Cattle Kate (33 page)

On buffalo:
Millions of buffalo once roamed the plains of the Old West, and the story of their breath in the early morning forming a cloud to alert the Indians comes from
Washakie
.

On Chief Washakie:
Hebard's excellent book tells how the Shoshone chief refused to blind the eye of his horse for buffalo hunts; how he resembled George Washington; and his role in saving General Crook in the Battle of the Rosebud. This is the same General Crook who originally got Geronimo to surrender in Arizona Territory on March 27, 1886, only to have his promises to the Apache medicine man broken, leading Geronimo to escape yet again, until his final surrender on September 3, 1886, to Brigadier Gen. Nelson A. Miles. The Washakie book begins with an introduction by Richard O. Clemmer: “Friend of emigrant, settler and soldier. Cooperator in the ‘transition of the West from savagery to civilization'. Enemy of Blackfoot, Sioux, and Cheyenne. And ‘benevolent despot'—‘a czar in determination though a kindly ruler.' Thus does Grace Raymond Hebard describe Washakie.” Hebard herself prefaced the book like this: “Had Chief Washakie been an enemy of our government and its people, battling with bow and arrow, spear, tomahawk and rifle to maintain a savage supremacy over the regions now peopled with industrious workers, he would be better known.” Even given the prejudicial tone of that sentence, Hebard gives a remarkably insightful look at a chief who was so honored, that on December 30, 1878, a western Wyoming fort was named Fort Washakie.

On Tom Thumb:
An eyewitness account of Tom Thumb's visit to Laramie around 1871 was recounted by William “Bill” Owen in his unpublished autobiography. While Barnum let the mistake stand that Queen Victoria had given the small carriage to Tom Thumb, it was Barnum who had the carriage built.

On “stampede for a penny”:
This is how Jim Averell was described in a letter by Dr. Frank O. Filbey, as quoted in Hufsmith's book.

On President Cleveland's investigation:
The
Carbon County Journal
reported on June 25, 1887, that President Cleveland's interior secretary had canceled fifty-five desert land claims owned by Thomas Sturges, the longtime secretary of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and a member of the Union Cattle Co. operating northeast of Cheyenne, Meschter notes.

On Averell's letter to the editor:
The letter, quoted verbatim, was published by the
Casper Weekly Mail
on February 7, 1889. Both Hufsmith and Meschter agree this letter was the straw that broke the camel's back. Hufsmith says: “Jim had just tossed grenades, lobbed mortars, fired an entire artillery barrage, and mined the lakes and streams of the entire Wyoming cattle industry….He was absolutely correct in everything he wrote, of course, except for one major mistake. Contrary to what he wrote, he definitely should have ‘disguised himself in the matter.' Jim unwittingly signed his own death warrant. He also unwittingly added his new bride's name to the same instrument of death.” Meschter wrote: “Jim Averell was genuinely and widely well-regarded in his community. His only fault of which any Republican adversary—read ‘cattleman'—could complain was his views on land settlement policies so much in contention just then and his willingness and ability to express them in writing!”

On Town of Bothwell:
Bothwell and several investors were promoting the non-existent town to folks in the East, selling acre lots for up to four hundred dollars, according to Hufsmith and other sources. The
Sweetwater Chief
newspaper was the only structure in the town, although it regularly sent out stories claiming this was a town of homes, churches, and businesses. The
Cheyenne Sun
even quoted a dispatch from the
Chief
falsely claiming the town had a happy and boisterous celebration on July 4, 1889, where young women competed on horseback to the delight of young men.

On derisive headlines about the phony town:
Meschter quotes these from various W.T. newspapers.

On Averell's prominence:
The Rawlins
Journal
called James Averell “the gentlemanly Sweetwater postmaster,” Hufsmith notes.

On petition to create County of Natrona:
E.L. Watson signed the petition, along with at least one of her lynchers, John Durbin. Durbin later tried to rescind his signature, saying he had misunderstood the petition. Meschter notes this signature says a lot about how Ella was viewed
before
the lynching: “…she did come forward as a peer in the Natrona County controversy, which she would not have been allowed to do had she been a common prostitute.”

On election at roadhouse:
On July 8, 1889—twelve days before the lynching—Averell's roadhouse was the Sweetwater Polling Place for a special election to chose delegates to the Wyoming Constitutional Convention—a prelude to statehood. Averell was one of three election judges. Frank Buchanan and Ralph Cole were clerks. Historians universally have used this election, and Averell's position as an honored election judge, as evidence this was no “hog ranch” and he was running no house of prostitution here, as the Cheyenne papers would soon claim.

On Ella's branded cows:
The spring branding roundup of 1889 ended on July 20. Fales used Ella's legally registered LU brand to brand the forty-one head in her corral.

On Ella trading cows:
Hufsmith reports that John Burke, who drove a freight wagon, said “Ella Watson had received a few mavericks. These she had purchased from the cowboys and ranchmen.” Carbon County historian Rans Baker told the author in a 2009 interview, “I don't think Ella ever stole a cow, but I don't know if she had stolen cows.”

On Reverend Moore:
In his autobiography,
Souls and Saddlebags
, Rev. Frank Moore, National Secretary of Missions of the Congregational Home Missionary Society, recounts his visits to the roadhouse and how he knew almost everyone involved in the lynching. Hufsmith notes Rev. Moore visited the roadhouse on May 31, June 10, and 11 and perhaps even on July 19, the day before the lynching, when Rev. Moore writes that he spent the night at Bothwell's ranch. Rev. Moore wrote that he learned of the hanging from a newspaper clipping that said Jim and Ella were hanged for rustling. He comments: “A pretty severe way of dealing with a man and woman just for calf stealing. That seems to be the only value some people place on life out here. It seems terrible when I knew all the parties. Mr. Averill [sic] told me to come again and he would give me his house to hold a meeting in.” Historians note that a man of the cloth like Dr. Moore would not even consider such an offer if Jim were running a “hog ranch,” as the Cheyenne papers would claim.

On Ella's bonnet:
John Fales, in telling his story to newspapers, noted that his mother had made Ella a new bonnet.

Chapter Fourteen
—
The Last Day of My Life

On her rising:
The Old Farmer's Almanac
of 1889 says that on Saturday, July 20, the sun rose at 4:25 a.m. and set at 7:15 p.m.

On magazine Ella was reading:
The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine
, March, 1885, published in New York. This black-and-white magazine—with an elaborately illustrated paper cover—was a continuing series, with the first story in this issue listed as page 643. This edition, found in a bookstore in Prescott, Arizona, included “The New Astronomy: The Planets and the Moon,” as well as a continuation of Henry James' “The Bostonians.”

On the moccasins:
History tells us Ella went to the Shoshone camp to buy beaded moccasins, but the author has discovered another twist to this story: the moccasins were very old and worn, signifying she wouldn't have “bought” them, but would have accepted them in trade as a face-saving gesture. This implies she knew this tribe and had dealt with them before. She wore the moccasins home and kicked them off as she was hanged. According to a letter to the editor to the
Casper Star-Tribune
on October 15, 1989, from Casper Historian Chuck Morrison, they were picked up a few days later by Nell Jameson, a young girl who went to the hanging site with her father and took a picture of the hanging tree. She eventually gave them to the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne, where they are sometimes displayed and where they were examined by this author.

On Averell being abducted:
The eyewitness testimonies of Gene Crowder and John DeCorey, told to the inquest, outline Averell's abduction, and is told in several books, as is Bothwell's declaration that Averell was “under arrest” and that Bothwell's gun is all the “warrant” he needs.

On drowning them in the river:
Frank Buchanan gave a detailed eyewitness account to officials at the original inquest and was expected to be the main witness against the lynchers at their trial. One of the specific things he heard was Ella making the joke about the shallow river.

On Ella's last outburst:
Tom Rea reports in
Devil's Gate
a conversation he had with Dennis Sun, Tom Sun's great-grandson: “Way my great-grandfather told it, they went down there, they just wanted to scare them. But she got mouthy.”

On the death scene:
Frank Buchanan's eyewitness account of the hangings is detailed in several books and newspaper articles about this case. It is presented here as Buchanan described it—Bothwell putting the noose on Jim; McLean struggling to noose Ella; Ella asking for a prayer; Bothwell telling her she can deliver it in person; Bothwell laughing that Jim should be “game” and jump; Buchanan shooting at the lynchers and hitting Durbin; the lynchers firing back; the couple strangling to death, writhing as they swung from the limb.

On “No! No!”:
Ella's last words were quoted by western history writer Dale T. Schoenberger, writing in
The National Tombstone Epitaph
in October, 1990, in an article titled “Notorious ‘Cattle Kate' Not a Rustler. Wild Stories Spread to Excuse A Lynching.”

On the immediate aftermath of the lynching:
Hufsmith reports three telling stories from Sunday, July 21, 1889, that were told to him by historian Ruth Beebe:

• •
  Her father, Stewart Joe Sharp, told her about “brave little Gene Crowder” confronting Bothwell.
  
• •
  Charles Countryman of the BH6 Ranch was startled to find Ernie McLean on his doorstep “with swollen, red eyes, and then between wrenching sobs, he almost incoherently blathered out what had happened.”
  
• •
  John Crowder was camped with a new rig when someone told him what had happened. “Crowder promptly unhitched the horse, struggled up onto its back and galloped away leaving the wagon standing there in the sagebrush flats where it remained unmolested for three years before Crowder suddenly returned briefly and drove it off.”
  

On the hanging tree:
In
Devil's Gate
, Tom Rea records his recent visit to the hanging site: “Though dead, the tree is still there. The gulch is now called Spring Canyon; the rocks are called Sentinel Rocks. The tree is not large, twenty-five or thirty feet high, and even its largest limbs, blackened now from fire or lightning decades ago, would be too brittle to hold the weight of a pair of kicking, desperate people. There are two rocks at the base of the tree. Only one is big enough for two people to stand on before being pushed into space. Living, the biggest branch could have been limber enough to hold them without breaking, yet stiff enough to hold them off the ground. It was a short drop. Their toes, once the branch took their weight, would have been inches from the dead pine needles and dirt.”

On the new prison in Rawlins:
Wyoming Territory was building a prison in Rawlins to replace its original prison in Laramie. Construction began July 23, 1888, and it was named the Wyoming State Prison upon the Territory's admission to the Union on July 10, 1890. Today it is a museum open for public tours.

Part Two: Chapter Fifteen
—
“Cattle Kate” is Born

On Sunday events:
Stories printed in the
Cheyenne Sun
on Sunday, July 21, 1889, depict the day.

On Esther Hobart (Slack) Morris:
Her son, newspaper editor Ed Slack, labeled her “the mother of woman suffrage in Wyoming,” upon her death in 1902. While stories have long persisted that in 1869, she invited influential Democrats and Republicans to a “tea party” at her home and wouldn't let them go until they'd pledged to vote for suffrage, that story is now in dispute. Some historians contend she had little, if anything, to do with the suffrage vote. But in 1870, she became the first woman in the nation to hold public office when she was appointed a judge. That same year, six Laramie women joined six men on a jury—the first women to ever serve on a jury in the nation. To this day Esther Hobart Morris is touted as the Mother of Wyoming Suffrage and in 1960, her statue was presented as Wyoming's representative in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

On frontier newspaper philosophy:
“Cattle Barons vs. Ink Slingers: The Decline and Fall of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (1887-1894)”—a paper by Ross F. Collins, North Dakota State University, Fargo—notes: “Wyoming, more than any other state in the Old West era, was built and dominated by a single industry, cattle. Its association more than any other reserved power to enforce the law as it pertained to their business. And their business was Wyoming's business.” He also notes that in the heyday year of 1885—four years before the lynching—members of the association represented two million head of cattle worth $100 million. In the horrible winter of 1886, much of that was lost.