Chapter XII: Part 12

Tracing the Old Trail, locally, we find: The road at first came almost due west from Kennekuk across the Kickapoo Indian reservation, but probably bent over into what is now Brown County, as it followed the ridges. It crossed the Delaware at a point about eighty rods upstream from the crooked bridge on the present south line of the reservation—the Jackson-Brown County line. The Kickapoo reservation at that time contained about 150,000 acres. It has since been diminished three times. Now it is a block five by six miles in extent, thirty sections, 19,200 acres — with much of the land owned by the whites.

The first mission, built in 1856, was located on Horton Heights, inside the present city limits of Horton. The site was marked by a red glacial boulder on December 1, 1936 — 80 years after the Indian school was established by E. M. Hubbard—the first school of any kind in Brown County.

Also, there is confusion about the name of the stream spanned by the crooked bridge. Some call it the Grasshopper, and others refer to it as Walnut creek. It is neither. Lewis and Clark, explorers, named it the Grasshopper in 1804. It was changed to the Delaware in 1875 by an act of the Kansas legislature.

From that creek crossing, the trail followed the ridge to the old town of Powhattan in section 33, Powhattan township—the same section on which the East Powhattan school house is located, at the present intersection of U. S. 75 and the new graveled highway now running 11 miles straight east to Horton. The change station was on the northeast quarter, owned by Henry Gotchell, who had charge of the station, and also the post office.

My mother got her first letter written by relatives in Tennessee, at the Powhattan post office. Her cousin, Gaius Cullom, a school teacher, wrote: “Powhattan—why, that’s an Indian name! I am grieved to believe my dear cousin Martha is residing dangerously close to wild Indians. Be careful, my favorite, and don’t let those accursed aborigines get your scalp!” Alone for the day with her three small children in her country home, a year later, some such fears must have gripped my mother, when, on approach of a meandering band of blanketed Kickapoos, she hurriedly gathered up her brood and made a dash for the cornfield.

The old town of Powhattan—not to be confused with the present town of Powhattan farther over in Brown county—which was established 11 miles northeast when the Rock Island railway went through in 1886 — was in the center of the northwest quarter of section 33. There was a store, hotel, blacksmith shop, and numerous dwellings. Although regularly surveyed in town lots, nobody really owned the land on which the town was located at the time. It was held by “quatter’s rights,” in succession, by three men—Peter Shavey, Riley Woodman, and C. C. Grubb. It is now a cornfield, owned by Mrs. James Grubb.

From Powhattan, the line ran west across the Timber-lake and Cassity lands. The Timberlake land is now owned by Mrs. Cora Jenkins. The road then followed the ridge to Granada, passing from Brown county to Nemaha county at that point.

In 1860 the Powhattan change station was moved to a point three miles north. The change was made to take out a big curve and save mileage. The new station was called Kickapoo. It was on Indian land near the new mission on the west edge of the reservation. Noble H. Rising was in charge. Later, he was a merchant in Wetmore; as was also W. W. Letson, Express messenger.

Going back to the Grasshopper-Delaware crossing, the new line ran northwest to the mission, crossing Gregg’s creek—now Walnut creek—about midway. From the mission, the road crossed the Bill Garvin lands and went almost due west to Granada, crossing Gregg’s (Walnut) creek again downstream from the present bridge east of Granada. Joe Plankington recently found a cache of rough “diamonds” in a hollow at the base of a tree near this crossing. The “rocks” were supposedly hidden there by a returning traveler, back in the sixties—probably a prospector afraid to chance crossing the Kickapoo reservation, carrying his precious find.

NOTE—Since this article was printed in 1936, Joe Plankington tells me that one of the old Kickapoos—Pas-co-nan-te, father of John “Butler ” —told him the Indians were stalking the traveler and that he, Pas-co-nan-te, watched the wayfarer hide the rocks in that tree, many moons ago. And Joe said the old Indian accurately traced the way — on paper—tree by tree, from the Trail to the right tree.

And furthermore, Joe believes he has seen the scalp of the former possessor of his rocks—and at the same time had his own hair standing on end. Because of a slight favor by Joe, Pas-co-nan-te asked him if he would like to see a scalp, and at the same time told a young Indian whom Joe thinks was a grandson, to fetch one. When the scalp was laid down where Joe could get a good look at it, Pas-co-nan-te grabbed Joe by the “topknot” saying, “Maybe me show you how.” The knife the Indian held in his other hand cut Joe to the quick—but the blood froze in his veins, and not a drop was spilled. Then the old Indian said, “Me foolin.’ Me know better now.” The young Indian told Joe, later, that he was pretty sure the old Indians had killed the traveler.

Joe also says he sent one of the “diamonds” to a niece in Boise, Idaho, and that the cutter who dressed the stone—for $25—pronounced it a high-quality pigeon blood ruby.

The old stage drivers “bumped” into many exciting and some amusing incidents. In the Far West “Hank Monk” held the record for fast driving and tall stories. And fictitious or not, “Hank” was the ranking driver in the West. Here it was Bob Ridley, Bill Evans, and Lon Huff—with Bob well out in front. My cousin, Bill Porter, says his uncle Bill Evans told this one. His run took him across the Kickapoo reservation. Whenever his stage would pass the Indian Mission the young Indians would put on a demonstration — race their ponies around the stage, compelling him to stop. Then they would ask for tobacco. Bill was always prepared for them. On one trip out of Saint Joseph he had only two passengers — mere boys, from the East. They said they were going West to fight Indians, and they had the guns strapped on them to do it. Knowing how the young Indian bucks would perform, Bill told his passengers that he was now coming into Indian country, and was liable to be attacked—but they, the boys, must not start shooting until he gave the word. It would be suicidal for them to start the fight. He told them other reasonable and some* highly unreasonable stories about the Indians. The boys were expecting the worst. The young Indian bucks appeared as usual, and circled the stage—yelling, screaming, yelling like assassins pouring out of bedlam. Bill tossed his plug of tobacco out to them—then climbed down from his high seat and looked in on the boys. They were down on the floor, hiding. Before completing his run, the boys told Evans that they were going to abandon the notion of fighting Indians. Bill said, “I told them that I was sure they would change their minds after having one good look at the Indians.” One of the boys said, “We didn’t really get a good look at them—.” but we heard their blood-curdling yells, and that was enough. The other boy said, “What I want to know is—how do we happen to be alive?”

After the removal of the Powhattan change station, Henry Gotchell sold to Riley Woodman. Woodman sold to C. C. Grubb, who came to section 33 in 1857. Grubb was postmaster after Gotchell. Mail was carried down from Granada. Later, the Powhattan postoffice was moved to Wetmore.

Riley Woodman, father of E. J. Woodman, came in 1863. While the mail and stage now went on the north road, some traffic still followed the old line. In December, 1863, an ox-train transporting Government supplies was snowed in at the Woodman place and remained there until March. In the outfit were seventeen men, two saddle horses, and ninety-six oxen.

The Government paid Woodman one dollar a- bushel for corn—not an excessive price, under prevailing conditions. But often freighters and travelers were compelled, in emergencies, to pay ruinous prices for feed. Scarcity and the high cost of provisions at times, also taxed the travelers’ slender resources.

In 1860, the driest of all years in Kansas since the first efforts at farming, nothing was produced. Potatoes, Mrs. Martha Hart tells me, did not grow as large as hazelnuts. That year William Porter yoked up four steers to his lumber wagon and drove them over into Missouri, where he traded one yoke of oxen for provisions—and he didn’t get a burdensome return load, at that. There was a little short slough-grass in the lowlands, which the farmers cut with cradles and sold to overland travelers at twenty cents a pound.

From Granada, the road went past the cemetery, touched at the Sneathen Vilott farm, section 24, Capioma township; thence northwest to Log Chain in section 19. From Log Chain the line ran northwest to old Lincoln, section 13, Mitchell township—about one mile northeast of the State lake—thence to Seneca. Granada and Lincoln were not change stations.

If the hills about old Log Chain could talk, doubtless one could find a lot of story material there. While to my knowledge the only thing to distinguish that station was the mud-hole that gave it its name, it really has a colorful background. Rich in legendary lore and historical fact, there is no telling what an enterprising artist might do in painting the old picture over. It is said Abe Lincoln got as far west as Log Chain. The land is now owned by Dr. Sam Murdock.

Nearly all the old-timers here took one or more turns at bull-whacking across the plains. It was the only sure money “crop” for the pioneer farmer. Usually one trip was enough. Fred Liebig, Henry McCreery, and John Williams made several trips.

Fred Shumaker, father of Roy and “Hank,” who came here in 1856, was a driver for the freighting firm that transported the stores for General Johnson’s army. After the army had reached Fort Bridger, where it was detained through the first winter, Shumaker was detailed as driver for a guard sent on beyond Salt Lake to meet the army payroll coming in from California. The safe containing the money was transferred to his wagon. On that trip he saw, scattered about on either side of the road, bleaching in the desert sun, the bones of those ill-fated emigrants who lost their lives in the Meadow Mountain massacre. Fred Shumaker earned enough money on that trip to pay for his first farm, which cost him $1.25 an acre. He married Rachel Jennings, the sister of Zeke Jennings who lived on a farm northeast of Wetmore for many years. She was employed in the Perry hotel at Kennekuk.

Bill and Ben Porter, who came here first in 1856—left, and came again in 1858, drove oxen for a transport company hauling Government supplies. On one trip, the company feed supplies ran short out in Wyoming and most of the stock died. The train was hauling corn to the northwest forts, but it could not be used, even in emergencies like that. A guard was left with the train while waiting for fresh oxen to move it. The weak cattle, still able to travel, were taken back to Leavenworth. It was a bitter cold winter. The drivers protected themselves as best they could from the Arctic blasts in snow drifts.

Wagon trains of the larger outfits consisted of twenty-five wagons, five yoke of oxen and a driver for each wagon — with wagon-boss, assistant boss, and herder.

My Uncle Nick Bristow and Green Campbell took a turn at bull-whacking for that major freighting firm—Russell, Majors, and Waddell. But imbued with the spirit of the times, they forsook the bulls for the more exciting business of panning gold. My uncle’s exploits have been mentioned. In other articles I have referred, with no little degree of pride, to the Campbell mining success—he having gone from here into the West in company with my uncle—and then, too, he “schooled” one connected with my own efforts in the mining game. That we failed to duplicate his enviable success was no reflection on that able tutor.

This, however, has never been in print. Green Campbell made his first money at mining in the Cherry creek diggings — $60,000. He spent most of it while in that camp. He told my mining partner, Frank Williams, that he spent his money rather too freely, in the customary way of that period, at old Auraria. It was money he very much needed later. With only $1,500 of his stake remaining, he went to the Alder Gulch diggings in Montana. At Bannock he and a partner, Mart Walsh, located claims which sold for $80,000. Walsh, a merchant at Muscotah in the early days, at one time owned 600 acres of land north of that town. He died in a county home in Oklahoma, penniless. He was a brother-in-law of Mrs. William Maxwell, of Wetmore.

Later, Green Campbell made his big fortune, millions, in lode mining in Utah and Nevada, which, since his death has, largely, been kept intact by his wife and two sons, Allen and Byram — his second family — now living at 705 Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, California. The first boy was named for his father, who, in the halls of Congress, was the Honorable Allen G. Campbell. The other boy was named for Campbell’s partner in the famous Horn Silver mine—August Byram, of Atchison. There was a girl, Caroline.

Given space, I could make of this in itself a very interesting story. Green Campbell’s second wife was Eleanor Young, a reporter on a Salt Lake newspaper, and daughter-in-law of the famous old Brigham himself, who hated all peoples not of the Mormon faith. It is not recorded that the lady said to her man, like Ruth of old, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” But the inference is, she did. Campbell did not go Mormon. Indeed, he was poison to the saints after he contested the election of his Mormon opponent, Bishop Cannon, and took unto himself the Canadian’s seat in Congress after it had been occupied by the alien for nearly two years.

Several of the old stage drivers, after closing days, married and settled down in Wetmore. Robert Sewell married Cicily Locknane; Lon Huff married Clara Rising; Bill Evans married Kate Porter. Through their activities on the stage line, and breathing the free atmosphere of frontier life, these men were all moulded pretty much into a like pattern. Good story-tellers all, they lent themselves to the occupation without stint. Jovial and courteous at all times, they shunned work—unless it be with horses. Lon Huff drove the hearse for the local undertaker. He had a black team for adults, and a team of white horses for children.

Robert Sewell, the outstanding character, known on the plains as “Bob Ridley,” owned a livery stable here. Shall I tell the auto-minded young sprouts that the livery stable, now in the discard, was an enterprise of the horse-and-buggy days—a place where rigs were kept for hire? Sewell’s wife, Cicily, ran a hotel. Her mother, Mrs. D. M. Locknane, had conducted a famous eating house just west of Granada during overland days. Those two early-day enterprises of the Sewells were known as the “Overland Livery Stable,” and the “Overland Hotel.” Bob Sewell had a record of killing three Indians and wounding a dozen more in a running fight near Cottonwood Springs. Ben Holladay gave him a gold watch for saving the stage and four mules.

About the Old Trail, I have heard my uncle say that in the flush times of 1865 and 1866, when traffic was at its peak, there was hardly an hour of the day when one could not see the road lined for miles—one seeming endless procession moving westward. No other road ever had such a promiscuous, persevering throng—a weary plodding throng, whose way was fraught with many hardships, whose dead were left all along the Old Trail from the Missouri river to the Golden Gate. Other stage lines threaded the West and the Southwest—but the Overland has gone down in history as the greatest of them all.

Three score and ten years have now gone by since the last Concord stage coach made its final run from Atchison, through Granada. All equipment was at that time moved west to the end of steel—leaving the eastern end of the great Overland Trail abandoned and waiting, a lost ghost, for the day when Fate, slow but sure, should plow it under. And with poignant memory was gone, too, a stirring bit of frontier life in the West.

MEMORY’S STOREHOUSE UNLOCKED Published in Wetmore Spectator, Holton Recorder, Seneca Courier-Tribune, Atchison Daily Globe—

December, 1938.

By John T. Bristow

Green Campbell’s Colorful Mining Career

The train wound its way by easy stages down from the mountain heights into the desert valley. The railroad split the great basin in halves. On either side treeless mountains rose in endless succession. It was mid-summer in the great inter-mountain region—and the sage-fringed valley, broad and almost level, stretching ahead for miles and miles, shimmered frightfully under the glaring rays of the noonday sun. And winds swept out of the south like withering blasts from a slag furnace.

It was the Utah desert.

Far off to the right, shrouded in desert haze, could be seen the tip of a mountain which marked the approximate location of a famous early-day mining camp. The scene — barren, desolate, and so familiar to me — brought back a flood of memories. Instantly my mind dwelt upon events of the long-ago in that old mining camp and simultaneously with the home-life back in Kansas of the man who made it.

In that brief flash I saw it all. In that jumbled picture I glimpsed a sturdy hoist over a deep shaft at the base of that mountain, whose cables had in times past brought up daily tons of high-grade argentiferous ore, every ton of which, though it greatly enriched my erstwhile Kansas.

The last installment of J. T. Bristow’s fascinating tale of the career of Green Campbell is a fine piece of writing. We have heard many commendable expressions on this biographical sketch. . . . The author, J. T. Bristow, is a resident of Wetmore, a former newspaperman, well known to many of our citizens. That he is a good writer is the conviction of all.

—WILL T. BECK, Holton Recorder, neighbor, had spelled defeat for him in the most sacred phase of human life.

In that flash I glimpsed too a stretch of rich rolling Kansas prairie lined with streams of running water and a healthy growth of timber, in the center of which, down by the timber’s edge, was once this man’s place of abode, and which was then, and still is, but a few miles from my own home. And I saw a wrecked home; a court house thronged with curious people; and a lonely woman, a distraught wife and mother of a little boy, fighting desperately for her freedom—and alimony.

The scene is now in Kansas. It will shift back and forth between here — meaning, roughly, Wetmore, from which place this writing issues—and the old mining West again and again as this narrative unfolds.

THE CHERRYVALE ICE CO.

Watkins Brothers, Prop’s

CHERRYVALE, KANSAS

Feby. 17, 1939.

Jno. T. Bristow, Esq., Wetmore, Kans.

Dear Friend John:

“Memory’s Store-House Unlocked,” by J. T. Bristow, appearing in the Wetmore Spectator, came to me through the mail recently and I sure enjoyed reading it more than anything I have read in some time.

Having attended the Campbell University and knowing personally many of the characters in your article makes it of unusual interest and I wish to congratulate you for writing such an interesting historic record and thank you for the copy sent me.

Sincerely yours,

F. M. Watkins

Among the emigrants from the East during the early settlement of the Sunflower state, were John and Green Campbell. Tall, stalwart young men they were. Green was then twenty-two years old. John was a few years older. With their sisters, Caroline and Sally Ann, and their mother, Ruth Campbell, born in North Carolina in 1803, they came to Nemaha county by ox-team in a covered wagon from down around Springfield, Missouri, in 1856. Their father, James Campbell, had died in Missouri.

Passing up smooth high lands, the brothers selected adjoining claims in the breaks of upper Elk creek, section thirty, Wetmore township. This selection of rather rough lands was influenced no doubt by the presence of some timber and a spring of “living” water—two indispensable requisites of the pioneer farmer. Then, too, they might have entertained the notion of becoming cattle barons. Many of the early comers had such dreams. Here was the ideal location. Here they would have few neighbors—and unlimited free range.

Goodsprings, Nevada, February 12, 1939.

Mr. John T. Bristow, Wetmore, Kansas.

Dear Sir:

I want to thank you for the copies of the Wetmore Spectator which you sent to me, which carry the life of father. Frank Williams had already given me one issue, which I have loaned to several of father’s friends, a few of whom are still alive. The new copies will be treasured by my brother, my sister, and myself.

Father died while I was still so young that I have been able to retain but few memories of him. However, I have gathered so many impressions from friends who knew him well, not to mention mother, that I feel that I have gained quite a true picture of him. In this connection it seems to me that your life of him is not only accurate, in its main for I know this to be true features, but that it goes deeper, and gives some of the spirit that animated him. And particularly do I like your last paragraph, and your reference “. . . . in whose heart there seems to have burned an inextinguishable desire for something that never came.”;

Sincerely yours,

Byram C. Campbell

In that same year, 1856, Isaiah Thomas, with his family, came here from Newton, Iowa. He had traveled all the way from Indiana to Iowa, thence here, with ox-team and covered wagon. Custom and bovine traits had caused him to walk alongside his oxen for practically all those wearying miles. Isaiah Thomas settled on a quarter of land north of that taken up by Green Campbell. His eldest boy, Elwood, was a lad of fifteen years, seven years younger than Green Campbell. The destinies of these two young men were to be subsequently linked together in gigantic enterprises in a still newer frontier environment.

Times were close for the Campbells. They were compelled, as were many early Kansas settlers, to pick up here and there a few extra dollars, as opportunity offered, while becoming established on the farm. Green Campbell found employment with the freighting firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, at Leavenworth. His work took him often into the West. When the Cherry creek gold excitement on the east slope of the Rocky mountains broke out in 1858, he joined the throngs in that mad rush. He cleaned up $60,000 from the placer mines, but had spent most of it before coming back to his homestead.

Then for a while Green worked his land while the boy Elwood grew up. Elwood was not to come into the picture, the gigantic doings, for some years yet. In the meantime his father, Isaiah Thomas, had gone to the war and had died in Arkansas. His mother, Martha Thomas, with her family of seven children, had moved over to the north part of the township and settled on forty acres a quarter mile east of Wetmore, which place has been, until a few months ago, the home of her son, Manning. Unmarried, and the last of that pioneer family, he died May 12, 1938. Though very young, Elwood Thomas also joined the Union ranks and was held prisoner of war at Tyler, Texas, for nearly a year. Shortly after returning from the war, he married Maria Adamson, of Holton. They had four children—three girls and a boy. Charley, the son, died at Beatty, Nevada, in August last year.

Five years after his first mining venture, in 1863, Green Campbell was again panning gold at Bannock, Montana. His take this time was $40,000. Then, after one more desultory try on the farm, he married Florence Oursler, of Circleville, in 1867. She was the daughter of Rufus Oursler, wealthy resident of Jackson County. She was a beautiful woman.

For a few years contentment reigned in the Campbell home. I remember going with my Uncle Nick Bristow one time when he visited in that home. We went in a covered wagon, a wagon that was little more than a ghost of the old “prairie schooner,” having all five of the bows still in place, with a tattered canvas over only the rear half. But my uncle walked all the way alongside his nigh ox. Uncle had a “log-wagon” for heavy hauling on the farm. He kept this one for special occasions and Sunday driving. He owned no horses.

Uncle Nick and Green Campbell had mined together in the Cherry creek diggings—and the fact that his host of the day had cleaned up big, while he himself brought home only alibis, and a cougar pelt, had not impaired a fine friendship. Conscious of Mr. Campbell’s mine-made money, it then seemed to me, a youngster, that the Campbells had everything—even a “hired” girl. That girl was Elizabeth Dittman, now Mrs. Ed. Keggin, living in Wetmore, who would tell you that everything was fine and lovely with them then, as it had every reason to be.

Then rumor of a new mining strike in the West changed everything. Green Campbell now found life irksome on his then none too productive acres down on the banks of Elk creek. And as he turned over the soil with his plow on a bright May day in 1871, he also turned things over in his mind. His brother John, he decided, could remain on the farm and keep up the fight against odds if he wanted to, but as for himself the Far West was calling. That call had struck the man of my story with all the force of a Kansas tornado, and it moved him from his anchorage on the farm with a suddenness that brought a protest from his relatives.

So it was that Green Campbell, with his family now shifted to Circleville, the home of his in-laws, went out again in quest of a third fortune. And though millions came into his coffers, one cannot be sure, after all these years and in the light of what followed, whether he profited or lost by that abrupt decision back here on that bright May morning sixty and seven years ago.

They called him a tenderfoot when he reached the end of the trail which led out into a sand-blown waste two hundred miles and more beyond rail transportation. Here, on the east slope of the San Francisco mountains, in southwest Utah—about thirty miles from Milford, on the San Pedro line—this man from the plains country, ripe for more adventure, was to have a try for a third mining fortune. It was his first hard-rock mining venture.

Green Campbell got the gold all right—millions of it — and distinguished himself by developing one of the greatest silver mines of the age. But that is only part of the story.

The great fortune was won by so close a margin that it hurt. Then there was, to some extent, the usual anti-climax — spiced with complicated domestic relations, growing out of an improvident situation.

But the name “tenderfoot,” as applied to Green Campbell, was not quite right. He had already taken $100,000 from the placers; certainly enough to lift him out of that classification. Even so, granting that he was a seasoned miner at the time he entered the Utah field, Green Campbell did, however, slip just a trifle.

The erroneous application of that appellation came about through a little misjudgment of the waters of that desert country—springs they are called. But the springs in that section, as in all other desert country, with few exceptions, are not the bubbling, sparkling, steady flow of waters generally visualized with the mention of springs. Rather, in most instances, they are only seepages of water which must be collected in ground reservoirs through a system of trenching the earth. Some of those springs supply what is termed on the desert as sweet water, while other springs—those issuing from volcanic rocks—are brackish and unfit for domestic use, or for steaming purposes. The first spring developed by Green Campbell was of the latter class.

Thus it was that when in later years Green Campbell went over into Nevada to establish a new camp, he first had the waters analyzed by a chemist, then very appropriately named his new camp Goodsprings. And it so remains on the map today—a gold, silver-lead-zinc, and vanadium mining camp down among the gentle slopes of the Spring mountain range in southern Nevada. The next two camps established by Green Campbell, in California, were named Vanderbilt and Providence. We may be sure the water there was good also.

Here, I want to interrupt my story to say that it was at Goodsprings where the writer was, some thirty-odd years ago, initiated into the mining game along with Campbell followers, and where much of the material for this narrative was picked up, first-hand. Here at Goodsprings were Elwood Thomas and his nephew, Frank Williams. Elwood Thomas had been Green Campbell’s right-hand man all through the latter’s colorful mining career, having gone out from the old home town in Kansas to join him in 1873. Frank Williams went direct from Wetmore to Mr. Campbell, at the age of twenty-one, and has spent forty-seven of his sixty-eight years on the Nevada desert. And perhaps I should say here that much of the information presented in this narrative was obtained from Mr. Thomas and Mr. Williams.

In the Utah field, then a new and isolated country, under conditions that tested the fiber of the man, Green Campbell prospected the hills of Beaver county for a while. Then, nearly five years later, his big opportunity came when he secured an option on a mining claim for which he agreed to pay $25,000. That claim was later developed into the famous Horn Silver mine, which, up to the time of my last visit nearly thirty years ago, had produced slightly in excess of twenty million dollars. The mine, owned now by New York interests, is still producing at great depth. Few metal mines there are that have had such long run of life.

But, as I have already stated, chance played a big hand in this game of millions. At that time Green Campbell had all his funds tied up in other properties. He was then operating the Hickory mine at Newhouse. Green Campbell turned to his friend, August Byram, of Atchison, Kansas, for financial assistance. Byram and Campbell had become acquainted while they were both in the employ of that major freighting firm. Byram had already spent some money at the suggestion of Campbell without results, in the Star district, close by. After considerable correspondence, Byram decided to take another chance at the game, promising to come through with the funds to take over the Horn Silver claim before the expiration of the ninety-day option. Byram was to advance the full amount, half of it as a loan to Campbell, and they were to own the property on a fifty-fifty basis.

But here caution stepped in and robbed those two men of exactly one-half of an immense fortune—a fortune in the making. After the agreement had been made Byram wrote and asked Campbell to see if he could find someone to take a quarter interest in the risk. Campbell found two men, Matt Cullen and Dennis Ryan, who would come in for a quarter interest. But Byram still thought he was taking too great a chance, and wrote a second time asking Campbell to try induce those two men to take a half interest. It was so arranged.

Green Campbell then settled down to a game of waiting. Thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the times, he told himself—and rightly, too—that he had only to await the coming of Byram to jump in and win. But, without further word from Byram and the final day of the option drawing near, he became very nervous. New developments had caused the owners to look for some chance to void the option, and Campbell sensed danger in delay. Then came the awful blow that set all his emotions to working at high speed.

August Byram, on his way out to the mine, had stopped over in Salt Lake City and there he was discouraged by designing individuals who wanted to pluck the mine for themselves. Developments had increased, its value fourfold. But this fact was kept from Byram by his Salt Lake acquaintances—indeed, they stressed the fact that the claim had but recently been optioned for $1,500, and that the option had been allowed to lapse. The result was August sent word to Green that he would have nothing more to do with it.

However, Campbell managed somehow to get Byram over to the property on the last day of the option, but up to the eleventh hour he was filled to the brim with nerve-wracking suspense. For hours he had kept his gaze constantly fixed on the sage-fringed road leading out across the broad valley to the east, where was open to the eye a twenty mile sweep of sun-baked waste, looking for that distant dust cloud which might mean that relief for his tired nerves was on the way. Then, late in the afternoon, as the last golden tints lingered along the ragged edges of the mountains, the stage bearing Byram, full four hours late, was sighted far out on the road—a mere speck in a great cloud of dust.

There was yet time for speedy action. For a brief ten minutes the two men faced each other—Campbell full of words, Byram deep in meditation. It could hardly be expected that after floundering in a bog of indecision and doubt for so long, that understanding would come to Byram in a flash. But Campbell’s great anxiety in the matter caused him to believe, for the moment, that Byram’s resolutions were still wavering, while his own thoughts whirled like leaves in an autumn blast. Byram’s final words, however, kept Campbell’s spirits from suffering further.

I was not there at that particular time, of course, but this minute accounting, the reactions of those men, is as I caught it from Elwood Thomas. “If it hadn’t been such a serious matter with Green,” said Elwood, amid chuckles that sent ripples all over the old miner’s weathered face, “it would have been downright amusing.”

The transfer of the Horn Silver claim took place in the shadow of the mountain as the sun dropped out of sight on February 17, 1876. And it was a joyous occasion for the little group of interested men—except, possibly, the two original locators who were now beginning to realize the true worth of that little piece of ground. Fate dealt a mean hand to the locators of the Horn Silver claim. After sinking a shaft thirty feet on ore, Samuel Hawkes and James Ryan bartered away millions on the belief that the ore would not last.

And I might say here that the Horn Silver lode, the main ore body, was found by sheer accident. Jimmy Calvering, a young Irishman employed to do the location work, following the custom of the shiftless miner, went away a considerable distance from the outcrop to find “soft ground” in which to dig his ten-foot hole, as required by law. Jimmy was not looking for ore, but in doing that ten foot of work he opened up the main lode. And nowhere else did it come that near the surface. Jimmy was ever after that proclaimed “A man with a great nose for ore.”

The Horn Silver mine was operated by Campbell, Cullen & Co., for three years, with a gross production of nearly three million dollars. The mine was then sold in 1879 for six million dollars, and title passed to the Horn Silver Mining Co. An interest equivalent to about one-sixth of the mine previously had been given to an eastern promoter for securing a railroad to the mine.

Green Campbell had other interests at Frisco, the camp which had sprung up about the Horn Silver mine. It was a town peopled with all kinds of characters known to frontier life. It had all the mining-camp trappings—dance halls, saloons, and what not. This camp had caught the overflow from the older mining camp of Pioche, in Nevada, where the boast was, “A man for breakfast every morning!” And in lawlessness Frisco flourished like the green bay tree! Life at the high tide was almost as cheap as water! But Green Campbell’s personality was such as to keep him out of harm’s way. Green was a good mixer. He drank some, but in moderation. In no sense was he a dissipated man. And here at Frisco he made more money! Lots of it! The Carbonate mine alone gave him five hundred thousand dollars in profits! He was classed with other mining moguls of that day. Hearst, Tabor, Walsh—he knew them all.

Green Campbell’s rise in the financial world was spectacular. Within the brief span of a few years he could have returned to his old home and to his family with enough money to live in luxury. But friend Green had other notions. Like the noble beast of burden of the Sahara bearing his name, Campbell was now a permanent fixture of the desert.

Man’s ambition is seldom satisfied. Visions of greater wealth and the thrills that go with the making held Green Campbell with a vise-like grip. He willed to stay in the West.

His wife preferred to stay in Kansas with her people, at Circleville. Or, maybe, it was decided that the untamed West, the desert with its sizzling summer suns and unbridled winds, was no place for Florence Oursler Campbell and her little boy Charley. Anyhow the situation brought about an estrangement and, finally, a separation. Ofttimes men, too much absorbed in chasing the pot of gold, unconsciously make this supreme sacrifice.

Clouds began to appear on Green Campbell’s marital horizon soon after he went West, but the storm did not break until he was virtually in the big money. He was enormously engrossed with his mining operations, while back here at home, because of his continued absence, a growing resentment was piling up against him day by day. The time was coming, if he would see it, when he must give up either his mines, or his family. He heeded not the signals, seriously. Like his royal highness across the Atlantic—the self-deposed king—until disaster was upon him, he proposed to keep them both.

Florence Campbell filed her petition for divorce and alimony in the Jackson County court at Holton. Case Broderick of Holton and Judge Stillings of Leavenworth were her attorneys. Green Campbell was represented by Hayden & Hayden of Holton and Colonel Everest of Atchison. The stage was set for a spirited legal battle. The whole country buzzed with gossip. Because of the prominence of the Campbells and the Ourslers people traveled for miles on horseback and in wagons to attend the hearings.

The plaintiff and her witnesses occupied the stage for a day and a half. Then the defense attorneys armed with depositions and a liberal line-up of witnesses, told the court what they had up their sleeves. But the judge, being somewhat of a sleuth, had already detected that something was wrong with the plaintiff’s legal machinery. Gears didn’t mesh. The charge was out of alignment with the facts as adduced by the plaintiff and her own witnesses. In short, her lawyers had experienced embarrassment in their endeavor to twist a prolonged absence from Campbell’s fireside — and whatever else that was offered—into “extreme cruelty.”

There had to be a “charge,” to be sure, but it would appear that the plaintiff’s attorneys might have more profitably selected for their client, out of their cabinet of ready-made complaints, something more reasonable, something less galling to the fine sensibilities of the man. Judge John T. Morton said that inasmuch as the plaintiff had failed to prove her case, defense testimony would not be heard. Moreover, he said Mrs. Campbell would get no alimony.

There was not, as one might suspect, another man in the case—not a breath of scandal. Mrs. Campbell was too fine for that. It was her unalterable conviction that she and her child were being unduly neglected. It was “blue” blood in revolt—indignant, regrettable rebellion.

The decree was given the defendant, Green Campbell, on February 23, 1878. Custody of the little boy, Charles R. Campbell, was given to the mother. Mr. Campbell was required to pay $250 a year for the boy’s “keep and education,” with a lien on the northeast quarter of 22-6-14. Two hundred and fifty dollars a year from a potential millionaire to keep and educate his son! All right then, perhaps, but it sounds like parsimony now.

Henry C. DeForest, pioneer merchant of Wetmore, was made custodian of the impounded land. He also acted as agent for Mrs. Campbell. The allowance for the boy was not held down strictly to the court order. Indeed, Mr. Campbell did much more for his son. It is alleged that, after the separation, the boy would meet the train on occasions of his father’s infrequent trips in from the West, and that Mr. Campbell would fill his son’s hat with gold coins. And in time Charley was given the impounded land, together with several other valuable tracts of Jackson County land. Green Campbell still kept his Nemaha County homestead.

No property settlement appears of record—leastwise my investigator does not report any—though, I believe, there was a private settlement. Little enough it was, no doubt, if any, but the disillusioned Mr. Campbell was not niggardly with his money, as the plaintiff and her kin backers, and all who listened in on the trial were soon to know.

As if in preparation to carry out the educational phase of the court mandate handsomely, Green Campbell endowed a college right in the boy’s door-yard, so to speak. Work began on Campbell University at Holton in 1880, and the school opened on September 2, 1882, with Prof. J. H. Miller, president. For a small-town school it became quite noted. After a successful run of nearly a score of years, it fell into decay and finally ceased to exist. The old stone building standing on an eminence at the northwest corner of Holton, long in disuse as a college, was razed in 1931 to make room for a new $139,000 brick high school building.

It would be interesting in this connection to know what Green Campbell’s reactions really were, what motivated that splendid school? With a knowing smile on his weathered face and without amplifying his surprising assertion, Elwood Thomas once told me that had there been no divorce there would have been no Campbell University. And did the boy Charley actually “finish off” at Campbell University? I think not. A recent casual inquiry at Circleville told me nothing in that particular. While yet quite young, he married Kate McColough. He went West—and, backed by his father, tried his hand at mining at Providence, California, with little or no success.

With his marital differences adjusted in the divorce court, Green Campbell now, like as not, a morose misogynist, went back to his beloved golden West and in the immediate years which followed was as grim and silent, on one very ticklish subject, as the barren peaks of the mountains about him. In his mine, Mr. Campbell had encountered and conquered some extremely refractory ore. He had hauled in cord-wood from as far as sixty miles to roast that stubborn ore in outdoor fires, to make it amenable to the smelter. But in marriage, a bit of clay—he had no workable method for that.

Green Campbell came back to his old home only a few times after the separation. But Kansas still claimed him — claimed him until he went to Congress for Utah, claimed him until he sold his homestead here to Bill Hayden. He was Nemaha County’s first millionaire!

Green Campbell, first of all, was a miner. Close attention to business, as has been pointed out, brought him great riches—and a dilemma! The memory of this last named acquisition persisted, ghost-like, to haunt him for long years. But it did not haunt him for all time.

In the mining game, a hope never fades that another doesn’t bloom brightly in its place. Likewise, generally speaking, it is so in matters of the heart, only the flowering is not always so spontaneous. Sometimes, not infrequently, after the romantic love of other days has passed, the withering love-instinct must be carefully cultivated for years if it is to flower again.

Fourteen years and fourteen hundred miles lay between Green Campbell and the subject of his marital woes when at the age of sixty or thereabout, after he had reached the peak of his financial flight and experienced some setbacks, and after he had grown a fine flowing snow-white beard and become quite bald, it bloomed for him again.

This time the bride was Eleanor Young, a reporter on a Salt Lake City newspaper. She was a daughter-in-law of the famous old Brigham Young. And the stork, that industrious old bird of world-wide habitat, at home on the desert as in the oasis, brought the Campbell’s three fine children—Allen, Byram and Caroline.

Green Campbell would, of course, want to do something to perpetuate the school that bore his name. But in his will he made the fatal mistake—fatal for the school—of first taking care of his family with the more tangible assets. He bequeathed $100,000 to Campbell University, conditionally, however. It was to be paid out of the proceeds of two mining properties, namely, his Vanderbilt and Goodsprings holdings. A minimum price of $500,000 was placed on his Vanderbilt mine, and $200,000 on his Goodsprings claims, and they were not to be offered for less than the stipulated price for two years. The properties have not yet been sold. While really promising properties, with the future pledged, largely, by the terms of the will, there was no one to continue developments to make them bring the price. Green Campbell had expended something like a half million dollars in developing his gold mine at Vanderbilt.

Secure in the fortune left them, the Campbell heirs — Green’s second family—have risked no money in mining. Besides his various mining interests Green Campbell owned, at death, a magnificent home on Brockton Square, in Riverside, California; numerous tracts of California ranch lands, and real-estate holdings in downtown Los Angeles. Also, a substantial cash operating fund, and some income property in Salt Lake City—notably, the Dooley block. Mr. Campbell often expressed his faith in the future of Los Angeles. The fortune has largely been kept intact.

When last contacted a few years back, Mrs. Campbell was living at 705 Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, California. The two unmarried sons lived at the same address. Caroline, the daughter, was married to a Los Angeles banker, Leland T. Reeder, a son of the fiery and famous Congressman W. A. Reeder, from the sixth Kansas district, back in the nineties.

Idle mining properties, or mines worked only spasmodically by lessees, do not readily attract buyers, especially when filled with water, as in the case of the Campbell mine at Vanderbilt. Incredible as it may seem, there really is water deep down—in places—in that desert country, and it even rises sometimes. The shaft at our own mine, in the very heart of the desert, situated in a small depression on the mountain side, was once filled to overflowing during a heavy rain.

Other bequests, principally to relatives, also were contingent upon the sale of those two properties. And hope, tenacious hope, once bloomed so very brightly but now devoid of sparkle, still lingers with heirs around here.

Henry Campbell, a nephew, who was sheriff of Nemaha County for two terms about the turn of the century, with his two sisters, Mary and Frances, the son and daughters of John Campbell, all deceased now, were named jointly for $100,000. The surviving heirs are: Emma Swarm Campbell, wife of Henry, Bancroft, and two sons by a former marriage, living in the West; George Cordon, husband of Mary, Ontario; Ray Drake, son of Frances, Norton.

The heirs of Caroline Campbell, who married a Mr. Steele and went West, and the heirs of Sally Ann Campbell, who married Henry Stanley and lived near Circleville, were named jointly in the will for $100,000. William and Edward Stanley and Laura Hart, all dead now, were children of Sally Ann. William worked with his uncle in the mines and was named for an extra $100,000.

Two daughters of Green Stanley, another son of Sally Ann, are married to “Jack” and “Kid” Rudy, and live at Soldier. A daughter of Sally Ann—Julia Alice Stanley — married Albert D. Chamberlin, now living in Holton. Mrs. Chamberlin is dead. Her heirs are: Mrs. Lee Able, Holton; Mrs. S. B. Moody, Centralia; Mrs. Ernest Hogg, Payette, Idaho; Mrs. Mary Gaston and Nathaniel Chamberlin, Whitehall, Montana; and Charles Chamberlin, Salt Lake City.

One small payment was received by the heirs here about two years back, which revived interest in about the same degree of satisfaction as that of a sprinkle of rain to a thirsty earth. Time was, though, George Cordon tells me, when they could have accepted settlement at fifty cents on the dollar.

It is probable that the inheritance of Charley Campbell was tied up in this or by some other uncertain condition. Whatever the case, he settled with the estate for $50,000. Crediting rumor afloat at the time, it is my recollection that, in recognition of close—and perhaps menacing—kinship, this was paid with money left by Green Campbell to his second family.

Leaving an ex-wife and two sons, Allen and Robert, in the West, Charley Campbell later returned to Circleville. There, in 1920, he married Laura Deck. He is now living in or near Philadelphia.

His mother, Florence Campbell, did not marry again. She went to work. And by the irony of Fate she became a teacher of art in the college founded by her divorced husband, along about 1895. Later, years later, when I saw her last she seemed merely to be waiting, in emptiness and dead memories, for the end. She died in Pomona, California, about 1920.

Elwood Thomas was administrator for the Campbell estate—in Nevada. After spending thirty-eight years on the desert and in the mines, without receiving so much as a damaging scratch, Elwood was fatally injured in a horse and buggy accident while back Here on a visit to his daughter, Mrs. Maude Ralston, at Holton, in 1915. He died three days after the accident. He was buried in the Wetmore cemetery. Elwood Thomas lived apart from his family from the time he he went West in 1873. Family ties, it seems, were not strong enough to bridge the distance between them. Maybe it was the desert again.

Turning momentarily aside from the path that leads toward the rainbow’s elusive end, let me here interpose a brief paragraph about John Campbell, the brother whom Green had said could remain on the farm and keep up the fight against odds if he wanted to. John did remain on the farm; and kept up the fight—and won. He even elected to remain on the farm after pressing invitations to join his brother in the land of gold. He lived on the original homestead in Wetmore township until he died, in 1894. As the years became more seasonable for the production of grain, John Campbell made a good living—and more—from his acres and his herds. And, best of all, he found contentment and happiness with his wife and three children on the farm. I think that in all my life I have never known a more kindly, considerate, and contented person than was this tall, slim, fine man.

Luck was a bit fickle with Green Campbell. It both smiled and frowned on him in a few fleeting years. Alert, with a keen mind, he made good at first on everything he touched — save, of course, that first water-hole. Then, abruptly, as if a great cloud had obscured his vision, he lost his charm. Two outstanding reverses followed in quick succession.