped out near Dodge City. So A. C. Myers, who was in the general merchandise business in Dodge, organized an expedition to establish a trading post farther south where the hunters could get their supplies and to which they would brirg their buffalo hides which Myers would freight back to the Kansas “hide capital.” Form. ing a partnership with Fred Leonard and accom- panied by a party of 20-0dd frontiersmen, Myers set out for the forbidden Indian country. Among the ‘members of the party were Jim Hanrahan, an old buffalo hunter who was going along to open a saloon at the new trading post; Thomas O'Keefe, a blacksmith; and two young buffalo hunters destined for future fame-—Billy Dixon and Bat Masterson. After a journey of 150 miles the expedition reached a spot on the south fork of the Canadian where stood the ruins of an old trading post, known as Adobe Walls, which had been built by William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain, some time before 1840. A mile or so farther on, in a broad valley where there was a pretty stream called East Adobe Walls creek, Myers and his companions unloaded thelr wagons and set about establishing the sec ond Adobe Walls which was to become even more famous than the first, Myers and Leonard built a picket house, 20 by 60 feet In size; Hanrahan put up a sod house, 25 by 60, and O'Keefe opened his blacksmith shop In a picket structure, 15 feet square, My- ers and Leonard also built a stockade corral by setting big cottonwood logs on end In the ground, A short time later, Rath and Wright, leading merchants of Dodge City, decided to establish a branch store at Adobe Walls and built a sod house, 16 by 20 feet, leaving James Langton In charge of the new business there. To Adobe Walls also came William Olds and his wife to open a restaurant, For several years the Indians had been watch. ing with increasing alarm the wasteful slaugh- ter of the buffalo by the white hunters, So when In the spring of 1874 a Comanche medi- cine man named Isatal announced that he had a new medicine which would enable them to THE CHARGE ON ADOBE WALLS {From the Painting by J. N. Marchond) Ww out the ite men who were exter the iffalo, he found the trit such a crusade, The first Indian this laudable WwEmen leader to agree enterprise was a chie Comanches, Quanah, the half -breed son of Cyn- thin Ann Parker, who as a little girl had been stolen from her home In Texas and had be come the wife of the great Chief Pe 'ta Nocona. “carried the Arapahoes, Klowas and Kiowa Apaches and they readily agreed to accompany their Comanche brethren. Then the medicine man the Cheyennes, pipe” to So a great war party of hetween 600 and 700 mounted warriors set out for the buffalo hunt- ers’ camp and on the night of June 28 they camped about five or six miles from Adobe Wallis, began painting themselves and thelr horses and preparing themselves for the charge against the hated white men. “Those men shall not fire a shot; we shall kill them all,” was the promise of Isatal That night at Adobe Walls 28 men and one woman slept peacefully, little realizing that a storm of savage wrath was about to be hurled against them. In Hanrahan's saloon were Han rahan, Bat Masterson, Mike Welch, Hiram Wat- son, Billy Ogg James McKinley, “Bermuda” Carlisle, Billy Dixon and a man named Shep- herd. In Myers and Leonard's store were Leon. ard, James Campbell, Edward Trevor, Frank Brown, Harry Armitage, Billy Tyler, “Old Man" Keeler, Mike McCabe, Henry Lease and two men known only as “Dutch Henry” and “Frenchy.” In Rath and Wright's store were James Langton, George Eddy. Thomas O'Keefe, Sam Smith, Andrew Johnson and William vids and his wife. Just outside the stockade two brothers named Shadler, who bore the nick names of “Mexico Ike” and “Blue Billi” and who were engaged In freighting hides to Dodge City, were sleeping In their wagons with a big New. foundiand dog at their feet, About two o'clock In the morning Shepherd and Mike Welch were awakened by a report that sounded like the crack of a rifle. They sprang up and discovered that the big cotton wood ridge pole which supported the dirt roof of Hanrahan's saloon had cracked and was about to allow the roof to eollapse. Hastily awakening others in the place, they set to work repairing the roof and this commotion aroused others who fell to and assisted them, Before going to sleep, Dixon and Hanrahan had prepared themselves for an early start in the morning for the buffalo hunting grounds to the northwest. By the time the repairs to the roof of the saloon were completed, the sky was growing red in the east. So Hanrahan pro posed to Dixon that, instead of going back to bed, they get ready to start out as soon as 1t was light. To this Dixon agreed and as he started to get his horse he looked down the vai. ley and there, through the dim light of the morning, he saw a sight which almout paralyzed him for a moment, A dark mass of horsemen was moving swiftly up the valley and the next moment It had spread out like a fan and a mighty war-whoop shat. tered the stillness, Isatal was coming with his host of wild tribesmen to make good his prom ise to wipe out the buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls, Throwing his rifle to his shoulder, Dixon fired one shot, then turned and sped toward the Hanrahan saloon as the wild charge of the Indians swept down upon him, But this hasty warning was enough to bring the occupants of Pe-ah-~-rite ke and dressed, buffalo guns in the saloon, who were already awa to the windows with thelr big the! r hands, “We were scarcely ndians had surrounded all the bulldings and shot out every window pane,” Billy Dixon says. “For the Indians were reckless and inside before the irst half hour the daring enough to ride and strike the doors with the butts of their guns” And Andrew John. son has recorded wow the savages backed their horses up and tried to ness to fght alleled In Indian warfare But the steady fire of the buffalo hunters soon discouraged this and tiacks, the white men doors of the bulldings showing a willing- close quarters almost unpar " after beating off several there were only three, The two Shadler boys, asleep In their wagot utsl the stockade, had been killed and scaiped, Their blg Newfoundland dog had evidently put up a fight, for led and “scalped”-—a plece of hide having stock of thelr losses. Strange to say, r in the figh ds these were the only time the Indi were knocked down by the heavy lugs of lead from the buffalo guns and more their warriors wounded, It began to dawn upon them that lsa- tai had been a false prophet. So the charges ceased. During one of these lulls a young Co- manche, gorgeously appareled in war bonnet and scalp shirt and mounted on a fine pony, made a lone charge toward the buildings in the face of a hot fire from the hunters. Riding up close to one of the buildings, he leaped from his pony, thrust a six-shooter through a port hole and emptied it. He then attempted to retreat but was shot down, This daring war rior who had hoped to make a great name for himself by his lone charge was Pe-ah-rite, the son of Horseback, one of the leading chiefs of the Comanches, By late afternoon the Indians had given up hope of wiping out the defenders of Adobe Walls and began to withdraw, After an anxious night of watchfulness the buffalo hunters dis. covered the next morning that only a few Indians were lingering around the place and they were soon driven off by some long distance shots, During the second day hunters from some of the outlying camps made thelr way unmolested into Adobe Walls and that night one of them, Henry Lease, was sent to Dodge City for help, On the third day a party of about 15 Indians appeared on a high bluff east of Adobe Walls, but they were quickly dispersed by a shdt from Billy Dixon's rifle which knocked one of the savages from his horse. It is this Incident tnat gave rise to one of the oft-repeated myths about the Adobe Walls affair, different accounts of It placing the distance of the shot all the way from a mile to a mHe and a half! By Dizon's own testimony “The distance was not far from three-fourths of a mile, I was admittedly a good marksman, yet this was what might be called a ‘scratch’ shot.” More hunters came in on the third day und by the sixth day there were fully a hundred men gathered there. It is among these ute. comers that so many of the “survivors” of later years were numbered. But by this time the danger from the Indians had passed. The red men had departed for a series of ralds In nan sas and Texas which soon brought the military into the field and resulted in their eventual de- feat. But before the affair at Adobe Walls ended there was one more tragedy, one which dark- ened the life of the brave woman defender, Mrs, Olds, On the AAfth day her husband was coming down a ladder with a gun In his hand when it went off accidentally, and she rushed from an adjoining room in time to see his body roll from the ladder and crumple at her feet, Today three monuments stand on the site of Adobe Walls, One Is a small slab of granite which marks the grave of William Olds. An. other marks the last resting place of the Shad. ler brothers. The third Is a huge red granite monument which tells that “Here on June 27, 1874, about 700 picked warriors from the Co. manche, Cheyenne and Kiowa Indian tribes wore defeated by 28 brave frontiersmen” and it bears the names of the 28 who truly “fought at Adobe Walls” © by Westerns Newspaper Union, casualties and more of Together Variety of Combinations Apparently Are Just Meant to Complement; May Be Said to “Flatter” Each Other When So Served. To enjoy the edible good things cately browned, It belongs peculiarly of life is one of the prerogatives of | to baked and even hot dishes, When the epicure, What comprises these | on frozen desserts a hot iron is held good things depends upon the taste | above the piled me ringue so that it, of the person or of the family, and | alone, gets the force of the intense preferences, The real epicure is the | heat. Ices with browned meringue person whose taste has had a high | tops are eplcurean dishes, degree of education In foods, He knows how to diseriminate in edi | be bles, both as to qualit A food which flatters another ma i Bomething apa: from the dish und to com teolf TT tH » i L. : B, It mav be it binations. 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Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers