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Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 09:45 am: | |
This is a new topic where I am going to explore one of my interests — history. Before you groan loudly and roll your eyes back so far as to blind yourself, let me tell you a bit about what I am attempting to do.
There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who never made the cut for being immortalized in your school's textbooks. These people have fascinating episodes in their lives that are deserving of, at the very least, my efforts to bring those episodes forward so that their participants can enjoy, posthumously, their Andy Warhol 15 Minutes Of Fame.
Sometime between now and Sunday evening, I will have the first installment ready to post. Each segment is kept purposefully short, 1000 to 2000 words, for a number of reasons. First, I know how busy you all are and that you simply don't have the time to read a lengthy piece. Second, my goal is to have a new installment ready every week, and that's about all I can write in that short a time. Third, and this is really the controlling factor, is that's the extent of my attention span.
The times and circumstances in my "tellings" are considerably removed from today, and that will be reflected in my words. Racial, religious, and ethnic slurs will be used when I feel it necessary to accurately convey my interpretation of the incidents being related. The same is true with my use of epithets, curses, and descriptions of activities that are not usually the topics discussed at the dinner table. However, I shall never use these in a gratuitous manner.
While the basics of my "tellings" are the best facts I have available, I do make frequent assumptive leaps, and use my "artistic license" quite liberally. This is done to add continuity to the tale, as well as making the tale more entertaining. In other words, take what you read with a grain of salt.
My first selected subject tells the tale of two men whose similarities are as strikingly obvious as are their differences, and what results when their powerful personalities collide. |
Troutslayer
Username: Troutslayer
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 14, 2005 - 03:15 pm: | |
Not trying to steal your thunder here Henry, but I thought that, since you're a History buff (me too), that you'd like this little anecdote.
A few years ago, I was picking my son up at school. There was a truck parked in front of me with a window sticker that said "Proud veteran of the 356th fighter squadron" (that number might be wrong...I have old man memory sometimes).
Now, for a total aircraft fanatic, this aroused my interest, to say the least. And being the bashful guy I am, I struck up a conversation with this gentleman. And what a story he had to tell.
The old man talking to me was once a very young man, sitting in a P-47 Thunderbolt, stationed in the ETO (European Theater of Operations). He cut his teeth on the monster of a fighter plane, getting his first kill, a Nazi ME-109. His squadron soon traded in their huge P-47's for the sleek, sexy P-51D Mustang. (As an aside, I got to fly in a P-51D when I was 18...it's still the most fun I've ever had, with or without clothes on!!)
It didn't take long for him to achieve ace status flying the Mustang. One day, they were flying bomber escort for a group of B-17's. Once the escort mission was completed, they were free to get down on the deck and strafe targets of opportunity. He had spotted a train on a rail siding, and decided he was gonna go deliver some hurt.
On the way down, he was bounced by a couple of FW-190'S. Twisting and turning, he managed to get in a damaging burst on one, and decided that it was better to get the hell out of Dodge, and live to fight another day. So he ducked into some cloud cover, pushed the stick forward, and took the express elevator down to the deck.
When he came out of the clouds, all Hell broke loose. He had come out in a heavily fortified area of the Kiel Canal (For anyone reading this that doesn't know, the Kiel Canal is Germanys' pathway to the ocean from the massive shipyard of Blohm and Voss...think of it as a sort of Panama Canal).
And the Germans were ready. He told me that it looked like a starry sky down on the ground...hundreds of heavy and light flak positions all hammering away, with one single minded goal...kill him. In a split second, he decided his best chance was to get down right on the deck, and hope that his speed would save him. He was flying even with the Kiel Canal, so low that a light cruiser at anchor in the Canal couldn't depress it's guns to shoot at him. Sailors were on deck, shooting at him with personal firearms! The remaining FW-190 was still trying to get in range also. Can you imagine the FEAR going through that poor kids mind?!
He managed to get back to base, his plane full of holes, and I'm sure his flight suit full of something else.
A couple of weeks after that, he was shot down in a dogfight over Germany. He managed to shoot down a German fighter just as he himself was flamed. The German pilot of the downed plane and himself parachuted within sight of each other, which was good for the American. When he hit the ground, the local populace was going to hang him, for being a "Luft gangster". The German he shot down came running to his rescue, and escorted him personally to the POW camp.
I will never forget how I got to talk to a hero one day, whose story, I'm sure, not very many people know. Nothing Hollywood here...just a kid thrust into a nightmare. |
Troutslayer
Username: Troutslayer
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 14, 2005 - 03:22 pm: | |
And one more to cut your teeth on....
Two years ago, I met an older man named Carl. He was navigator on a B-17. On a bombing mission over Germany, he noticed that an airfield that they often flew over looked like it had been lengthened, and scorch marks looked like they were on one end of the runway. Thinking that was an odd thing, he wrote down his observations in his log book.
Carl told me that was the dumbest thing he'd ever done. He spent the next two weeks being bounced around from one intelligence officer to another. There had been rumors of a new Nazi jet fighter that would soon be in service, and apparently, my friend Carl was the very first person to find signs of it about to come into the line. The new ME-262 required a longer runway, and the scorch marks were from the jets at take-off.
Kinda cool, huh? |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 14, 2005 - 06:04 pm: | |
Thanks for these true stories, TS. Very enjoyable, and very much appreceiated.
I discovered long agon that I'd tapped into the mother lode of history with The Memory Boards. After all, what is a memory if not a piece of history? |
Denny57
Username: Denny57
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 06:28 am: | |
Henry and TS keep em comming. I will try to get some stories from my Uncle Denny who flew p38s in ww11. he has told me many, some I can't repeat. denny |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 10:15 am: | |
While doing research on my current "history lesson," I found this little tidbit reported in an 1862 issue of the Oregon Statesman.
A reporter in Lewiston, Washington Territory, (now Lewiston, Idaho) named only as LeLand was hanged by a group of miners. What, you may reasonabley wonder, was the crime for which this reporter named LeLand was hanged?
Well, Reporter LeLand exaggerated his reports about the quantity, and/or quality of the gold in the areas surrounding Lewiston. The miners considered themselves victimized by these false reports.
The miners that were already there didn't like it that a whole bunch more were arriving and further diluting the miner/gold mix.
The newly arrived miners didn't like it that they were lured there by the false reports.
There was no indication in the short story as to what LeLand's motive was for producing the false reports. Here's my guess based on my research:
Lewiston was in a heated contest with Idaho City to be named the capital of the considered Idaho Territory. I suspect that LeLand was attempting to increase the population of the Lewiston area thus bolstering its claim to be capital.
The article went on to say that LeLand's hanging was not an isolated incident. Other reporters had met similar fates for reporting lies as truth. |
Troutslayer
Username: Troutslayer
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 06:58 am: | |
Man...if we did things today, like they did back then, Old Dan Rather would have a pucker factor of twenty going on!
Want some interesting research/reading Henry? If you're not familiar with the story of the town of Bannack, up in Montana, and it's history, I do believe you'll find the stories about its town Marshal intriguing. Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce encamped outside the town soon after the Battle of the Big Hole. Quite the story.
P.S....Cool story about Leland. I'm sure quite inspirational to the reporters of the time too. |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 02:53 pm: | |
Ah, the joys and follies of research! I was reading a later issue of the Oregon Statesman newspaper today and came across what appears to be, for now at least, a retraction of the LeLand hanging.
This later story does not say whether or not the reporter that reported the LeLand hanging was hanged for reporting an untrue story.
Perhaps I will find the true answer to this mystery as I continue my trek through the year 1862 . . . |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 02:59 pm: | |
I am fortunate indeed to reside in an area that had a newspaper since before the Civil War.
I've been absolutely enthralled with reading the accounts of the war as they were reported, and in the vernacular of the day.
Here is a poem -- the author is not credited and I can not find the poem on the Internet -- that was published in the September 29, 1862, issue of the Oregon Statesman:
quote: Columbia's Flag
Of all the flags that float aloft,
O'er Neptune's gallant tars,
That wave on high in victory,
Above the sons of Mars,
Give us the flag - Columbia's Flag -
The emblem of the free,
Whose flashing stars blazed through the Wars,
For Truth and Liberty.
Then dip it, lads, in ocean's brine,
And give it three times three,
And fling it out 'mid song and shout,
The Banner of the Sea.
A question for you Navy guys -- what is meant by the line "And give it three times three?" |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 08:02 pm: | |
This coming weekend, there will be a Civil War battle reenactment in Visalia, CA. When I read the announcement in the online "paper," I was reminded of something I'd been meaning to write about here. So, here goes!
As I was doing some research for the history I've been writing, I came across an 1862 news item. It was telling about the letters that were retrieved from the bodies of fallen soldiers. The news story told that letters were from fathers, mothers, siblings, other relatives and friends, but mostly they were from wives.
The contents of these letters was news of the homefront -- how the kids are doing, how the crops are doing, gossip about the neighbors, and how things are in town.
Some letters were requesting that needed items be sent home. One letter was a thank you note from the dead soldiers daughter. She was thanking him for the shoes that fit perfectly, and would it be possible to send a pair for her brother.
Very few letters mentioned of the war at all. My own interpretation of this is that the wives realised that their husbands lived with the war all the other times so they would spare them from it for the few minutes it took to read the letter.
Then there was another news story from 1862.
The wife of an officer was notified that her husband had been wounded and was in an infirmary in Philadelphia. As she didn't live that far away, she decided to make the journey to see him and give him comfort.
Upon her arrival, she was told that he had died only a few hours prior. She went to his body and wept and mourned for a time. She then found the commanding officer and volunteered herself to give aid and comfort the many wounded that occupied every available space.
She spent the next two weeks at the hospital caring for these wounded soldiers, Union and Confederate alike, taking time away from them only to bury her husband and to sleep. She reluctantly left only when home duties required that she must.
These are but two examples of history that is not found in the history books. |
Wmsteed53
Username: Wmsteed53
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 07:30 am: | |
Very interesting story Henry... I think most people today have no idea just what life was like prior to the 1940's. Life was actually very hard with the have-nots far out numbering those that lived well.
My own grandfather was sentenced to the Utah State Mental Hospital in about 1914 and his seven children put in the State Reform School so that his farm could be taken by a brother and the County Attorney. We did not learn the actual facts about this event until the late 1980's because the family did not want to talk about it.
It seems that it used to be a common practice to get rid of someone, get them declared mentally unbalanced and committed, this was a life sentence from which there was no parole....Bill |
Denny57
Username: Denny57
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 08:16 am: | |
you did it again Henry that story is great. I sure was glead old ferd got his comeupance denny |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 18, 2005 - 03:22 pm: | |
I got a chuckle out of some proverbs that were published in an 1846 newspaper. Here are the ones I like the best:
- Wolves lose their teeth, but not their nature.
- A handsaw is a good thing enough, but not to shave with.
- A man's best fortune, or his worst, is his wife. Beware how you choose her.
|
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, March 26, 2005 - 07:23 am: | |
Chapter 2 of the Fort Lemhi, Idaho history is delayed. For this, I apologize. My efforts in stopping the tortuous and protracted murder by starvation of Terri Schiavo has occupied the majority of my thinking and my labors this past week.
Henry |
Denny57
Username: Denny57
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Monday, April 11, 2005 - 05:00 am: | |
more henry more |
Denny57
Username: Denny57
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 11:00 am: | |
fantastic henry are you going to post more history??? the Biography of porter rockwell is very telling about the bannock war etc.
will you tell us your sources for this history lesson??? |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 09:37 pm: | |
One of my sources is Early History of Idaho by W. J. McConnell. McConnell served Idaho both as a Senator and as Governor. He was acquainted with both Sumner Pinkham and Ferd Patterson, and, as I understand it, was in the Idaho City area when Patterson killed Pinkham. McConnell says he was one of the Idaho City vigilantes involved in the standoff before Patterson had been acquitted of murdering Pinkham.
Other sources are various web sites covering various subjects that contain details of the subject eras. One site I found particularly fascinating was the one that explained clothing of the mid 19th century. That's where I learned all about "frillies."
Another was a site about Sam Colt revolvers, what style was available when, the popular calibres, etc.
As I note at the bottom of each chapter, accounts vary from source to source. The basic "truth" of an event is always there, but particulars vary widely. One peculiarity I found in the Lemhi story is that all references, even the one that I got the names from, said that there were 27 missionaries in the original party. Yet, when I counted the names, I found that there were actually, assuming the names are correct, 28 in that original party. Go figger!
Also included in my tellings are things that could have happened. As I read through news accounts of events unrelated to the actual story I am writing, I'll come by interesting tidbits. One such tidbit was about some creative trading a woman did with some Indians. I expanded on this and came up with the 'frillies' idea. To my knowledge, that never happened, but it could have. That's an example of an injection of artistic license.
Captain Horton D. Haight really is a cousin of some distinction or other to my lovely wife. She says that's cool, but she is more proud of another of her cousins, Ken "Festus" Curtis of Gunsmoke fame. Again, go figger! |
Wmsteed53
Username: Wmsteed53
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 05:22 am: | |
Henry, I have found this storey to be very interesting.
Since I have spent a lot of time in the Little Lost/Lemhi area since I was very little, I am very firmilur with a lot of the early history. The one thing that puzzels me is how the missionary's got from the Little Lost Valley to to the Lemhi?
I know that the "Old Road" followed the Little Lost up the valley, over the Persimeroy down to the Salmon River then down the Salmon to the juncture of the Lemhi. From my place in the Little Lost, seventeen miles out of Howe, it is 105 miles to Salmon via this route.
There are two canyons that branch out of the Little Lost near the head of the valley, one of them being Saw Mill Canyon and the other is North Creek, both of these canyons used to be traversable by 4 x 4 truck, now they are only open to ATV's.
I guess that what I am wondering is... during the course of your research, did you find any mention as to how they got from the Little Lost into the Lemhi?....Bill |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 06:35 am: | |
No, Bill, I didn't find that exact information. This puzzled me, too, as, in some texts, it appeared to me that confusions reigned supreme! I think that sometimes some writers mistook the Little Lost River for the Lemhi River, and one writer seemed to think that these were two names for the same river.
I, unfortunately, am not familiar with the "lay of the land" in that area, so I had to rely on maps. And some of the maps that were drawn in the early and mid-1800s bear little resemblence to modern maps.
Accounts differ on how far north the party traveled after crossing the Snake above Idaho Falls before turning west. Some say they went as far north as Mud Lake. Others indicate only about the Roberts area. From my study of the maps, it appears to me that if the missionaries had gone as for north as Mud Lake, they could very easily have never encountered the Little Lost River at all. I chose to use the account that took them across the desert land west of Idaho Falls and over the area now occupied by the nuclear engineering site for no other reason than I used to hunt jack rabbits there.
Another landmark that is sometimes mentioned is Birch Creek (and sometimes it's called Spring Creek). If they did indeed cross to the Little Lost before turning north to the Lemhi, I'd guess that that was done somewhere near Birch Creek. But nobody that I've read so far says definitively the exact course taken by these pioneers.
(I've got a bit of a confession to make here, Bill. I knew that if you read this story, you'd be looking at it with familiar eyes. I found this to be a bit intimidating, but also challenging. I studied the maps and the written accounts until my eyes ached! I hoped that my conclusions would come across as being reasonably logical.) |
Denny57
Username: Denny57
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 07:22 am: | |
henry have you determined the exact location of the old fort in todays world??? I have been up there many times and have not seen the location marked. just curious. |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 06:22 pm: | |
No, Denny, I don't know where Fort Lemhi is located. According to the National Register of Historic Places web site, it is on private property. |
Garyc64
Username: Garyc64
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 09:03 pm: | |
Denny, heading towards Salmon on hiway 28 go past Tendoy about a mile, you will cross the Lemhi river. This is the traditional Indian fishing hole for salmon. Look around, some signs of them can still be found. Two miles beyond that is a high post wooden gate on the right, this is the old Mahaffy Ranch, go straight up the lane to the barn and shop on the left and ranch house to the right. The last of the fort is that mud brick wall just in front of you extending to the left.
Rumor has it that the ranch was sold to a group of lawyers. The sign at the hiway had been removed, the "fort" had been leveled and the usual NO TRESPASSING signs put out at the hiway gate. |
Denny57
Username: Denny57
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 04:55 am: | |
thank you Gary. I have good Idea now where it is |
Wmsteed53
Username: Wmsteed53
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 05:52 am: | |
Henry, As I have said I think your storey was great...
I think your therory about the confusion as to what route was followed by the missionary's is probably correct. The Little Lost River was originaly called "John Days River" in the 1850's, the area was well known by the early trappers for the abundant game that the valley contained.
Before the many irrigation projects that exist today were placed in the Valley, the L.L.R. ran beyond the point of the mountain out onto the "Desert", thense northerly, sometimes as far as halfway to highway 28. The Big Lost also ran out onto the desert before they put the Mackay reservoir in. One of my grandfathers favorite fishing areas was the Big Lost out on the desert near where the main NEL Site is, the streambed and dead trees are still there.
The most logical route for heavy wagons pulled by oxen would be westerly out of the Blackfoot area. They would avoid the area between Blackfoot and Idaho Falls because of the Lava Flows "Hells Half Acre", they would also avoid the Roberts area because of the swampy areas that were common in the Roberts area prior to the draining for the Market Lake Project.
Heading northwesterly across the desert from the Blackfoot area to the Little Lost, resting to let the animals rest and graze, loading up with water then heading north to Birch Creek, which is always dry that close to the desert, it would then be a straight shot up Birch Creek, over the Gilmore and down into the Lemhi via what is now Leadore.
I have traveled through the mountains seperating the LLR/Birch Creek/Lemhi valleys by horse, 4 x 4 and ATV, so for the life of me I do not see how heavily loaded wagons could have made this trip in the 1850's.
I'll say it again Henry, you did, do.... a great job with your stories, so far be it from me to try and second guess you, after all I think I might have taken a liberty or two with some of my stories....Bill |
Denny57
Username: Denny57
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 12:35 pm: | |
you are doing it again Henry. You have me spell bound waiting for the next installment. keep em coming denny |
Wmsteed53
Username: Wmsteed53
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 05, 2005 - 08:14 am: | |
Henry, I have heard the story of Elephnat's going into the Snake River before from my mother, she would have heard it from her dad because she was not born until 1911. She sometimes added to the story that one of the Elephants drowned in the river and was never found because of the depth of the water....Bill |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 05, 2005 - 10:21 am: | |
To the best of my knowledge there are but two written accounts of the elephants swimming in the Snake River. There are probably more - at least one more - in newspapers of the time.
Neither of the two accounts I read mentioned a death of an elephant. I'd have probably "killed" the elephant in my telling if I'd found that in either source.
The one version that mentions Keefer intrigues me the most. From other stories telling of the antics of the Keefer twins, I would not be surprised if they didn't have some hand in causing the elephants to stampede in the first place! |
Richc_1966
Username: Richc_1966
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 05, 2005 - 11:43 am: | |
Bill...I have a question for you...I used to go fishing with my father in law quite often when I'd come home on leave from the Army. There were two occasions where we went to what I remember as antelope creek, somewhere not far from Arco. Are you familiar with Antelope creek or am I mistaken about the name? If you know of it, I'd appreciate some directions..
Rich |
Richc_1966
Username: Richc_1966
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 05, 2005 - 11:50 am: | |
While I'm thinking about it, any information on relatively uncrowded, unspoiled campgrounds, primitive or otherwise, in that area would also be appreciated. The campground spaces would need to be large enough to accommodate a 29 foot fifth wheel RV..
Rich |
Richc_1966
Username: Richc_1966
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 05, 2005 - 11:55 am: | |
Sorry about the thread drift.... |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Friday, April 28, 2006 - 07:15 pm: | |
I decided to open up my stories again for a while. |
Bennyc
Username: Bennyc
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, June 03, 2006 - 04:41 pm: | |
Henry, thanks so much for the Fort Lemhi history. Isreal J. Clark is an ancestor of mine. I knew he helped build the fort, But thats all I knew. Can't wait to show this to my dad, thanks again.
Ben |
Henry64
Username: Henry64
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 03, 2006 - 07:34 pm: | |
Thanks, Ben. I hope your dad enjoys this.
I just noticed, though, that Chapter 1 was not complete -- somehow the last few paragraphs went missing. I have corrected this so you may enjoy reading the rest of Chapter 1 now. |
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