Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/242

232 the side of his mother. Captain Stuart's last words were, "Boys, it is awful to have passed through all the battles of the Mexican war, and then be killed by an Indian in this wild country."

At the massacre of emigrants at Bloody Point, Klamath County, in 1852, thirty-six men, women, and children were murdered. Capt. Ben Wright and twenty-seven men from Yreka and Col. J. E. Ross and some Oregonians went out to punish these Modocs. Old Schonchin, who was afterwards hung at Fort Klamath in 1873, at the close of the Modoc war, was the leader. Wright gave them no quarter. He and his men, infuriated at the sight of the mangled bodies of the emigrants, killed men, women, and children without any discrimination—about forty in all; and it is said that they asked for a "peace talk," whereupon a roast ox was prepared. Wright poisoned it, gave it to the Indians, and then rode away. [This story is now generally discredited.—Editor.]

I can not give you the names of all who were killed in Rogue River Valley during the years 1851, 1852, and 1853. I will mention some that were killed in 1853. In August of that year Edward Edwards was killed near Medford; Thomas Wills and Rhodes Nolan, in the edge of the town of Jacksonville; Pat Dunn and Carter, both wounded in a fight on Neil Creek above Ashland. In a fight with the Indians on Bear Creek, in August, 1853, Hugh Smith was killed, and Howell, Morris, Hodgins, Whitmore, and Gibbs wounded, the last named three dying from their wounds soon after.

These murders, and many more that could be mentioned, brought on the Indian war of 1853. Southern Oregon raised six companies of volunteers, who served under the following named captains, viz, R. L. Williams, J. K. Lamerick, John F. Miller, Elias A. Owens, and W. W. Fowler. Capt. B. F. Alden, of the Fourth U. S.