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Published: August 7th 2017
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HUDSON BAY FARM
This plaque marks the location of the Hudson Bay Company Farm near Walla Walla. It was in operation from 1821 until 1856 at which time the British were chased up to Canada. The farm supplied produce and livestock to a trading post called Fort Nez Perces in Wallula Gap. When the trading post was abandoned Col Steptoe occupied the swampy grounds as Fort Walla Walla was being built. HALALAHOTSOOS AND THE SPACE ALIENS When Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery stumbled out of the wilderness in the fall of 1805 they were on mighty wobbly pins. The fellow who found them was a Nez Perce Chief named Twisted Hair. He brought those starving creatures to his camp on the Clearwater River in Idaho, and fed them up. As they rested from their privations they began to tell through sign language the story of their journey. Twisted Hair had a young son named Halalahotsoos who sat in wonderment as the story unfolded. He knew those strange creatures were not from anywhere around his country and they must have strong medicine to have made it this far. No Nez Perce had ever seen white men before. Surely they must have dropped into their midst from out of the sky like space aliens. As Halalahotsoos came of age he continued to learn more about white men from the Hudson Bay Company traders. The traders had built an outpost not far away near where Walla Walla would later spring into being. They were friendly, were only interested in commerce, and brought many useful things to the People. Halalahotsoos admired them
LAWYER
Lawyer had a little farm at the mouth of the canyon that Lawyer Creek passes through. It would have been about midway between Cottonwood and Lapwai. and was deeply interested in their religion which he understood to be the source of their powerful medicine. He was dismayed to learn that among the traders there were no shamans or religious teachers. As a young man Halalahotsoos joined an expedition that traveled clear to St Louis for the purpose of inviting missionaries to the mountains. That part of the journey succeeded, but while there many of his companions contacted white men’s diseases and, except for himself, all of them died on the journey home. Before long The Spaldings had a mission school set up on the Snake River near Lapwai, and the Whitman’s had a mission school set up near the Hudson Bay Company outpost near Walla Walla. Those missionaries had opened the Oregon Trail and white men began flooding in to the northwest. The new white men were nothing at all like the Hudson Bay Company traders. They had no interest in trade and had, in fact, brought with them a long history of robbing and killing Indians. By then Talalahotsoos had become known among the whites as Chief Lawyer, and he knew as surely as night followed day that the whites were far more powerful than
OLD CHIEF JOSEPH
Chief Joseph's dad is buried at the north end of Wallowa Lake. His last wishes were that the country should never be sold to the whites and it wasn't. We stole it fair and square. Within a few years the Olivers and Chamberlains had moved in to start farming in Joseph's horse pasture. the Nez Perce were. His fondest hope was to be left in peace on a reservation where he could raise some crops, bounce his grandkids on his belly and celebrate the Christian God. He died in 1876 and is buried behind the Presbyterian Church near Heart of the Monster.
Those were, however, not the fondest hopes for all of the People. Joseph and the Wallowas preferred to remain in peace on the land of their ancestors. Toohoolhoolzoot and his band already lived on land between the Salmon and Snake Rivers that was so rugged and remote that no whites wanted to live there and still don’t. Chief White Bird and his followers along the Salmon River had seen enough of the white man’s ways to simply want no part whatsoever of it. In 1875 one of white Bird’s followers, a man named Tipyahlahnah (Eagle Robe), had been farming a little patch of land at the mouth of John Day Creek. He went hunting one day and when he returned he found a white man named Larry Ott had taken over his property. When Tipyahlahnah objected Ott murdered him and was acquitted by the white court. Sam Benedict was selling
DOWNSTREAM
During high water this would be a terrible place to try and cross tired livestock, Half of the Wallowa herds drowned here, but it was the only crossing they had. All of the people made it safely across. whiskey to Indians from his cabin on White Bird Creek. Sarpsis Ilppilp (Red Moccasin Tops), and a pal named Chipmunk had run out of whiskey and wanted more but Benedict murdered Chipmunk and shot Sarpsis in the leg for disturbing his nap. Benedict was not even charged with selling whiskey. Henry Mason horse whipped two Indians at gunpoint but the arbitration board did not pursue charges, of course. In the spring of 1877 the whites wanted to steal more land by placing the non-treaty bands on the reservation. They were called to a council at Lapwai. Toohoolhoolzoot refused to leave his country and General Howard threw him in jail for freely speaking his mind. Joseph refused to leave his country too and was shown the rifle. Howard gave them 30 days to make the move or he would bring soldiers to the fight. Joseph pleaded for more time because the Snake was in spring flood and dangerous to cross safely. Howard petulantly remained adamant about the deadline and when the crossing was made a great many cherished horses were drowned. The bands all gathered to celebrate their final days of freedom at Tolo Lake. They were joined at the celebration
TOLO LAKE
Not the best picture, but it is as close as I could get to the lake because the road had just been freshly oiled. The non-treaty bands rested here after the disastrous crossing of the Snake River. From here all hell broke loose for the People. by Looking Glass and his band of reservation Indians. Young men raced their horses, the young women dug up camas roots and flirted, but all of them were angry about being driven from their homes and losing their horses. Some of the angry young men challenged Wahlitits (Shore Crossing), the son of Tipyahlahnah, to avenge his murdered father. Two friends, Sarpsis Ilpplip, who had been shot by Sam Benedict, and Wetyetmas Wahyakt joined Wahlitits on his vengeance ride. Larry Ott had since left the country, but Henry Elfers, Henry Beckrodge, and Robert Bland were found at John Day Creek and murdered in his place. Sarpsis caught Sam Benedict and shot him through both legs. Richard Devine was murdered in his bed on Carver Creek. When the three young men returned to Tolo Lake with news of the killings the fat was in the fire. Seventeen other young men rode off on a killing rampage that left 14 other whites dead. Some were women, who had also been raped, and some were children. A woman named Tolo carried word of the depredations to the soldier fort at Lapwai. She stopped along the way at the stage station at Cottonwood and the
JOHN DAY CREEK
This little house had not yet been built on June 14, 1877 but it is located at the mouth of John Day Creek near where Eagle Robe was murdered by Larry Ott in 1875. It was a handy thing to take a picture of though. Ott had moved out of the country by the time Wahlitits and them showed up to kill him. Three other white men living there died in his place. folks there decided to pack a wagon and head for the greater safety at Mount Idaho, but they got slaughtered that night on the open prairie out near Fenn. The army swiftly jumped into action when they heard about the uprising. Some soldiers rode directly from Lapwai back to Mount Idaho where a group of volunteers joined them. They should have rested up there for a few days until they had a supply train at least. They were hungry and tired and thirsty and the horses were run down but the war hysteria was such that they pressed right on into a fight at White Bird Canyon. It turned into a disaster for them. They were routed off the field leaving 34 dead soldiers behind. The survivors retreated back to the abandoned stage station at Cottonwood and dug in. A couple of scouts went out to look for hostiles and never returned. The next day a patrol went out to look for the scouts and they never returned either. By then the soldiers were under siege at Cottonwood Station. The volunteers from Mount Idaho rode off to help the soldiers, but got themselves cut off and surrounded a mile or
COTTONWOOD HOUSE
Near as I can tell the original stage station called Cottonwood House stood on the ground where the US Bank is now located. so short of the desperate soldiers. The volunteers fought their way out, but lost their brave leader. The damn soldiers refused to leave their fortifications and just watched.
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