Crossing the Plains, Days of '57: A Narrative of Early Emigrant Travel to California by the Ox-team MethodMaxwell, Wm. Audley (William Audley)
History
Crossing the Plains, Days of '57: A Narrative of Early Emigrant Travel to California by the Ox-team Method
Maxwell, Wm. Audley (William Audley)
Overland journeys to the Pacific
Mr. Fennell, aided by Captain Rountree's company and others, attempted
to save such of the Holloway property as had not been carried off or
destroyed. They were successful in recovering about one hundred of the
one hundred and fifty head of stock which the Indians had endeavored
to drive away. Two mules that were being led off by ropes broke away
from the savage band and returned, but the emigrants did not recover
any of the stolen horses.
Jerry Bush found his way back to the scene. His injury, though
apparently of a dangerous character, did not delay the relief parties
more than a day after the attack, and the wound healed within a few
weeks. It was reported that Callum and Hattlebaugh had escaped, but
their further whereabouts was not known.
Captain Rountree took charge of Mrs. Holloway and her brother and
brought them, with such of their stock and other belongings as
remained, to The Meadows, on the Feather River. After partially
recuperating there, an uncle, Mr. Perry Durban, came to their aid, and
they were taken to Suisun. After full recovery from his wound, Jerry
Bush located in Ukiah, and resided there some years. He still
survives, now a resident of Hulett, Wyoming, at the ripe age of eighty
years.
The slaughter of the Holloway party occurred at a point on the
Humboldt River some thirty miles east of where Winnemucca is located,
a few miles west of Battle Mountain. This becomes apparent by careful
estimates of distance traveled per day, rather than by landmarks noted
at the time, there being no settlements there, nor elsewhere along the
route, at that time.
[Illustration: Jerry Bush, 1914]
It was perhaps a year later when I went to a camp-meeting one Sunday,
at Mark West Creek, in Sonoma County, California. The people attending
a service were in a small opening among trees. Standing back of
those who were seated, I saw among them a woman whose profile seemed
familiar, and later I recognized her as Mrs. Holloway.
My interest in her career, due to her extraordinary part in the Indian
massacre on the plains, was heightened by the fact that I had known
her previously, as the daughter of Mr. Bush, a prosperous farmer, and
had been present when she married Mr. Holloway, in a little
schoolhouse, near Rockport, Atchison County, Missouri. It seemed a
natural impulse which prompted me to ask her for particulars of the
tragedy, so disastrous to herself and her family; though later there
were misgivings regarding the propriety of doing so.
Mrs. Holloway appeared at that time to be in good health, and was
cheerful, possessing perfect control of her faculties. Her head was
covered by a wig, made of her own hair, taken from the scalp that was
recovered at the scene of the massacre.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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