"a dweller on the path by the
hedge"
1858-59
WESTWARD CROSSING THE PLAINS AND RETURN
By: DEMETRIUS HEDGPETH
- 1 -
The Company or Train of which this is written, started from Graham,
Nodaway County, Missouri, in April, 1858. The Company consisted of Judge Joel
Hedgpeth, his wife Jane Hudspeth Hedgpeth and their children, Lewis Johnson,
Joel, William Pleasant, Elizabeth and Thomas Riley. Two other children, Minerva
and Henry Holland, remained in Missouri. The family of Thomas Riley consisted
of himself, his wife Eliza Jane Elliott Hedgpeth, and their children, Demetrius
Elliott, James Henry, Caloway and Charles Edward. This Company also included
Judge Gillum Bailey and family; W. Wright Bailey and family; and seven or eight
men employed to help drive cattle.
After crossing the Missouri River at St. Joseph, Missouri, on April
22nd, the party struck out across the plains of Kansas. The Southern route
through Kansas, New Mexico and Arizona was chosen because of the trouble in
Utah that year between the Government and the Mormans. Following the route
through Topeka, the Old Santa Fe and Independence Road was intersected East of
Council Grove.
While the four families traveled together, Judge Gillum Bailey was
considered the leader of the Train by tacit agreement. While crossing Kansas,
we fell in with other Trains, mostly from Iowa. There were Daley, Holland,
McCoy, Brown, Jones and L. J. Rose. Holland and Rose became well known in
California.
Along the way Thomas R. Hedgpeth caught a buffalo calf. The cow
we had with us claimed it, as her calf had been left at home. This buffalo
calf was later killed by the Indians on the Colorado River bank when the Train
was attacked.
When we reached Albuquerque, we were advised by Army officers, and
others, to take a new route recently explored, and near the Thirty-five degree
North Latitude line to the Colorado River. AT & SF railroad later followed
about the same route. The Government furnished a guide for half price as an
incentive to get this route traveled. We paid our part of $300 and was the
first party over this route. Our guide, Savedra, a Spaniard, had forgotten
the way, if he was ever over it before. Our train got into the most difficult
places and delay, caused by making roads. At times, our wagons had to be let
down off mountain sides with ropes. Left behind were the rolling plains with
fine grass from six inches to two feet tall and its herds of buffalo. We were
now in a stange and rugged country full of interesting sights. The most
striking was the pueblo of Zuni, an Indian town of three thousand with streets
ten feet wide and adobe brick houses two stories high. The lower story was
used to corral sheep when the savage Navajo or Apache attacked the Zuni.
When we reached the headwaters of the Verde River where Flagstaff
now stands, there was a sever rain storm. The thunder roared and boomed and
echoed among the mountains as I had never heard before. After the storm had
passed and the clouds had cleared away, the moon shone with a dazzling bright-
ness and there appeared an exquisited and beautiful Luner Rainbow, the first
and only one I have ever seen. The following night we camped at La Rue Springs
near the base of San Francisco peak. We stayed at the Spring for a week or
more, and some of the men, Thomas and two brothers climbed the 12,000 foot peak.
- 2 -
We continued westward over a dry high plain covered with scrubby
Cedar and Juniper which had a fairly good supply of bunch grass, but a
scarcity of water. The stock was almost crazed by mirages, until a small
pool was found in a deep depression. The sides of the pool were so steep, the
stock had to work their way around to get down. All available rope in the
train was used trying to find the bottom of this water hole.
About this time, Thomas Riley Hedgpeth and Jose Savedra rode a days
journey ahead to inspect the road and locate water. Thomas killed a bear
near a fine spring where the next camp was made.
In early August, we reached a rough, rocky chain of mountains about
thirty miles from the Colorado River. At this time, the Train owned by L. J.
Rose and managed by Mr. Brown was a half days travel ahead and went on to the
River that night. We reached a spring of water in the mountains about midnight
and decided to leave the wagons at this spring and send the cattle on to the
river to rest and feed, as they were so tired and footsore. Judge Joel Hedgpeth,
his sons Lewis and William, and a few other men remained with the wagons with
six or seven families of women and children. Among them was a German family
by the name of Bentnor; husband, wife, grown daughter and several small children.
As they had a mule team, they decided to push on to the river. After leaving
this camp, none of its members were heard of again, although the body of the
daughter was found a few miles from camp where the Indians had cut her clothing
from her body, leaving only the waist band.
Meanwhile, on the east bank of the Colorado River just north of what
is now Needles, California, were twenty-two white men fighting eight hundred
Mojave Indians. Mr. Jones had been wounded some weeks before by Cosnino Indians,
so was out of the fight. The wagons at the river were in a semi-circle near
the river and on August 17th at about two in the afternoon, the Mojaves, with
lusty warhoops, attempted to rush the wagons, but were driven back by accurate
and rapid firing. For three hours or more they tried time and again to gain
the enclosure. Judge Bailey, seeing a prominent looking Indian whom he took
to be directing the Mojaves, leveled on him and brought him to the ground.
Soon after this, the savages ceased their yelling and abandoned the fight.
Mr. Brown had been riding among the cattle when he heard the Indians, so rode
for camp, but was fatally shot by arrows and died soon after reaching camp,
leaving twenty men to oppose the Indians.
As the fight started, Thomas rushed some yards to untie a young mare
and bring her within the circle of wagons. Someone observed that he was a
fool, but he replied that a man might as well be killed as to be left without
a horse in this county. He had two arrows through the flesh of his left arm,
but did save the mare and was able to get her back to Missouri. Twelve others
received wounds; W. R. Bailey getting an arrow in his thigh. Later reports
indicated sixty Indians killed. As most of the stock had been lost to the
Indians, the train was afraid to cross the river, so it was decided to turn
back to the Mountain camp after selecting enough wagons for the oxen that were
left. The other wagons were burned. They buried the body of Mr. Brown,
wrapped in chains, in the river.
Thomas, on the young rescued mare, rode ahead to bring the news to
those at the mountain camp. He was a splendid horseman, but how different that
day; sick from the loss of blood and from riding in the hot sun, his arm in a
blood-soaked sling. His father, Joel, had walked out on to an eminence that
enabled him to see far down the trail, saw Thomas coming, and walked to meet
him, thinking all the rest were killed.
- 3 -
To return to Albuquerque seemed the only thing to do. The oxen
driven from Missouri were exhausted, so only wagons enough for provisions
and children were used on the return. Women walked, carrying nursing babies
through sand shoe-mouth deep. One day Eliza Jane Hedgpeth , Thomas's wife,
became lost and was out of sight of the Train until nearly evening. This was
during August and she was carrying her baby, Charles, in her arms. She said
she prayed to die if she couldn't catch up with the train before the Indians
found her.
Breadstuff gave out and for forty-two days the party lived on beef
which included an oxen that had dropped dead, which when cooked was so guey
it stuck their fingers together. A pair of twins became so thin, it seemed
one could touch thumb and finger through their temples, but they lived to get
back to Albuquerque.
On the east side of the Colorado Mountains, we were met by a Train
in the charge of Messer. Cave, Perkins and T. O. Smith. Even with these re-
inforcements, it was not thought safe to attempt the crossing of the Colorado
River, so we all turned back to Albuquerque. When we reached the Zuni Pueblo,
we found breadstuff and other provisions. These Indians were very freindly
to us.
Before we reached Albuquerque, we were met by a party of soldiers
with wagons and provisions under the command of Sargeant Glenn, Company E,
3rd Regiment, U. S. Infantry.
We spent the winter of 1858-59 in the town of Albuquerque. Major
D. H. Rucker was quartermaster of the Post while we were there. He after-
ward became Quartermaster General of the U. S. Army.
In the Spring of 1859, Thomas Riley Hedgpeth and his family went
back to Missouri where he became a Minister and Circuit Rider in the North-
west part of Missouri.
(Note:) Demetrius Hedgpeth was born in 1851 and was seven years old when this
happened. He later told the story, as written, to his daughter, Mary Lucy,
and she had her son, Burton D. Hamilton type it in 1938.
This is 1959, one hundred years since my grandfather, Demetrius, made
this daring trip with his parents. I am copying Burton's original typed story,
making two copies and original for Genealogy records of my daughter, Dorothy
S. Pratt, and her children. My mother, Mary Lucy Hedgpeth Hamilton, told me
that Thomas Riley Hedgpeth was running away from his calling as a Minister, but
due to events, decided he had to go back, and so he fulfilled his destiny as a
Minister. I remember Eliza Jane Hedgpeth, my great-grandmother, who lived to
be 84 years old, and died when I was a little girl, and I was born in 1904.
My mother is 87 years old this year and I visited her and my Dad on
Thanksgiving and his birthday, Dec. 1st, when he was 93 years old, at Enid, Okla.
Lucy Dean Hamilton Stuart
(Note: Re-typed Jan. 1968 by Mary Lou Hedgpeth Atkinson, daughter of Marvin
Bishop Hedgpeth, the son of Demetrius Elliott Hedgpeth.)
Re-transcribed again March 2003, by Ken Hedgpeth, [great grandson of Marvin Bishop Hedgpeth], from a copy that appears to be of multiple generations of xerox copying, that I received in 1984, from Mary Lou's sister Mahala Caroline Hedgpeth Conner, both of them being sister's of my grandfather Richard Delmar Hedgpeth ...
Note: Demetrius died in 1928, 10 years before the first draft of this story was reported herein to have been typed up .... I have no knowledge if an original hand written copy existed ... I am not even sure if I have a complete copy of this story, as the pages were not numbered. Demetrius, along with his siblings and their parents, did not join in with the second attempt to cross the Colorado River, with the rest of the original wagon train ... As they returned to Missouri that spring of 1859. That being the fact, one would have thought this story would have more to say about the return to Missouri, and or the events that lead up to that decision ...
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