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The Infamous Black Bird Southern Oregon History, Revised


Robert Baylor Metcalfe
Interpreter at the Table Rock Treaty, Indian agent. Read the correspondence of the Oregon Superintendency of Indian Affairs, 1853-1873, for records of Metcalfe's official activities in Oregon.


    These memoirs and stories of life in the early days of the West were written for me by my father, Robert Baylor Metcalfe, seven or eight years before his death, in December 1905.
    They are a true record of an eventful life, and my great regret is that I did not get them written sooner, as there must have been many things which he had forgotten at that time.
    
    It is reported in the old family Bible that I first saw the light of day on the 12th of July, 1825, in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. My earliest recollection is when I wore my first pair of trousers. My mother [Frances Norton Baylor Metcalfe] had made them from an old pair of corduroys which had done service for my father [John Metcalfe]. When they were fitted on me, I started upstairs to show my sisters that I was a man. With much difficulty I climbed up step by step, until near the top I lost my balance and rolled to the bottom, striking my head on every step until I reached the floor below. This knocked all of the man out of me and I started in full cry to my mother, who met me in the hall, dressed my wounds and comforted me.
    After this little episode I must have gotten along smoothly enough, as nothing impressed me sufficiently to be remembered until about two years later. In my fifth year, I was playing with two of my sisters on the portico of a two-story building which had an old-fashioned stone chimney at one end. To show my sisters that boys were much superior to girls, I mounted the chimney against their earnest protest, walked around it, then in my attempt to step across, the distance being too great for the length of my legs, I stepped into the flue and went down feet foremost. This I remember as if it had occurred yesterday. My head caught in the throat of the chimney below, where I remained until my sister Courtney released me by turning my head so it would pass through. My elbows and knees were badly bruised, my eyes, nose, and mouth full of soot, and a chimney sweep would have suffered in comparison.
    The following year I was sent to school to an old pedagogue who had just sense enough to come in out of the rain. He took great delight in punishing me, and I averaged not less than five whippings per day for two long sessions.
    This was the most trying period of my life. I contemplated flight and suicide in all its varied forms to escape this punishment, and the most earnest prayer I ever offered was that I should soon be a man to take my revenge on that old villain.
    Being the black sheep of the flock, to have rebelled in school would have subjected me to worse punishment when I went home. Thus nearly two years of my young life were crushed and bruised, and no joy entered my heart. After all, this terrible lesson taught me self-reliance which was turned to good account in after years. I was now getting large enough to work some on the farm and was put to plowing, although I had to reach up to take hold of the plow handles, which were about even with my shoulders. I had a very old and usually very gentle mule, Cuff by name, which I rode to and from the field.
    One day after a very hard day's work, I was feeling sorry for the poor old mule and was debating whether to walk and lead him or ride him as usual.
    Being very tired myself, I decided to ride and had to use the switch freely to urge him along until I came to a fork in the trail. I wanted to go to the left, but the mule decided to go to the right. With this difference we parted company and I found myself landed flat on my back in a bunch of briars and the old mule going like a streak, throwing his head first on one side then on the other, braying every jump until he reached the barn. I never felt sorry for him after that nor tried to ride him sideways again.
    The next two or three years were spent on the farm with but little to break the monotony of farm life. I was frequently called upon to do things which now seem impossible for a boy of nine to have done. I was required to take a whiskey barrel on horseback five or six miles over a very rough trail with steep hills and overhanging brush in places. I could just see the horse's ears over the barrel.
    One day on the trail I discovered a dove on her nest in a cedar tree. I got off my horse and lifted my barrel down, then took a stone and threw it at the dove. The stone passed just over the bird and she fell out on the ground fluttering down the hill and over a precipice. I was certain I had wounded her and looking into the nest discovered two little doves in it. When the thought occurred to me how cruel I had been to kill the mother bird and leave her young ones to starve, I suffered enough remorse that day to atone for all the cruel deeds in after life. I took up my barrel and went on to the distillery, feeling as if I had lost every friend I had on earth and studying what I could do with those young doves.
    On my return trip I stopped to see them and found the old bird on the nest. I slipped quietly away with a sense of relief I had never before experienced. This compensated me for all the worry I had with the barrel, and taught me a lesson I never forgot. Long afterwards I learned that this pretended injury is a common trick which is practiced by birds to divert attention from their nests when they have young.
    In the winter of 1835 my father and I went south with a drove of 1600 fat hogs. We sold them in Alabama and Georgia and, although but ten years old, I walked the entire distance through Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and back to Tennessee, where I stopped with my uncle Charles Metcalfe, who sent me to school there for twelve months. My long tramp through Tennessee and Georgia prepared me for what followed, as I had to walk three miles to and from school every day.
    At the end of the year I returned to Kentucky and was sent with several of the other children to a boarding school three or four miles from home. Here we had another old teacher who did not believe in sparing the rod and spoiling the child. We came in collision and I came out second best. As I thought I was now too large to be punished in this way I began to study some plan to quit school, but failed to get my father's consent to do so.
    One morning we all started to school and were crossing the river, which was swollen by recent rains. A negro man was rowing the flatboat which I was steering. When in the middle of the stream I deliberately fell overboard and swam ashore, landing about a quarter of a mile downstream. My father was attracted by the screams of the girls and called to me, when he saw I was safe, to come back, which I was only too glad to do. I then persuaded him to allow me to go to work on the farm, as the school session was near its close.
    There was a mill near our home at Mill Springs, Ky. The old miller was taken sick the year after I left school and I was given the situation as miller. Being too small to lift the heavy sacks of grain usually brought by small boys, I was often put to my wit's end to get the sacks back on the horses after the grain had been ground. I secured some stiff boards which were placed against a bench of rock just high enough, then I rolled the sacks up on the rock, removed the boards and placed the horse near enough to roll the sacks on his back. With all these difficulties and occasional scraps with small boys, I had rather a hard time, and was not sorry to see the large water wheel part one day and bring the mill to a standstill for the rest of the year.
    The next year the wheel was repaired and the old miller, having recovered his health, returned to take charge of the mill.
    I was employed during the winter by my brother-in-law, John S. Shannon, to help him move to Shelbyville, Ky., a distance of about 100 miles. I went on foot and drove 75 sheep, 30 Berkshire hogs and several head of cattle. How I ever accomplished this feat all alone I do not know. However, I landed them all safely at their new home, for which service my brother-in-law gave me a large sow.
    This was the first property I ever owned and proved to be profitable. I soon had to have something to feed my hogs, for they increased very rapidly. My father gave me ten or twelve acres of land upon which to raise corn.
    The kind old miller loaned me his horse to cultivate my crop, so I went to work with a will and raised a fine crop.
    In the fall of the year my father decided to move to Missouri. This necessitated the sale of my hogs and corn, and as there was no money I had to exchange them for a horse and colt which were reckoned to be worth $65.
    We traveled overland in wagons and buggies and were two months on the road, arriving at our new home late in the fall. The ground was covered with snow for several months. There were no fences and only a log cabin for shelter.
    I borrowed a rifle from an old friend of the family and was able to kill more game than we could possibly use. Wild turkeys, deer, and prairie hens were so abundant that I rarely had to go more than half a mile to kill all I wanted.
    Our farm had to be fenced, and during the winter two negro men and I cut and split the rails. My task was to cut and split 150 rails per day, after which I assisted in doing the chores. Then read history and with the assistance of my father studied Kirkham's English Grammar by firelight, as candles were not to be had.
    As it was forty miles to the nearest mill we were often out of bread. I cut down a large tree which stood near the house and sawed off the top of the stump, about three feet high, for a mortar. As I had no tools to hollow out the mortar, I built a small fire on the stump and when it was charred I scraped it off, then built another fire, and so on until I had a mortar that would hold two gallons of corn.
    For a pestle to pound the corn into meal, I fixed a spring pole like an old-fashioned well sweep with an iron shoe on the end. Then by means of handles I had only to pull down and the spring pole raised the pestle. This enabled me to grind enough corn in an hour to last two days, and saved many trips to the mill.
    The snow did not leave the ground till June. We had no spring but stepped out of winter into summer. Vegetation of all kinds sprang forth with a bound and my hopes began to revive. Soon our crops were all planted and growing as I had never seen before, and we raised the greatest abundance of everything needful.
    I was then sent to a distant county where there were better schools, to prepare me for the Military Academy at West Point. The idea now appears ridiculous to me. To take a boy from the farm and expect him, without any special training, to pass the ordeal of an examination at West Point.
    However I did pass the examination quite satisfactorily and was entered as a cadet. I was so handicapped by my lack of the elementary principles of mathematics that I found it impossible to acquit myself with credit.
    After fighting against such odds for nearly two years (1842 to 1844) I resigned and left West Point to return home. I sailed from New York on a merchant ship by way of New Orleans and up the Mississippi River. This voyage lasted twenty-three days to New Orleans. We were becalmed off the coast of Cuba where I enjoyed the fishing very much, though the sharks would sometimes take the fish from my hook before I could pull it in. The captain of the vessel was very kind to me. He asked me to eat at his table and taught me to carve, for which I have always been most grateful.
    After I reached Missouri I worked for one year on the farm and then left for Texas to join the army for the invasion of Mexico. I went by way of Natchez, Miss., where I stopped to see my older brother James. There I met my uncle, Dr. James Metcalfe, who insisted on my remaining with him and going to school for two or three years, offering to lend me money to pay all expenses.
    I had my heart so set on my original plan that I very reluctantly consented to accept his most generous offer. I soon found myself installed at Jefferson College, Washington, Miss., with the determination to make up for lost time, and I improved rapidly.
    I spent nearly two years in college and made good use of my time. My mind was trained and prepared to receive a thorough education, when I was told that my school days would end with that session and that I could have employment as an overseer on one of my uncle James' plantations. This I refused, from a false pride, owing to the low estimation in which overseers were held in the community.
    I had another uncle, Dr. Volney Metcalfe, near by, who came to my assistance and offered to advance the money and give me his aid in reading medicine. This was not to my liking but there was nothing else in sight, so I accepted his offer. I took up Latin which I liked very much and made rapid progress studying Latin, Medicine and History for one year.
    I had acquired the habit of reading the daily paper for half an hour after breakfast each day, and here now occurred a remarkable incident which upset and changed my whole future life. I had been reading about the discovery of gold in California for several days, when one morning I picked up the paper and found in it a woodcut showing a lump of gold about the size of a hogshead, with a man sitting astride it, a six-shooter in one hand and a bowie knife in the other, offering $25,000 for a bowl of soup. This was "the straw that broke the camel's back." I took the paper and went into the dining-room where my uncle was still sitting and said,
    "Uncle, I am going to California."
    He looked up in surprise and said, "Are you crazy?"
    "No," I replied. "Perfectly sane and in earnest."
    I showed him the paper which only increased his merriment. Then seeing that I was really in earnest, he said he thought that was a big move for a young man to make and advised me to complete my study of medicine. By that time, he said, I would be prepared to make my way and could also learn more about the country before going. I replied that the golden opportunity would then have passed and my chance for a duplicate of that lump of gold would be gone, so he consented for me to go, and in 48 hours I was on the road to California.
    Both of my uncles contributed to my outfit and, thus prepared, I joined a company which was being formed at Black River, La., for the trip. I now felt that I had cut loose from relatives and friends and all my early acquaintances for good and had no one to whom I could apply for assistance in case of misfortune. My older brother James, who was overseeing for my uncle, decided to go with me. We met at Black River and were soon on the way. We placed all our wagons and teams on a steamer at Trinidad, which took us to Camden, Arkansas, and I felt that a new world had opened up before me.
    I had never heard any slang, and when the cabin boy on the steamer rushed down and told the fireman to throw more wood on the furnace and "Let her rip" that she was "all oak and iron bound," I looked at him in amazement. At Camden we were several days fitting our harness to the mules and packing our boxes in the wagons.
    Finally the day was set for us to start on our long overland journey. While we were hitching up to start a native came to me and asked if I wanted to buy some venison. He was dressed in a buckskin coat and trousers and had a coonskin with the tail hanging down his back and the teeth grinning in front, for a hat. He carried an old flintlock rifle and wanted to exchange venison for powder and lead. As I had an abundance of both, that suited me very well, so I went to the wagon and got out a can of powder and two bars of lead and told him I would look at his venison. "Oh," he replied, "I haint killed it yit."
    This took me by surprise and I asked if that was not a novel transaction, to sell a wild deer in the woods, particularly so as we were just on the point of leaving. "Don't be oneasy," he said, "I will fetch you the venison." So I decided to let him have the powder and lead, never expecting to see or hear of him again.
    To my surprise, when we were about four miles on the way, I saw a man standing by the roadside apparently awaiting our arrival. It was my man, with a large buck he had killed and carried to the road. This furnished the whole company with fresh meat for several days and greatly impressed me with the honesty of that class of people. This has been strengthened by subsequent experience. They never have much, but that little is given and shared as freely as water.
    We arrived at the foot of the Caddo Mountains on Saturday and camped near an old farmer until Monday. As none of us had had any experience with camp life, cooking, etc., we bargained with him to feed us and our teams. He gave us venison, smoked bear meat, ham and eggs, and several varieties of the tenderest vegetables I ever tasted. And that bear meat! I have never had anything since just as good. Monday, when ready to leave, I asked him for the bill for myself and two horses. He said that people seldom stopped and he hardly knew what to charge, but he thought nine pence (12½ cents) a day would be about right.
    I told him that I would go to California, make a few hundred dollars, and come back and board with him the rest of my life. He called his bear dogs his "team" and told me so many adventures that he had had with bears and other wild game that I was tempted to stay on with the old man.
    We soon crossed the Caddo Mountains and landed at Fort Smith, Arkansas, where we were compelled to remain two or three weeks until the grass grew sufficiently to support our teams, as this was the last point on the frontier where we could purchase forage. One evening during our stay here two old gentlemen rode up to our camp and inquired if our party was going to California. My brother and I were just starting to bring in our teams for the night. After we had gone some distance, my brother remarked that he had seen those men somewhere before. We went back to make further inquiry and to our surprise found one of them to be our father, and the other a cousin of his, John Shackelford, whom we had not seen for years.
    It was strange that neither party had recognized the other. They had come down from Missouri to get an early start across the plains by the southern route. We invited them to join us, so they unpacked their mule and put his cargo in our wagon. We moved over into the Indian reservation and were joined by a company of Cherokee Indians, about 30 in number. This made our party about 70 strong, and we then felt that we could defy the hostile Comanche Indians, and took up the line of march to the far West.
    There was no road and for the first two days we had some trouble getting our wagons over ravines which had to be bridged. Finally we arrived on the border of what seemed an endless prairie, where we found an old deserted trading post, said to have been at one time the property of the Choctaw Indians. As everything ahead of us was prairie, we could see each morning where our camp would be that night.
    One morning our guide pointed to three mounds which looked to be about ten miles distant, but were really 30, and told us that we would camp there that night and would find plenty of grass and water for our stock.
    I was riding a spirited horse and in company with another man set out in advance of the others for the mounds. After we had traveled about ten miles the mounds did not appear to be any closer than when we started. As we were now in the hostile Comanche country my companion became nervous and started back to the wagons.
    I went on alone, and when I came near the mounds I saw two old buffalo bulls grazing on the side of one of them. Riding up to within fifty yards of them, I dismounted and shot one in the shoulder. He fell and rolled over, then rose to his feet and made off down the mountain in the opposite direction from where we were to camp. I mounted my horse and started in pursuit; but he was following a trail down a ravine too narrow for me to pass him, so I could only gallop on behind until nearing the valley the ravine widened and the trail left it.
    I touched my horse with the whip and he sprang up by the side of the buffalo. It turned and made a plunge at my horse, which was now well nigh frightened to death. It sprang out of the way of the bull, throwing me flat on the ground in front of the enraged beast which was bleeding at the nostrils. On my hands and knees I managed to keep behind the bull until I came near the ravine, into which I rolled.
    The bull stopped and looked at me. I had not taken time to reload my rifle, so I had only a pistol with which to defend myself, and that failed to fire. However, the bull did not renew his charge but walked off about 100 yards and laid down. I turned to look for my horse and saw him about a mile away in the opposite direction from the mounds where we were to camp. I then began to think of being in a hostile country afoot, and at least four miles from camp, so I followed on and caught my horse, righted the saddle and mounted him. There were from 500 to 1000 buffalo a little to the left, and between me and our camp site.
    I arrived at the mounds just as the wagons were coming in and reported the herd of buffalo. If the camp had been attacked by Indians there could not have been more excitement. Every man who could mount anything was off for the hunt. They killed seven buffalo that evening, which supplied the camp with fresh meat for several days.
    When the buffalo were threatened the roar of their hoofs sounded like thunder, and could be heard for miles.
    The next day being Saturday, we made a short drive and camped near a large spring, where we remained over Sunday to rest ourselves and horses. The spring water was very clear, but unfit for cooking we found, as it was very strong gypsum water. My father put on a pot of beans which boiled Saturday evening and during the night and all day Sunday and Sunday night, and were as hard Monday morning as when put on to boil. Here we found the buffalo gnat, which greatly annoyed our stock as well as ourselves. My brother's head was all swollen from the bites of these pests during the night, and his eyes were entirely closed so that he had to ride all next day in the wagon.
    We were now heading west between the North and South Canadian rivers without any road, but we had little trouble in making our way, as it was all prairie.
    We soon began to see fresh signs of hostile Indians. Our Cherokee scouts were in advance and they reported having seen bands of Indians traveling parallel to our line of march. The Indians placed two scalps on poles in our line of travel so we would find them. One had long red hair about two feet long and the other was short and black, streaked with gray. They were stretched over willow hoops about five inches in diameter and resembled the head of a drum. We regarded this as a declaration of war and from that time on went prepared for attack.
    At night we made a corral of our wagons by joining them together in a circle. This was a protection for both ourselves and teams against a night attack. We were about 75 strong, well armed and ready for a fight at all times. This is, I think, why they did not attack us. We made our way to Santa Fe without any serious trouble, arriving there the first of June, 1849.
    We spent several days here, and decided to sell our wagons and make the rest of the journey with pack mules, thus enabling us to make the distance much shorter by taking Indian trails through the mountains. We hired a Mexican guide and left Santa Fe and came to the Rio Grande River at Albuquerque, New Mexico, thence down the river to Socorro where we left the river and took an Indian trail across the mountains to the head of the Mimbres River.
    On our way down the Rio Grande, I was riding three or four miles in advance of the company and came to a small Mexican village, where I stopped to await the arrival of the others. I had not been there long when I saw a great commotion and excitement among the Mexicans.
    As it was soon after the close of the Mexican War, I thought they had seen our party coming and were alarmed, so I tried as best I could to explain that we were not enemies. As I could not speak Spanish I failed to make them understand. Two women rushed up to me and tried to pull me into the fort but I shook them off. They left with many wild gestures which I did not understand. After the entire population was in the fort and all barred in, I found myself standing alone on the street corner with my rifle in one hand and holding my horse with the other. I then looked out to the east and saw a cloud of dust. In five minutes the town was filed with a war party of Comanches 70 or 80 strong. Several of them rode up to me and said, "Mericano, Mericano?" To this I nodded assent and they did not molest me in any way. Here I saw some of the greatest feats of horsemanship I ever witnessed. They charged up and down the streets at a fearful rate, and at a given signal the horses would all wheel into a circle and sit down on their haunches like dogs, with the Indians' heads alongside the horses' necks. At another signal, every horse sprang to his feet and was off like lightning. This they repeated two or three times and left for good as our party came in sight. I learned afterwards that the Indians took a drove of sheep and cattle with them, but the Mexicans never followed to recover any of their property.
    When we left the Rio Grande, our guide told us we would soon meet with a different class of Indians, more numerous and more warlike than the Comanches.
    The second day out from the Rio Grande we met a war party of Apaches, three hundred strong. We had crossed the mountain and were descending a broad valley which was divided by a stream filled with willows and rushes when we saw the Indians, all on horseback, on the opposite side. They made signals to us to stop, which our guide understood. We halted and from another signal our guide, who was an old Indian trader, understood that they wanted to talk to us.
    Here we lost more than half a day, for the guide had to make several trips back and forth before we could induce the Indians to come over. They finally came and mingled with our men on friendly terms.
    However we did not fail to let it be seen that we were all well armed. We made a treaty with the Apaches whereby we were to pass through their country unmolested, provided we did not disturb any of their stock or trespass on the property of any of their people. They kept their agreement in good faith.
    We found the grass here as dry as hay. Our stock were quite thin and I was greatly troubled for fear they would all starve, but to my surprise I found it to be grama grass, and the stock fattened and grew strong from that day on. The Indians had a captive Mexican boy about ten years old. They tried to sell us the boy but their price was too high for us to afford to take him, although he pleaded earnestly for us to purchase his freedom.
    The Indians had killed all his family and had taken him for a servant. We arrived at the Mimbres River in two or three days more without any incident worthy of note. We passed by the celebrated Santa Rita copper mines, which had been worked for one hundred years by Mexican convict labor. They were now entirely abandoned, though the fort and many of the houses were in a fair state of preservation. We went from there to Ojo Caliente or Hot Springs, which is now a great resort for invalids, then to Ojo la Vaca or Cow Spring, then southwest into Sonora where we passed several deserted villages, the entire population having been driven out by the Indians. Their orchards, houses, and churches presented the most dreary and lonely spectacle I ever saw. I climbed into a belfry and rang the large church bells which echoed through the mountains like the ghosts of the departed and caused me many sad reflections.
    We now changed our course to the northwest, in the direction of Tucson, our point of destination. On our way, about 35 or 40 miles from Tucson, we met a war party of Apaches driving a large herd of cattle which they had taken from the Mexicans. We engaged them in a running fight and they left the cattle and made for the mountains. Then we gathered up the cattle, drove them back to Tucson and returned them to their owners. They were very grateful and told us to take and kill all we wanted to last us through to California. We spent the fourth of July, 1849, jerking and drying beef for the trip.
    We now had to make a journey of 80 or 90 miles without water, as the Gila River was the nearest water going west. We arrived at the the point on the river where Florence now stands. It took some of the party three days to make the trip, for we were scattered along the trail for twenty miles. We took along all the vessels we could get suitable to carry water in, but the water was all gone the second day.
    I saw we were liable to suffer greatly from thirst before we reached the river, so I mounted my mule and took all the canteens in our mess and started for the river. When we were within a few miles of it my mule seemed to know that there was water ahead and went like a steam engine until he came to the river. He plunged in where the water was three feet deep with his nose under water nearly up to his eyes, and I went over his head and rolled over and over in the water, laughing like an idiot. My tongue was dry and swollen. I soon recovered and filled the canteens and started back.
    I passed men on the trail, some crying, some praying, and some in the shade of mesquite bushes, playing cards, waiting for the sun to go down, for it was intensely hot.
    I have always had a warm spot in my heart for that river. Twenty-five years later I lived on its banks and tributaries and often had cause to feel grateful for its refreshing waters. We followed this river down 200 miles or more to where it joins the Colorado River. We found the Pima Indians, on the Gila, as far advanced in civilization as the Mexicans. They had large fields of grain and vegetables of all kinds in great abundance, also large herds of cattle and horses. I purchased a fresh saddle mule, for which I paid them $40 in silver.
    On our arrival at the Colorado River we found it swollen from recent rains. We had no way to get across except to swim. To get our baggage over we built rafts of logs and tied them together with vines. There were no trees of sufficient size except those which were partly under water from the overflow, and to get these we had to strip and wade out to them.
    While engaged in cutting these logs, one of our party, John Shackelford, stirred up a large hornet's nest. They began to sting him until he laid down in the water, but his bald head still proved a target until he retreated to shore with his face and head very much swollen.
    When our raft was completed we placed all our luggage on it. Having no oars to row or guide the raft we decided to swim and push it in front of us, but the current was very swift and we were carried downstream two or three miles before we reached the opposite shore.
    In going across we passed through a rapid and in some way I lost my hold on the raft, which shot away from me like an arrow. I swam with all my strength but could not overtake the raft until it reached an eddy. We crossed safely over this river, which was a mile wide.
    Here we found another tribe of Indians, the Yumas, who were noted for their great size. All of them were six feet tall and many six and a half. They were great rogues and stole something from every raft we had. My loss was a pistol.
    When we were safely over the river we were told that we had a desert of ninety miles before us without water. This was the great Yuma Desert. We started about four o'clock in the afternoon intending to travel all night, but much to our surprise, about four o'clock in the morning we came to a river about fifty feet wide and nearly deep enough to swim our horses. This, the Salt River, ran into a basin in the desert and was forming a lake. We camped near this lake long enough to take a food rest, but there was nothing here for our stock to eat, so we pushed on and arrived at the foot of the mountains the following day. There we found grass and water in abundance.
    From here on to San Diego I saw the most marvelous wealth and growth of vegetation I had ever seen. We passed several ranches owned by wealthy Mexicans and saw thousands of cattle and horses roaming at will, all fat and in excellent condition. Truly this was a paradise for the stock raiser. Wherever we stopped we were treated to fresh beef, in fact, to anything we wanted, without cost. I never met a more hospitable people.
    The land was undulating and covered with wild oats as far as the eye could see in every direction. I saw wild mustard growing here, the stalks of which bore my weight. We finally came in sight of the mighty Pacific at San Diego. Our company disbanded here, some going north by land. The rest of us deciding to go to San Francisco by water, we had to wait two weeks for the regular mail steamer. Many of the party became impatient and embarked on schooners, much to their sorrow, as some of them were two months in reaching San Francisco. I had sold our mules for enough money to pay passage for my father, brother, and myself and to aid a friend in our mess.
    We arrived in San Francisco in two or three days, minus anything in the way of finances with the exception of a few dollars which I had left. We were charged fifty cents each for sleeping on the ground under the fly of a tent and we furnished our own blankets. The next day I made arrangements for us to go to Stockton on a schooner. This took the last cent in the entire party, and landed us in Stockton without food or shelter. Father and Brother went fishing and caught and sold enough fish to buy some bread, and my friend and I started out to hunt work, which we soon found.
    We hired to an old Irishman to make adobes (sun-dried bricks), at about one-fourth the price being paid for labor. However we were in no condition to haggle over wages with starvation staring us in the face. There were several hands employed, and I went to work like fighting fire. One of the men remarked to me that I was not used to such work and would soon break down at that rate. The old man was not paying what he should, so I worked more moderately. About ten o'clock the old Irishman came to where we were at work and said to me, "Young man, you look as if you had never used a shovel before, and if you expect to work for me you will have to strike a different lick from that."
    "Damn you," I replied, "I will strike a lick that will settle you if you don't leave here."
    I made at him with the uplifted shovel and he left in double quick time and I never saw him again. I told my friend that I would not work for such a person, and we threw down our shovels and went in search of another job, which we soon found.
    This was to clean out two wells which were about ten feet deep, at ten dollars each. We accomplished this in four or five hours and returned to camp with our twenty silver dollars. The Irishman had engaged us to work for $4 per day, so we had cause to rejoice that we had thrown up his job, for the man who paid us the $20 employed all of us next day to go to the mines and work at $8 per day. This was just what we wanted, as it gave us an opportunity to learn how to wash gold. Our contract with him was soon ended and we went to work on our own account.
    My brother, who had been suffering with a felon on his hand, took what money we had made, and went to San Francisco to have his hand treated. From there, instead of returning to the mines, he took a steamer and went back to Mississippi. I located a claim on the Calaveras River and hired some immigrants who had just arrived to work for me.
    I was now making money rapidly, cleaning up from five to seven hundred dollars every day. But the good things of life do not last. After we had been at work here for two weeks, we got up one morning and found the river had risen over the sand bar where we were getting our gold. As the sky was perfectly clear and it had not rained a drop, this puzzled and vexed me no little. No one could explain the phenomenon. I waited two or three days thinking the water would go down, but it did not.
    Then a Mexican came along, who had been in this country all his life and he explained the cause of our troubles, telling us that it began to rain up in the high mountains two or three weeks earlier than it did down in the foothills and that if we were waiting for the river to go down, we would have to wait several months. So I abandoned my claim and left.
    In California we found many wild horses and cattle, often from fifty to one hundred in a drove. Once I was hunting on the San Joaquin River and saw the whole prairie dotted with elk. I fired my rifle and they started running and came by me. There were fully 1500 in this herd.
    I went to Stockton and purchased two wagons and teams, and loaded them with provisions which I hauled to the mines, a distance of about fifty miles. I sold out to the miners at seven or eight hundred percent above cost. In this way I managed to make some money during the winter, but hearing of miners who were taking out two and three thousand dollars a day, I was not satisfied with the small business I was doing.
    I sold my wagons and teams and drifted off to the south to Mariposa, Agua Fria and the vicinity of the Yosemite Falls. In going from the Calaveras to the Merced River, I took an Indian trail along the foot of the mountains, and had to cross many deep washouts or "barrancas." They descended at a very steep grade, about two hundred feet, and then rose at about the same angle to the level on the opposite side. I came to one of these and just as I was ready to start down, three Mexican bandits rose up in front of me. One was armed with a rifle, one with a broadsword, and the other with a club. The man with the club took hold of my horse's bridle and the others stepped up, one on each side of me. I drew my six-shooter, intending to kill all three if I could, but just then an American came in sight at a gallop. The bandits saw him and stepped back.
    When the American came up I told him what had been done and he said, "Let's kill them. Their band has killed and robbed more than fifty men in the last three months." I told him to let them explain first and give them the benefit of the doubt. They said they only wanted to talk to me, and with this we allowed them to go.
    Father took all of our money and went to San Francisco to buy miner's supplies, such as picks and shovels and heavy miner's boots which sold readily, the boots at $75 per pair and the picks and shovels at $20 each. I engaged large lots of these to be delivered in two weeks and had purchased a train of pack mules to take these supplies from the boat on the Merced River to the mines. I was all ready to start on the arrival of the boat but to my great disappointment no miner's supplies came, only a few odds and ends of everything except what was wanted. This was an honest mistake of one of the best men who ever lived. My father had been told of great discoveries east of the Sierra Nevada mountains where millions could be had for the picking up, and had expected to find our camp at Mariposa deserted. We sold out what we could and started north.
    In some way, I do not now remember how, we were separated. I took my pack train and went to Sacramento where I purchased provisions and started across the Sierra Nevada mountains. When I arrived at Carson Valley on the east side of the mountains I met an unbroken stream of people going into California. Many of these were entirely out of provisions and I exchanged supplies for broken-down stock and wagons, which they could never have gotten over the mountains, giving on an average of five pounds of flour for a horse, mule, or wagon, which was worth in California $100 to $150 each. I took this stock off the road about ten miles to a little valley and hired a man to herd them until just time to get over the mountains before the snow fell.
    I made three trips across the mountains for more supplies during the fall. These trips I made alone, and as there were hostile Indians in the mountains, I had to take the utmost precaution to prevent being surprised at night. I usually stopped early in the evening and let my mules graze and cooked and ate my supper. Then I would saddle up and go a few miles further and turn off the road and camp in a thicket with my mules tied in a circle around me. They were equal to any watchdog and always gave the alarm when wolves or anything came near. I had to pass Tragedy Springs where three men had been killed the year before and their lonely graves always made me feel sad. On the last trip I was taken sick with mountain typhoid fever and lost a great many of my stock, and came near losing my life as well. During all this time I had not heard from my father.
    I went into camp near Stockton and there met the old gentleman (John Shackelford) who came with Father from Missouri. I stayed at this camp for two or three weeks, hoping to hear something from Father.
    One day Mr. Shackelford and I walked into Stockton to get the mail. On the way we passed a house where there was a pet bear. We saw him lying on his back in the yard, with a log of wood which he was holding up and rolling over and over with his paws. No one was at home, and the bear had gotten loose with a chain around his neck.
    I tried to make him get up so I could see him better. I threw small sticks at him, but he paid no attention to me. Mr. Shackelford warned me to let that "bar" alone and left me. I was determined to make the bear get up, so I hit him in the side with a heavy stick. This brought him to his feet and he started towards me sideways. Seeing that he was very angry, I started on to join my friend.
    When I had gone about a hundred yards from the house I heard the rattle of a chain and looked back to see the bear coming full speed towards me with his mouth wide open. I called to my friend, but instead of coming to my assistance, he went like a race horse through the woods in the opposite direction. I could hear the chain rattle every jump and began to wish I had not been so anxious to see what the bear was like.
    By good fortune I came to a slough about fifty feet wide, grown up thick with rushes. I jumped off the path and had just settled down when the bear came at full speed and passed without seeing me. As soon as he had passed, I sprang out and ran back the way I had gone in. I made my way down the slough while the bear went up the opposite side. I thus made my escape and was hurrying on to town when I overtook Mr. Shackelford lying down under a tree roaring with laughter.
    "I told you to let that bar alone," he said.
    And I was willing then to admit he was right. We went on to town but got no mail.
    I gave up finding my father and started to southwest Oregon, where report said very rich and extensive placer mines had been discovered. We formed a company to go.
    The distance was seven or eight hundred miles, over a very rough mountain trail, so we decided to go to San Francisco and charter a schooner to take us with our horses and supplies to Trinidad on the north California coast, which was about one hundred miles from the mines.
    We all went aboard the schooner and started down the bay, but when we came in sight of Golden Gate the captain saw that a gale was blowing outside and came to anchor. He told us that it was dangerous to cross the bar and that we would better remain inside until the blow was over. The wind did not abate for two days and the passengers, none of whom had ever been to sea, began to abuse the captain and told him if he was afraid to go that he had no business to take their money.
    This aroused the captain, who was an old whaler and had been to sea for thirty years. "We will see who is afraid," he said and weighed anchor and headed the schooner for the breakers, which were running mountain high. The entire vessel was under water ten or twelve feet, two or three times.
    As the hatches had been left open so that our horses could get air, the schooner nearly foundered. I sat on deck and held on to an iron pump rod and was at a times ten feet under water. As soon as we were through the breakers, the captain retired to his cabin where he found his wife had fainted, and he did not appear on deck again for several days. The mate was then in charge of the vessel, and he also went below and turned in.
    This left no one in charge. I saw that it was time for me to do something, so I went to the hatch and called to one of the crew to know how much water we had shipped.
    "Seven feet of water in the hull, sir," he replied.
    I now called all hands to the pumps and in four or five hours we had the water pretty well out. I went aft and found the man at the wheel drenched and almost exhausted. He said he had not been relieved for twelve hours and would not remain any longer. He let the wheel go and started to leave the pilot house. I drew my six-shooter and told him that I would shoot him in his tracks if he left the wheel, for I knew we were all lost if the schooner were left to drift.
    We were driven about 500 miles in a southwesterly direction before we could tack or raise any sails except the flying jib. When the wind did change, it came with quite a fresh breeze and brought us back in sight of the Golden Gate in a short time.
    We moved north now with quite a heavy blow which brought us to Trinidad, our point of destination. But as there was only an open roadstead there, we could not land and had to go past. We sailed back and forth for nearly a week, coming in sight of Trinidad every evening. Finally the wind abated and we landed by pitching our horses overboard and allowing them to swim ashore, and going ourselves in small boats. We were thoroughly drenched but happy to be on land again.
    At Trinidad I met an old friend who had been one of our party crossing the plains. He had a pack train all ready to take to the mines, but was taken sick and asked me to take charge of it, and take the provisions to the mines and sell them for him. While at the mines on Salmon River I heard of my father, who was at Yreka, near Mt. Shasta, about 150 miles east. I returned to the coast and settled with my friend and then left for Yreka to join Father. This was a journey of 250 miles through a hostile Indian country with no road except an Indian trail.
    I came through Scott's Valley where the Scott River was so swollen by recent rains that I could not cross. At one place the land was so spongy that I could shake it for twenty yards by jumping on it.
    I found I could not reach the river and turned back. On my way back to the mountains I saw a man at a distance. I could not tell whether he was an Indian or not, but decided to show myself and take the chances. I approached and found him to be one of a band of outlaws, which he freely admitted. He said that I could return to camp with him, but he would not answer for the consequences to me. I decided, however, to go with him as I was between two fires, Indians on one side and outlaws on the other. When we arrived at the camp I was introduced to the leader of the band, one Wooly, on whose head a reward of $1000 was offered by the state. He asked what I was doing out there alone, and after telling me what a fool I was to voluntarily put myself in such a position, he said that I had only one chance in a hundred to get through alive, as they had been fighting the Indians all morning on the mountain above the trail over which I had come. After several other remarks such as "Idiots like you deserve to be killed," he told two of his men to saddle up their horses and go with me to a sharp bend in the river where I could cross on a large pine tree which had fallen.
    I unsaddled my mule there and swam him over, then took my saddle over on the tree. The men collected sixteen dollars in obedience to orders from their leader, and I was glad to pay and be well rid of them, for I did not know but what they had orders to shoot me down and take what I had. This they could have done and no one been the wiser.
    I traveled on for some miles and came to a ranch where I spent the night. This was within sixteen miles of Yreka. I went over the mountain and arrived there about noon next day and found my father, whom I had not seen for more than a year. He had been engaged in the same business as I, only on another route.
    He had two Piute Indians with him from east of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They made good miners and remained with us about one year, after which they decided to return to their tribe. Father gave them each a horse, bridle and saddle, clothing and provisions preparatory to working in the mines.
    I did not go to mining, however, on my return, but went into Oregon instead, for more supplies which I sold at a good profit. I hired some men and went over the mountains to Scott's Valley, not far from where I visited the outlaws' camp, to cut hay and spent the summer cutting and baling hay. As it was impossible to cross the mountains with wagons, I had to have two sets of hands. The hay was cut, baled and hauled to the mountains, a distance of ten miles, then packed five miles over the mountain on mules, where it was taken up by another wagon and hauled to Yreka, a distance of eight miles. There I disposed of it for fifty and sixty dollars a ton.
    In the fall Father decided to return to the East, and this left me once more alone. I felt then that I had made a mistake in quitting the mines, so I went over to Southern Oregon to a new gold field, and located a good claim which I mined quite successfully.
    During the winter and following spring I remained at this camp which we called Jacksonville, and built a large house which I rented for a saloon and bowling alley. Before I completed the house the snow fell to such a depth that we were snowbound and shut off from the rest of the world. Labor and provisions went up to fabulous prices. Flour was two dollars per pound, bacon three dollars, salt $1 per ounce, and sugar and coffee not to be had at any price. It took all my money to pay for my house, which began renting for $500 per month, but later only brought $50.
    At Jacksonville, Oregon, I had my best suit sewed up in a sack and hanging on the cabin wall for safekeeping. One Sunday I decided to go to church and got all ready to put on my suit. When I took it down I found the mice had been there before me, and cut it in the smallest possible bits. This broke up my trip to church, so I went to work to make some kind of trap to get even with the mice.
    I took a barrel and, filling it half full of water, then put a stick across which had rounded ends fitted into grooves on each side of the barrel. Next I nailed a shingle across at right angles, with the bait tacked to one end. This was fixed so the board tipped with the weight of the mice and dropped them into the barrel and then sprung back and was ready for the next comer. I caught over thirty mice the first night.
    I went back to work in the mines and during the following summer sold my house at a sacrifice and invested the proceeds in miner's supplies, provisions, etc., and started a small store. I trusted everyone and in six months' time I had all my capital (about $3000) on my books, no money to buy more, and my customers all gone to other parts of the country. Of course I never saw many of them again, but some of them paid me two or three years after I went out of business.
    I then decided to return to mining and stick to that and let everything else alone. I located what proved to be a valuable claim, but we were living in the midst of a large tribe of warlike Indians who were ready to fight at the drop of a hat. The white people were not long in giving them a pretext for hostilities. War was declared and a number of valuable citizens were killed, but the war did not last long.
    It was conducted by the regular U.S. troops, and both sides were willing to patch up any kind of truce for the winter. The Indians were insolent and showed they were ready to renew the strife when the snows left the mountains.
    They built log forts by making square pens and covering them with logs on which two or three feet of earth was thrown. For an entrance, they dug a trench under the bottom logs, so only one person at a time could enter. They cut port holes on all sides so they could defend the fort. The U.S. troops and some four hundred volunteers besieged the fort and opened fire with shot and shell from their mountain howitzers, which were not heavy enough to batter down the walls of the fort. They succeeded however in landing one shell through the roof which exploded without doing any damage.
    Night soon came on and orders were given to build fires in a circle around the fort and station guards on all sides. As it was bitter cold and the ground covered a foot deep with snow, the guards were not watchful, and next morning every Indian was gone. The troops all returned to Fort Lane, and there was no more fighting that winter. [This event, sometimes called the Battle of the Cabins, is misplaced in Metcalfe's memory. The narrative is relating events of 1853, and this encounter took place in January 1856. Fort Lane had not yet been established in early 1853.]
    The following summer and fall there was a general uprising of all the tribes for a hundred miles around, with the determination to drive the white people from the country. They began by killing several prominent ranchmen and miners who were located on the border of the settlement. The whites retaliated by hanging seven little Indian boys who were employed as servants by families in Jacksonville.
    I had taken up a ranch about sixteen miles from Jacksonville, where I was preparing to plant my crops. I had made friends with all the principal Indian chiefs by small gifts and kindly acts, and they were greatly attached to me. About this time several of my neighbors came to my ranch and told me that hostilities had broken out again and that several war parties of Indians had been on the mountain in the neighborhood.
    We held a consultation as to what was best to be done. As my nearest neighbor had a large double cabin, I proposed that we all assemble there and make a stand. There were six or eight of us, and I thought we could stand the Indians off. This proposition was unanimously rejected, and they decided to leave at once for Jacksonville.
    I said, "Well, gentlemen, all I have is here, and I will remain even if none of you decide to stay with me." I pointed out a mound upon which I requested to be buried.
    They all left that evening and I felt truly lonesome. My house was built of thin boards and offered but little protection against bullets. I cut a port hole in each corner so I could see out and shoot, too, if necessary. I remained here two or three days, during which time I saw several bands of Indians driving cattle and other stock to the mountains. I knew that this meant war on a larger scale than anything I had seen, and also that their camp must be near my house. So I decided to reconnoiter and learn if possible its exact location.
    When I was about two miles up the mountain, I met two of the head chiefs, Sam and Jo. I stopped and entered into conversation with them. They told me all their grievances and said that I had always been a friend to them and that there were many strange bands of Indians coming in and it would not be safe for me to remain there any longer.
    Just then I heard a rustle of leaves behind me and turned to see a large Indian with his gun ready to shoot, looking at the chiefs as if awaiting a signal from them. I was sitting down with my rifle across my knees, and when I looked back the Indian whirled with his back to me and placed the butt of his rifle on the ground in front of him. I then shifted sideways, so I could see him and the chiefs at the same time. They advised me to leave the country and go to California, saying that they would kill every white person left there. I told them goodbye, but did not promise to go.
    The following evening, just at dusk, I was sitting in my little shanty brooding over my misfortunes, when there came a sharp rap on the door and someone said, in good English, "Open the door, Bob." I got up and opened the door and to my surprise found Chief Jim, whom I had befriended on many occasions. He came in and sat down by the fire. I fastened the door and took my seat on the bunk near him.
    He did not speak for some ten minutes. I saw that he was greatly distressed and did not break the silence. He finally said that the white people had hung seven little boys of his tribe, one a son, and that his brother had been shot down, scalped and left for dead, but he had revived and crawled to camp with no scalp and shot through twice. This so enraged his tribe that they were perfectly wild. Knowing that I was alone, he feared for my safety.
    While we were talking I heard a rumbling noise and looking out of a port hole I saw sixty or seventy Indians all armed and in war paint. They came to the door and pounded on it with hatchets. I started to open the door but Jim sprang up and threw his arms around me and pushed me back on the bunk, motioning to me to keep quiet.
    The Indians on the outside had by this time chopped through the door and were trying to force it open. The Chief, who was a powerful man, stood with his shoulder against it, and finally got them to understand that it was he who held it, and that he wished to talk to them.
    I have heard many orators, but none equal to that wild Indian. He spoke for twenty minutes without halting one second for a word. When he had finished, I heard responses from every side. "How, How, How," which meant "Yes, Yes, Yes." They then assembled on one side of the house and when they left, each man threw a stone against it, which split every board on that side. The Chief stayed about an hour after the warriors had gone. He advised me to leave the next day, which I agreed to do.
    After he left I thought the matter over and, not liking the spirit shown by the Indians in throwing stones at the house and fearing some of them might return that night, I left about ten o'clock. I had to go for the first few miles through open pine woods and then prairie.
    It was very dark, but by starlight I could see the two large flat-topped mountains, one on either side, with a valley a mile wide between. There was a small stream running down the center with bunches of willows here and there on its banks. The whole country here was lighted by a band of Indians firing the prairie. They had a line of fire from one mountain to the other, and I began to figure my chances to get through their lines.
    I kept close to the little stream and ran from one bunch of willows to another, pausing in the shadows and watching my chance for the next run. At one time I passed within twenty yards of five or six Indians who were in earnest conversation and watching the other Indians fire the prairie. I had to cross Rogue River, and supposing the ferry boat gone, I was uncertain how to get across with my gun. On my arrival at the ferry, much to my delight, I found the ferry guarded by a detachment of soldiers. I camped with them the rest of the night and started next morning to the main camp on Bear Creek.
    On my arrival there, I found Capt. Alden of the U.S. Army in command. I told him where the main body of Indians was camped and how, by dividing his forces, one party could go around to the rear, while the other attacked in front. This plan was adopted and I was mounted and sent with the command as a guide. In the meantime, the Indians had gone higher up in the mountains and our plans came to naught. There was now a call for twenty-five volunteers to reconnoiter and locate the Indians, but we succeeded in getting only twenty-one. With this number and Lieut. [Simeon] Ely in command, we started the next morning in search of the Indians.
    We camped in a valley about twenty-five miles from the main command, and the next morning at daylight we could hear very distinctly the noises from the Indian camp, which was in a canyon about a mile from the valley where we were camped. Lieut. Ely came to where I was sleeping and said he had come to consult with me as to what was best to be done, how to make the attack, etc.
    I asked him if he had orders to attack the Indians. He said "Yes." I then told him, "As you have asked my advice, I will say that you had as well attempt to fight the government of Great Britain with your command as to fight those Indians. I know them well. They outnumber us, four to one, are as well armed as we are, and as brave, and they are in position."
    To this he replied, "If there is any man in my command who thinks Sam with his band lays over me and my company, I will send him back to the main command with an escort, and then have enough men left to whip that band of Indians."
    "Very well, young man," I said, "I want you to watch me in this fight and see whether you think I am a coward or not."
    We were ordered to saddle up and take the line of march to the Indian camp. [Francis] Perry, who was one of Gen. Fremont's guides across the mountain, and I took the lead. We rode a hundred yards in advance of the company until the Indians fired on us. Then we halted and dismounted until the main command came up. By this time the bullets were flying thick and fast around us. I saw twenty-five or thirty Indians moving in single file towards the top of the mountains, aiming to get to our rear. There was also another party below us, moving down the canyon on the other side to join in the rear the band from the mountain, and cut off our retreat. Lieut. Ely rode up to me and asked, "What do you think we'd better do?"
    "Fight, damn you," I replied. "What did you come here for? And if we are not out of this canyon in five minutes there will not be a man left to tell the story."
    The Lieut. gave the order to retreat. This was a complete rout, and we arrived in the valley where we had spent the night, in the utmost confusion, and assembled under a large pine tree in the center of the valley. Lieut. Ely then sent two men back to the main command, a distance of twenty-five miles, for reinforcements. We all unsaddled our horses and tied them to some hazel bushes nearby. We put two men on guard and spread our blankets and laid down in the shade to await results.
    I had had a very hard chill that morning and now was burning with fever. I had taken off my boots, coat and hat, and placed my gun down by them. The sun came on me and I moved my blanket about twenty feet over in the shade, leaving my coat, gun, etc. where I had first placed them. I had just settled down to rest when the report of a rifle rang out in camp. Someone said, "What damn fool is that shooting right here in camp?"
    The words were scarcely spoken when eight or ten shots were fired within twenty-five yards of us and three of our men fell dead. Several more were wounded, Lieut. Ely being one of the latter. The prairie was covered with grass waist high, and the Indians had slipped up on us unperceived. We had to retreat about two hundred yards to the open pine woods on a knoll surrounded on three sides by prairie.
    Only one of the party, Mr. Fairchilds of Kentucky, succeeded in saving his horse, which had nothing but a halter on it. As he passed me in retreat I said, "Fairchilds, I cannot make the timber, I am too weak from fever."
    Without saying a word, he circled his horse around and came up behind me again, stopped and put me on the horse, saying, "Save yourself then."
    As I rode up the knoll, the bullets which passed raised a perfect cloud of dust. Fortunately none of them hit me. I rode into a thick bunch of pine bushes, dismounted and tied my horse. I then went up on the knoll where I met Lieut. Ely. He showed me his wounds and said that he could not use his rifle. I asked him to let me have his as I had lost mine, and he did so. I then took my position behind a small pine tree. Young [Isham P.] Keith, who was stationed about fifteen feet to my left, ran to me two or three times for protection. I persuaded him to go back and not leave his post unguarded. In five minutes he was shot through and ran to me screaming aloud. I told him not to make a noise as it would only encourage the Indians and that if he had to die, to die like a man. He stretched out on his stomach with his arms under his head and never spoke again. Some time later I put my hand on his and he was cold and stiff.
    The man on the right of me was a Dutchman whom we called "Greenhorn." He was playing hide and seek with the Indians. Some wild animal had scratched a bushel or more of earth from under the tree. This made a little mound upon which he was sitting, with one knee on each side of the tree. With his gun barrel held upright, he was hugging the tree like the bark. The Indians were shooting at him from both sides. When a bullet would hit near him on one side, he would jump around to the other. Another bullet would hit on that side and he would jump back.
    I said, "Greenhorn, they are putting them pretty close, aren't they?" "YES," he answered, "They will get me presently." They finally did get him, but only made a flesh wound.
    Twenty yards to my left, my old friend Jim Bruce was standing in an open space, firing with his Colt's repeating rifle. I noticed that he was trembling all over from excitement, and I asked him if he were cold or scared? He said that he thought "It was a little mixed."
    I looked to the other side, a little way down the hill, and saw a tall Indian standing with his blanket wrapped around him with his arms folded. He was unarmed, but on closer examination I saw another Indian kneeling behind him taking deliberate aim at me. I threw myself backward and the ball hit the tree, filling my face with pine bark. Afterwards I cut seven bullets from the tree that had sheltered me. My friend Perry was killed during the day.
    Lieut. Ely was near me during the fight and I turned to him a number of times and said, "Lieut., it is getting pretty warm here now and I would like that escort which you promised me this morning."
    During the day I was frequently in conversation with Chief Jim, who assured me that the Indians would kill us all. About four o'clock in the afternoon at a given signal, the Indians all withdrew. We supposed that they had assembled for consultation and that they were going to make a charge. Then I looked up the mountain and saw, under the trees, the legs of horses coming at full speed.
    "They are coming, boys," I said, "They are going to charge us on horseback. Every man take a tree and let's sell our lives as dearly as possible."
    On nearer approach, we saw that it was the reinforcements we had sent for that morning. They had ridden the entire twenty-five miles at full speed and their horses were so covered with foam that we could scarcely tell their color. Two of my particular friends, young Kentuckians John D. Cook and John Crosby, were leading the party. As they came up, I said to Crosby, "John, you are the finest-looking man I ever saw."
    He said it was no time to joke and asked where the Indians were. We fought from 10 A.M. until 4 P.M., and out of the twenty-two men we started with we had only eleven left who were able to carry arms. The Indians had set the prairie on fire and the smoke settled down to the ground so that we could not see them, even when they were near enough to shoot.
    As we were pretty thirsty, we went to the creek for water and there awaited the arrival of the main command, which soon came in sight. The small party, all mounted on good horses, had ridden ahead at full speed and arrived about an hour ahead of the main party. The Indians were still in sight on the opposite side of the valley, and rode back and forth as if daring us to come on. None of the reinforcements appeared anxious to engage them, so we went into camp. This was the end of the battle of Evans Creek, for the next morning a reconnoitering party was sent out and soon returned, reporting the Indians all gone.
    We returned to Bear Creek, where we found Gen. Joseph Lane, who had been appointed by the government to take command. He sent for me to come to his tent and the cordial manner in which he met me put me at ease. He invited me in and asked a great many questions about the Indians and the country, and said he wanted me for an aide in this campaign.
    I gladly accepted. He told me to make his tent my headquarters during the war. We were not long in organizing, and soon had four hundred men ready to take the field.
    We took up the line of march for the last encampment, where we had left the Indians, there to pick up their trail and follow it until we overtook them. We followed this trail several miles until we were near the summit of a high mountain where the trail divided and we could not determine which way the Indians had gone.
    Going to the top of the mountain, I found that they had gone to the left and encamped in a deep ravine and there erected log forts. I heard the noises of their camp distinctly and returned to Gen. Lane and reported the Indians near at hand. He ordered us forward to the summit of the mountain where we dismounted and put our horses and pack train in charge of a detachment of soldiers. We then formed in line of battle.
    Capt. Alden of the U.S. Army asked permission of Gen. Lane to lead the charge, which request was granted. Capt. Alden then turned to his men and said, "Gentlemen, follow me." Alden marched right on to the Indians and was shot down and carried to the rear the first thing, with a bullet through his shoulder.
    Gen. Lane then came forward and took command. For nearly an hour we kept up a lively firing, which was answered with spirit from the fort and the open pine woods that covered the surrounding hillsides. Gen. Lane gave the order to charge, but the companies were scattered and only Capt. Goodall's company, about thirty in number, made the charge and was repulsed. Gen. Lane was shot through the arm near the shoulder, in this charge. I led him to the rear on top of the mountain where I bandaged his wound as best I could, as we had no surgeon in the command. This left Capt. Goodall the senior captain in charge.
    I returned to the front and worked my way to within twenty-five yards of the fort by keeping concealed behind thick fir bushes. Captains Rhodes and Ross were pressing forward with great energy on the left. This made the Indians' position untenable. I had with me one of Chief Jim's brothers, and he and I held a number of talks with the Indians during the day.
    Jim was thoroughly posted as to our numbers and ability to maintain our position. I called to Sam, the head chief, and reminded him of his threat to kill us all at the battle of Evans Creek, and told him that we were now prepared to turn the tables, and that we were going to kill all of them.
    "Clos misica mimeloose conoway nesica," he replied. (That's all right, kill us all.)
    Chief Jim, hearing my voice, called several times, "Oh Bob, mika tickes wawa copa mika." (I want to talk with you.)
    I asked what he wanted and he told me that they were tired of fighting and wished to make peace. I told him to order his men to cease firing and that I would do the same on our side. I called to Capt. Goodall and told him that the Indians wished to surrender, and asked him to order his company to cease firing and to send like orders to Captains Rhodes and Ross. This he did, but it required some time to get both sides to understand the order.
    I then asked Jim if he would protect me if I came into the fort. "Yes," he said, "I will protect you with my life if necessary." I then stepped out from the fir bushes into an open space, laid down my gun, unbuckled my six-shooter and placed it beside the rifle, and held up my hands. "Jim," I said, "I am unarmed and depend on you for protection." Then I ran up to the fort, put my hands on the top log and vaulted over among the Indians. Five or six of them pointed their guns at my breast and began to circle around me in their war dance.
    "Remember your promise," I said to Jim.
    He turned to them and said something which I did not understand. They sneaked away and I saw no more of them.
    Jim told me that the Indians wished to make peace, as they were tired of fighting. I told him that I had no authority to make peace, that Gen. Lane with whom he was well acquainted was in command. I promised that I would see him and let them know his decision. I withdrew and went to the rear, where I found Gen. Lane suffering from his wound.
    I told him that the Indians wanted peace and that they wished to have a talk with him. He asked me if I did not suspect treachery. I told him that I was confident they were sincere and really wanted peace. He then said he would go and have a talk with them.
    When we neared the fort he became a little nervous, I suppose from his wound, and again asked me if I did not suspect treachery. I said, "No, General, I am so sure of them that I will stand between you and all bullets."
    We went up to the fort and spoke to Jim. Gen. Lane asked for Sam, the principal war chief, who appeared and arrangements were soon made to meet the next morning at ten o'clock to decide upon the terms of the treaty of peace.
    Before half an hour the soldiers and Indians were mingling with each other as if there had been no fighting. As the Indians had been in possession of all the water, our soldiers were very thirsty. The Indian women and children brought them water in buckets and baskets which were made of grass so closely woven that they held water as well as a tin bucket. The next morning the chiefs met with Gen. Lane and his officers, and peace was declared, the Indians agreeing to come to headquarters on Bear Creek and make a formal surrender and receive certain presents which the treaty promised them.
    The Indians were afraid of treachery and failed to come at the appointed time, so Gen. Lane sent Major Jim Bruce and me to the mountains to ascertain the cause of their delay. We spent three days before we found their camp. At night we would ride away from the trail and conceal ourselves and horses in pine thickets.
    One morning just before day, I heard my name called distinctly three times. "Oh Bob, Oh Bob, Oh Bob!" This awakened me at the first call and I turned to my companion and found him fast asleep. I awakened him and told him that something was wrong and that someone had called me.
    We saddled our horses and started up the mountain and in less than fifteen minutes we saw a war party of Indians all armed and in war paint, passing over the spot which we had just left. This incident combined with several others has made me a believer in a Special Providence, as I have never to this day found out what called me.
    The next day we located the Indian camp and took Jim and an Indian boy and returned to our camp where we found everything in a state of excitement over our delay, fearing we had been killed by the Indians. Gen. Lane remarked in my presence, "I knew that Metcalfe would come out all right."
    We camped at the ferry on Rogue River, and Jim promised that the whole band would come in in a few days. This they did and received their presents and all left in a good humor.
    The war was now ended and our army soon disbanded and the men returned to their civil pursuits. I opened up my mine and was soon working it profitably. At this time my brother returned from the East and joined me. He had no money so I told him to come in with me and half of everything I had would be his.
    We worked the mine during the winter with varying success. In the spring of 1854 I was appointed Indian Agent and my brother took charge of our ranch which I had been forced to abandon by the Indian war.
    I acted as Traveling Agent for the government for one year, before I was assigned to a permanent agency. During this time the Indians went on the war path again and the whole of Southern Oregon was the scene of bloody battles. In one battle called "Hungry Hill" four hundred U.S. soldiers and volunteers fought for three days without food or rest, and left the ground with the Indians still firing upon them.
    In the fall of that year I was ordered to go from the Willamette Valley, where I was temporarily stationed, to Rogue River in Southern Oregon, a distance of about three hundred miles. I was to take funds for the Agent there and carried $4000 in gold coin with me in saddle bags. This made a very heavy load for my horse.
    I camped all night at the head of the Willamette Valley, and was there told that the Indians were at war again in Southern Oregon. I had to go a distance of seventy-five miles through the mountains alone, where there were few settlers.
    I soon discovered evidence of hostile Indians. I saw many dead hogs which had been shot through with arrows, lying on the side of the road. Also a large steer wandering near the road with an arrow sticking in each side, and one through his ham. I began to realize that war was ahead of me. At Cow Creek, which was in a bottom a hundred yards wide covered with thick vines and bushes, a road had been cut, just wide enough for a wagon to pass.
    Here I found a wagon drawn by oxen, which had been loaded with chickens and provisions for the mining camp on Rogue River. The oxen had been shot and the chickens were running at large in the woods. As the oxen completely blocked the road, and there was no way around them, I had some difficulty getting past. I tried to lead my horse over them, but he refused to budge. Then I tried to ride him over, with no better success. Finally I turned and went back about thirty yards and came up at full speed, under whip and spur, and this time he jumped over.
    This was about ten miles from Wagoner's tavern, which I had formally made my stopping place in passing over the mountains. On my arrival, I found the house in ashes and a pile of human bones in the center. I afterwards learned from the Indians that these bones were the remains of Mrs. Wagoner, who had refused to surrender to them, when they attacked the house. She kept them at bay with a revolver until, seeing that she would never surrender, they set fire to the house. She then realized what her fate was to be and, seating herself in the middle of the room, took down her hair and spread it over her shoulders and face. With her six-shooter in hand, she sat motionless until the roof fell in and crushed her.
    I felt that this was no place for me to stay, so I proceeded on my journey. Half a mile further on I found another wagon which had been loaded with dry goods and had been captured by the Indians. They had cut the harness off the mules and taken them, and then destroyed the contents of the wagon by tearing the cloth into ribbons and scattering it over more than a quarter of an acre. A short distance further on, I came to Harris' ranch where I found him lying dead across the door sill. His wife and little daughter had escaped and were hiding in a hazel thicket nearby.
    The little girl had been shot through the arm. They saw me as I passed but thought I was an Indian and did not show themselves. I had taken off my hat in order to better see the dangers on all sides, and had tied a red silk handkerchief around my head, thus causing them to mistake me for an Indian. I rode on for a few miles and camped for the night, and was on the road the next morning at daylight.
    When nearing Rogue River I met a company of soldiers going to see what depredations had been committed by the Indians. I told them what I had seen along the way. When they arrived at the Harris ranch, Mrs. Harris, seeing they were white men, came out of her hiding place and told them about the Indian she had seen pass the day before. After explaining that I was the Indian, they took her and her daughter back to the settlement.
    I reached the Agency that evening and delivered the money safely and returned to the Willamette Valley without anything worthy of note occurring. I next went with the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to the Walla Walla Valley in Eastern Oregon, where in connection with Gov. Stevens of Washington a treaty was made by which the United States purchased all of Eastern Oregon from the Indians. [The Walla Walla Council took place a few months before the above events.] There I saw the greatest parade I ever beheld.
    Two thousand Indians rode in review before our camp in double file. The first five hundred were all mounted on white horses; then five hundred on black horses; the next five hundred on bays; and the last five hundred on sorrels. This was followed by a squad of horses of all colors. The men and the horses were dressed in the gaudiest costumes of feathers and furs that I had ever seen.
    That night they came to our camp and treated us to a genuine war dance. They had several scalps of the Blackfeet Indians which they had recently taken in the buffalo country. Forming a ring about sixty feet in diameter in which all the young men and women in the tribe joined hands, all facing the center, and to the accompaniment of discordant music they all moved up and down as one man, each motion taking them a few inches to the right.
    The warriors who had distinguished themselves in battle were in the center of the ring and were the admiration of the tribe. An old woman who represented, I suppose, The Evil One, having her face and head all covered with pitch, also occupied the center of the ring. She was holding a tall pole from which the scalps dangled. She was going through some incantations which I did not understand. Now and then she would slam the scalps on the ground and jump on them with both feet, yelling like a maniac. It took ten days to complete the treaty.
    Some of the tribes refused to sell their country. This treaty was little more than a farce, the agents of the government dictating the price and terms, and requiring the Indians to sign the treaty, which was understood by none of them. Yet the treaty was written out in due form and forwarded to Washington. Thus the poor Indians were robbed of their country and driven to a small corner of their once vast possessions, and held there by military power. No wonder they frequently broke away and murdered those whom they regarded as the cause of their misfortune.
    I witnessed several of these treaties and know that the Indians did not understand what they were giving up or what they were to get. They only knew in a vague way that they were required by a superior power to give up their lands, for which they would get something; but on refusal to treat, they would lose their lands and get nothing. In Oregon there were the finest fruits imaginable, growing wild, currants, blackberries, plums, and strawberries by the acre.
    A few months before the outbreak of the Rogue River war, I located a ranch on the border of the [Table Rock] Indian reservation and was appointed Superintendent of the Indians located there, with instructions to teach them to farm.
    I learned many of their traditions, superstitions, and general characteristics. I became interested in a little ten-year-old Indian boy, and by kind treatment I completely gained his confidence and learned every move the Indians made. This I turned to my advantage in more ways than one. He told me that when he was five, his people killed many white people who were journeying from Oregon to California and return. On one occasion some Mexicans were murdered and a lot of Spanish silver was taken from them. One of his uncles who helped to murder the Mexicans was afterwards killed by a grizzly bear, and the silver was buried with him.
    I asked the boy if he remembered where his uncle was buried. He said he had not been there since the funeral but he remembered the place which was about half a day's journey from us. He refused to tell me where it was, however, saying his people would kill him. I assured him that they would never know and he agreed to go with me if I would go at night, to avoid detection.
    After dark I saddled my horse, took my pick and shovel and with the boy on behind me rode through the mountains over an Indian trail for about sixteen miles. Near the top of a high mountain we came to a beautiful spring on a small plateau. We dismounted and the boy examined the ground for some ten minutes, then walked to a spot, put his foot down and said, "He is down here."
    I took the shovel and removed the earth to a depth of about three feet. There I found some bones and a broken gun badly rusted, and seven hundred and fifty dollars in Mexican silver. This I placed in a sack and we returned home with it, reaching there at daylight. The dollars all had holes punched in them. I sold them to the Wells Fargo Express Co., and they were sent to the mint in San Francisco.
    The boy, whom we called Dick, told me that on another occasion his uncles had murdered some miners who were returning from California with large buckskin sacks filled with gold. The miners were attacked in the night and two of them killed, the third one made his escape in his night clothes. I learned that he arrived safely in the settlements about 100 miles north. The Indians secured all of the camp outfit and one of them, finding the buckskin sack very heavy and thinking it contained powder, stopped and cut the string and emptied some of the contents into his hand.
    On learning that it was not powder, and not knowing what gold was or its value, threw it down and started to run, spilling the gold from the sack as he went, aiming only to retain the sack, as it was all that was of any value to him. I asked the boy if he could locate the place, and he assured me that he could. I took him with me and found the camp without difficulty. The charred wood against a fallen tree located their fire. The boy showed me the direction the Indian had taken and we walked alone slowly over a level prairie for about a hundred yards to a ravine where they must have crossed.
    I saw no signs of the gold, but it had been several years since this occurred, and I naturally thought the gold had been beaten into the soft soil by the hard rains. I put out a line of stakes, indicating the direction the Indians had taken, and with a big knife began to dig about the grass roots in lines at right angles to the line of stakes. I had not worked long before I began to turn up flakes of gold. I then went home and secured a pick, shovel and pan, and commenced to dig in a businesslike manner. But to my surprise I found the gold only in a small area. I obtained five or six dollars of gold flakes and could never find a trace elsewhere. This must have been what the Indian poured into his hand and threw away.
    The Indians had many interesting customs and beliefs. Their mode of burial differed with the tribe and country. The Digger Indians in California buried their dead in willow baskets made in the shape of a large cigar, firmly bound with thongs and placed in the forks of trees about twenty or thirty feet above the ground. The coast tribes buried their dead in canoes, placed in sheltered places with the paddles in them and the bows always pointing to the setting sun. You may ask any of them where the dead go, and they will invariably answer, "To sunset." Birth is marked by the rising sun and death by its departure beneath the ocean to the west. The mountain tribes buried their dead in irregular-shaped holes in the ground, taking something of the shape of the body. Their custom was to bury all the personal belongings of the deceased with them. Their horses and dogs were killed on the grave and the bow and arrows or gun of the man were broken and put in the grave. All ornaments of the women were buried with them. Their dead are supposed to go to a land of plenty.
    The legend of the origin of the world, which the Rogue River Indians told to me, is interesting. The Great Spirit sent a large white bird which wandered through space with no place on which to rest. It was constantly emitting white froth from its beak. This collected and soon formed a ball of sufficient size for the bird to alight on. This ball increased in size until it became our present earth and the large white bird then became a woman who wandered over the face of the earth in solitude and sorrow, and subsisted on roots and herbs. She lived in a house made from the branches and leaves of trees. One day while she was digging her daily supply of roots, she heard a strange noise in the ground resembling the voice of a child. She began to dig and soon came to the object of her search, an infant in human form. She took it up and carried it to her hut, the child crying all the while. She tried to pacify it by calling it all of the endearing names she knew, but the child continued to cry. At last she called it "Husband," and it ceased crying and at once demanded something to eat. In the course of a few days it grew to manhood, and thus we have Adam and Eve.
    Another interesting legend is that of Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood. There was once a natural bridge over the Columbia River, between Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood, which the Indians used for centuries in crossing the river. Unfortunately these mountains got into a quarrel, so the Indians say, and began to throw large stones at one another. Some of these stones fell on the bridge and crushed it. This formed what is now known as the Cascades, over which steamers cannot pass. This could not have been very long ago, as the backwater caused by the bridge falling has covered a large forest of fir trees, the tops of which can still be seen.
    The road from the Rogue River Valley to the Umpqua Valley was very rough and I went, in company with two or three others, to survey a new route over the mountain. We found an Indian trail which shortened the distance several miles, but when we arrived at the Umpqua River in the mountains we found it was difficult to cross as it was very swift and deep. There was a canoe on the opposite side, but how to get it was the question. We decided to make a canoe. When this was completed and placed on the river, I got in and shoved off and in less time than it takes to tell the canoe was upside down and I was going down the river like an arrow shot from a bow. I swam to the opposite shore and there secured the Indian canoe, in which I soon ferried the party over. We camped for several days and found the greatest abundance of game, deer and elk.
    On our way back to Rogue River an Indian boy came to our camp and told us that the Indians up on the mountains had a white woman whom they had taken from an immigrant party. He said they had killed all the party except this pretty young girl. A company was raised to rescue the girl. With the Indian for guide, they came to the encampment in the mountains. Without parley of any kind, they opened fire and killed fourteen Indians. [This may be the incident that August V. Kautz recorded as having taken place in the summer of 1853.]
    This was brutal and should be condemned by all just people. No white woman was found. The boy still insisted that she was there. Another party was formed and I went with them, hoping I could prevent further trouble. We went to the place where the Indians had been massacred and saw where they had buried their dead. We encamped and I walked on up the mountain, which was very steep. I stepped up on a ledge of rocks and this brought me face to face with an old Indian man, about fifteen feet distant. He started to run but I made signs to him to stop, and I went to him and patted him on the shoulder and tried to make him understand that I was a friend. He could not understand a word I said, so I took him down to camp and with the boy as interpreter, made him understand what the trouble was all about.
    Great drops of perspiration stood on his brow and the tears ran down his face as he rubbed his hands together violently to show they were free from any crime to the white people. Nearly all his family had been killed, and I felt so sorry for him that I could scarcely refrain from tears myself. The Indian boy, thinking to gain something from the white people, had caused all this trouble. He was tried by the tribe and sentenced to run the gantlet. Of course he did not get through alive, and I felt it to be a just punishment.
    After the treaty by which we purchased Eastern Oregon, we returned to the Willamette Valley and were soon on our way to the mouth of the Rogue River, to make a treaty with all the coast tribes. We had notified the Indians to meet us at that place at a certain time.
    When we arrived we found about seven hundred Indians assembled and more coming in. An Indian boy concluded that he would try his gun at a white man just to see how it would shoot, and fired away from a distance of about eighty yards at a man named Buford. The bullet passed through his shoulder, making a flesh wound. Buford went to the miner's camp at the mouth of Rogue River, five miles below our camp, and raised a company of seventy-five miners to hang the Indian boy. Agent Ben Wright and I knew that this would scatter the Indian tribes, which had been assembled with great difficulty, and so defeat the treaty. We put the boy in the house and took our stand at the door. After explaining the situation, it was agreed that he should be tried by a civil magistrate, and this satisfied the mob.
    We sent the Indian boy, under guard, down the river in a canoe to the magistrate's office. He was committed and ordered sent back to our camp for safekeeping. But this did not satisfy Buford. He and two others took a canoe and went in pursuit. They soon overtook the file of soldiers in charge of the boy and declared their intention to kill him. The Sergeant protested and put the boy down in the canoe between his knees. Buford came alongside and fired, the ball passing through the boy and the canoe. At this the soldiers fired, killing all three men.
    They brought the bodies of the two white men and the Indian to camp and reported the other man shot. The Indians were greatly excited, but as there had been three white men killed for one Indian, they considered it a fair exchange and quiet was soon restored.
    We now had a thousand Indians in camp, and it became a problem to feed them. From some fishermen we hired a seine about eight hundred feet in length. One end of the seine was made fast to the shore and the other was taken in a boat which was rowed out into the stream and then allowed to swing round with the tide. When both ends of the seine were on shore again, a large force of Indians was employed to haul it in. It was literally full of salmon, hundreds of which weighed from thirty to forty pounds. The seine would not hold one-tenth of them. However when the fish were drawn into a small compass, the Indians waded in and threw them on shore by the hundred. This provided enough food for the entire party for four or five days. At the conclusion of this treaty, we returned to the Willamette Valley.
    I was then ordered to the Rogue River country to use my influence in making peace. There had been several hard-fought battles and many of the Indians had surrendered, some to the volunteers and others to the regular troops. There was jealousy and bad feeling between the regular troops and the volunteers, the latter refusing to surrender the Indians they had taken to the officers of the regular army.
    Instead, they turned them over to me. The Indians all agreed to a treaty of peace and were to be taken to the Reservation, which had been prepared for them at Yamhill. The army officers decided to send part of the Indians by steamer, but they suspected treachery and would not go on board unless I said it was all right. Col. Buchanan, who was in command, sent his orderly up the mountain to my camp with the request that I come to his headquarters. I told the orderly to say to him that I was just then at breakfast but would be down in a few minutes. It so insulted him that I should keep him waiting long enough to finish my breakfast, that he ordered the sentry not to admit me when I did come.
    I hurried down and on my arrival was halted by the sentry and told that I could not see the Colonel. I said, "Very well," and returned to camp. During the day I received another message, to which I paid no attention. The next morning Col. Buchanan and two of his captains came up to my camp. "Well, sir," he said, "If you can't come to see me I reckon I can come to see you."
    My temper was a little aroused and I remarked that "If the mountain would not go to Mahomet, Mahomet could go to the mountain." I told him that I had been to his tent but had been refused admittance by the guard.
    He then said that he wished me to advise the Indians to go by steamer and I promised him that they would go that way and he left in a good humor. I had a talk with the Indians and the next day about 500 of them went aboard a steamer and left for Portland. The remainder, about 400, were turned over to me and a company of U.S. soldiers ordered to accompany me until we crossed the Umpqua River. I continued my journey north until I reached the mouth of the Salmon River, where I halted and established a station and remained several months.
    The Indians under my care had been the last to surrender and were the most warlike of all the tribes. For three weeks after my arrival at Salmon [River] station the sound of the war dance was incessant, and I learned from a friendly band that they were holding war dances over the scalp of their former Agent, Ben Wright, whom they had treacherously murdered.
    I had no one with me now except my interpreter and a squad of soldiers, about ten in number, who had been sent over for my protection. These were encamped about two miles from my station and might as well have been anywhere else as far as any protection they gave me. I sent for the warrior whom I learned had murdered Agent Wright and for the chief. I took them into the Agency building and told them that I was informed they were holding war dances over Agent Wright's scalp, and that I wanted them to produce it at once. They denied bitterly knowing anything about it, but I told them that they were lying, and was firm in my demand for the scalp. The Chief then said he would send and see. He sent a messenger who returned and reported no scalp to be found and said that the Indians had lied to me about it.
    I then stepped to the door and locked it and told them I would kill them both before they left the room if they did not produce the scalp. At this the Chief gave a war whoop and in ten minutes fifty armed warriors surrounded the Agency building. They started to break in the door, but I threw it wide open and with my six-shooter leveled in their faces told them I would kill the first man who attempted to enter. They took hold of my interpreter and jerked him outside, but he being a powerful man soon extricated himself and came back into the house. I then turned to the Chief and told him I would give him just ten minutes in which to produce the scalp. Seeing that his time had come, he ordered the Indians to give it up. [This incident is recorded in J. Ross Browne's report of November 17, 1857.] I kept the scalp several years and then gave it to Dr. Bailey of New Mexico.
    I was then ordered to abandon the Salmon [River] station and take charge of the Grand Ronde Agency. This I did, remaining there eight months. It was extremely disagreeable there, so I asked permission to establish an agency on the Siletz River, near the coast. The land there was very fertile and the climate pleasant. I remained at the Siletz Agency until I resigned as Indian Agent and returned to the eastern states, though I had no end of trouble there.
    It was necessary to take on this reservation several tribes from different parts of the country. They were constantly at war with each other and plotting to get me out of the way, for they regarded me as the chief obstacle to their returning to their former homes.
    They laid several plots to assassinate me, but these all fell through, as I was warned by friendly tribes. One day I saw the Indian who killed Agent Wright riding from tribe to tribe and lodge to lodge. I knew there was something wrong, so I buckled on my six-shooter and walked out to the nearest lodges to learn what the trouble was. The Indian saw me and rode up, throwing himself on the opposite side of his horse and firing his six-shooter at me as he did so, the ball passing over my head. I sprang forward with my six-shooter in hand until I passed the horse's head. The Indian was just raising his pistol to shoot again when I fired, the ball taking effect under his right arm and causing him to drop his pistol. He started to run but fell forward on his face. The Indians then came from every side. I turned my six-shooter first on one side and then another and kept them at bay until a file of soldiers arrived from the block-house which was about five hundred yards distant. While I was holding the Indians at bay, the wounded Indian raised up on his elbow and was taking aim at my back. I turned just in time to save myself and jumped to one side. As he was too weak to roll over he fell on his face. I shot him between the shoulders and that settled him.
    On another occasion there was a plot to assassinate me. I had gone to Portland for funds to pay off my employees. The Indians decided to waylay me on my return trip, kill me, take the money, and leave the reservation. But my faithful Indian friends met me seventy-five miles from the reservation and warned me that Old John's band was lying in wait to kill me.
    I went to Fort Hoskins and reported to Captain Augur. He sent a company of soldiers to the Agency with me, a distance of thirty-five miles. There were no intervening settlements. Within sixteen miles of the Agency, we discovered the Indians' ambuscade. They had spent days watching for my return, but had been notified by a spy who left the Fort in advance of our command and they had just left their place of concealment when we arrived.
    I saw that Old Chief John could not be held on the reservation much longer and advised his removal. He and his son were sent to the barracks in San Francisco as prisoners of war. With this dangerous spirit out of the way, things ran more smoothly at the Agency.
    On the way to San Francisco, when opposite their old home the steamer landed at Port Orford, John and his son attempted to take the ship. They overpowered the guard and disarmed him, then rushed on deck intending to jump overboard and swim ashore. However, Old John was struck over the head with a broadsword and his son was shot through the knee, and later had to have his leg amputated. There was great alarm on board among the lady passengers who screamed with fright and said the Indians would kill them all. However after this they reached San Francisco without further trouble.
    Prior to this I had foreseen trouble, as the Indians nearly all had firearms. I asked for a company of soldiers to aid me in disarming them. Lieut. Phil Sheridan was sent over with a company of soldiers for this purpose. Upon his arrival I issued an order for al1 of the Indians to come in and give up their firearms. They all obeyed except one tribe which refused to give up its arms, so I called on Sheridan for assistance. He said he did not think it advisable to use force, and could not obey the order unless I put it in writing. This I did, but he still refused to aid me. I told him then to take his company and report to Capt. Augur at Fort Hoskins.
    I then armed a trusty band of Indians to aid me and sent for the rebellious chief. He still refused to give up his arms, saying that Sheridan had given him permission for his band to retain them. I told him that Sheridan was not his Agent and that I would give him just one hour in which to give up his arms. I showed him the band of armed warriors who would enforce my order. The arms were soon delivered and the chief released.
    Sheridan, to shield his own shortcomings, brought charges against me of "cruel and inhuman treatment of the Indians." These charges were forwarded to the War Department and turned over to the Department of Interior for investigation. I made a report to the department, showing Sheridan's interference with the policy I had adopted for the government of the Indians, and his refusal to assist me in carrying it out. I explained that it would not do to disarm all but one band and allow them to murder the unarmed at will. In this I was sustained by the Department at Washington and Sheridan was censured for his course. [See 1857 correspondence of the Oregon Superintendency.]
    I could never overcome the superstition of these Indians. They believed a medicine man could will a man to die and no power on earth could save him. Several battles were fought between the tribes on the Reservation to avenge ills supposed to have been inflicted by the medicine men of other tribes.
    I told them that if their doctors possessed such powers, I would give them full permission to practice on me, but they answered that their charms would not take effect on a white man. During the early settlement of the country their doctors were nearly exterminated by their own people for allowing the white people to come into their country. Finally one of their medicine men, who had more sagacity than the others, explained that the white man was different from the Indian, and to prove that he was right, said that he would make bad medicine on the army of whites who were encamped about five miles distant. Beginning his medicine dance and incantations, he would pretend to grab something invisible and hurl it towards the camp of white people. This imaginary substance soon returned with a fearful odor which he succeeded in making the Indians believe they could smell. He held his nose and told them that the medicine had decayed from coming in contact with the white men and thus had no effect upon them.
    After this explanation the slaughter of the medicine men ceased and they were restored to favor once more. To prove to them that their medicine men were frauds, I agreed to take an Indian into the Agency with me and allow them to make bad medicine on him, promising that if they killed him I would allow them to return to their country. This was the one thing they most desired. They had been forcibly taken from the country which their tribes had occupied for centuries, and their chief sorrow had been in leaving the graves of their ancestors, which they knew would be desecrated by the white people.
    The Indians had great trouble in finding a subject willing to let the medicine men practice upon him. Finally by agreeing to give a large reward they secured a little twelve-year-old boy from a squaw. She accompanied him to the Agency, weeping as if her heart would break, fully believing that she would never see him alive again. When the medicine men appeared in their hideous costumes, I saw that the boy was trembling all over and was scared then, almost to death. Fearing that he really would die of fright, I refused to take him, telling them that I believed they had done something to the boy before they brought him to me, which would cause his death. As they could find no one willing to take his place, the plan fell through.
    I was in bad health at this time, and one of their medicine men began to brag that he had been making bad medicine on me for several months and that I would soon die. Some of my Indian friends came to me and told me very confidentially what the medicine man said.
    I sent for him to come to the Agency and in order to punish him for his ill will towards me, I told him that I would give him a certain length of time in which to make good medicine on me and counteract the bad that he had been making, and if at the end of that time I had not improved, I would have him killed. He began his dancing and kept it up for twenty-four hours. During this time he would send to the Agency every half hour to find out how I was feeling. When I thought him sufficiently punished I sent word that I was about well and that he could go home. After this I had no more trouble with the medicine men.
    I had a picture of a beautiful woman which hung in my office. Many of the Indians had never seen a picture before. No matter what position one took in the room, the eyes of the picture appeared to follow you. An Indian boy about 15 years old came into the office one day and, seeing the picture, asked what it was. I told him that it was a ghost, put there to watch intruders and see that they did not carry off anything. To prove this, I told him to walk across the floor and see for himself. He stepped in and walked across the floor, his eyes fixed on the portrait, then turned towards the door and when quite certain of his exit he shot like an arrow from a bow, and I never saw him near the Agency again.
    I found I could govern many of them better by playing on their superstition than by using force, and many times resorted to strategy to carry a point. Frequently I amused myself by ridiculing their superstitions. I arranged with the white employees to make a veritable ghost by cutting holes in a keg for the mouth, nose and eyes, then covering it with red flannel, and placing a lighted candle inside. Taking advantage of a very dark night, I mounted this keg on a truck with long ropes attached to either end, and placed it in front of their lodges where it could be drawn first one way and then the other by means of the ropes. My interpreter was instructed to go to their lodge and engage them in conversation while we were getting the ghost in position. Then he was to come out and discover, with them, the apparition and send for me, to prove to me that there was really such a thing as a ghost. At first I refused to go, telling them I did not believe it. They came for me a second time, and when I went out they showed me a living ghost, moving about, and wanted to know what to do with it.
    "Kill it, of course," I said.
    About thirty warriors, armed with bows and arrows, raised a war whoop and made two or three charges, falling back each time. I upbraided them and told them they were afraid. Then they made a final charge and filled the keg with arrows, thus discovering the trick I had played on them. They withdrew from the contest very much mortified.
    I was a great lover of wild animals and built a park in which I collected three bears, black and cinnamon, several elk, deer, antelope, beaver, coons, wild ducks, geese and pigeons, and sandhill cranes. In my isolated position I enjoyed the society of these wild animals very much. I trained the elk to harness and enjoyed many a spin behind them.
    The crane I taught to run races with me and I found him to be most intelligent. I frequently took him hunting with me and he always saw the game before I did and gave me notice by making a peculiar noise. I kept one of his wings clipped to prevent his leaving with wild flocks, which were frequently seen flying over the park. Finally I gave him to a sea captain who made a sailor of him. He made several trips to the Sandwich Islands and to San Francisco, where he walked the streets with the captain.
    The beavers were also subjects of great interest. They were almost human in intelligence.
    When I first established this Siletz Agency, the Indians were mostly wild bands who had never come in contact with the white people to any extent. They were almost wholly dependent upon the government for food and raiment. I hired white farmers to cultivate the soil and to instruct all the Indians whom I could induce to labor, but when it came to dividing the crops there was dissatisfaction. Those who had worked claimed more than those who had not, although I had paid the industrious ones for every day's work. The next year I divided the lands among the tribes and hired white men to instruct them, but I had the same trouble as the year before. Some would work and others would not, yet they could not see why they should not have just as much as those who did work. I made a distinction in favor of the latter, and the next year divided the lands so as to give the head of each family a piece of land, with tools, teams and seed, and white men to instruct them. They raised enough potatoes and grain to support themselves, and this was a great saving to the government.
    I made an effort to establish schools, but did not have much success owing to the opposition I met with from the parents. They demanded pay for every day their children went to school, and I never did succeed in convincing them that the schooling was for the benefit of the child, and no profit to me. A few did attend school, and I was surprised to see with what rapidity they learned to spell, read and write. I tried to establish a democratic form of government among them by allowing them to elect their chiefs and sub-chiefs, but I found the principle of hereditary monarchy too firmly rooted to make any change. In the fall of this year I handed in my resignation, to take effect the first of November, so as to give the Department time to select my successor. [Metcalfe's resignation took effect September 30, 1859.]
    I was chosen as a delegate to the National Democratic Convention to be held at Charleston, South Carolina. I came east to attend the Convention and to make a final settlement with the government of my accounts with the Indian Bureau. We failed to make a nomination at Charleston and adjourned to Baltimore, where John C. Breckinridge was nominated for President and my old friend, Gen. Lane, for Vice-President. History tells what followed: Civil War, in which I took part as a private soldier in the Confederate army, one of Terry's Texas Rangers.
    I now propose to close my eyes and pass over four years of my life with only this remark. I served the Confederacy faithfully and was with the last regiment in the Confederate army to surrender, and am glad of it.
    At Richmond, Texas [sic], the night before we surrendered, Jack Baylor and I were sent to guard the home of General ------. We were assured a good supper and bed. It was bitterly cold so we looked forward to a good supper and a comfortable night with much pleasure. When we arrived and presented our order from our Colonel to Mrs. ------, she told us we could take our blankets and go on guard outside the gate and keep anyone from disturbing her property. We told her that we had had no supper and had no blankets with us. "Well, you can go back and get your blankets," she replied. Baylor walked two miles and a half to camp for our blankets and returned in the cold to find our supper, which the woman had set out, awaiting him. It consisted of a tin pan of very old clabber, and not even a spoon with which to eat it. The atmosphere was warm around there for awhile. The Colonel reprimanded the woman severely next day for her treatment of us.
    The night before we surrendered, Tom McGee and I took all the guns belonging to our company that we could carry to a graveyard on a hill about a hundred yards from camp and placed them in an old tomb, one that was built up and had a flat slab across the top. Thus we were spared surrendering our arms to the Yankees.
    I was not in favor of secession but thought we should have claimed to be the government and raised the United States' flag, and charged the North with trying to break up the government by trespassing on our constitutional rights. Time has shown the wisdom of a united country.
    After the war, I married a beautiful girl in Texas, who was frail as a delicate flower. We had two children, a girl and a boy, to whom I was greatly attached. Consumption removed the mother and both children within the space of four months. This left me in a sad plight, broken in health and fortune, so I decided to go west again. A younger brother, John Metcalfe, and two other young men went with me. We started from my river plantation which was on the Yegua River, in Washington Co., Texas, and went due north through the woods, intending to take the first public road we found leading west. We went on horseback with one mule to pack our blankets and provisions.
    When we arrived on the western frontier of Texas we were told that the Indians were on the war path and the chances were about even for us to get through. I felt that my condition could not be worse and I would welcome death at the hands of the Indians in preference to remaining in Texas and dying by inches with malaria, so we continued our journey west and got through without any serious trouble.
    It was my original intention to go to California, but when we arrived at El Paso we learned that new discoveries of silver in great abundance had been made near Pinos Altos, at New Mexico, so we decided to have a look at these new discoveries. When we arrived at the Mimbres River I found the excitement intense. The next day we only traveled five miles, and camped at Ojo Caliente, the identical camp I had made twenty-one years before on my way to California. Though nearly a quarter of a century had passed, time had wrought little change. The country was still in its wild state.
    We moved on from here to the mines, a distance of about sixteen miles. There I found six or eight men all in high spirits over their find. I remained here two weeks prospecting; I made two or three locations [of mining claims] but none of much value. We then organized a company of fifty men to work some gold placers over in Arizona where the Apache Indians were continually on the war path. We made our way over there with great difficulty, as there were no roads and the mountains were very steep and rugged.
    When we arrived at the gold field, we found we would have to pack the gold dirt four miles on mules and burros and, falling to find as rich a strike as reported, we decided to return to New Mexico. On this trip we did not find much gold, but we found mountains of copper.
    I took samples of the ore with me and told the others that all this copper would one day be valuable. I was laughed at and told that I would never live to see the day when a pound of copper could be taken out from where we were for less than double what it was worth. The nearest railroad at that time was twelve hundred miles away in Kansas. I knew that I was right, for we were in the only pass through which a railroad could run to California, and sooner or later it must come near this great mountain of copper.
    On our way back we met a band of Indians, attacked them, and drove them from their lodges, which we burned. We secured quite a supply of roasted maguey, which we found very palatable.
    I went prospecting for silver again and was quite fortunate in making some good locations, one of which I sold for $4000. During this time I worked for many weeks with no other food than "frijoles" or Mexican beans, boiled in fresh water. There was not a pound of bacon or lard in the entire country except at the military posts. This could not be obtained by private citizens.
    Finally several wagons came up from Old Mexico, loaded with bacon for the soldiers. One of the wagons was filled with hog jowls which the soldiers refused to take. The Mexicans sold these to the miners, and I secured enough to last me until some enterprising citizen came with supplies and established a little store. The jowls gave me something with which to season my beans, and I felt rich indeed. Jowl and frijoles continued to be my diet for several months.
    At this time I learned that the man whom I had left in charge of my farm in Texas had brought charges against me for several years' labor and claimed to have loaned me large sums of money, all of which was false. His plan was to steal, as he did not expect me to live when I left home. He claimed my farm and all the stock, cattle and work mules that I had left behind with which to cultivate the farm. Fortunately I was not as near dead as he thought. I sold two small locations for two thousand dollars and took the stage to Washington County, Texas, and soon put an end to his false claims. On settlement I found I had overpaid him and that he was in my debt.
    He had married a very respectable girl on the strength of being the owner of my farm. I sent him away and, placing the farm in other hands, returned to New Mexico, where I pursued my mining operations with varied success.
    I opened correspondence with one E. B. Ward, a member of the Calumet & Hecla Copper Co. Through him I met a very intelligent German who had worked in the copper reduction works in Swansea, Wales. From these people I learned the great and growing importance of copper. I took my brother and one other man and quietly left the settlement at midnight to locate those great copper mines in eastern Arizona.
    We were taking our lives in our hands, for the Indians were on the war path and many persons had been killed. But the importance of the venture justified the risk. We got through, however, without accident and located all those properties which I named the Clifton Copper Mines.
    I built the first house in Clifton, Arizona, and named the town, also naming Globe, Arizona, and Silver City, New Mexico. In January 1877 I married a Kentucky girl who braved the dangers and hardships of the new country with me.
    I was now the richest man in Arizona or New Mexico, but did not have enough money to hold and work these properties. I decided to take in some partners who had money. In this I made a great mistake in letting in some unscrupulous persons who robbed me unmercifully, and would have taken all I had except for fear of being killed, which I assured them would be the case if they pressed things any further. I agreed to give them one-third interest in the mines on condition that they would furnish the money to obtain government title to all the property.
    They obtained my copy of the contract by theft and destroyed the paper, and then tried to hold the entire property for money which they had advanced to develop the mines. They had agreed to do this for one-third interest. With the contract destroyed, they claimed there had been no contract made, and as there was no law in the country then, it became necessary to settle the matter with firearms.
    I armed several young men whom I had taken out there from Texas, and laid down my terms for settlement. I told them I would give them twenty-four hours to accept, or on their refusal to do so, I promised that none of them would ever leave those mountains alive. When they saw that I was fixed for business and really meant what I said, they were only too glad to settle.
    The nearest railway was now at Deming, New Mexico, one hundred and fifty miles away, and the ore had to be hauled in wagons to that point and shipped to the smelter at Denver.
    Our mines were the "Longfellow," "Little Annie," "Fair Play," "Metcalfe," and a number of others. These afterwards formed the great Arizona Copper Company. In 1881 I sold my interest to this Scotch syndicate which has taken many millions from these mines.
    My wife and I then returned to Kentucky and purchased a farm near Lexington, so that we might rear our children in our native state.
Mss. C M, Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky
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    The Indians on Applegate Creek are exceedingly troublesome; they are constantly stealing stock from the settlers, as well as from those on Cottonwood. Messrs. Cram, Rogers & Co. and M. B. Morris have had several fine horses stolen by these "red devils," which have been recovered from them by R. B. Metcalfe, Esq., the well known and popular mountain guide in the late Indian war. A petition is in circulation and being universally signed by the citizens of this county, asking Congress to appoint him Special Indian Agent for Southern Oregon. From his thorough knowledge of the Indian character, and of the country which they inhabit, together with his influence with the several tribes who infest this valley, as well as that of Shasta, he would no doubt make an efficient officer.-Ib. [from the Yreka Mountain Herald, December 3, 1853]
"From Yreka," Shasta Courier, Shasta City, California, December 10, 1853, page 2
Appointments Confirmed by the Senate
John F. Miller, agent for the Indians in Oregon.
Robert B. Metcalfe, agent for the Indians in Oregon.
Evening Star, Washington, D.C., August 19, 1856, page 2


OREGON.
Lansing Stout, Washington, D.C.
J. K. Lamerick, Jacksonville.
Isaac I. Stevens, Washington, D.C.
Justus Steinberger, Washington, D.C.
R. B. Metcalfe, Independence, Texas.
A. P. Dennison, The Dalles, Oregon.
"List of Delegates to the National Democratic Convention," The Charleston Daily Courier, Charleston, South Carolina, April 30, 1860, page 6


    SETTLED AT LAST.--R. B. Metcalfe publishes a card in one of the upcountry papers setting forth that he has satisfactorily settled his accounts with the Indian Department. The journal publishing it appears to be much comforted by Mr. Metcalfe's success in straightening his affairs.
Oregonian, Portland, April 5, 1861, page 3

INDEPENDENCE, Texas, Aug. 14, 1869.
    EDITOR STAR--Dear Sir:--Some months since I wrote to Los Angeles for the Times, not knowing what papers were published there; since which time I have been receiving the Star regularly, for which allow me to express a due sense of gratitude for your kindness, and to assure you that the Star is all that the most fastidious could wish as a family paper--political, agricultural, literary, &c. It is to me truly an oasis on the great desert of literary sands and trash. I will send you the remaining six months' subscription in a few days.Cast my vote for B. D. Wilson. I will bring or send him varieties of the Texas native grape this winter, which I think will be equal or superior to any grown in California as a wine grape. We frequently gather wagonloads from one vine, without cultivation. Cotton and corn crops of Texas [are] better than ever known, and the people of Louisiana and Texas are beginning to feel the importance of a southern railroad through Texas to El Paso and the Pacific Coast.
Yours, respectfully,
    R. B. Metcalfe.
Los Angeles Star, September 11, 1869, page 2


    Does "Banditti" Sheridan remember the cursing Robert Metcalfe of Washington County, Texas, gave him in Oregon when he was a lieutenant, and how he refused to fight because Metcalfe was only an Indian agent and citizen? Robert says his only regret is that he did not wear him out against the ground at the time. He was "afraid" then, if he is not now.
Dallas Weekly Herald, Texas, January 9, 1875, page 2

    Mr. Robert B. Metcalfe, formerly of Silver City, and whose name has frequently appeared in connection with mines and mining, was lately on a visit to Tucson. He has found two large copper mines in the Pinal Mountains, and has gone back to open up his possessions.
"Mining Matters," The Arizona Citizen, Tucson, April 29, 1876, page 3
Globe District.
    Three wagonloads of ore arrived from the Globe district, Arizona, this week. We were shown some specimens by Charles Williamson, which were unusually rich--and at a guess, we would say would go up in the thousands--perhaps $10,000 or $12,000 per ton. The average number of miners and prospectors in the district is not far from two hundred. Those who have claims are generally making money and are consequently happy. Most of this ore is taken west to Florence and San Francisco--the richest of it to the latter place. A gentleman here from that district, but not interested in these shipments, has informed us that better prices are paid for Globe district ore here than in San Francisco. Some three or four weeks since, "the hoodoo man," or the man of the mysterious forked stick, left the Globe district fur the Pacific Coast, taking with him two tons and a half [of] generally float ore which has been estimated by adepts in mineral value at $30,000.
    A town has been surveyed in this district on Pinal Creek, very near the eastern slope of the Pinal Mountains, twenty-five miles south of Salt River and thirty-five miles northwest of the San Carlos Indian agency. Preparations for building had already commenced.
    R. B. Metcalfe and E. M. Pierce each had an adobe ready for roofing. Tents and miner's cabins are quite numerous in various parts of the district. Grant County is well represented there; not a few of our veteran prospectors, as soon as "the discovery" was heralded abroad, left our diggings and pitched their tents in the new silver fields, where they still are and [are] likely to remain.--[Grant County Herald, July 1.
The Arizona Citizen, Tucson, July 8, 1876, page 3
A Peculiar Case Involving a Kentucky Girl and a New Mexico Pioneer.
    About ten years ago, says the Louisville Evening News, a stalwart young Kentuckian, of robust figure and knightly mien, was passing through the streets of the little town of Monticello, in Wayne County, and was espied by a fair maiden, who sat at the window of its most [palatial] residence.
    The hero of this romantic episode was unaware that his splendid physique and noble bearing had immutably impressed itself upon the heart of the invisible girl. She was possessed of all the innumerable blessings of wealth, culture and refinement, and he was a poor young man "prospecting" for a fortune, with nothing but his splendid manhood and intrepid spirit to bank on. The young lady returned to her country home and visions of love's sweet, sweet dream, and the unconscious Abelard of the fair Heloise's fancy went West to seek his fortune. His objective point was Texas, and his next figure appeared as an humble cattle-herder in the western part of that state. From this position he soon rose to be the proprietor of a ranch, and amassed quite a little fortune.
    Thence he went to California and into the gold business. After many ups [and] downs, many reverses and hardships, he found himself the proprietor of a silver mine in New Mexico. His newfound fortune quit her capricious tricks, and turned her cornucopia bottom upward in his lap, and he became the owner of several mines, and founded the town of Silver City, New Mexico, his present home.
    The young lady remained at home, pursuing her studies, and relieving the tedium of country life by contributing weekly articles to the columns of the Apostolic Times, a journal published in Lexington in the interest of the Reform Church. She had developed unusual literary attainments in addition to her extraordinary personal attractions.
    Daring all these ten years they had kept up a regular correspondence. He had a mind well stored with judicious reading, and their correspondence dealt with all subjects that could portray the respective characters of the two. He studiously kept his propitious fortune from her knowledge, and she has cautiously refrained from any allusion to her personal charms or surroundings.
    A few weeks ago a letter from that far-off country contained a proposition for an immediate marriage, and the answer can be surmised from his appearance at the Galt House by the next train. The young lady had made her preparations at a fashionable modiste's in this city, and the next day the gentleman first saw his future wife.
    The marriage was immediately arranged, and took place in the Christian Church, in the neighborhood of Monticello, on last Wednesday a week.
    The gentleman who won this inestimable prize, the heart and hand of a true-hearted and cultivated woman, who had been constant to her unrevealed love for 10 years, is Mr. R. B. Metcalfe, formerly of Bourbon County, Ky.
    The young lady was Miss Annie Berry, of Wayne County. Mr. and Mrs. Metcalfe, after spending a few days with their friends in this city, left for their Pacific home, and will be surprised to find on her arrival at Silver City that she is the wife of the greatest capitalist of New Mexico.
Marion County Record, Marion, Kansas, February 23, 1877, page 1


    MR. R. B. METCALFE and family and T. B. Clark arrived yesterday from Los Angeles. Mr. Metcalfe was for several years superintendent of the Longfellow copper mine, and was the original locator.
"Local Matters," Arizona Citizen, Tucson, February 14, 1880, page 4
A $3,000,000 Sale.
    The Globe Silver Belt says that the Lesinsky brothers have sold to a Scotch company the Longfellow, Coronado and Queens group of copper mines at Clifton, Arizona, and their appurtenances, including four miles of railroad which leads from the smelter to the Longfellow mine, for $2,000,000. The same company have also purchased the noted Metcalfe group in the same district, for $1,000,000. In addition to this immense outlay the company have a reserve fund of $2,000,000. It is the intention of the purchasers to build a railroad to connect their works with some one of tho continental lines. We are under the impression that Ed. Polk and Charles M. Shannon were copartners with Metcalfe and Porter in the Metcalfe group. We are also informed that a sale is virtually closed for another valuable copper property at Clifton belonging to Charles M. Shannon and Bella M. Hughes. The purchase money, as stated to us, is $1,000,000. All of these mines were located by Robert B. Metcalfe in 1872.
    It is a source of gratification to us to know that Messrs. Metcalfe, Shannon, Polk, and the Lesinsky brothers are so comfortably provided for. They are worthy men and merit this rich return for their many privations during the time they braved the danger of that exposed frontier settlement, which their energy and forecast created.
    The price paid for the property, although apparently large, is greatly below its value.
    The above reported sale is not credited here, inasmuch as the Lesinsky brothers are too shrewd business men to part with a property for such a sum, however large it may seem, when they have unlimited confidence in its future and are realizing on its product over $40,000 net per month.
The Arizona Citizen, Tucson, September 12, 1882, page 2
MONEY IN COPPER.
A Chat With Two Arizona Miners--A Heavy Election Bet.
    Mr. R. B. Metcalfe and Mr. Charles M. Shannon, the copper mine owners of Clifton, Arizona, are at the Laclede [Hotel] today. Mr. R. B. Metcalfe will be remembered as the gentleman who, two years ago, sold a group of mines in Arizona for exactly $1,240,000, and still retains several valuable mining properties. He is the first discoverer of the copper mines in Arizona.
    "I went out there in '68," said he, "and put up the first shanty in Silver City. It was under a big beech tree. Several weeks afterwards the party of us found the copper mines at Clifton. I said that there was money in them, and the rest laughed at me and asked me if I was foolish enough to think that copper could ever be shipped from that place at a profit. I replied that I knew something about new countries and that I would take that property and would own it when I died or would get as much money as I wanted out of it."
    Mr. Metcalfe held the mines for twelve years and then made the sale which has been mentioned. There is a railroad running through the camp and into the mines on which are shipped about 150,000 pounds a week of pure copper. Mr. Shannon, who is associated with Mr. Metcalfe in business, and is editor of the Southwest Sentinel, is one of the principals of the heaviest bet made on the last election. He bet a friend his mine, valued at $600,000, against his friend's property valued at $500,000 that Cleveland would be elected. The wager was published at the time, and traveled through all of the newspaper offices.
St. Louis Dispatch, St. Louis, Missouri, December 12, 1884, page 2


    James K. Metcalfe, of Silver City, New Mexico, has written a letter to Secretary Lamar suggesting a solution of the difficulties now existing at the San Carlos Indian Reservation. He says he was in charge of the Shasta, Rogue River and Coast Indians in Oregon for a number of years. His plan is as follows: "Send all the soldiers to the reservation; let them take charge of every woman and child on the reservation. Then say to the bucks: 'You must bring those hostile Indians in, dead or alive, or your wives and children will be taken to a far-off land, where you will never see them again.' Take my word for it, in less than two months the trouble will end. Require them to bring in the live Indian or his head. Send a few Mexicans along to see that they do not bring in Mexican heads--they are no fools in cunning. When the hostile bucks are brought in try and execute every one who was on the warpath, and do it in the presence of all the Indians. Our Eastern Indian lovers will howl over such a measure--call it murder, and every paper will pipe over it. Let them yell. These hostile bucks deserve death as much as any other murderers."
"Pursuing the Indians," New York Times, June 7, 1885, page 8


        Bert Cross and R. B. Metcalfe have purchased a controlling interest in the Lexington street railway, paying $40,000 for it.
Daily Evening Bulletin, Maysville, Kentucky, September 7, 1886, page 4

Home from the Yellowstone Country.
    Major H. H. Gratz has returned home from a delightful visit to the Yellowstone National Park in company with Colonel R. B. Metcalfe. The two gentlemen took in all the sights going and coming, and brought home with them numerous souvenirs of the tour.
Kentucky Leader, Lexington, July 14, 1890, page 4
Early Life in the Far West
Bob Was Indian Agent in Oregon Then--Now He Is a Grandee in Mississippi.
    A year or so ago, on the overland, coming north, a familiar face came aboard at Medford and claimed acquaintance. It proved to be Nat Langell, that I had not seen for ever so long, but we were old-timers, and soon drifted into reminiscences. I had been on Rogue River in '51, before there was a settler, and had lived then through the Indian wars of '53 to '56, and could tell weird tales of firebrand and massacre that occurred in those fateful years, writes S. A. Clarke in the Oregonian.
    As we rode along through the December day, amid the changing scenes of the beautiful south country, Langell told how a recent meeting with Old John, last of the Rogue Rivers [John died in 1864], reminded him of a long-gone drama of life, few of whose actors remain. Forty years ago he was wagonmaster for an outfit that wended its slow way to convey northward the remnant of the fighters who spread death and desolation through Southern Oregon in the early '50s, until, at last, in 1856, they were conquered and removed to the Siletz Reservation, near the northern coast.
    His occupation won for him from the Indians the unique title of Chick-a-chick Tyee--"wagon chief." They all knew him--whites and Indians. Among the latter was the family of old Elijah, chief of the Applegate band, including his daughter Katie and her two children. Katie was a remarkably fine woman and very attractive, for she had a much lighter complexion and finer features than the ordinary savage; her two little girls were half-breeds, as she lived with and supposed herself the wife of Bob M----, who filled a profitable position as Indian agent. At least it yielded immense profit under his management. For years Katie supposed Robert to be entirely her own. She had been faithful to him, and thought their union was to be lasting. But "a change came o'er the spirit of her dreams," which had best he told in another paragraph.
    One of the most notable ones, if not the most notable man of Oregon in that day--a hero of the old Mexican War--had a daughter. The sire had presided at the treaty, and the daughter was found at her home on the Umpqua. She was a great prize in those days. George W. Lawson of Yamhill, who ran against Jo Lane for delegate to Congress ever so far back, was one of her liege-men. Bob M---- was another. George had been discarded. Winnie had given him the mitten, and the iron--if the simile is admissible--had entered his soul. Once on a time, when he deemed Bob M---- the coming man, he had importuned Nat Langell to show him Bob's woman, so my friend had taken him across Rogue River to the Indian camp and introduced him to Katie, who had her youngest little girl then in her arms. With exquisite irony of fate Lawson admired the babe, to flatter the mother, and suggested that he would bestow a gold piece upon the child if the mother would let him name it. She consented, and he named it Winnie [the name of Lane's daughter], which name they had grown used to when the long caravan of defeated braves and their families was wending its way through the Umpqua. It was somewhere about Winchester that Katie's heart was broken by the sight of her Bob riding past her on horseback, as the cavalier of charming Miss Winnie. Bob rode like a centaur and Miss Winnie like a sylph. All the wonders of caparison at that early time were wasted on their equipments. Winnie wore a riding habit and plumed hat; her eye was all alight and her cheek and lips were red as the blush of individual roses. This Katie saw, and her cheek grew pale, while her black eye flashed with fiercest flame. Bob had not noticed her or her child, as he rode past with his white blossom, and all the woman in her was desperate. For the first time it flashed upon her soul, through her jealous eye, that Bob could throw her off and wed one of his own race!
INDIAN WOMAN'S REVENGE.
    Revenge is as natural to an Indian woman as love. The only cure for betrayal was vengeance! She studied how to reach Bob's heart with a most terrible ache, and remembered that he was very fond of the little one. It was in this awful mood that the poor girl left her children, and, coming to Langell's tent, threw herself down in the utter abandon of grief and hate. A Niobe, except the tears. She was too mad to cry. Looking up with flashing eyes and trembling lips, the poor creature slowly and firmly said; "Not! okook polackly nika memaloose tenas Winnie!" That night she would kill little Winnie.
    This might have been an idle threat from some women, but not from an outraged Indian mother. Langell bestirred himself to work out some way of salvation, and Winnie was not sacrificed on the altar of jealousy. It was not an easy matter, but finally Chief Elijah and his good wife interfered to save the grandchild, by taking possession and keeping her in safe custody until the fit was over and maternal love overcame the green-eyed monster in Katie's soul.
    Soon after this the Civil War came on and Bob M., who was a southern man, gathered together the spoils of his official career and carried many shekels back to his native Mississippi, where he lives in opulence today, forgetful, probably, of the half-white waifs that he paid a white man $4,000 to bring up to civilized usages in Oregon. When he lately saw Old John, last of the Rogue Rivers, Langell learned that the two little girls have grown up and are respected women with families.
    The original Winnie did not marry as the jealousy of Lawson and Katie feared, but lived and passed away as the mother of an Oregon family. If Katie is living I do not know, but the incident strikes me as possessing interest among the romance of pioneer reminiscences.
    Not long after Langell told me this story of the bygone time, I was traveling through this valley when a young lady entered the car, and, finding a seat by my side, said: "Do you not know me? I am Winnie!" She, too, was named for the Winnie of this story, for the mother had been a youthful friend in that same vale of the Umpqua. This revived my memory of the story told me on that winter-day journey, and causes me to preserve this reminiscence of a bygone race and of that early time.
The Inter Lake, Kalispell, Montana, February 8, 1895, page 4


    Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Magruder have left, after a visit of a week's visit [sic] to the family of Col. R. B. Metcalfe. They expect to return to their home in Sonora, Mexico, in about ten days.
"Social and Personal," The Daily Leader, Lexington, Kentucky, July 4, 1897, page 22


    Col. R. B. Metcalfe, who has been in Mexico looking after some mining interests, has returned home.
"City Siftings," Morning Herald, Lexington, Kentucky, November 16, 1898, page 8

    Mrs. John James is in Los Angeles, California, spending some time with her parents, Col. and Mrs. R. B. Metcalfe. A recent letter from her tells of the ill health of Col. Metcalfe, who has not found the Western climate so beneficial as all had hoped for for him. Mr. Bela Metcalfe has been in New York visiting his sister, Mrs. Bayard Railey, and is again here with Mr. John James for a while before going back to California.
"Social-Personal," Lexington Leader, Lexington, Kentucky, October 9, 1904, page 8


DEATH
OF COL. ROBERT B. METCALFE.
 Heart Trouble Removes an Attractive
Character at the Advanced Age
of 81 Years--Sketch of Busy
Career.
    Col. Robert Baylor Metcalfe died at 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon at Woodlawn, his home on the Harrodsburg road. He was eighty-one years of age and had been ill for several weeks of heart trouble. Colonel Metcalfe was one of the most prominent men of this county and his long life had been one of adventure and distinction. The funeral services have been arranged for 11 o'clock Tuesday morning and will be conducted by Rev. Mark Collis. Two of Colonel Metcalfe's children, Mrs. J. G. James, of this county, and Mrs. Bayard Railey, of New York, were with him when he died. His son, Bela Metcalfe, of New York did not arrive until after his father's death.
    Col. Metcalfe was born in Paris, Bourbon County, Ky., on July 12, 1825. His father was a hemp merchant of Paris, Ky. While a lad he went with his father to Missouri. He received an appointment to West Point from Missouri and spent two years at the academy, and then went to Natchez by sailing vessel from New York. He read medicine until 1849, when the California gold fever struck the country. He started to California with a party of friends, going through Texas and New Mexico and Arizona, and while en route met with his father and another party. He encountered numerous hardships en route. Reaching California, he engaged in placer mining and merchandising for some time. He then went farther north and became the first government Indian agent in Oregon and Washington. [He was not.] Being a man of rare judgment, he soon gained considerable influence over the Indians, and during General Lane's campaign in the far Northwest he acted as interpreter and staff officer, and on several occasions his influence with the Indians saved the government forces from massacre. He was in the Indian service for a number of years, and had charge of conveying the different tribes from one reservation to another.
    Colonel Metcalfe was a delegate to the convention at Charleston, S.C. No nomination was made, and the convention adjourned to Baltimore, where General Breckinridge and General Lane were nominated. During the Civil War he was a Confederate soldier in Terry's Texas Rangers. After the war he went to Texas and engaged [in] ranching for a time and decided to go west again. On arriving at El Paso he learned that new discoveries of silver were made in New Mexico, and went there and stopped at the same camp he made on his trip to California in 1849. After prospecting in New Mexico, he went to Arizona, where he joined a prospecting company and located properties, which he worked for a number of years and afterward sold to the Arizona Copper Company. In 1877, Colonel Metcalfe married Miss Vie Phillips Berry, of Monticello, Ky., who accompanied him on his trip to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Two children, Maud and Sue, were born on the frontier, and not wishing to have his children grow up in Arizona, he came to Lexington in 1882 and purchased Woodlawn Farm, on the Harrodsburg pike. After locating in Lexington he became interested in public improvements and purchased the Lexington Street Railway. He also placed on his farm the best strains of blooded livestock money could buy.
    Colonel Metcalfe was a metallurgist of note, and since coming to Kentucky had accompanied a number of parties to Colorado, Arizona and Mexico to inspect mineral lands and pass judgment on them. During the past ten years Colonel Metcalfe has been in failing health and has made a number of trips in search of health--to Cuba and elsewhere. About two years ago he went to Los Angeles. He gradually grew weaker until last August, when he returned to Lexington, since which time he was confined to his room until his death.
Lexington Leader, Lexington, Kentucky, December 4, 1905, page 5
COLONEL R. B. METCALFE IS DEAD IN KENTUCKY
 (Journal Special Service.)
    Lexington, Ky., Dec. 4.--Colonel R. B. Metcalfe, one of the wealthiest men in central Kentucky, is dead here at the age of 80 years. For several years he had been engaged in breeding trotting horses, and during his career bred Oline, which defeated Ora Wilkes as a 3-year-old, making a record of 2:14¾.
    Metcalfe went to California in 1849 and became wealthy in the gold mines, and upon his return to this city built and for many years operated the first streetcar system. He was also United States Indian agent in Washington and Oregon for several years and was a delegate to the convention at Charleston, South Carolina, which nominated General Breckinridge for the presidency. Metcalfe was also a veteran of the Civil War, being a member of Terry's Rangers.
Oregon Journal, Portland, December 4, 1905, page 9
A GOOD MAN LAID TO REST.
    On the fourth of this month there passed from its house of clay to the realm of the great unknown the soul of a grand old man, Robert B. Metcalfe, who died in his Kentucky home near Lexington at an advanced old age of four score years or more. Mr. Metcalfe was born in Kentucky and reared there and was educated at West Point, but early in life became imbued with a spirit of adventure and a desire to explore the mysteries of the then unknown west, hence in 1849 he joined the great army of explorers and gold seekers that was pushing westward to the gold fields of California. In that state he remained for many years and through his personal popularity and ability many positions of public trust were conferred upon him. He was also successful in mining and amassed a fortune in California which he had the misfortune to lose through the fortunes of war, having invested his all in lands and slaves in the South. At the call to arms of his native state at the outbreak of the rebellion he joined the Confederate army and made a gallant record as a soldier. At the close of hostilities between the North and South Mr. Metcalfe settled in Texas as a planter, but that mode of life was not conducive to his energies and activity and the call of the West being upon him, again he retraced his steps hitherward and in this region between the Rio Grande and Colorado he spent many years of a busy life actively engaged in blazing the way for the settlement of this country by the present generation and for the ones yet to come. He first located at Silver City, N.M., in 1869, where he aided materially in the organization, establishment and settlement of that community. But he loved nature and the wilds of the mountain fastness and was thus led on to explore the surrounding country and in this way he first discovered and located the great mines of Clifton which have now become famous the world over. The great works here of the Arizona, Detroit and Shannon Copper companies attest the fact that Mr. Metcalfe builded better than he knew when he built the first locating monument ever erected in the camp on Longfellow Mountain in 1870. It was he who gave to the towns of Clifton, Metcalf and Globe their present names and in these towns he was the first to erect houses therein. Few men have left their impress for good upon a country more indelibly stamped than Mr. Metcalfe has his. He, and men like him, have erected a mighty empire out of the West, but alas! they are growing fewer and fewer every day, and yet the world can illy afford to lose them, for their places are hard to fill.
    Mr. Metcalfe's name was always a synonym for honor and integrity. He was forceful and strong among men and his energies knew no bounds. He was always loved, revered and respected by all classes and he died as he had lived--without an enemy.
    In 1876 Mr. Metcalfe was married to Miss V. P. Berry, of Kentucky, and from this union three children were born to bless him in his declining years. In 1882 he made a sale of his interests in this camp when he went back to the land of his birth where he settled upon a farm near Lexington, where he passed his last days. The last two years of his life he became a great sufferer from asthma, from which he sought relief by moving to California. But instead of finding relief he gradually grew worse, so with a desire to be at home and have his children around him when the end came he returned to Kentucky a few months ago.
    Mr. Metcalfe loved his friends and his family as only men of his intense nature could, and the latter idolized and worshiped him. They surrounded his bedside when his last hour came, so his life, to him, ended in a halo of glory. Mr. Metcalfe was an uncle of Baylor and C. M. Shannon. He also has a brother, "Uncle Jim" Metcalfe, who has resided at Mangas, near the Gila River, in Grant County, N.M.
    His friends were legion throughout the West, as well as the land of his nativity.
    Peace to his ashes!
Copper Era, Clifton, Arizona, December 14, 1905, page 3
THEORY
Of a Western Woman That She Is a
Daughter of Colonel Metcalfe
Doubted by Heirs.
SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.
    Lexington, Ky., January 7.--Letters received here from the law firm of Hendricks Brothers, at Fossil, Ore., state that a daughter of Colonel R. B. Metcalfe, who died here recently, resides there. If the claim is true she will receive one fourth of the estate, valued at $100,000. Attorney Charles Kerr has written to Fossil for more definite information. Colonel Metcalfe was twice married, but, according to his family by the second marriage, the two children by his first marriage died when they were quite young. His first wife was a resident of the Far West, and died there while Colonel Metcalfe was the government Indian agent in Idaho [sic].  His second wife, who survives him, was Miss Viola Berry, daughter of a wealthy farmer of Boyle County, and to this union were born three children--Mrs. John James, of this city; Mrs. Bayard Railey, and Baylor Metcalfe, of New York.
    The members of the family and their legal representatives scoff at the claim of the woman in the West that she is a daughter of the noted turfman and capitalist.
Cincinnati Enquirer, January 8, 1906, page 4
SURPRISES
Come Thick and Fast
 To the Bewildered Relatives of the
 Late Colonel Metcalfe--More
 Heirs Are Found.
SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.
    Lexington, Ky., January 13.--Further information received here during the past week regarding the claim that another heir to the estate left by the late Colonel R. B. Metcalfe had been found residing in Fossil, Ore., develops the fact that Colonel Metcalfe was the father of three daughters residing in the Far West, who were unknown to the family here. This fact, it is said tonight, was brought to light through correspondence between attorney M. H. Hendricks, of Fossil, and a local attorney, into whose hands attorney Hendricks' first letters were placed.
    It is said that the children living in the West have referred the family here to a brother of Colonel Metcalfe, who resides in Silver City, Idaho [sic], claiming that he will vouch fer the accuracy of their allegations and establish their identity to the satisfaction of all concerned.
    The fact that Colonel Metcalfe even had a brother living in the West was unknown to the people here, but in this connection is a peculiar coincidence related by Mrs. E. T. Barnette, wife of the purchaser of the "Woodlawn" farm, the transfer of which will be held up pending an investigation into the claims of the alleged wife in Oregon. Mrs. Barnette before her marriage resided in Seattle, Wash., and visited a family by the name of Metcalfe, and had seen a portrait of R. B. Metcalfe hanging on the wall of the library, but had no knowledge that the original of the portrait and the head of the Seattle household were brothers, although she had noticed a striking resemblance. Years later her husband brought her to Kentucky on a visit and while here opened negotiations for the purchase of the farm belonging to Colonel Metcalfe, whom she knew only by photograph.
Cincinnati Enquirer, January 14, 1906, page 9
NEW HEIRS
Now Claim Heritage in Rich Estate Left by Col. Metcalfe--
Three Daughters by Former Marriage and One Brother.
    The following interesting article is taken from the Lexington Leader. Mrs. Metcalfe is a sister of Mr. B. C. Berry, of Danville. The sale of the noted "Woodlawn" farm near Lexington, belonging to the estate of the late Col. R. B. Metcalfe, and the division of the property left by him, estimated to be worth more than $100,000, have been temporarily stopped, pending an investigation of the claims of three alleged heirs, living in the state of Oregon, whose existence has until the last few days been unknown to the family.
    Several days ago a letter was received from a well-known attorney of Fossil, Oregon, intimating that Col. Metcalfe had heirs living at that place and asking for information regarding the property left by the deceased in this county. Developments during the last week indicate that three children--all daughters--of Col. Metcalfe reside in Oregon and that a brother of Col. Metcalfe also lives at Silver City, Idaho. The family disclaims all knowledge of these heirs in the Far West, whom they have never seen or heard of, and will contest their claim to a share of the estate.
    The discovery of these alleged heirs in Oregon, it appears, was brought about by the publication of an Associated Press notice of the death of Col. Metcalfe in a Western paper: This notice was seen by H. H. Hendricks, an attorney of Fossil, Oregon, who immediately wrote to ex-County Clerk R. L. Baker, of Lexington, asking for information as to the estate left by Col. Metcalfe and intimating that heirs resided there. This was followed by another letter asking that the matter be referred to a lawyer.
    To further prove the identity of these alleged children, it is stated that Col. Metcalfe's brother, now a resident of Silver City, knows of their whereabouts and has kept up a correspondence with them for years.
    The Lexington attorney, who has thus accidentally become interested in the newly found heirs, will make a thorough investigation of their identity and claims, and it now looks as if a sensation similar to that of the Lyon will case will be developed, should these Far Western heirs succeed in substantiating their claims.
    It will be recalled that F. W. Barnett, of Alaska, who is said to have made a fortune in the Klondike gold fields, recently purchased through Joseph S. Woolfolk, real estate broker of this city, "Woodlawn," the fine bluegrass stock farm owned by Col. Metcalfe, for $62,000, but owing to the complications it is said which have arisen, following the discovery of the alleged Oregon heirs, the sale has not been confirmed and the transfer of the property has been held up.
    The Kentucky Metcalfe family consists of the widow, Mrs. Vienna Metcalfe, and three children, Mrs. John James and Mrs. Bayard Railey, of this city and Baylor Metcalfe, now a resident of New York.
Danville News, Danville, Kentucky, January 16, 1906, page 11
LEGAL TANGLE
Anticipated Over the Sale of the Woodlawn Stock Farm.
SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.
    Lexington, Ky., March 5.--The recent sale of the noted Woodlawn Stock Farm, in this county, by the heirs of the late Colonel R. B. Metcalfe to E. T. Barnette, of Fairbanks, Washington [sic], will likely result in a lawsuit, owing to the inability of the heirs to make a proper transfer of the property. When Colonel Barnette came to Kentucky and purchased the place he made a payment of $5,000, and it was agreed to turn the property over to him the first of March, when the final payments were to be made. Before the prescribed time arrived, however, several alleged heirs to the estate turned up in Oregon, and the filing of the deed to the property was delayed pending an investigation into the legality of the claimants in the Far West. Since then an attorney of this city has been to Fossil, Ore., and returned with the information that, according to the territorial laws, the three young women living there are legal heirs and entitled to part of the estate, and it was said that he had effected a compromise whereby they were to relinquish all claims on the property in this city for the payment of a certain sum of money. Before this payment was made, however, it was learned that a compromise so effected would not hold good according to law, and the matter was again held up pending a further investigation, and when it came time to transfer the property the local attorney representing Barnette refused to accept the deed for the property, and on behalf of his client asked for the return of the $5,000, first payment on the property. This the representatives of the Metcalfe heirs refused to do, and now the matter will have to pass through the courts and a legal settlement of the difficulties made.
    According to the information divulged by several of the attorneys interested on either side of the case it was learned that the three alleged heirs in the West are daughters of Colonel Metcalfe, and that their mother was recognized as the legal wife of the noted turfman during his residence there, and it is said the courts of this state will be duty bound to uphold the laws of that state in dividing the property.
Cincinnati Enquirer, March 6, 1906, page 4


IDENTITY OF HEIRS
OF LATE COL. R. B. METCALFE REVEALED IN SUIT HERE.
Fayette Children Ask for In-
junction Against Alleged
Heirs, Mesdames Heidt-
mann and Gilliam.
    In a petition filed Friday in the circuit court here the identity of the Western heirs, who are claiming a share of the estate left by the late Colonel R. B. Metcalfe, proprietor of Woodlawn Stock Farm, valued at nearly $100,000, is for the first time made public. These alleged heirs are Mrs. Winnie Heidtmann and H. F. C. Heidtmann, her husband; Mrs. Ellen Gilliam and R. A. Gilliam, her husband, residents of Wheeler, Oregon.
    Mrs. Heidtmann and Mrs. Gilliam claim to be children of a former wife of Colonel Metcalfe, long since deceased, and as such have set up a claim to part of the estate left by Colonel Metcalfe.
    The petition, which was filed Friday by attorneys J. D. and George R. Hunt of this city, representing the Fayette County heirs, Mrs. Vienna Metcalfe, widow of the deceased; Maude M. James and her husband, John G. James: Sue M. Railey and her husband, E. B. Railey, and Robert B. Metcalfe Jr. asks for a perpetual injunction against these Western heirs.
    The petition recites that the said Winnie Heidtmann and Ellen Gilliam claim to be children of Col. Metcalfe, by a former alleged wife, now deceased, and together with their husbands are claiming an interest in the property left by the deceased, consisting of a 300-acre farm in Fayette County, Ky. near Lexington, and that the defendants by reason of these alleged claims have cast a cloud upon the title of the plaintiffs to said property.
    The petitioners deny the claims of the defendant heirs and pray that their title to said property be quieted; that said defendants be required to assert any interest in said property that they may have, if any; that it be adjudged by the court that said defendants have no interest whatever in said property; and that they be perpetually enjoined from asserting any interest in the said property.
    It is known that these Western heirs have employed legal counsel and will make a stubborn fight for a share of the property.
Lexington Leader, Lexington, Kentucky, May 4, 1906, page 1
MRS. VIENNA METCALFE SUES TO QUIET TITLE
WIDOW AND CHILDREN OF R. B. METCALFE
ASSERT THAT DEFENDANTS IN OREGON HAVE ASSERTED
CLAIM TO CERTAIN PROPERTY.
    The Fayette circuit court is asked to quiet the title of the property left in Fayette County by the late R. B. Metcalfe. A petition was filed yesterday in which Mrs. Vienna B. Metcalfe, widow, and Maud E. James, Sue M. Railey and Robert Metcalfe, the children, are the plaintiffs and Winnie Heidtmann and Ellen Gilliam, of Wheeler County, Oregon, are the defendants. It is alleged that at the time of the death of Mr. Metcalfe he left 300 [acres] of land in Fayette County on the Harrodsburg pike, two miles from Lexington. Shortly after his death, the defendants asserting that they were heirs at law of Mr. Metcalfe claimed an interest in the land, and, therefore, clouded the title, which claim prevented the sale to E. B. Bennett, of Fairbanks, Alaska.
    The plaintiffs deny that the defendants are heirs at law of the late Mr. Metcalfe and pray the court to require them to assert their interest, if they have any, and quiet the title of the property.
Excerpt, Lexington Herald, Kentucky, March 5, 1906, page 8
Fossil, Oregon, January 14th, 1910.
James K. Metcalfe, Esq.
    Silver City, New Mexico
Dear Uncle:
    Kindly answer following questions, if memory will permit you and you feel disposed to do so, for your nieces Ellen, Winnie and Mary, daughters of R. B. Metcalfe, deceased.
Sincerely yours
    Henry F. C. Heidtmann
----
    1--Was the Rogue River country the native country of the Shasta Indian tribe?    Lived on both Rogue and Klamath rivers.
    2--Were the Shasta Indians living on a reservation at Rogue River when you met your brother and family at Jackson Creek?    No.
    3--Was Jackson Creek included in the Reserve?    No.    And what was the name of the Reserve?    Table Rock--I think.
    4--In one of your letters you speak of a place your brother had at Table Rock and which the government took for a reserve after appraising the improvements at $350.000; did the government take this place when the Reservation was first established?    I do not know.
    5--In the same letter you state your brother received in lieu of his place a right to take up land of the same amount, 320 acres, at any place in Oregon--was this right given in scrip or certificate from the government, or did the right simply consist in a right to make another filing?    My brother told me they gave him the right to take up land anywhere else in Oregon and paid him for unpaid drafts.
    6--Can you remember the year this land was taken by the government?    No.
    7--Was your brother living on the place with his family at the time the place was taken?    He always called it his home, but lived there only a part of the time. Part of the time he was mining.
    8--What was your brother's occupation at the time?    Miner, prospector and farmer.
    9--What was your brother's occupation when you met him living with his family on Jackson Creek, when the children Ellen and Winnie were 4 and 2 years old?    Mining on Jackson Creek.
    10--Was Chief Applegate alive at that time?    Yes; I knew him well.
    11--Were the children's mother Kitty and a sister the only children the Chief had?    I think they were his grandchildren.
    12--Was Chief Applegate's wife alive at that time?    He had three wives also.
    13--Was you with your brother and family when the Shasta tribe was moved to the Siletz Reserve?    Yes; he was in command of the soldiers.
    14--What was your occupation during this time?    Miner, commissary.
    15--Did your brother move the tribe from Rogue River to the Siletz Reserve, under a contract from the government?    I suppose so, but do not know.
    16--How long did you stay with your brother after you arrived at the Siletz Reserve?    I think three years.
    17--After arriving at the Siletz Reserve, did your brother live with his family on the Reserve until he left for Kentucky?    Yes, but he went to Texas.
    18--While with your brother, did he mention to you how long he had lived with Kitty Applegate, that he considered her his wife and that the children were his children?    He spoke of the children as his, but he did not consider Kitty his wife, and I do not know how long he had been living with her.
    19--Did the mother of the children die at the Siletz Reserve while you were there, or did she die after you and your brother had left there?    Afterwards.
    20--Do you remember anything about the Indians receiving allotments of land when you were at the Siletz Reserve?    I am sure they did not.
    21--Do you remember a young man by the name of Dave Hamilton; he was one of the teamsters that helped move the tribe and stayed at the Siletz a year, and was employed at the Agency?    No; he may have been a soldier.
    22--Do you remember any other incidents the happenings of which would refer to the family life of your brother Robert B. Metcalfe?    My brother gave the families who took the girls to bring up $1000 in gold. I think the children were taken without Kitty's consent.
----
    I, James K. Metcalfe, hereby certify that the above answers to the several questions are true to the best of my memory.
Jas. K. Metcalfe
    I, Mollie Metcalfe, hereby certify that [the] above questions were written by me as dictated by my father, James K. Metcalfe.
Mollie Metcalfe
Peter Mungall
C. S. Metcalfe
    Witness to above signatures
----
Dear Cousin Henry
    I got that paper signed at last, but it is very seldom that two white people come here at once, and the Mexicans don't count.
    The questions are answered as best we could, but I am pretty sure they won't do you any good. I'm sorry.
    I had the Daily sent to Cousin Winnie and to Viola, not remembering her first mother's first name. I hope you'll get a Chapter House in Fossil. Charlie, Pearl (Orrick's wife) and I all belong to the League. Your cousin
Mollie Metcalfe
Scans of originals on file, courtesy of Richard C. Metcalfe
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
UNITED STATES INDIAN SERVICE.
Siletz, Oregon, January 18, 1910.
Mr. H. F. C. Heidtmann, C.S.
    Fossil, Wheeler Co., Oregon.
Dear Sir:
    I have your letter of the 11th in regard to Chief Applegate. Had an interesting talk with John Adams last night in regard to the matter. He is probably better posted than any other here. He came with Metcalfe when he was about 6 or 7 years old--in 1859 [sic] I have no doubt. He remembers having seen one John Tyee and his son arrested. This John Tyee of Adams is no doubt your Chief Applegate. Now we have a John Tyee allotted here, but it is a different man. Adams states that Kitty Metcalfe's children, and I believe you state the same, all left before any allotments were made and, like his cousin Dave Adams and all the rest who were not living and residing here at a certain time, lost out. One of the girls came back with her children as far as Toledo to get land but on learning the circumstances went back home without coming the last 9 miles. Adams says there were other daughters of Tyee but I believe they died or at least did not come here. The other girl, Mary, went to Grand Ronde, married an Indian, named him Metcalfe, and is now living there. I am sure there are no records of any allotments here, but it is still possible we may find some old letters of interest upstairs. As you are coming and can talk with Adams and others it will be no use to write further at the present time. Thanking you for your interesting letter and hoping to meet you, I am,
Very respectfully,
    Knott C. Egbert
Scan of original letter on file, courtesy of Richard C. Metcalfe
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
UNITED STATES INDIAN SERVICE.
Siletz, Oregon, February 10th, 1910.
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
    Washington, D.C.
Sir:
    January 18 I answered H. F. C. Heidtmann as to Chief Applegate. I assumed after comparing notes with John Adams, aged 63, and a Shasta Indian, that he meant by Chief Applegate the man who after hearing that his sons had been treacherously hung decided to begin or promote the "Rogue River War." Said John Adams knew him as Tyee John or Chief John. This is a different person from the John Tyee allotted land here. He (Chief Applegate thus identified) lived here some years but went away or refused land. One of his daughters Mr. Adams states and whom he knew by the name of Kitty was the wife of Agent Robert Metcalfe and mother of his daughters. Another daughter of Chief Applegate is Mary Metcalfe, now living at Grand Ronde. Applegate Jack of Grand Ronde is no kin.
    This letter of mine to Mr. Heidtmann is therefore the only record here so far as I am aware of Chief Applegate unless possibly some old letters. He certainly did not get land here for himself. Neither at Grand Ronde. I do not know whether he ever lived at Grand Ronde or not, but am inclined to think he did not. It is believed that Applegate did not desire to pattern after the white man. John Adams says as a lad of 6 years he distinctly remembers being present when the soldiers came to Chief Applegate and asked for the surrender of his boys, saying that they were going to make big chiefs out of them. Applegate did not know that they would be hung and regarded it as a treacherous act.
Very respectfully,
    Knott C. Egbert
Scan of original letter on file, courtesy of Richard C. Metcalfe
IN EARLY DAYS
By Fred Lockley
    "When my father, General Joseph Lane, Oregon's first territorial governor, came back from Washington, where he had been a delegate from Oregon in 1853, we came with him," said Mrs. L. F. Mosher [Winifred M. Lane Mosher] of this city. "We arrived at Oregon City on May 14, 1853. I was a little over 13 years old at the time. I was married three years later to Captain L. F. Mosher, who had been my father's aide in the Mexican War and who had also served with him in the Rogue River war, being wounded not far from Jacksonville. Yes, 16 years seems young to be married, but it was not considered so in those days. I received my first proposal when I was 13 years and two months old. I was in New Orleans and Mr. Dean proposed to me. I had been in Oregon but a few months when a young man who had known me in Indiana came clear out to Oregon to marry me. He was a mighty nice young fellow and my father and mother liked him, but I was only 13½ years old and they told him I was too young. He came to our home in the Umpqua Valley and went away disconsolate. We put him up a nice lunch of fried chicken and other things for his stage ride to Portland, wrapping the lunch in a freshly ironed handkerchief. After he got home he wrote me he would always save this handkerchief on account of his love for its original owner. My sisters always thought that was a good joke, for it was my sister's handkerchief, not mine.
    "Possibly because my father was so prominent in politics, or possibly because girls were scarce, or it is barely possible it was because I was considered rather an attractive young girl, or it may have been for all three of these reasons, in any event before I was married I had had more than a dozen proposals. When I was nearly 16 years old, I became engaged to a wonderfully attractive young man from Southern Oregon. Captain L. F. Mosher, who had come from our home in Indiana and who had recently been appointed register of the land office at Winchester, moved next door to us. He suddenly discovered that the little girl he had known had grown up to be a young woman and laid siege to my heart like the very impetuous soldier he was. I found that I cared for him more than the young man I was engaged to [Robert B. Metcalfe], so I broke the engagement. My former lover blamed Captain Mosher for my action for breaking the engagement and challenged him to a duel. They met at the foot of a butte near Winchester, but their seconds were able to adjust the matter, so the duel did not take place. The young man to whom I had been engaged left Oregon and I saw a notice of his death recently in a Kentucky paper. He died worth more than a million dollars. [See Mosher's letters of June 11 and August 4, 1856, and Metcalfe's letter of August 8.]
    "My father was the last of the generals of the Mexican War to die. Scott and Taylor, Worth and Wool, Butler and Kearny, Patterson, Pillow and Pierce, Cushing and Cadwalader, Shields and Whitman, all of whom were generals in the Mexican War, answered the summons before my father.
    "The breaking out of the Civil War broke many lifelong friendships in Oregon. My brother left Oregon, went South and became a colonel in the Confederate army. My father's sympathies were with the South, which alienated many of his friends. After the war many of his old friendships were resumed. He and Colonel J. W. Nesmith had long been friends, but they were estranged during the war. Before my father died he wrote to Colonel Nesmith asking him to say a few words at his funeral when it came time for him to pass over to the other side. Judge Mathew P. Deady, another of his lifelong friends, in writing of the meeting of General Scott and my father in San Francisco in 1859, at the time that General Scott was on his way to Oregon to settle a controversy over San Juan Island, which threatened war between Great Britain and the United States, and while my father was on his way to Washington, D.C., as a Senator from Oregon, said: 'As General Lane stepped towards General Scott, Scott arose and said, "How are you, my old friend and fellow soldier?" Lane responded, "General, my career as a soldier was a brief one, but I had the honor of serving under one of the greatest generals of the age."'"
    "After he had served as the first territorial governor of Oregon, my father went to Northern California, where he worked in the mines. In 1851 he was elected a delegate to Congress. In 1853, while leading a charge against the Rogue River Indians, he was shot through the shoulder.
    "Some years ago a relative of mine ran across, in a curio shop in Salt Lake City, one of the old Breckinridge and Lane medals. On one side of the medal is a portrait of Breckinridge, while on the other side in a most excellent portrait of my father. It was gotten out at the time Breckinridge and Lane were running for President and Vice President of the United States in 1860. The Democratic Party was divided and Lincoln was elected. My father never again ran for public office. He lived on our farm near Roseburg until his death on April 19, 1881. He was always very active, both physically and mentally. He directed the operations of the farm and spent much of his time in reading history and keeping abreast of the questions of the day after his retirement from political life."
Oregon Journal, Portland, February 18, 1915, page 6
 
Last revised February 16, 2026