A murder was committed at Jacksonville, a small mining village on Rogue River, on the 2nd of May, under the following circumstances: A young man named J. C. Platt, slightly under the influence of liquor, challenged any person to run a foot race with him. Several bystanders selected a man of the name of Robert Maynard, who went by the name of Brown, to accept the challenge. Platt said he was no kind of a man, and that he would not run with him; that he could beat him at anything--fighting or anything else; and that if he ran, he wanted to run against a man. Brown said he was insulted, and that he would shoot Platt. He borrowed a revolver, and afterwards meeting Platt in the street, told him he had insulted him. Platt denied having done so, but said that if Brown was disposed to "take it up," he could do so, at the same time taking off his coat for a fight. Hard words passed between them; Platt said Brown was a liar and a thief; Brown forbade him repeating it; the language was repeated, whereupon Brown drew his revolver and shot him through the left breast. Platt exclaimed, "The damn scoundrel has shot me--arrest him," and fell. He lived but three minutes. Brown was taken into custody, and on the following Tuesday tried. A judge and prosecuting attorney were appointed, and a jury summoned, and a fair trial given him. He was defended by D. B. Brenan, of Portland. An auctioneer, known by the name of "Tom Hyer," acted as prosecuting attorney. The trial lasted twelve hours, when the jury retired, and after deliberating an hour and a half, returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. Brown was heavily ironed and a guard of eight men placed over him. It was moved that he be allowed three weeks to "make his peace with God." The crowd rejected this motion by a large majority. It was then moved that he be allowed three days to prepare for the change, which motion prevailed. Accordingly on Saturday the 8th he was taken in a cart about one mile from town, where a gallows had been erected, and hanged. He has been some time in Oregon, and we learn spent the past winter at Marysville. He talked freely upon the gallows; said he was not sorry for what he had done, on his own account, but he was sorry to afflict his parents and brothers and sisters. He said he should be hung and buried in that grave (pointing to a grave nearby, which had been dug), and that the traveler would point to it and say there lies a man who would not be insulted. He bid the crowd "goodbye," and was swung off. He stated that his relatives lived in Illinois. He was twenty-one years of age.
Oregon Statesman, Oregon City, June 1, 1852, page 2

    The first murder committed in Rogue River Valley by a white man killing a white man took place at Jacksonville in March 1852, when a man known as Brown killed a man by the name of Potts. The incidents connected with this murder are given to the Rogue River Fruit Grower by E. K. Anderson, one of the earliest settlers in Rogue River Valley, and who formerly lived on Anderson Creek, near Talent, but who now resides in Ashland. Mr. Anderson saw the shooting, and he acted as one of the jurymen at the trial of the murderer, and he was one of the guards at the execution of the condemned man. White men had been killed by Indians before this time, but there is every reason to believe that this was the first instance of a white man killing a white man in this valley.
    Jacksonville at that time was a mining camp that had been established only about two months, for it was only the previous December that gold had been discovered in Rich Gulch [by] James Pool, who with James Clugage had come that month from Yreka to winter their train of pack horses and mules on the luxuriant grass that then grew all over Rogue River Valley. It was not until January that news of the finding of this new and fabulous rich diggings reached the California old miners, and then there was a rush across the Siskiyou Mountains to the new camp, which had been named in honor of President Jackson, who was then the popular idol of Americans and especially of the Southerners, many of whom were in the rush to Rich Gulch. At that time Jacksonville was a town of tents, though Mr. Anderson thinks there may have been a few cabins built of poles, but if there were he has forgotten them in the 58 years since that eventful spring. The only woodworking tool then possessed by the miners, and by the not over a dozen farmers who within the month had settled in the valley, were axes. With these the miners and ranchers cut the logs for their cabins and in some instances, before froes were brought in, split clapboards with which to roof the cabins.
    So far as Mr. Anderson recollects, and his memory is very clear and accurate, Jacksonville, at the time of the killing of Potts, had a population of about 400 men, but there were no women, for it was a month later when the first woman came to the valley. Most of these men were miners, and there was also the large number of gamblers, saloon keepers and camp followers. It was shown at the trial that the murderer Brown was a worthless young man who loafed about the saloons and gambling places. Just before he was hung he stated that his true name was Maynard, but he would not tell anything as to his past history or of his relatives. Potts was a young man who had come to the valley about a month previous to his death and had taken up a land claim on Bear Creek two miles below the present town of Ashland, the land now belonging to D. H. Jackson. On this place are big warm springs, and it was Potts' plan to conduct on his place, in addition to farming, a health resort for the treatment of rheumatism, a trouble that afflicted many of the miners. He was a quiet, industrious young man, but nothing was known of Mr. Anderson as to his previous history.
    The day that Potts was killed Mr. Anderson was in Jacksonville for supplies, he then living on the claim that he had taken up three months previously on the stream since named Anderson Creek, he being the first settler in that part of Rogue River Valley. At that time the saloon, gambling, trading and boarding house tents were ranged in fairly regular order along about where now stand the business houses in Jacksonville. Mr. Anderson was standing on the corner where is now the Masonic block, when he saw a man dash out of a saloon tent, and close after him was another man brandishing a pistol. As they reached the middle of the street the rear man shot the man he was pursuing in the back, killing him instantly. It was all done so quickly that the bystanders had no time to prevent the shooting, but smoke from the murderer's pistol had not cleared away when he was covered by half a dozen revolvers and forced to surrender.
    There was no law nor no courts at that time in Rogue River Valley, and the murderer had hardly been disarmed when the [men who] quickly gathered made a move to lynch him. This was prevented by Mr. Anderson and other cool-headed men, and it was decided to give Brown a fair trial. A meeting was called and a judge and prosecuting attorney were chosen, and there was also a man selected to act as attorney for the accused. A sheriff and a guard were appointed to take charge of the prisoner. A clerk of the court was also appointed, and this official, from a list of names that had been prepared, drew by lot the names of the six men who were to act as jurymen. Mr. Anderson was one of the men so selected. After the trail had been held he was also made a deputy to the sheriff and assisted in guarding the prisoner and at the execution.
    Miner's justice is always swift and sure, and in this case all arrangements for the trial of the murderer were completed by the day following the shooting. In this improvised court the formalities and technicalities of modern courts, that delay procedure and often enable the guilty to escape conviction or at least to avoid punishment for an indefinite time, were not practiced, nor would they have been allowed if attempted. The court held its session in one of the big tents, and the trial lasted but half a day. After the evidence had all been heard the two attorneys made their pleas. Both addresses were short and to the point, that of the prosecuting attorney emphasizing the proof that a willful murder had been committed and that the murderer should be convicted and hung as a punishment that he deserved and also that the execution would be a warning to others criminally inclined. The attorney for the defense conceded that his client had killed the man, but that the homicide had been committed as the result of a drunken row and that the pistol shot had been fired while the accused man's brain was crazed by whiskey, and under these circumstances he asked the court's leniency. The jury quickly came to a decision, and on their verdict the judge sentenced the prisoner to be hung on the following Saturday morning. It was on Tuesday of that week that the murder was committed, and the trial was held Wednesday, but Mr. Anderson is not certain as to these dates, and the events may have been a day later in the week. But he is sure that there was an interval of time allowed the doomed man to arrange his affairs.
    The execution took place north of where the courthouse now stands in Jacksonville. Though the entire population of Jacksonville and vicinity were present, there was no disturbance, and the execution was as orderly as those of today that are carried out by regular process of law. Only a few days previous the first wagon had reached Jacksonville, and one of these was made to do duty as a scaffold. [Wagons were passing through the Rogue Valley, with difficulty, as early as 1846.] The condemned man was made to stand on the wagon, and then a rope was placed about his neck and made fast to a limb of an oak tree. The wagon was then drawn away, and the man was left swinging in the air and soon died.
    From the time of his arrest until his execution Brown maintained a stolid indifference and would make no statement concerning his past life, nor would he give any directions for notifying his relatives or friends in the East of the tragedy that led to his death. Only at the last moment, after his hands and feet had been tied and he was given a last chance to speak, did he tell anything of himself, and then he only stated that his right name was Maynard and that Brown was only his assumed name.
    Mr. Anderson took no part in the burial of Potts nor of Brown, and he does not recollect as to where the two men were buried. So far as he can recollect of the early history of Jacksonville Mr. Anderson is of the opinion that the grave dug for Potts was the first one, and that of Brown the second one for burial of a white person in Oregon's first mining town.
Rogue River Fruit Grower, October 1910    Anderson remembered Potts' name as "Plot"; I've changed it for consistency with other memoirs.


    One man named Brown shot a man named Potts in the summer of 1852. The guilty one was tried by a jury of which David Linn, father of Fletcher Linn, of Portland, was a member. The slayer was hanged at the present site of an old Presbyterian church.
"Jacksonville Is Real Relic of the Hardy Pioneer Days," Oregonian, Portland, November 6, 1910, page 4


    Justice was administered [in early Jacksonville] by the people's court; its findings were singularly correct, its decrees inflexible, its punishment certain. In 1852 the first court of this character was convened; a miner named Potts was shot dead without provocation by a gambler named Brown. Immediately every claim was vacated. Men not angry but outraged by the deed gathered in hundreds, and the assassin was secured. That fine sense of chivalry and fairness common on the frontier prompted a proper investigation, and in the absence of even a justice of the peace, W. W. Fowler was appointed judge and a jury of twelve men was selected. The case was tried by the rules of right and wrong divested of legal technicalities. Brown was readily proved guilty of a cowardly murder and taken to an oak grove a little north of the site of the Presbyterian Church, hanged and buried under a tree a few yards west of where the church now stands and the remains have never been removed. The court was quietly dissolved, the judge disclaiming the right to exercise further jurisdiction, but the lesson was salutary and effective.
"True Tales of Pioneers," Jacksonville Post, August 21, 1920, page 1





"Warty," August 1852:

    AN INDIAN HUNG BY THE WHITES.--We learn from Mr. Stewart, of Dugan and Co.'s Express, that an Indian called Warty was hung by the whites at Rogue River a few days ago. This Indian is said to have committed many robberies and other crimes upon the whites and to have been the most reckless one among them. In this case he entered the house of a Mr. Weaver and demanded bread, which was refused him by Mrs. Weaver, who was alone with her children. The Indian proceeded to help himself, and upon being opposed by Mrs. W. drew his knife upon her; an alarm was given by the children, when some men who were at work nearby, hearing the alarm, and knowing the Indian character, arrested him, summoned the neighborhood, tried, condemned, and hung him the same day.
Oregonian, Portland, August 14, 1852, page 2




Old Taylor and another Indian, June 1853:

    An Indian called Old Taylor, brother to Joe and Sam of Rogue River Valley, was hung lately for assisting in the murder of several white men.
"Siskiyou," Sacramento Daily Union, June 27, 1853, page 3

    Old Taylor, the chief, and two others, were hung a few days since. Yesterday another marched up to the rope. There is a party of whites forty strong, under Capt. Bates, in hot pursuit of the villains. The Grave Creek Indians must die.
    Taylor and party killed seven whites last winter, and then reported them drowned in Rogue River during the storm, for which a portion of this tribe have paid the popular penalty.
"Indian Difficulties in Rogue River," Oregon Statesman, Oregon City, June 28, 1853, page 2



The two Shastas and the Indian boys, August 6, 1853:

    I write this in great haste; everything and everybody is in great excitement about Indian war. The Indians of this valley have turned against the whites. They have killed two men and wounded some five or six since last Friday evening. The whites turned out yesterday and killed some six or seven Indians besides hanging three here in town.
John R. Rice, SOHS M42A Box 2, #82-147


    On Saturday, Mr. Rhodes Noland was shot dead in his cabin door within a mile of town. The citizens who had been previously preparing for a skirmish, upon receiving intelligence of his murder, immediately started out and in a short time returned with a captive "siwash tyee" ["Indian chief"], who was mustered to an oak tree and there "strung up." During the day three others were hung beside the tyee.
T. McF. Patton, letter of August 6, 1853, Oregon Statesman, Salem, August 30, 1853, page 2


    The Rogue River War was commenced by Shasta Indians who had been driven from Shasta Valley. They killed a man named James Kyle, within hearing of the center of the town on the road coming from Yreka Sat. night Aug. 2nd, '53. [This was apparently Thomas Wells/Wills; Kyle was killed on Oct. 7; see below.] This fired the citizens & miners acting made indiscriminate war on the Rogue River Indians. A meeting of the citizens were called that night. They slaughtered indiscriminating war on Rogue River or Shasta Indians, though of the latter there were but few, and so those most guilty suffered the least. Two Indians were captured on Applegate, which is a tributary of Rogue River, lying 8 miles south of Jacksonville. These Indians had on the war paint; they were brought to Jacksonville and in a few hours hung by the citizens and probably justly. But the saddest part of the tale remains to be told. About four o'clock in the evening, two farmers from Butte Creek brought in town a little Indian boy 8 or 9 years old. The cry was Hang him! exterminate the Indian! The miners put a rope around his neck & led him towards the tree where the others were hung. B. F. Dowell mounted a log in the vicinity, made a brief speech to the excited crowd of 1000 men, in behalf of the Indian & humanity. Someone cried out what will you do with him? I replied "Take him to the tavern and feed him at my expense." The excitement subsided & they gave me the Indian. Mr. Dowell removed the rope from his neck & led him toward the tavern. At this moment Martin Angel, an old citizen & brave soldier, rode up in an excited manner, cried out, "hang him! hang him! we've been killing Indians all day!" The excited mob rushed and took the Indian from Mr. Dowell, and in a moment had the boy hanging from the same tree from which the two men were suspended. Mr. Dowell resisted after the rope was placed the second time and cut the rope, but the crowd seized him and held him until the execution occurred. Less than a year and a half after in Jany. '56 Martin Angel paid the forfeit of his crime by being assassinated by the Indians on the road above Jacksonville leading to Crescent City. This boy had been employed with the farmers on Butte Creek--farming. During the Rogue River War Mr. Dowell carried the mail between Cañonville and Yreka as mail contractor, and never was molested by the Indians. After the war, Chief Limpy told him that he could have killed him several times, but that he wouldn't hurt a paper man and one who had tried to save a "tenas tillicum," little papoose.
Interview with Benjamin Franklin Dowell, Bancroft Library MSS P-A 25-26


    On the 7th of August, the miners captured two Shasta Indians, one on Jackson Creek, and the other on Applegate. These Indians were both in their war paint when caught. They were brought to Jacksonville and on examination it was found that the bullets belonging to one of their guns were the same size of the one with which Noland was killed. There were other facts and circumstances which tendered to identify them as the guilty parties. They were tried by a miners jury and hanged before 2 o'clock the same day. In my opinion they were justly punished.
    (In justice to the military authority at Fort Lane, we will add that they assisted in bringing these Indians to justice, and endorsed the action of the citizens in the matter.--Ed. Tidings)
    One of the saddest and most inhuman acts of the whole war remains to be told. Late in the evening of the day those Indians were executed, a small innocent boy about nine years old was brought to Jacksonville by three men from Butte Creek, with whom the boy had been living. The poor little boy on being discovered by the miners [was] taken to a place near where David Linn's cabinet shop is now standing, and near where the scaffold where the two Indians were still hanging. I mounted a log near by, and called the attention of the vast crowd to the solemnity of the act they were about to perpetrate. I called on them to punish the guilty, but to spare the life of the innocent child. While pleading at the top of my voice the crowd gathered around the hangman's tree. Someone called out "what will you do with the boy." I replied, I will take him to a hotel and feed him. I went to him and took him by the hand and started up California Street when Martin Angel came up on horseback and without alighting commenced to harangue the mob against the murderous Indians. He said: "The war was raging all over Rogue River Valley, we have been fighting Indians all day; hang him, hang him; he will make a murderer when he is grown , and would hang you if he had a chance." The mob at once seized the boy and threw a rope around his neck, which I succeeded in cutting twice. I was violently thrown back by an Irishman, of the firm of Miller, Rogers & Co., of the left-hand fork of Jackson Creek. The excitement was so great that I found that my own life was in danger, and I had to withdraw. In a moment more the boy was swinging to a limb. I turned away with a sad heart at this inhuman conduct towards the innocent child, against whom no crime was charged. No mob ever committed a more heartless murder than this.
"The Beginning of the Rogue River War--The Murder of the Indian Boy, etc. etc.," Ashland Tidings, October 25, 1878


    Other incidents of the eventful period preceding Lane's campaign of August 21-25, were the capture and shooting of a suspected Indian by Angus Brown, the hanging of an Indian child in the town of Jacksonville, and other acts of that nature, which reflect no credit upon those engaged therein. That stern-visaged war had wrought up people to deeds of this sort, is not very remarkable. Five Indians, it is credibly reported, were hanged in one day, on a tree which stood near David Linn's residence.
A. G. Walling, History of Southern Oregon, 1884, page 217


    1853 was a year of troubles and excitement in the new town. A deadly war had been determined on by the Indians who were every day more emboldened by success; more eager for blood as each successive white life was taken. Several settlers in the outskirts of the valley had been picked off by straggling Indians. One afternoon in August the crack of a "Siwash" rifle was heard just in the eastern edge of town; a riderless mule with a bloody saddle galloped madly along California Street, and was recognized as that of a prominent citizen, Thomas Wills, who had been absent from town but for a few hours. Armed men went instantly to where the shot had been heard, and soon returned with the bleeding body of Mr. Wills, who had received a mortal wound and survived only a few days. This audacious act angered and alarmed the townspeople, and among the families there was intense excitement, there being scarcely a bulletproof habitation in town, which could be easily approached under cover from nearly every direction. To make matters worse, arms were by no means plenty, and there is little doubt that had an attack been made in force, and the savages been willing to risk their skins, they might have captured and destroyed the little town. The people, aroused to a sense of danger, effected a partial organization for defense. Pickets were thrown out nightly, and the greatest vigilance was exercised by day, but notwithstanding all precautions only a few days elapsed until a man named Nolan was shot dead within rifle range of the business street. This species of warfare was exasperating, and it was but a few days before the Indian method of reprisal was resorted to. Two Indian boys, "Little Jim" and another, mere striplings, came into town, perhaps from motives of curiosity, possibly as spies. It was scarcely probable that they were the miscreants who lay in wait at the very threshold of the town to slay unoffending whites; there was not the slightest evidence that they had committed any crime--they were too young to be warriors--but in the bitter anger of the moment it was sufficient that they were Indians. They were soon seized by an excited crowd who scarcely knew what to do with the terror-stricken prisoners, and some of the roughest shrank from the commission of an act that they knew was not brave, and that they feared was hardly just. The mob swayed and surged, wavering between desire and doubt, when T. McF. Patton sprang upon a wagon and in a few words decided the question. The boys were hanged on an oak on the bank of Jackson Creek, while protesting piteously that they had never wronged the whites. Sober reflection brought regret for an act that by no means exalted the white character, and it is very probable that the dreadful savagery subsequently experienced by white families was in retaliation for a deed that, in calmer moments, was regretted as neither courageous nor justifiable.
    This was the last session of the people's court in Jackson County, for on September 5, 1853, a regular court was held in Jacksonville, by Hon. Matthew P. Deady, who had just been appointed United States district judge for the Territory of Oregon, by President Pierce.
A. G. Walling, History of Southern Oregon, 1884, page 362


   In August, 1853, [B. F. Dowell] mounted a stump and made a speech to a mob that had a rope around an innocent Indian boy's neck until they wavered so he was permitted to take the rope off the boy's neck, and he took the little fellow by the hand and started for Robinson's Hotel to feed him, and on the way they met a still more infuriated mob, who took the boy back and hung him with the murderers of [Rhodes] Noland.
Benjamin Franklin Dowell, The Heirs of George W. Harris and Mary A. Harris, Indian Depredation Claimants vs. the Rogue River Indians, Cow Creek Indians, and the United States, 1888, page 58


    At the close of hostilities [in 1853, Major James Bruce] discovered the peril of entering with but one companion into an armed and excited Indian camp. He performed this intrepid feat at the request of General Lane, who had given the Indians a three days' armistice to come in and conclude a peace, but was annoyed and even perplexed by their failure to do so, and indeed by their entire disappearance. Bruce and R. B. Metcalfe were directed to scout the mountains for the camp of Chief Joseph. After three days' investigation they found him with all his tribe encamped as if for war in a natural fortress. To enter this stronghold and deliver their errand to bring in the Indians was a matter of great delicacy. But descrying the tent of Chief Joseph, which was distinguished by a blue cloth, the spies determined to go to his lodge, relying for safety upon his well-known desire for peace. Before attracting his attention, however, they were seen by the young braves, who assembled in great numbers, running and hooting, and manifestly bent upon spilling the blood of the intruders. Bruce and Metcalfe saw in a moment that their death was imminent; and the Major believes that they must have been slaughtered had not an Indian boy named Sambo suddenly appeared, shouting and averring at the top of his voice that this white man was not to be killed--that he had saved his life and must now be saved. Major Bruce was only too glad to recognize in this youth his Sambo, the Indian formerly the rider of the bell horse on his pack train, whom he had actually saved sometime before at Jacksonville from the hands of the infuriated miners, who were indiscriminately hanging the Indian bell boys then in town. By the shouts and exertions of this faithful Sambo, a diversion was created; and Joseph appeared, by whom the scouts were severely censured for their temerity. Nevertheless they gained time and explained their mission, and at length accomplished their purpose, bringing the chief to General Lane. The Major, however, always thinks with tenderness of the boy Sambo, whose fidelity saved him from a dreadful death.
Elwood Evans, History of the Pacific Northwest Oregon and Washington, vol. II, Portland 1889, page 228


    . . . on the fifth [of August, 1853], Thomas J. Wills and Rhodes Noland were killed, and Burrel B. Griffin and one Davis wounded. Hastily formed volunteer companies patrolled the roads and warned settlers, who gathered their families into a few fortified houses, and setting over them a guard, joined the volunteers.
    On the seventh of August two Shasta Indians were captured, one on Applegate Creek and the other on Jackson Creek. Both were in war paint, and on investigation were proved guilty of the murder of Wills and Noland, for which they were hung at Jacksonville. Not satisfied with this act of justice, an Indian lad who had nothing whatever to do with the murders was seized and hung by the infuriated miners. So great was the excitement that it was dangerous for a man to suggest mercy.
Frances Fuller Victor, Early Indian Wars of Oregon, 1894, page 308


    Two Indian boys came to town [one] named Little Jim and another mere stripling whom the people thought were spies. They were seized by an excited crowd that did not know what to do with the prisoners. The mob wavered between desire and doubt until F. M. Patton decided the question. The boys were hanged on an oak tree near Jackson Creek protesting all the while they had never wronged the whites.
Jessie Beulah Wilson (Jacksonville High School student), "History of Jacksonville," Jacksonville Sentinel, June 5, 1903, page 4





Indian Tom, Indian George and Indian Thompson, January 10, 1854:
It's possible that Indian Tom and Indian Thompson were the same person.

Sir,
    On the night of the 7th two Inds. shot a man by the name of Kyle, who was a partner of Wills, one of the persons shot at the commencement of the late war.
    It occurred near Willow Springs at about 10 o'clock at night.
    The two Inds. belong on the Klamath, though they have spent much of the last year with those in this valley. One of them is related by marriage to Tyee Jo & they both have many friends among the young Indians here. And it was a severe test of the Inds.' desire for peace to be compelled [to] deliver them up. But they did so yesterday morning. They are now in the guard house, where they will be kept until the next term of the dist. court.
    I think peace now more firmly settled than ever.
Joel Palmer Supt. &c.
    Milwaukie O.T.
Oct. 13. P.S. Kyle died this morning.
Microcopy of Records of the Oregon Superintendency of Indian Affairs 1848-1873, Reel 12; Letters Received, 1853, No. 66.


    INDIAN FAITH.--Mr. James Kyle, an estimable citizen of Jackson County, and partner of Thomas Wills, who was killed in the war, was recently murdered by some Indians near Willow Springs. Col. Wright immediately demand the murderers of the chief Joe, and they were promptly brought in and delivered up, even before Mr. Kyle died, he not having been instantly killed. The Indians will be tried and punished.
    This act shows a disposition on the part of Joe, who is the head chief, to observe the requirements of the treaty. A more particular account of this affair will be found in our Fort Lane letter.
Oregon Statesman, Salem, November 8, 1853, page 2


Sir,
    The two Indians that I have in custody charged with having been the murderers of James Kyle, also one that was delivered to me as the murderer of Mr. Edwards, were executed on the 10th instant.
    One that I had in custody charged with theft was acquitted.
    I find it necessary to be constantly among the Indians. They take the loss of these three Indians much to heart (their relations) and must be watched closely. I returned late last night from Applegate Creek & am trying to get all of these relatives in to the agency.
    The mail will leave in a short time. I have only time to express the hope that nothing will prevent a farm's being started on the reserve for the benefit of the Indians next spring.
Joel Palmer Supt. &c.
Microcopy of Records of the Oregon Superintendency of Indian Affairs 1848-1873, Roll 4; Letter Books C:10.


    The murderers of Edwards and Kyle were tried in the district court at Jacksonville on the 7th and 8th of January, 1854. They were found guilty and hanged on the following Friday, being the 10th day of January.
    The following particulars of the trial of those murderers are gleaned from the records of the court.
    The officers of the court were Hon. O. B. McFadden, Judge; C. Sims, Prosecuting Attorney; Matthew G. Kennedy, Sheriff; and Lycurgus Jackson, Clerk.
    The grand jury presented indictments against Indian Tom and George for the murder of James C. Kyle.
    They were brought into court and arraigned, and having no counsel, the court appointed D. B. Brenan and P. P. Prim to defend them; these attorneys being their choice. Louis Dennis was appointed, in connection with Mr. Culver, to act as interpreters to the court and jury. Indian George was first put on trial, and the following jury was empaneled to try the case: S. D. Vandyke, Edward McCartie, T. Gregard, A. Davis, Robt. Hargadine, A. D. Lake, James Hamlin, Sam'l. Hall, Frederick Alberding, F. Heber and R. Henderson. After hearing the evidence in the case, arguments of counsels and charge of the judge, they rendered a verdict of murder in the first degree. On motion of the prosecuting attorney the court proceeded to pronounce the following sentence as the judgment of the court.
    You, Indian George, have been indicted and tried for one of the highest offenses known to the law, to wit: The crime of murder. You have had a fair and impartial trial, as much so as if you had belonged to our own race; you have had the benefit of counsel who did everything for you that was possible. But an intellectual and upright jury, upon a fair and dispassionate examination of the evidence given against you, not only by those whom you suppose to be unfriendly toward your people, but by the chiefs of your own tribe, have found you, Indian George, guilty in manner and form as you stand indicted, of having on the night of the 7th of Oct., 1853, deliberately, and without premeditation and malice, shot Jas. C. Kyle, and as there was no provocation on the part of Mr. Kyle which could justify you in the use of violence toward him, they have said that you are guilty of murder in first degree, an offense which by our laws is punishable by death. It, therefore, becomes my duty to pass on you the sentence approved by our laws.
    The sentence of the court is, that you, Indian George, be taken hence by the Sheriff of the county of Jackson, and be by him, the said Sheriff, kept and detained in safe and secure custody until Friday, the 19th day of February, A. D., 1854, and between the hours of 10 o'clock a.m., and 12 a.m., of said day; and that you, Indian George, be taken by the said Sheriff or his lawful deputy of successor in office, on the day and between the hours in that he has last aforesaid, from the place of confinement to a gallows, to be by said Sheriff for that purpose erected at Jacksonville, in the county of Jackson, and there to be hanged by the neck, until you, Indian George, be dead and may God have mercy on your soul.
"The Beginning of the Rogue River War--The Murder of the Indian Boy, etc. etc.," Ashland Tidings, October 25, 1878  A full transcription of the district court docket is here.


    On the sixth day of February [1854] a new judge called court. The enemies of Judge Deady had been busy at Washington, it is said, and by the most gross misrepresentation procured his displacement, the executive appointing O. B. McFadden, a citizen of Pennsylvania, to the territorial bench. Court was held in a building next to the "New State " saloon, and it was a most unpretentious temple of justice. The bench was a dry-goods box, covered with a blue blanket, and it is quite probable that the uncomfortable seat occupied by the judge was so irksome that it had something to do with his rapid dispensation of justice. The officers of the court were Columbus Sims, prosecuting attorney; G. Kennedy, sheriff; and Lycurgus Jackson, clerk. On the first day of court, Paine P. Prim and D. B. Brenan were admitted to the bar, and the grand jury was empaneled. On the seventh, true bills were returned against Indians George and Tom, charging them with the murder of James C. Kyle, on 1853; October 7 [sic], on the same day they were arraigned and put upon trial, Prim and Brenan having been appointed counsel for the accused. The proceedings were brief, the evidence, mostly that of Indians, who were anxious to preserve peace with the whites, left no doubt as to the guilt of the prisoners, and the jury, with little deliberation, announced a verdict of guilty. In the meantime the grand jury had found another indictment against Indian Thompson, for the murder of Edwards in the spring of 1853, and he, too, was quickly convicted. On the ninth, it appears from the record, Indian George was sentenced to be "hanged by the neck until dead," the time of execution being fixed between the hours of ten and twelve of the succeeding day; but it does not appear that the other two convicted murderers were ever sentenced; and the impression is left that time was so valuable that, in their cases, the formality was dispensed with. In passing sentence upon George, his honor assured the prisoner, with becoming gravity, that he had had as fair a trial, and as ample means of defense, as if he had belonged to the white race; but the lightning speed with which the judge hurried the doomed wretch out of the world throws a slight cloud on the sincerity of his remarks. Indeed, it can not be fairly doubted that if the murderer had been a white, he would have been granted thirty days for repentance; but his honor probably concluded that the Indian had no soul, and repentance was therefore improbable, although he closed by requesting God to have mercy on the spiritual portion of the culprit. Though the record is silent as to the other two convicted murderers, all three were swung from the same gallows on the tenth of the same month. Large numbers of people came from the mining camps, and a few, whom the news had reached out in the valley, came into town to witness the first legal execution, but the event was marked with decorum, and nine out of ten acquiesced in the justice of the punishment. This was the last court held in Jacksonville by Judge McFadden. Judge Deady's friends had righted matters at Washington and procured his reinstatement, McFadden being transferred to Washington Territory.
A. G. Walling, History of Southern Oregon, 1884, page 366


    Very soon after the construction of the military post was resolved upon, a circumstance occurred which ranks as one of the most  important, and at the same time singular, that we have to narrate. This was the murder of James C. Kyle, on the sixth of October, 1853, by Indians from the Table Rock reservation. This sad affair took place within two miles of Fort Lane, at a time when the settlers were congratulating themselves that Indian difficulties were at an end. Kyle was a merchant of Jacksonville, partner of Wills whose untimely and cruel death has been recorded. A rigid examination and investigation of the homicide proved that it was committed by individuals from the reservation, and the chiefs were called upon to surrender the criminals in compliance with the terms of the treaty. They did so, and two Indians, George and Tom, were handed over to the proper authorities, as the murderers of Kyle, while Indian Thompson, tillicum of the same tribe, who has been previously mentioned, was surrendered as the murderer of Edwards. Like Thompson, the other two suspects were tried before Judge McFadden of the United States circuit court, at Jacksonville, in February, 1854. They were found guilty, and hanged two days later.
A. G. Walling, History of Southern Oregon, 1884, page 231


    On the fourth of August [1853] the first act of the new era of hostilities took place, being the murder of Edward Edwards, an old farmer, residing on Bear Creek, about two and a half miles below the town site of Phoenix. In his absence the murderers secreted themselves in his cabin, and on his return at noon, shot him with his own gun, and after pillaging the house fled to the hills. There were but few concerned in the deed, and subsequent developments fixed the guilt upon Indian Thompson, who was surrendered by the chiefs at Table Rock, tried in the United States circuit court in February, 1854, and hanged two days later. According to the prevailing account of the circumstances of this murder, the deed was committed in revenge for an act of injustice perpetrated on an Indian by a Mexican named Debusha, who enticed or abducted a squaw from Jim's village, and when the chief and the woman's husband went to reclaim her they were met by threats of shooting. Naturally disturbed by the affair, the aggrieved brave started upon a tour of vengeance against the white race, killing Edwards and attempting other crimes. Colonel Ross, a prominent actor in the events that followed, identifies the murderer as Pe-oos-e-cut, a nephew of Chief John, of the Applegates, and represents the difficulty substantially as above stated, adding the particulars that Debusha had bought the squaw, of whom the Indian had been the lover. She ran away to a camp on Bear Creek, and the Mexican, with Charles Harris, went to the camp and took her from Pe-oos-e-cut, much to his anger and grief. The disappointed lover next day began venting his rage against the whites by killing cattle and also shot Edwards as described. No sooner had the murder become known, than other savages became imbued with a desire to kill, and during the following fortnight several murders were committed, through treachery mainly.
A. G. Walling, History of Southern Oregon, 1884, page 213