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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 24, 1909)
n THK OMAHA SUNDAY HKE: JANUARY 24, 1900. 6 Charles T. Evans a Pioneer Plainsman Who Fights Shy of the Cars T RADITION say. that mighty warrior, Alexander the Great, was In mortal terror of a rut, chieftains ordinarily brave aj Caesar shuddered at the sight Of a rnt, nnd numerous other chieftains ordinarily brave as lions have had their pot horrors. Benjamin Disraeli, who though small In person, feared no man, but lived in terror lest he plunged Into a cold bath though he did not objoct to a warmer ablution. This Achilles' tendon In the courage of otherwise Intrepid men has a curious ex ample In an Omaha man who for years traversed the western plains as a freighter, enjoying orcaslonal brushes with the In dtans. scorning "had men," laughing alike nt winter blizzards and the summer heat !n which sunstroke lurked. Charles T. Evans flirted with violent death In an hundred forms for half a lifetime-but he never has and never will risk his life on a railroad train. "We are going down to Missouri for the holidays, father," said one of his daugh ters a few weeks ago, "and you and mother simply must come with all the rest of us." "There's hardly time to get there now," replied the old man. "Why, It only takes five hours," ex claimed his daughter In astonishment. "It will take longer than that the. only way I'll go," answered her father firmly. "You don't mean that you Insist on driv ing there?" "If I go that will be the way I'll go. None of your smoky, rickety old railroad cars for me. That is no way to travel. Anyhow, I have never ridden In one of those things, and I'm not going to begin now." The argument was protracted for some time. In behulf of modern conveyances, their speed, comfort and safety was argued and their freedom from dust compared to that of a country road when winter winds are blowing and no mow covers the ground. In particular the sufcty of such a Journey was made much of "no running away by freakish horses, no bridges washed out by a sudden freshet, no miring In hub-deep mud." "Safe," echoed Mr. Kvans scornfully. "Don't I read In the papers every day of a big wreck with forty or fifty people killed? Aren't there both head-on and rear-end collisions, and when there Is no other train to run into there Is one of these open switches, or the train 'buckles,' or a rail spread, or the boiler bursts or something else happers. 8afe! I guess not." "I really believe, father," said his daugh ter In a tone of significant discovery, "that you are actually afraid to ride on a train." "No, It Isn't that, but I don't altogether like the idea I never have ridden on one and I always said I never would, and I am not going to break my word," . ' ( T . . - -i J ' ' t ' ' - j :.i , A: A f m A: I III CHARLES T. fcTVANS. AGED 24. Persistence, however, finally wore down the veteran of the plains and he at length admitted that he, who had fought Indians to a finish their finish was afraid to en trust himself to the tender mercies of a passenger conductor. This 1 no reflection on the courage of the man whose career contains many chap ters of heroism, whose very occupation made It so that no life Insurance company would have Included him even In the extra hazardous class which some accept. Mr. Evans' dislike of railroad travel serves but to throw Into stronger relief his fearless ness In other ways. His has been a varied life. Born In New York In 1S.T7 by the Hudson, ho was cradled within sight of Tarrytown In a region per haps the richest In colonial and revolu tionary tradition In the T'nlted States. Not far away were Tarrytown and Newburgh linked forever with the name of Washing ton Irving and his Sleepy Hollow and his Rip Van Winkle. Irving lies burled near Tarrytown and Major Andre was captured here. From this region, more than 200 years Settled by white men, Evans was borne when a baby by his parents to Illinois. They crossed the Appalachians In the dead of winter, but made the trip In the exceed ingly good time of six weeks. They set tled In Alton and this seems almost s'g1 nlficant beyond the facts. Frr It was In Alton that IxivcJoy was martyred by tha mob because of his free aoil sentiments. Mr. Evans, born within a few miles of where Washington established republican government in America by his now almost forgotten refusal of the "Tender of the Crown," passing his boyhood In the town where the cause of freedom waa conse crated with the blood of a martyr, passing his early manhood In Kansas In withstand ing border ruffians, pre-empting a claim in Cedar county, this state, as soon as tho Kansas-Nebraska act made this possible, Mr. Evans spent the earlier half of his life amid scenes closely connected with the Important events of American history and ao far as the latter half of this period Is concerned, with events forming the pro logue to the greatest chapter In American annals. "I first law Omaha In 156," said Mr. Evans. We came west when I was a year old and stayed In Alton until about 1854, when we moved to St. oJseph, Mo. It was from there that I made my first trip as a freighter. My father and I took several loads of merchandise to Omaha and Coun cil Bluffs, then known aa Kanesville, a name of Mormon origin. The name of Coun cil Bluffs is, of course, of Indian extrac tion, though I believe the actual council hill was somewhere near Florence. "Omaha was a scraggly village then, of course a few shanties and one alore, as I recollect It. We could not sell all Our stock in both Omaha and the Bluffs, so we made a trip to Sioux City and got rid of the balance. We went tliore over the mall route, up the other side of the river, and a poor excuse of a road It was, with no bridges, of course. On the other hand It was much better than no trail at all and fur superior to the country 1 later trav ersed In the Rockies. Mr. Evans, although 72 years old and as truly a pioneer as any man to whom the title has been ascribed, does not look tho part. His hair Is not even entirely gray. It is only streaked with grizzled locks. No spectacles bridge his nose and his step is more spry than that of many a man half his years. He continues to work actively about his place, which Is located one mile north of Krug park and Is now the centor of a cluster of houses, although a few years ago there was no residence within several miles of his. The exercise, in fact, serves as but a tonic to a man In whom the fires of life still burn brightly and who will probably be alive when many men far his Junior In years but of less virile stock have passed away. "From St. Joe we moved to Leavenworth for a time," continued the speaker. My father went Into business there, and while , - AA A CHARLES T. EVANS, AGED T we liked the business outlook, the climate and most everything cNe and the bonier warfare did not make Kansas a lovely place to live In during those days. The bands of Missourlans would steal one blind even In tho daytime and no man had a chance to amass a fortune. It was a time of great excitement. New Englanders were coming in not to steal and rob under the pretext of proselyting, but actually to try to make Kansas free. "John Brown Ossawattomle Brown was the leaders of the freesoilers and he was my favorite hero. My father and myself were, of coure, anti-slavery men, and that did not enhance our standing,, of course, with the Missouri robbers. So we decided to come to Nebraska to live and Omaha has been my home most of the time since, though for a while we called Golden, Colo., home. "It was In the 'ties that 1 liegan freighting as a regular occupation, making regular trips from Omaha to Denver and return. It was an empty haul back nnd of course took less time than going west did. We carried freight by consignment ami when we did not have orders enough to fill we bought goods on our own account to sell attain out west. Oxen were our mainstay, though we always had a wagon or two. Often thero would be thirty or more ox Montenegro and Its Preparations for Warfare with Austria ETT1NJE. Montenegro, Dec. 22. I I Traveling In this part of the I j I world Is not only cold but most 1 J I I. .. V. I n . ,(,- . . , , iiiminiiauiL- ai nun niuiiiniii Both the Austrinns nnd the Montenegrins are on the look out for spies and the unhappy correspond ent Is threatened at one place, warned eff at another and arrested at a third, till tho novelty of the thing wears off nnd he be comes exceedingly bored.- They read one's letters everywhere on the Austrian side, and the contents of one's telegrams are known to aM the authorities of Cettinje, who can make It most unpleasant If those telegrams are not to their liking. As the Austrlan-Llnyd steamer, bringing one Indirectly from Constantinople, en tered the Boeca dl Cattaro I could not re sist the temptation to take a photograph of the famous hurbor, dominated and coveted by Montenegro for the Black mountain, snow capped and streaming clouds from every ienk, was the most wonderful plcturo'of its kind I had ever een. I tried to snap my kodak unob served, but one of the law respecting cf fleers of the Austrian ship had his eye upon me and I dearly pnld the pennlty. The clouds had already broken when the ship touched the quay and the mountain was shedding water on the walled city of Cattaro In a flood. Nevertheless the ubi quitous Austrian police, bayonets fixed upon their carbines, sfod unsheltered where the gsngplnnk touched the shore, waiting for such culprits as 1, an'd they learned with satisfaction when the ship's officer denounced "an Englishman," aa they thought I was from my language. They tpoke to me In three languages, Ser vian, Italian and German, the three recog nized tongues of the Dalmatian coast and Herzg. vina, but from them all I could understand only one word, "photographie," which, like coffee, la tho same In all lan guages. Their signs, however, were unmistakable, t must surrender my kodak. Thli, of course, I refuted to do. Then I must go before the military authorities. There seemed to be no ether course and I obeyed. We tramped through the streets of th little Venice-Ilka city, our feet In places almost washed from under us by the rush of water, till w came to the damp ston. house In which the military commandant has his office. But It being ten minutes aftrr 12, lunch hour, no one save an orderly was In the .place. Prom this side of the city then we tramped through the cas cades to the other, and there In another old Italian house we found some civil of ficial who spoke French. "What will monsieur!" he asked politely. "I know not, monsieur; I come at the Invitation of your police." Borne words with the police. "Ah, monsieur has taken a photograph of the forta aa he entered the harbor." I acknowledged that I had taken a pic ture of the wonderful mountains. "This Is strictly forbidden; all these mountains are covered with fortresses. Monsieur has broken the law." To make a long story short, the man who spoke French had the courtesy which those who spoke German seemed to lack I believe the language haa something to do with It. The gendarmes were within the law In demanding my kodak, but this gen tleman waa good enough to confiscate only the roll of film because I was unabie to read any of the languages In whloh the notice Is printed and hung up In the lablns of the ship. Going back to the custom house to get my luggage, I found it had to be turned out to the last sleeve button. A pistol was found and my passport waa demanded. Where waa I going up the mountain? They knew It, I was a British apy, sym pathiser with the folk up there. When I refused to surrender my pistol and my passport there waa another inarch through the rushing waters. Again the po lite gentleman of the French pardoned my breach of the law and wrote upon my pass port permission to carry arms acroaa the lountry. Austria Is little over half mile wide at this curious point. Jl long, narrow atrip, turning In and out around the Innumer able bays and Islands, runs more than half way down the aide of Montenegro di viding It from th sea, Ail t&a rich low lands on the water's edge belong to Aus tria) the barren heights are Montenegrin. Even Rpltza, the little town which Prince Nicholas and his braves themselves cap tured from the Turks, belongs to the em pire which la creeping east. Spltza was given to Austra-Hungary at the Berlin conference In 1878, ao that Austria might command the Montenegrin port of Ant! varl and prevent the turbulent people from trafficking In warships us well as arms. The town commands the port wherein, by the same treaty, no fortifications bo con structed. But while Austrian men of war and Aus trian forts command this poor little port, the heights of the mountain dominate the contested littoral. Four thousand feet rise the heights almost speer from the fringe of lowland along the water. It is no wonder that the brave Serbs, who live upon the mountains, alone among the Balkan people kept their Independence against the Turk for 500 years. It had not rained for eight months till the day I arrived at Cutaro. Therefore It yA l I I " x if rT f ' rv'j -jrr 'v 7" - tf - SiPSiAli HA I ' V .;.JV''.-..'V ftrffWHfit v.. .J II ,u I? Vil.uki.lt '..: I.- JT i-.. L .. I -:. : m M - tlTO DO rained two days on end. The c.cuv.n re- pn, abreast, trotting l.ar.l n.t of the ' ' : 2" ' ' ' ""'. T ; Ti"'" fused to take me up to Cettinje except for way up up up tne famoU8 road whch ' '' ' ' .V-'T rf -.tJj. the charge of several pounds, and I was in no hurry to go up rn a closed vehicle. Then to the disgust of all the cabmen, I came up by the diligence which brings the post. A motley gang of Montenegrins, poor beggaia down In the Booca to pick up a ran be seen from ships many miles down the Bocea, like a thread sketched ilgzaf on the black mountain's face. Half-way up tho wonderful road one may the coach stopped to the hotel. But on look down upon the innumerable Austrian appearing In the daylight next morning, forts on every side of the intricate Inlet, before I had gone 200 yards from the hotel fcim 1 1 1 . 1 1 It 1- 1 .1 inalHan, fat, un I ... . . n . . 1 i i . . v.,, .h(mnil ...uii.oijr iinuir, o nu l.piliu uow IIU pranui.- ,.... - lrow ll0 CeIt,n. At the toPj twa mgrk of autnorty mar(.hed me off with and tramps, all relieved of their p.stols by fept uve ( the now fcm uofThev ,hT, th"; e'very"day to . P"ak trom wh,ch the MonUn,rln. proposo ..81r... Bald , to flie ..ve m, - Jan for "home " An ofLer of In turn to .hrtl Cattaro, This road 1. the ,ome paM.r that j may ,how , th. cart start for home. An officer Of on, ovpr n bapr,e of rock people for otherwise I foresee that I shall the Austrian law came out of the city gate " peopic, tor otherwise l rorf s. e that 1 s.iall and delivered to the driver a weapon con- Tha Montenegrin U not an adept at spend most of my time calling upon you." ttseated for the night he spent in Cattaro. Questioning suspicious characters; he does "That is unnecessary." came the reply: He was a splendid fellow, this driver. I 11 crudely, but he feels It Is th. thing to "they will be told who you are and will sat with him on the box-a man of six "S clvlliwd nation, do IL A. every arrest you no more." foot two with shoulders of a breadth one man u olier. .o every man con.tltutes A stranger Is conspicuous In this little eldom see. nowaday., and a head Ilk. hl"' policeman, and my way Into capital, especially If he dresses "al a that of an ancient Caar. weather browned ,he ""lrv w" t every turn by franca." It is a place of BOO house., about and half ravae. Hi. co.tume wu that of oma revolv.red fallow with a 4.000 people. Every man goes arnn-d. wear- the Montenegrin prince and the peasant- cross-examination. ing a long revolver .tuck conspicuously a pair of baggy blue breeches, white some- Nor can on. become Indignant, as In through the sash about his waist, spun .tockin. to the knee, a sort of sandal Austria, and demand an of f loar to authority ; Tn, pime minister comes to dinner with with lacing over the foot, a red skirt and v.ry man 1. a gentleman and man of you wearing this weapon; the prince re- .ltveles Jacket trimmed heavily In braid authority here; there la no Ueferentce celve. you In audience .0 armed. It I. a threatening looking race that demand, of Austria cession, of territory and of town. of gold, a little red cap bordered wun black mourning for the day Kossovo waa On my way up my questioners were lost, five cenlurie. ago a broad yellow mostly at Uiu in us. Arriving at Cettinje at and says I have It from the foreign min aah and a pistol holster. eight o'clock, my European clothe, passed later that unless Austria yield, war wui t'nt aix boura w. toUud, our three sturdy unnoticed, at I mad my way from where be declaj-wl In the spring. It seems to many, no doubt, that these Montenegrins, like their brother Serbe of Hervla, have no cause against the Aus tiians but that of blighted national ambi tion. But tills surely is not the case. In spite of all declarations from Vienna and Berlin that there is no movement to ward the Aegean sea the pressure of Aus tria for the last hundred year, haa been steadily southeastward. Years ago the Montenegrins, Jealous of their long guirdid liberty, recognized that there dan ger was no longer from the Turks. ThnuKh they, with the Servians, assisted the Serbs of Bosnia to win their independ ence of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary. Now the formal annexation of the province has come. The next move, the Montenegrins Buy, will be the subjection of tlielr little country. 8 they propose now to get some assurance of Independence from Europe or, failing this, to go to war. With their 3U.0X) armed men out of a population of 2bO,0i people they cannot hope to stand In the open field against the vast trained army of Austria. This then la their plan to light a guerrila war In their own mountains and In those adjacent In Bosnia, where the discontented popula tion will take up arms on their side. If they can keep the Austrian employed for a year and they tx-lleve they can do this omo sympathetic country, perhaps Russia, which Is likewise Slav, will Inter fere in their behalf, or else the war will bring about soiious Internal troubles within the monarchy of muny conflicting races. "At the worst," says the people here, "we can but be united to the other Serbs and share with them the fate of subjection to the House of Hapsburg. We cannot continue ti exist divided." FREDERICK MOORE. ttouebo Dorl. We find in the "Fleet Supplement" of a Japanese paper the following announce ment: The five l.-ading houses of Yokohama have Jointly agreed to reduce all prices 1) per cent during fleet week on their silks, embroideries, oltun crepe., linens, etc. K. Slilneo, Honcho Dori. Kozaway. Benton Dori. B. I Ida "Tokaanimaya." si Main street. "The Yamato," iicnlen Dorl. S. Shobey, Honcho Dorl. We hope investigator, who have been trying to discover the origin of "hunkey dorey" may find a clew here that will provs to be of some bervlce. Chicago Kccurd-ller-alL teams In pur caravan nnd what with extr men nnd passengers we had a force strong rroi'Rh to stand off most any band of India ns. "They rarely attacked In force and skir mishing and bushwhacking were our chief troubh s. The Indian, on tho whole, though, was not a source of evil unless some of the ranchmen had filled him with whisky. These ranchmen wcro a mad lot French men, half-breed, and renegade Americana who had turned Into 'squnwmen.' The title ranchman can only be given them by cour tesy, for their place were .Imply trading posts which supplied the Indiana with whisky and lcads and more whisky. Of course there was a limit beyond whloh 11 ranchman did not dare sell the noble ret man, on account of the danger to the seller himself. The ranchman did, a. a rule, stand pretty well with the Indians, for often they hnd showed an appreciation of the copper-colored skin by taking a squaw for a wife. These squawmen sometimes were devoted to the children which ensued and brought them to Omaha to be schooled, aix! so on. In too many other cases, how ever, when the ranchman had grown well-to-do he gave the Indian partner of his Joys and sorrows the slip and returning east made a more legal marriage with a woman of his own race. "I never saw a white woman In thoea days tho early 'St west of Kearney or east of Denver. Tho Indian women wera about the only representatives of the .ex feminine whom the ranchmen oould mnrry, so far as that goes, unless they had mada a trip to eastern Nebraska. Unmarried girl, were not so plentiful here Uiun aa now, for that matter. "One memorable trip I took wa. when we freighted a quart, mill from Omaha to Boulder, Colo. That took us far Into the mountains and It wa. a, stiff proposition carrying heavily loaded wagon, over the mountain trails. But a few inches to one sido and the cliff would descend abruptly for 1,000 or more feet. A heavily loaded wagon could slip down pretty eually too. This reminds me of the dialogue between a woman and tho conductor on the cog wheel road running up I'ike'a Teak. Sho asked tho conductor: " 'If those little cogs did not catch, where would we landl" Tho railroad man peered out of the window. His eye swept down a sheer landscape which stretched seemingly to the center of the earth, and replied: " 'Thut depends, madam on what kind of lives we havo led.' "As you see," added Mr. Evans, "wa did not meet with any such catastrophe, although several times we were within a thin hulr'sbreadlh. of It. "Denver was a lively town In those days. I was there before tho vigilantes had or ganized and an average of a man a night was killed In the gambling hells. Why, they never played poker without first slip ping their shooting irons from the scab bard and laying them handy beside the slack of chips. Arguments a. to rules or whether a man had or had not cheated were not upt to be protracted with mere words very long. When a man had been shot-specially at night they threw his body Into the alley with a. little compunc tion as if it had been an animal's car cass. 1 never played myself and I alway. avoided trouble wtih the 'bad men." Still, if I had to fight I generally gavj a good account of myself and you don't see any holes In me, do you? "We made the trip to Denver in about IX weeks on the average. We could. come back, of course, faster than we went, for there was nothing in the wagons returning. Passengers, of course, paid for the mere pleasure of our company, though mayha they figured it out us protection. There was good money In the freight. It went as high as 10 the 100 pounds. That is a lUtlo more than tho railroad, get now adays, 1 guess. "Water was often hard to get, particu larly In the summer time. Nothing on earth could he more disappointing than to pound all day through tho sands, with the air full of alkHli dust, and urrlving at a spring lowurd nightfall find It had gone dry. It was worse In this respect on the other side of tho niountulns, 1 suppose, but we had It bad enough. "Business was an uncertain venture at best In those days, even though we got high rates for freight. Every village hud Its bank Issuing scrip as fast as tho print ing piesses could turn it out, sometimes. Money from one town was at a discount, and a big discount, In every other town. The farther away you got from the point of Issue the less your paper wa. worth. It was a discouraging consideration that the faster 11 man traveled during the day the poorer he was becoming. One of these Mar athon runners would have nearly pauper ized himself. There la a building still stand ing In Florence, I believe, where they Is sued a fair share of scrip, but this wa. very far from being the only bank that did this. "I remember the panlo of "57 extremely well. Wc were then living In Kansas. Most people were already so poor that you would not havo thought a panic could hurt them any, but, of course, as a matter rof fact. It did. "The worst trouble with the Indian, wa experienced during the year 1S64. You know there was a big uprising then. Many a family was wiped out, and many stags coach load of passenger, was annihilated. There, wera some big massacres, too, of course," Denver, when Mr. Evan, first visited It, was an even smaller place than Omaha, The Colorado capital hud been founded In 1K.".8, hut a few years before Evans' first trip there. Some miners had really founded tlie city, which was named In honor of General John W. Denver, then governor of Kansas. Its incorporation came the next year, but It was reincorporated in 1SU1, and was not the capital of the territory until 1SG7. For a short time Mr. Evans" family dwelt at Golden, fifteen miles out of Denver and, at the foot of the pass up to Blackhawk, Central City, Idaho Springs, Silver Pluma and Georgetown. The mining machinery which Evans carted up this pas. wa. car ried over the exact country which It wa. so difficult to build a tallrcad through, years later that the famous Georgetown loop had to be constructed. By this dovis. the passenger on a train finally find, him self at the end of a half hour', riding ex actly where he started from, but BOO feet higher. Other "loops" have been since con struct e.l und greater difficulties surmounted, but this was the first of the kind and 1. yet a monument to engineering determina tion and genius. After severs 1 years of freighting acroaa Nebraska und Into Colorado, Mr. Evan, de voted himself to the lei. exciting pursuit of making trading exiicdltlon. Into town. In the vicinity of Omaha east and we.t. Ha h.ad married in lvw here, and the fact that he hail a family wa. one reason why ha abandoned the more adventurous career. Mrs. Evans, a. liule and hearty as himself. Is still the partner of his joys, which are many, and hi. sorrows, which are few. They have three children a son, who lives out west, and two daughters, Mrs. EL Iolovtchlner and Mra, i. IL Wallaoa. iimiiiii.-i