good, old dyed-in-the-wool Methodist, so to speak. He was also a Grand Army man and a good story-teller, and his stories were always Gospel truths, especially when they in a manner related to the "good, old Methodists." But he told one on himself that he said he had to tell; it was "too good to keep." While on a private business tour of the mountains one time, it so happened that the elder was caught at Cañon City on Saturday night, unable to reach Denver, his home, to spend the Sabbath with his family. The Colorado penitentiary is located at Cañon, and some of the officials at the institution learning on Sunday morning that the "good, old Methodist parson" was in town, a polite invitation was at once sent to him at the hotel to come and preach to the convicts that morning. It was his first invitation of the kind and it was promptly accepted. The elder, at the appointed hour, made his way to the "pen," and, thoroughly fortified with Bible truths, delivered to the few hundred convicts assembled in the chapel one of his most eloquent and appropriate sermons. After he had finished his discourse and the religious exercises were closed, he noticed that one of the short-haired fellows in striped clothes had been considerably moved by his remarks. The convict had kept his eyes on the elder from the time services began until they closed, and then came forward to greet him. He grasped the good preacher by the hand and said: "I have listened with a good deal of pleasure, and received much valuable instruction from your able and timely discourse. It was one of the best sermons I ever heard and it has made a lasting impression on my mind. By the way, my good brother, what might be your denomination?" "Well, sir," said the divine, "I am a Methodist." This so pleased the convict that he quickly grasped the Gospel expounder with both hands; then, with another hearty shake, said: "I'm so glad, my good brother, that you are a Methodist. Let me shake your hand again; we 're nearly all Methodists here." Sioux Indian War-dance. Early one night in the summer of 1863, I was out on the plains in southern Nebraska, on my way up the Platte valley, nearly 300 miles west of the Missouri river. The night was intensely dark, but by the instinct of the animals, and by the candles that were in the lamps on either side |
of the front end of the coach, and which reflected a little light, we were thus able to keep the road we were traveling. We had reached a point perhaps twenty-five or thirty miles west of Fort Kearney, when we noticed, some distance ahead of us, the light from several fires blazing up a few rods to the south of the road. The closer we approached to the locality the more distinctly could we see the forms of men. We knew they were Indians, for we could hear their hideous yelling. When we approached near the locality the driver reined his team down from a lively trot to a slow walk. We were close enough to see that the Indians were going through with what we supposed to be a part of their program. For a few minutes we looked upon the great gathering and listened to the most unearthly yells and piercing war-whoop shrieks ever heard from a band of human beings. The driver had informed me soon after we had started from Fort Kearney, several hours before, that the Indians were having a sort of periodical powwow up the road. On this occasion it was a band of several hundred Sioux--among them a large number of warriors--who had assembled near the bank of the Platte river, and were going through with a series of performances from the program that had been outlined in one of their periodical war-dances and festivals. A large number of their lodges were pitched in the vicinity, while the several fires they had about the premises which surrounded their wigwams lighted up the scene sufficiently to enable us to watch for a short time some of their peculiarly odd performances. Dressed in almost every conceivable costume, some of which made them look hideous, they danced in groups around the fires, thumped on some peculiar, drum-like sounding instruments, smoked the traditional "pipe of peace," hopped up on one foot and alighted on the other, flourished knives and spears and tomahawks, made speeches, and some of them chanted their outlandish sounding but to them doubtless favorite airs, keeping time to the music produced by thumping on a keg with the skin of some animal stretched over the head. To a paleface witness and listener, the scene was a sort of pandemonium. While the exercises would perhaps be interesting for some to look upon, really there was little connected with what we witnessed that either of us could understand, much less appreciate; so we did n't care to tarry long, even had we the time, and lister, |
 A SIOUX INDIAN WAR DANCE. Page 568. |
to the free concert, in which they were apparently having so much enjoyment. The driver, thinking we had seen enough of the show, then gave his lead team a cut from the whip, and almost instantly we changed from a slow walk to a lively gait, only too glad to get out of hearing distance of the indescribably hideous shrieks the "noble red men" were for the time inflicting upon a few paleface listeners. Staging in Colorado. In the early days of Colorado, during the later '50's and '60's, no place in the country excelled Denver as a brisk staging center. Routes radiated from there in all directions. The first of the lines across the plains was the Leavenworth & Pike's Peak Express; then a consolidation and change made it the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express. But the most important route was the Ben. Holladay "Overland," doubtless the greatest stage line on the globe. Daily four-horse and six-horse coaches left for and arrived in Denver from Atchison, on the Missouri river, and Placerville, at the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas. Daily lines also left for Central City and Georgetown, Colorado City, and Pueblo. Lines also in due time were opened to Breckinridge, taking in French, George, Hoosier and Nigger Gulches and the Tarryall Diggings, at the end of the line where Como is built. Long before the wild "carbonate" excitement had reached its zenith, McClelland & Spotswood put on a line of stages to Fairplay and Leadville, going by Bradford Hill to Turkey Creek, to Bailey, and thence by the Platte to the park. One line from the park ran over the Weston Pass, "that dread terror of travelers, who never knew whether they might not be brought down on the other side refrigerated specimens for a dissecting room." Since the founding of Denver, stage lines from that city into the mountains were operated by Ben. Holladay, Hughes & Co., McClelland & Spotswood, Wells, Fargo & Co., and Barlow & Sanderson. Jacobs & Co. ran an opposition line to Pueblo, superintended by Dug. Ayers. While McClelland & Spotswood were operating their line into Leadville, Barlow & Sanderson put on a line which ran up into the camp by the Arkansas River route. Frequently the drivers for the two companies would have a lively scrap, especially when they happened to strike the road into the great carbonate camp at the same time. The free enter- |
tainments given as the coaches came up would often be equal to a circus and far more amusing. While struggling up the street for first place at the hotel, it was great amusement to listen to the string of lively "chin music" of the drivers, standing up in their seats, yelling like savages, cracking their whips with torpedo-like effect, and a promiscuous lot of passengers inside and on top also yelling at the top of their voices. The increase in the mails into the Colorado mining camps was unprecedented. McClelland took the contract into Leadville in 1874 for four years. For the first year it averaged 100 pounds a day. The amount continued to increase correspondingly with the growth of the camp until the last year of his contract, when it had reached 2000 to 2500 pounds a day, an amount, the department declared, that "beat the record." Early Cripple Creek Staging. In Colorado, scattered through the mountains, there are probably more old Concord stage-coaches than in any other state or territory in the West; but since railroads have been penetrating almost every mining camp in the Rockies, most of the stages have had to go. For several years in the '90's the great gold-mining camp of Cripple Creek was one of the largest staging centers in the country. For some time daily lines of four- and six-horse Concord coaches ran in there from Florissant, Cañon City, Florence, and still another and more important line from Hayden Divide, on the Midland railway. The completion of the Florence & Cripple Creek branch of the D. & R. G. road, July 1, 1894, closed the three former stage lines. The Midland Terminal railroad reached the mining camp early in 1895, thus practically winding up the staging business in that region. While spending a few months in the great mining camp in the summer and fall of 1894, I saw a number of the old vehicles standing in front of the company's stables on Carr avenue. All of them were in daily use when travel was brisk, before the railway had wound its serpentine course around so many mountain peaks and up through so many cañons and gulches into the camp. The first stage line into the camp was operated by David Wood, an old-timer in freighting throughout the San Juan and Gunnison mining camps. It was a double-daily line of four- and six-horse Concords. Later the line was changed to a single-daily six-horse line. Wood was succeeded by A. W. Alexander. |
J. E. Hunley, of Colorado Springs, in December, 1891, put on a line of stages between Florissant and Cripple Creek, which he operated until May 24, 1892. The line was then changed to Hayden Divide (there connecting with the Colorado Midland road), where it continued to run until the Midland Terminal railway was completed to the mushroom town of Midland, December 10, 1893. After the railroad reached Gillett, July 4, 1891, the stages ran into Cripple Creek from that point. The line was purchased in December, 1893, by H. L. Kuykendall, a Wyoming stockman, who operated it until June, 1894. Then the Kuykendall Transportation Company was incorporated, and operated the stage line until it was superseded by the railroad. Early in April, 1892, Alf. Salmon put on a line of daily stages between Florence and the gold camp. This line lasted only a few months, the manager finding it impossible to run it in opposition to the line from Cañon City. While in operation it used steel-spring coaches, vehicles greatly inferior to the celebrated coaches made by the Abbot-Downing Company, at Concord, N. H. During the period that the Kuykendall Transportation Company operated the most important stage line into Cripple Creek it used nine coaches to carry the great rush of travel. The first line of stages over the route from the Midland railroad was operated by Hamilton & Johnson. The names of the stages in use by Kuykendall as late as 1894 are: Wm. F. Cody ("Buffalo Bill"), Keno, Frank Hunter, Chauncey Nichols, Kit Carson, Chihuahua, Monitor, James Wood, and D. C. Crawford. The Chihuahua, a fine Concord vehicle, had then been nearly twenty years in the service, and had just been laid up for repairs. Some of these coaches were old-timers, notably the Cody and Crawford, having been bought in 1865, and used on the Black Hills road in Wyoming and Dakota during the palmy days of Deadwood staging. Later they were used in Colorado, west of the "range." One of them, a magnificent vehicle, painted a snowy white, is out of a lot of twelve originally built for Potter Palmer in 1876, and by him used in Chicago between his palatial hotel and the various railway stations in the great city by the lake. It is named Keno, and each door bears a fine painting of the noted Palmer House. A number of these nine coaches were red-painted, with extra seats on top that will carry eight to twelve passengers, in addition to the three inside seats, which will comfortably carry nine. |
The year 1894 was a great year for the Kuykendall Transportation Company. The company carried into and out of Cripple Creek, that year, 37,742 passengers. Besides the coaches for transporting the passengers, the company also ran every day from one to three transfer wagons, carrying baggage and express matter. The mails, which were large and kept steadily increasing, were likewise carried on the coaches. Several of the old stages were originally bought by Barlow & Sanderson, the veteran Colorado stage men, in 1876. At the early mining excitement in Leadville, in the later '70's, the coaches were put on the road and made regular trips between Cañon City and the noted carbonate camp. They were in use on that line until they were forced aside, after the completion of the Denver & Rio Grande railway into Leadville, in the summer of 1880. They were also in use for some years in the Gunnison, Roaring Fork and Grand valleys. One of the earliest of this batch of nine coaches is the Monitor, a thirteen-passenger vehicle, which has been long years in active service. The running-gear on which it rests was originally used between Pueblo and Santa Fe over a third of a century ago, many years before the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe road was built into the old, quaint, historic city settled more than 300 years ago by the Spaniards. For some time during the past thirty years or more, the stage that rested on the old gears ran in the Rockies between Fairplay and Leadville. After the noted vehicle had for some years been discarded at Fairplay, the running-gear was taken to Manitou, and there fitted by the El Paso Livery Company with an excursion body and a canopy top, and subsequently used several years. In the winter of 1891 it was again brought into service, and used for some time to convey passengers between Cripple Creek and the Midland railway, the first broad-guage line to build into the great gold camp. The largest number of passengers ever carried into or out of Cripple Creek in a single day by the Kuykendall Transportation Company was on July 24, 1894, when 740 were handled. The company on that day ran ten six-horse and four four-horse coaches, besides several extra-baggage and express wagons. For several years in the early '90's, the company ran regularly a double line three times a day, often with extras. The highest number of passengers ever carried out of the camp by the stage line in a single day was something less than 300. Many times during the |
year 1894 it has been nothing uncommon to see fifteen to twenty-five passengers coming into the camp on a single stage three times a day from the Midland road. The drivers have been important factors, and have played no small part in operating the various stage lines that ran into the city of Cripple Creek since the camp was founded. In most cases the "knights of the lines" have been capable, experienced men, and have filled their responsible positions with credit to the companies they have been serving. The pioneer stage man in the camp employed as drivers Lew Hill, Oscar McCreary, Bill Bufford, and Jack Walker. Of the drivers on the J. E. Hunley line, between Florissant and Cripple Creek, there were Chas. B. Armstrong, Ed. Taylor, Dick Hanney, Art. Stewart, Ed. Dewey, Austin Coleclesser, Howard Lowe, John Foster, and Billy Gallagher. On the Florence and Cripple Creek line, the drivers were Si. Tandy and Frank Vaughn. There were employed as drivers on the Kuykendall line, in the early '90's, Lew Hill, "Keno," Frank Hunter, Jim Hunter, Bob Griffin, Jim Woods, Harry Forsha, and Billy Wikes. Chas. B. Armstrong, better known throughout Colorado and Kansas as "Keno," is a man about forty years of age, of medium height and rather thick set. He has been holding the lines on four and six-horse teams for nearly a third of a century. For several years, when a boy and young man, he was in the employ of the Kansas Stage Company, having most of the time from 1872 to 1888, driven in southern Kansas and the Indian Territory. For a long time he has held the ribbons on some of the best stage teams in the Rocky Mountains. At the World's Fair, in 1893, for six months he drove one of the great Columbian coaches in Chicago. During his career as a stager, in the '70's, he made a daily run of forty miles in four hours. In 1877 he made a drive of twenty-six miles in two hours and fourteen minutes, with one four-horse team, stopping to change mail and watering the animals twice on the road. For one year, ending September 7, 1884, he drove a distance of seventy-eight miles six times a week, making a total of 24,414 miles. On the 3d of July, 1886, he drove a six-horse coach with fourteen passengers sixteen miles in one hour and twelve minutes. The longest drive he ever made in his long service in the stage business was in September, 1886, when, without sleep, he covered a distance of 610 miles in 119 hours. When |
I last rode with "Keno" on the box of a six-horse stage-coach out of Cripple Creek, just before Christmas, 1894, he told me he had then driven, all together, a distance of over 325,000 miles--an average yearly drive of more than 13,500 miles; or, during the entire period, enough to make over a dozen trips around the world. "Keno" drove on the Cripple Creek stages almost from the settlement of the camp, and in the early '90's his name was familiar though-out the district. If you speak of him as Armstrong, not one person in a hundred would know who is meant. A more genial, warm-hearted driver never sat upon a stage box. A Historic Overland Stage-coach. Hon. J. Sterling Morton, one of the Nebraska pioneers, and whose home is in Nebraska City, is the fortunate possessor of one of the old Concord coaches that did service for some years on the overland route in the early staging days. The vehicle was built by the Abbot-Downing Company and purchased by Ben. Holladay in May, 1863. First it ran between Atchison and Denver, over the rolling prairies to the Platte valley; thence across the plains to the Colorado capital. Subsequently it was used on the route from Nebraska City to Fort Kearney, before railroads did the work of stages. For a number of years the old coach was the property of Geo. Hulbert, an old overland driver, and later chosen mayor of the wide-awake city of Kearney. Mr. Hulbert purchased the coach after its days of usefulness had been ended by the completion of the railroad and had it in Kearney in the '90's, where it was used on special occasions. Mr. Morton purchased it of Mr. Hulbert in 1897 and now has it in his possession at Arbor Lodge, his home at Nebraska City, but it is occasionally seen on the streets, where it is greatly admired. After being in use for nearly a third of a century, the running-gear was found to be in a perfect state of preservation, but the new purchaser had the entire coach above the axletrees reconstructed, at a cost of something more than $600. The old coach is now regarded as something of a historical vehicle, and it is a great favorite with the people of Nebraska City. Concerning its history Mr. Morton, in a letter dated October 8, 1901, says: "It is the identical coach that was attacked in 1864, in the Blue valley, during the last Indian raid through that region. A gentleman now in charge of the street-railways of Denver, together with his wife and servant, were the only passengers when the assault was made. The Indians were on foot, and the driver, having a good team, managed to get away from them." |
Mr. Morton's historic old stage-coach. Page 575.
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