This Day…

On this day in 1843 the Oregon Bill passes the Senate, but Senator Linn’s bill to encourage migration to the Northwest Territories will die in the House.  Also, explorer John C. Fremont raises an American flag above the Rocky Mountains in 1843.

On January 30, 1885 the Secretary of the Interior, Henry M Teller, recommended the opening of Indian lands in the Indian Territory to homesteaders.  Since 1880 homesteaders, known as ‘boomers’ and led by David L Payen and William L Couch, had been crossing into Indian Territory from Kansas and Arkansas and settling on what is known as the ‘Unassigned Lands’ in the center of Indian Territory.

1877 – Charlie Reed and Billy Bland shot up a saloon and two deputies in Fort Griffin, Texas.  Bland was killed in the gunplay but Reed stole a horse and left Texas.  On this day in 1891 – tensions continued to mount at Wounded Knee.  General Nelson A. Miles, commander of the US troops at the massacre at Wounded Knee in December 1890, announced that the Sioux were finally returning to their reservation.  Ghost Dancers had appeared from as far away as Oklahoma, and Indians from Montana had joined the camping Sioux – who made the last successful attack on a wagon train on 6 January – but by the 19th all the Sioux would be back at the Pine Ridge Reservation.  The Ghost Dance movement would survive there throughout the year, and continue to cause some concern.

1874 – Chunk Colson tried to bushwack Clay Allison after a horse race in the Indian Territory.  Clay killed him.  Also on this day, settlers in the Black, Walla Walla, and Yakima River Valleys erected blockhouses at the urging of Oregon Territorial Governor Issac I Stevens to protect themselves from the Yakima and other nations who resented their intrusion.

1908 – Young Mannie Clements and Elmer Webb were hatching some sort of skulduggery in the Coney Island Saloon in El Paso, TX.  Mannie was shot in the head and killed during that conversation by persons unknown.  The shooting may have been in connection with a racket to import Chinamen into the United States.

1876-Clay Allison and his brother John were whooping it up at a dance in Las Animas, CO. when the Allison brothers got out of control.  Deputy Sheriff Charles Faber came in and shotgunned John.  Clay shot Faber through the hearts and rode off two other deputies before surrendering to the county sheriff.  John recovered and Clay was released in self defense.

On this in 1901 Harvey Logan got into a fight in a pool hall in Knoxville, TN.  He pistol whipped his opponent and shot three policemen and was wounded himself before leaving town.  He got thirty miles before being capturded by more cops and some hounds.  Also on this day in 1883 – the gambler Newt Boyce cut two men with a knife in a saloon fight in Caldwell, Kansas.  Marshal Henry Brown and Ben Wheeler arrested him for it and threw him in jail.

It happened this week in 1841 – Two Hawaiian ambassadors were in Washington, D.C., for about two weeks, when they received a letter from Daniel Webster, secretary of state.  It declared “as the sense of the government of the United States, that the government of the Sandwich Island (Hawaii) ought to be respected; that no power ought either to take possession of the islands as a conquest or for the purpose of colonization, and that no power ought to seek for any undue control over the existing government, or any exclusive privileges or preferences in matters of commerce.’  Armed with this informal recognition of independence by the US Government, the two ambassadors soon set off for London and Paris.  Meanwhile, various Americans had already assumed positions of some influence in the Hawaiian Government, and increasing numbers of American whaling ships are putting into Hawaii for supplies.

1880-Billy the Kid engaged in a three day reign of terror in and around White Oaks, New Mexico.  It started when an eight man posse attacked him and Billy Wilson and killed their horses.  The Outlaws scampered away on foot.  The next day the gange boldly rode into White Oaks shot at a Deputy and were driven off by Townsmen.

November  17, 1856 – The first military post in the Gadsden Purchase territory, Fort Buchanan, is located on the Sonoita River (Arizona) to control the Apache and protect southern emigrant routes.