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By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
MONG the tangled briars and weeds of
the neglected post cemetery at
Fort Robinson, Neb, stands a
small, white stone slab which
marks the last resting place of
a great frontiersman., Yet the
inscription on it gives no hint of
that fact. It simply says: “Moses
Milner—Scout.” And that is the
epitaph of one of the most plc
turesque figures In the history
of the Old West, a character in the drama of
the frontier who Is almost as much myth as
man,
Back In the days when Ned Buntline, Col
Prentiss Ingraham and others of the bang-bang-
bang school of literature were turning out thelr
flood of paper-backed dime novels to thrill
America's youth, one of their favorite characters
was “California Joe,” whom they built up as a
“mystery man." But the “California Joe” of
dime novel fame and the “Moses Milner—Sconut”
who sleeps In the graveyard at Fort Robinson
were one and the same man.
Fortunately for his future fame, a book which
has recently been published dispels the myths
and legends that have grown up around his name
and gives what is evidently the first complete
account of his amazing career. That book Is
“California Joe,” written by Joe E. Milner. his
grandson, and Earle R. Forrest, and published
by the Caxton Printers, Ltd. of Caldwell, Idaho.
It is based upon war department reeords and
the personal history of the Milner family and
as such Is a valuable contribution to authentic
literature of the frontier.
“California Joe's” full name was Moses Em-
bree Milner. He was born May 8, 1829. near
Standford, Ky., on the plantation of his father,
Embree Armstead Milner, a veteran of the War
of 1812, whose father had served In the Revo-
lution. The first Milners In America were two
brothers who emigrated from Yorkshire, England,
to Virginia, in 1683. From that time on mem-
bers of the family were restless and westward-
faring ploneers, a fact which makes the career
of their most famous member, “California Joe,”
more understandable,
Young Milner grew up In a land where skill
with the long rifle was paragraph one, chapter
one, in its enforcement of the law of survival
of the fittest. So it is not surprising to learn
that at the age of twelve he killed his first deer
and by the time he was fourteen he was one of
the best shots in that part of Kentucky. At
this tender age also the wanderlust seized him
and the Odyssey of California Joe began.
“One day in August, 1843, he shouldered his
Kentucky rifle and, telling his parents that he
was going hunting for a few days, started out
through the forest. That was the last they saw
of their son for five years: and then one day In
1848 he appeared at their new home in Warren
county, Missouri, Embree Milner having emigrat-
ed to that state because Kentucky was getting
too thickly populated to suit him and he wanted
a little more elbow room.”
In those five years the Kentucky boy grew
into efficient frontier manhood almost overnight,
as 80 many of the youngsters of his time seem to
have done. Wandering westward he had reached
8t. Louis, the first city he had ever seen. At
that time it was the gateway to the West and
headquarters of the fur trade. There he Joined
& party of trappers en route to Independence
where they outfitted themselves for a hunting
and trapping trip up the Platte river. The next
spring they went to Fort Laramie to sell their
peltries to the American Fur company, owners
of that post. .
At Fort Laramie Milner joined a party of trap-
pers headed by the noted Jim Baker, which was
bound for the Yellowstone country. In a battle
with Blackfeet Indians the fifteen-year-old boy
killed his first Indlan—three of them In fact.
One of them he shot through the head at a dis-
pe of 400 yards, a feat which won from Jim
gr the prediction that “There's a lad who
‘have a great name on the frontier some day
if he keeps on like he did today,” a prediction
Baker lived to see come true,
Mars. M.E,
ilner
Back at Fort Laramie Milner became a hunter
for the American Fur company for a year or
80. Then he accompanied a party of trappers
to Fort Bridger where he became acquainted
with its famous owner, Jim Bridger. and entered
ils employ as a livestock herder. Returning to
Fort Laramie in the spring of 1848 Milner found
there a letter from his parents telling of thelr
move to Missouri and asking him to come home.
So he jolned a party of mountain men bound
for 8t. Louls
At Fort Leavenworth Gen, Stephen W. Kearney
was mobilizing his “Army of the West” for serv.
ice in the war which had been declared against
Mexico and when Doniphan's Missour! Mounted
Volunteers arrived there In June. 18468, young
Milner forgot about returning to his home. With
two other trappers he joined the army as pack-
ers and teamsters. After serving with Doniphan
in Mexico, Milner returned to Missourl and
sought out his family in Warren county. Bat
after his experiences In the Far West life in
the states seemed tame and he soon set out
again on a trading and trapping expedition up
the Platte,
Late In November, 1848 he was back In Mis
sour! to spend the winter with his parents but
expecting to start out again the following spring.
However, when the Watts family from east Ten.
nessee moved to an adjoining farm and young
Milner saw fourteen-year-old Nancy Emma
Watts, his plans were changed. They were mar.
ried on May 8 1850, his twenty-first birthday,
and the next day they set out for a honeymoon
trip across the plains to California, lured there,
A% were so many thousands in 1840.50, by the
hope of making their fortune in the gold fields
Because of his experience on the plains, the
youthful bridegroom was elected guide of the
wagon train which they Joined and after a Jour.
ney of six months they reached the Sacramento
valley safely,
Leaving his bride at Sacramento, Milner went
t once to the gold flelds and during the next
two years he snceumuiated a considerable for
tune. Then reports of the fertility of the Oregon
country drifted down Into California and Milner
decided to emigrate there. In 1852 he took up
a homestead in what Is now Benton county and
prepared to settle down as a farmer and stock
raiser In the new country,
But again the wanderlust seized the young
frontiersman and within a year he was faring
forth upon his career of wandering footloose
throtigh all parts of the West which ended only
with his death at Fort Robinson in 1876. During
these years Nancy Emma Milner, the “patient
Penelope” of this American Ulysses, remained
on the Oregon ranch, directing Its activities and
rearing the four sons that had been born to
them,
News of gold strikes in eastern Washington
and northern Idaho took him there In the sume
mer of 1850 and three years later he was pur
suing the golden will-o-the-wisp in Virginia City,
Mont. It was in the latter gold camp that he
won the sobriquet which he was to make so
famous. Asked by a party of miners what his
name was he replied that it was Joe and when
they asked him where he was from he Jokingly
answered “From California, where you find the
real gold.” Then and there he was dubbed “Call.
fornia Joe” and that name stuck to him througn
the remainder of his life,
From Montana Milner drifted down into Wyo
ming again. then on inte Colorado. and In 1808
a
Fallishod Werkly by Bees,
Foo wy _ oon
HAMS By. Bow
BY COL. PrENTISY — =
"Yas _a “re nen
he went to Fort Union, N. M, where he met a
fellow-Kentuckian, already famous as a scout
and Indian fighter. His name was Kit Carson.
Milner served as a scout under Carson and
fought with him at his famous battle of Adobe
Walls in the Texas Panhandle, then after a pe
riod of prospecting In Colorado and fighting
Apaches in New Mexico he drifted north into
Kansas and reached Fort Riley in the fall of
1508,
For the next five years he served as a scout
for the troops operating against the hostile In-
dians In Kansas, Indian Territory and Texas
During this time he made the acquaintance of
such border notables as Wild Bill Hickok, Buf.
falo Bill Cody, Capt. I. L. Payne, the “Cimarron
Seoul,” served with General Custer as chief of
scouts in the Battle of the Washita and the sub
sequent campaign and rapidly rose to a position
ptstanding importance among the frontiers.
of the period,
From Kansas he drifted West again to Nevada
and Call 3 on back into Wyo g where
he served as guide for the Jenny geological and
grap surveying expedition into the
diack Hills, After his return from this expedi-
tion he guided a cavalry column sent from Fort
Laramie to the Red Cloud agency to hold in
check the Sioux who were threatening to go on
the warpath because of the invasion of thelr
beloved Pasappa (Black Hills) by the miners,
From this place Milner wrote the letter to his
sons (reproduced above) telling of the richness
of the new diggings and urging them to join him
there.
Early the next year he was In the Hills and
filed a homestead claim on 320 acres on Rapid
Creek on which the present Rapid City was
later bull. In the fall of 1878 he joined the
cogmand of Gen. George Crook as a scout and
was assigned to the force led by Col. Ronald 8.
Mackenzie to disarm Red Cloud's Oglalas before
they could join the hostiles. He was to have
been chief of scouts for Mackenzie In the latter's
winter campaign against Dull Knife's Cheyennes
but a few days before the expedition set out, on
October 20, he was shot down from behind and
Killed at Fort Robinson by a man named Tom
Newcomb with whom he had had some trouble
in the Black Hills, and whose life he had once
spared,
He wns buried on the banks of the White
river by Dr. V. T. McGillycuddy, then surgeon
with the Second and Third Cavalry regiments in
Crook's army, who had known Joe well during
the Jenny expedition, Dr. McGillyeuddy, who Is
still living in Berkeley, Calif, declares that Call.
fornia Joe “had no equal as a scout in natural
ability, reliability and wide experience over the
oe Bioal
topo HICH
of him confirms that opinion,
It also contains the material to upset many a
“popular belief” about some of the frontier
notables who have been se widely publicized.
of bison, there is a widely-accepted idea that he
was a wizard with the rifle. He may have been,
but there probably has never been a deadlier
Sharps, a fact which he demenstrated time after
battles,
teenth and St. Louls avenue, St
Louis, Mo,
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Avold summer heat In the Sesutifal Allee
ghey Moomtalee. Coif on cham
men who were victims of his gpeed and deadly
accuracy with the pistol. If California Joe had
been given to cutting notches on his gun for
every man he had slain, he could have shown a
record which would have placed Hickok in the
amateur class. This does not mean that Milner
was a “killer” in the sense that Wild Bill was,
He was peaceable enough until he was “put on,”
Then he proved himself a “bad man to fooi
with” as many a man learned to his sorrow
that is, If he lived long enough to be sorry.
Cody and Hickok had many self-appointed
press agents to spread their renown, both de-
served and undeserved. California Joe had no
such first aids to fame, His neglected grave in
the post cemetery at Fort Robinson Is symbolie
of the fact that true greatness is too often “une
wept, unhonored and unsung.” w—
© Western Newspaper Union,