By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in Days Past during this coming year regarding historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial.

On October 11, 1863, Governor John Goodwin and his party of territorial officials and their military escort passed the Pawnee Rock landmark near where their route joined the Santa Fe Trail.  Later in the day they reached Fort Larned, Kansas where they camped about a mile east of the fort.

To that point on their journey they had followed a military supply road that paralleled the famed trail before angling southward to join it.  At first, there was little excitement except for the new and, to them, exotic landscape.  The leg between Forts Riley and Larned had some more exciting events.

Judge Allyn wrote about their passage through a spot called Junction City: “Unfortunately for us, Junction City had whiskey shops, and we had a beautifully drunken crowd of teamsters and soldiers by the time we camped that night.  Some of the wagons got tipped over and a few things were spilled out, our tent poles among them, which were never found; somebody jayhawked them, I suppose.  The result was, the governor and I came to grief, or rather [to] a small wedge tent instead of our statelier wall one.—There is this advantage about it, however: it isn’t half the trouble to pitch, and that’s no mean item when you are tired and hungry.”

On the next day, a soldier in their escort, when lighting his pipe while passing through high grass, started a prairie fire upwind of an isolated farm.  Fortunately no structures were lost but the settler’s haymow and corn stack—his summer’s work—were destroyed.  Members of the party took up a collection to make up his loss.

The Governor’s party would have traveled in a wagon train similar to that pictured above (Photo Courtesy of Author).

Allyn again: “… our first antelope made his appearance and crossed the road right in front of the advance guard, not a carbine was loaded else he might have been easily shot.  The soldiers darted off in pursuit; perfect folly, for the antelope is the fleetest of animals and can pass the most inaccessible places.  One nice little fellow among them, broke his horse’s neck and thus saved his own.  Some buffalo were seen at a great distance and I saw a beautiful tame one among some oxen near the road.”

That same day they passed Salina, Kansas, the last town and post office until New Mexico.

Two days later, Jonathan Richmond—a young man with the party who expected to be the court clerk for Territorial Supreme Court Justice William T. Howell—wrote home that they, “routed a drove of fifty-seven buffalo, and in the lapse of an hour four lay dead, and were fast losing flesh in the shape of roasts, steaks, etc.”  The party chaplain, Rev. Hiram Reed—on his way to take the post of territorial postmaster—showed a surprising skill at butchering: “He is the only one in the party that knows how to do it,” wrote Judge Allyn.  “He cut out the tongue and the hump, stripped off enough of the hide to make a bag to put the meat into, tied it up with string made of strips of the hide, all almost as quick as I write this.”  The next day three more buffalo were killed and butchered and much of the meat was cut up into strips and dried to provide jerky to supplement their fresh meat supply.

Buck fever erupted at the first sightings of these grand animals.  Judge Allyn again: “During the day one large bull came sweeping down reviewing the train.—He passed safely from front to rear guard, more than a mile, at some five hundred yards from the road …  It was an exciting scene.  From all the ambulances men were hurrying out with rifles, while the soldiers had nearly all broken ranks in the mad excitement, and dashed off in chase.  Rifle and pistol balls were whistling all around and it was a wonder that no one was hit, including the buffalo.”

The easiest part of the trip was over—the terrain was changing and so was the weather.  The next significant stop would be two weeks later at Ft. Lyon, Colorado in the Rocky Mountain foothills where they would prepare to cross the 8000 foot Raton Pass.

Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International (www.prescottcorral.org). The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact SHM Library & Archives Reference Desk at 928-445-3122 Ext. 14 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information.