Chapter XVI: Some Matters Incidental to and Connected with the Invasion

It was claimed in the invaders’ petition to the governor and in his dispatch to the President, and talked in the press as well as on the street that the civil authorities of Johnson County refused to give protection to the cattlemen while engaged in their legitimate business of gathering and branding their cattle. To prove the falsity of the charge the following official notice is given as it was printed and sent broadcast over the country in May, 1892:

Notice

To Henry Blair, Dr. Harris, the Murphy Cattle Company and Other
Owners of Cattle Ranging in Johnson County:

The authorities of Johnson County invite and desire that all owners
of cattle ranging in this county who have either personally or by
their foremen and representatives participated in the late armed
invasion of this county to send able, trustworthy and discreet
persons to their ranches to attend to the rounding and preservation
of their property. The undersigned pledge to them the resources
of the county in the protection of their interests here. We would
suggest that there are a number of idle cowboys here who have not
been branded as outlaws or blackballed by the stock association who
will gladly work and help round up the cattle during the coming
season.

C. J. HOGERSON,
C. M. DEVOE,
J. T. BROWN,
County Commissioners.
ALVIN BENNETT,
County and Prosecuting Attorney.
W. G. ANGUS,
Sheriff.

Another false statement that was freely circulated throughout the country was to the effect that Johnson County was a barren waste, only suited for range cattle grazing, and that three-fourths of the taxes accrued from the range herds owned by the large cattlemen who were either present or represented in the raid. The martial law petition sent to the governor stated that the assessable value of the range herds amounted to “millions of dollars.” The exact facts are presented by the county clerk in the following statement:

“The assessed valuation of property in Johnson County for 1891 was $1,789,075.69. The valuation of all horses and cattle owned by stockmen was $318,125, the tax on which was $3,817.50.” This shows the cattlemen’s interest in that county to have been less than one-fifth of the total, yet they claimed to be entitled to the control of all matters by reason of their money invested.

On the morning of May 10th, 1892, George A. Wellman was murdered on Nine Mile Divide, in Johnson County. Here is the story as it was first told to the Bulletin, in Buffalo, on the day of the murder:

“Thomas Hathaway, a cowboy, who has been for several years in the employ of H. A. Blair Company, known as the Hoe outfit, came into town Tuesday evening, unarmed, wild-eyed and excited, and unfolded a tale that created consternation among the people.

“His story, as told then, is as follows:

“George A. Wellman, who, since the absence of F. H. Labertaux, was in charge of the Hoe outfit, came from Gillette to the Hoe ranch on Powder River, Monday evening, the 9th of May, paid off the men at work there, and Tuesday morning, he (Hathaway) started with Wellman to go to Buffalo. Each was riding a horse, and Wellman was leading a pack horse, packed with Hathaway’s bedding. When about 15 or 16 miles southeast from the Crazy Woman stage crossing, and about 10 o’clock in the morning, as they were riding side by side along the Nine Mile divide, two shots were fired in quick succession, so quick that one man could not have fired them, and George Wellman fell from his horse.

“Hathaway’s horse pitched him off; he mounted again and followed Wellman’s horse and the pack-horse about 300 yards to the right, stopped, unsaddled both Wellman’s horse and the pack-horse, turned them loose and rode as fast as he could to Buffalo to notify the sheriff.”

Hathaway changed his story somewhat as he told it to different people, and in the evening he was arrested on suspicion of being a party to the crime. The body was sent for and an inquest held, but no certain key to the mystery was found. The case has been in the United States court because of the fact of Wellman being a deputy United States Marshal, but the public is today as ignorant as it was on the morning of the murder as to the identity of the men who fired the fatal shot. Wellman was a popular cowboy with all the people and not known to have an enemy in the country. The Masons of Buffalo buried him with due honors, and general sorrow prevailed throughout the county. He was married at Martha, Wisconsin, April 21st, 1892, and had just returned from that interesting ceremony when he was stricken down.

The belief is general in the northern counties that Wellman died at the hands of the invaders and not by act of the so-called rustlers. As explained in another chapter, they believe he was selected as a victim in the hope of fastening a crime upon the settlers of Johnson County for the purpose of exciting sympathy for the captured white caps.

Some weeks after the discharge of the invaders, Dudley Champion, a brother of Nathan, was shot and killed by Mike Shonsey, one of the late prisoners. Champion came down the cattle trail in search of work, and at a point about 20 miles northeast of Lusk fell in with an outfit from Texas. During the evening meal Shonsey rode up, and for a time pleasant conversation was carried on between the entire party. Suddenly Shonsey raised his gun and fired, killing Champion instantly. Shonsey, accompanied by a lad who was in the employ of the Texans, immediately started for Lusk, where he gave himself up to the officers. A preliminary hearing was at once had, the boy swearing that Champion drew his revolver first, and that Shonsey fired in self-defense. This, of course, relieved Shonsey from blame, and he was released. A few hours later he took the train for Cheyenne, arriving in that city at midnight. The next morning he settled up with George W. Baxter, in whose employ he had been, and took the afternoon train south, presumably going to Mexico and out of reach of the law.

Twenty-four hours after Shonsey’s release by the court at Lusk other witnesses arrived, and it was claimed that Champion had made no gun play and that his killing was unprovoked, cold-blooded murder on the part of Shonsey. But the information came too late--the murderer was flying southward and out of reach. Thus was added another crime to the long list chargeable to white cap influence.

Undoubtedly the motive for the killing of Dudley Champion was the fear that he would, if permitted to live, seek revenge for the murder of his brother Nathan at the K. C. ranch. A living Champion was looked upon as a constant menace--therefore, no Champions must be permitted to live. Shonsey is still absent from the state, and no action has been initiated to bring him back to answer for his crime.

Readers of these pages can but be impressed with the knowledge that the whole cry of the invaders and their promoters was the decimation of their herds by the rustlers. “Thief, thief!” was the constant yell, and the charge was always that, “If the thieves are not wiped out our herds will be.” So they went to battle to destroy the men who had thus driven the cattle from the ranges of the state. That this was a false cry, the following story abundantly proves:

“The Western Union Beef Company, of which George W. Baxter was and still is general manager, had a herd located in Johnson County, with Mike Shonsey as range foreman. The grass was short and the company had determined to move the herd to Montana in hopes of securing a better range. In the early autumn of 1892, four or five months after the invasion, the herd was gathered for the drive to Montana, and behold there were found and rounded into the moving bunches about two thousand more cattle than the company’s books called for. The rustlers had not taken many of these cattle, surely. Yet no man was a more vigorous “thief” howler than this man Baxter.

Some persons have been uncharitable enough to suggest that the general manager and the range foreman had entered into a conspiracy and “put up a job” on the company for their personal pecuniary benefit, namely, anticipating and perhaps urging the removal of one herd, they had “doctored” the tally sheets so as to show two thousand head less than the real number. Then, when the gather was made, if they found all the books called for less, say two or three hundred, they could buy the remnant for a few hundred dollars--less than half of the market value of the shortage, for it costs nearly all the value of the tailings of a herd to gather it--and thus have a two thousand herd of their own. But the little unpleasantness of the invasion made the climate of Johnson County unhealthy for Messrs. Baxter and Shonsey, and the cattle gathering had to be done by cowboys not in the deal. Thus, everything bearing the company’s brands was brought in and the soft snap so carefully planned was “given away.”

Assuming that there is no truth in this very plausible story, which is proper in the absence of direct proof, and that if Baxter and Shonsey had made the gather of the cattle, the same results would have been secured, the fact remains that the herd had not been looted, as claimed by Baxter and his co-workers in the invasion, and the belligerent attitude was assumed without cause. Baxter must accept one of the two horns of this dilemma--he either allowed the tally sheets to be incorrectly made out, or he knowingly set up a false cry of stolen cattle to justify an outrage upon his state and the people such as was before unknown in the history of the United States, for no practical cattleman, as he claims to be, could visit his range month after month and year after year without realizing that his herd was rapidly increasing, instead of being day by day growing less from wholesale robbery, as he everywhere proclaimed. This effectually lifts the charge of cattle stealing from the citizens of Johnson County.

Several members of the Texas contingent of the invaders have paid the debt of nature since their release from custody by the Wyoming court, all dying with “their boots on”; and many of them under circumstances peculiarly distressing. One of the sad stories will be sufficient to record here. The article copied below is from the Buffalo Voice of a date early in February, 1894, under the heading, “Vengeance Is Mine”:

“Last Friday, at Fort Smith, Arkansas, the Texas Kid was hung. He will be remembered as being one of the invaders, and the one who boasted that he was the man who fired the shot that killed Nick Ray. He was one of the hired Texans who got $5 a day and rations for helping Wolcott, Carey, Warren & Co. to kill and scare people out of this country in order to help out their arid land scheme. After getting out of jail he went back to Texas and murdered a girl, and for that crime he was justly hanged. He was engaged to the girl he murdered, before he came up here as an invader, and when he went back she had learned what he had done in Wyoming, and refused not only to marry him, but told him she never wanted to see him again. He became enraged and deliberately shot her. He was soon caught, and in less than a month after committing the crime was tried and sentenced to be hung. He broke down several days before the execution of his sentence and repented of his crimes. He blamed the instigators of the invasion for being the cause of his ruin and the death of a fair young girl. He said that he had been told by Wolcott that a band of outlaws existed in Johnson County, in comparison to whom the James boys or the Daltons were innocent children; that they not only were thieves, but that they had waylaid and killed several stockmen, and that nine out of ten of the citizens were scared to death of this gang, which numbered about 75 men. He said Wolcott and Irving told him that the governor and both Senators had offered rewards for their capture or extermination, and that the governor, as the head of the state, had given his sanction to the invasion, as had also both Senators. He denounced the whole gang and expressed regret for the part he took. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”