She was found dead about thirty yards from the house with her skull crushed with a rock. It is thought that when Bartlett was killed Mrs. He was found lying on his back, his iron wedge near his right hand and his own knife a dirk sticking in his throat.
Bartlett was down in the timber, splitting rails, and returning for dinner, was met by the Indians and tomahawked as he was passing around the corner of the house. Sutzer’s cabin, where Bartlett was boarding, and demanded dinner, which she proceeded to prepare, in the meantime sending her little son across the creek to Ward’s to inform them of the presence of the Indians. The particulars of this horrible massacre are as follows: “The Indians came to Mrs. Sutzer, her little son, and Nicholas Ward, and desperately wounding Ward’s adopted son, leaving him for dead, and carrying Mrs. Scarbrough, and from which many of the facts of the early history of Jewell County are condensed: “On the 9th day of April, 1867, the Cheyennes made another descent upon this devoted settlement, killing Bartlett, Mrs. A detailed account of the massacre is taken from the county history prepared by M. They rested in fancied security until the following April, when occurred a horrible event which effectually destroyed the little settlement from the face of the earth. A few days afterwards, learning that the rumors of a general massacre were groundless, the settlers returned to their claims. After this, the entire settlement took refuge there, where they remained two days, and then went to Clyde, Cloud County. Marling could obtain assistance from the stockade below White Rock City. They then stole everything they could find, set fire to the cabin and dashed off before Mr. In August of this year a party of forty Cheyennes attacked Marling’s cabin, and while he was gone for assistance the savages entered his house, dragged his wife into the woods with a rope around her neck, and horribly outraged her. This settlement was broken up by something more than presentiments. Bump, Erastus Bartlett and a man by the name of Flint, took claims within two miles east of that town. At that time William Belknap took a claim five miles west of the present town of White Rock John Marling with his wife and child, settled near the present town of Reubens (sic) Nicholas Ward, his wife and adopted son, Mrs. They therefore left, and a second attempt at settlement was not made until four years thereafter – in the spring of 1866.
Upon this occasion these settlers were warned of a threatened outbreak, and were told that it heralded no good to the whites of White Rock Valley. Clark’s cabin, and one of the former tribe was literally hacked to pieces. They formed the first settlement in Jewell County, built cabins and broke ground, but were soon driven away by well-grounded fears of Indian raids.Ī battle between the Pawnees and Sioux was fought near Mr. Harshberger were sisters, the whole of the little colony coming from Knox County, Ill. Clark, wife and child, settled just over the western boundary of what is now Republic County.
In the spring of 1862, William Harshberger and wife settled upon land adjoining the present town of White Rock, and John Furrows took a claim just west of Mr.