| "Malcomb Smith, at whose place we had stayed on the Malheur, gave us a dog whose bark at an Indian was so peculiar that I could tell at once when Indians were in sight. We prized him highly. At one time I was sick in bed and not able to get up. Mr. Stroup had gone to the ferry a mile and a half away on an errand, leaving me entirely alone. The door was shut and after a while �Hank� the dog gave that peculiar bark of his that told me instantly Indians were near. Soon I could hear a murmur of voices and gradually they got Hank quieted, then stole up on the door step quietly and rattled the knob of the door, but did not open it as I expected every minute they would. For over an hour I suffered a torture of fear and dread. When Mr. Stroup came he found the Indians around the door and I having a nervous chill, hardly able to talk. He worked with me until I began to recover, then said he would give them something to eat then tell them to leave. He told them to go and not come back as his squaw was sick. They left but I was sick for a week from the effects of their call. Many were the frights I got from Indians until I grew to hate the sight of them. Different times I was awakened by weird howling and screeching mingled with the noises of horses feet and rattling of trumpery made by bands of Indians going through the country with their squaws, pappooses, ponies, wicki-ups and luggage in general, tied on their ponies or on poles (travois) dragged by the ponies; everything flapping and rattling as they went. (We lived on the road leading to the ferry.) The first time I heard this noise I really thought our time had come, and when they passed our place and went on toward the ferry, Mr. Stroup was relieved also. Mosquitoes at this time were a terrible pest. The valley was full of wild cattle stat stamped and pawed of evenings, raising clouds of dust to rid themselves of the mosquitoes that literally covered their hides. I dared not venture out among the cattle, used only to seeing a man on horseback. I stayed close to my little house. In my lonesome hours I often longed to have something growing about the yard. I loved flowers, and for the change from the look of the grey sage brush around the place I got the top of a willow that had been cut and brought up for wood, set it out on my yard, and tied on artificial flowers that I happened to have to make blooms on the little tree. Never a stockman passing by but stopped to admire and comment on the little bush. Late in the fall another family settled in the valley and I did not feel so entirely alone as before. Our first Christmas eve we celebrated by going across Snake River on the icy ferry boat and up to Macomb Smith�s to a dance (near Butte at Vale). Hitching the mules to a sled Mr. Stroup had contrived out of left-over pieces of lumber, we took Mr. Womack and wife, who had come to the valley that fall, stopped on Malheur for Mr. and Mrs. Geo. Brinnon and one or two children. There was a deep snow on the ground and very cold. From Brinnon�s place the road was unbroken and our sled being of limited dimensions the men, Brinnon and Womack, proposed to walk. They went on ahead while we were stowed away in the sled our babies and wraps to be as comfortable as possible. We followed cattle trails wherever possible, one mule in the trail and one in the snow. The snow was crusted and our traveling soon became a serious matter. The mules legs were cut and bleeding. While we were delaying, considering conditions, the rest of our party arrived at their destination, and, as we did not appear in due time, they became anxious for our safety and returned to meet us. A council was held and Mrs. Brennon, more resourceful than the rest, tore a blanket into strips with which the men wrapped the mules legs, then the men walked ahead to break trails for the mules. We resumed our journey full of joyous anticipation of meeting our few but greatly prized and widely scattered neighbors at the dance, an event we were anxious for as the isolation was beginning to tell on us. Arriving we were hailed with genuine delight by those who had arrived. They knew the trip we had to make and the difficulties that had almost forced us to give up. The women at the party were the married women who lived near enough to make the trip with their husbands in the snow. There was only one young girl of 15 years. Some came with oxen hitched to a wagon or sled. Many of the bachelors had walked in their gum boots. Our music was a violin and an accordion. The people visited and danced and enjoyed themselves, had lunch at midnight and breakfast at daylight. Still loath to go we stayed until the warmest part of the afternoon to make the trip home. The next spring, (1874) the two men cut willows and fenced the ranch on two sides, making two miles of woven willow fence, the river forming the line on the other side. Gradually in the next two or three years settlers came to the valley. Our first school was taught by J. I. Sturgill from Grande Ronde Valley, Oregon. School was held in the house of Geo. Goodman, widower with four boys and one girl of school age. The school district was a very large one and there were 14 scholars enrolled, two of them living so far away they could not attend school. Of the three trusties Mr. Stroup was the only one who could read and write. The teacher at that time received $60 per month. Sometimes Mr. Stroup made a trip to Kelton, Utah, after a load of freight, and I would be left alone day and night with my small children, no telephone, no automobile those days; no doctor closer than sixty miles from us. I have wondered what we would have done in case of an emergency illness or accident. At night the coyotes howled a lullaby to put me to sleep but the stillness was often so oppressive that it made even this a welcome sound. Nearly a month went by before I could begin to look for the team and wagon to show up on the hill above the house, coming home. Long, weary, lonesome days and nights, but all things pass by in time. �After we had begun raising crops, grasshoppers came in clouds one year and ate up everything green, cutting the heads off the wheat in bloom. We had a patch of tobacco growing and they ate it to the ground. This was the only time in 52 years in Idaho that they have appeared. Another year flood waters in the Payette and Snake Rivers ruined all our crops. In the spring of 1877 came the Nez Perce Indian War. We were in the corral one evening milking the cow when Hank Cole, a neighbor bachelor who lived on the bank of the Payette, came up to us and said, �Have you heard the news? Injuns! Injuns on the warpath, you want to brighten up your old gun.� He then told us that the Spoor family from Indians Valley up in the Weiser country had come down to Mr. Thorp�s place that evening on their way to Boise; that the Indians were massacreing settlers on White Bird; and said their next battle would be on the Weiser. Again I felt we were doomed without hope. But the men assured me that we would get the news from the stage driver, up from Baker, and that we could drive to Boise any night. We talked and talked. Mr. Cole went home and night was upon us. I lay awake all night never feeling the need of sleep. Every sound of the night meant Indians to me. Early the next morning we went to the Thorp�s to hear what Spoors knew and to decide what we would do. Cole went across the river in a skiff and out to the stage station to get the news. The word was that the Indians were still in North Idaho, headed it was thought, into Montana. We were still to watch for the stage and keep posted. Next day Mr. Stroup took me and our three small children up to McFarland�s store on the stage road, where we stopped with John Neal�s family. Next day Mr. Stroup returned to the ranch, as the news was still favorable. �Mr. and Mrs. Neal insisted that he leave us there a few days longer until we were sure about the way the Indians had gone. The Indians went into Montana, General Howard after them. We returned home to spend an uneasy summer, and that fall, early in November, Mr. Stroup took us to Kelton, Utah, with a team, and I with three children, the youngest just a year old, went back to Alba, Mo., where I remained about eighteen months. In 1878 came the Bannock War, I being in Missouri Mr. Stroup carried his needle gun with him, and when at home on the ranch often slept out in the willows. Some of the Indians went through our valley, the people there took their families to a kind of fort upon the Payette to stay while most of the men went back and forth to the ranches to look after things. The spring of 1879 I came back to Idaho again over the stage road with team from Kelton. The Indians were not put on the reservations, and we felt at last that we could build us a home in peace. Mr. Stroup had paid out on the preemption claim and taken a homestead. He bought more land from the settlers until at one time he owned about 700 acres in one body on Snake River. Much of the land was seeded to blue grass, red top, and timothy hay, and later on to alfalfa, giving it the name of �Blue-grass Meadows Ranch.� Mr. Stroup was a farmer and stock raiser for many years. He built a two story house of nine rooms, which the family called �Pioneer Hall�, in honor of the 12 x 14 room that was their first home in the west. Seven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Stroup, four boys and three girls. All grew to manhood and womanhood; all are living but two sons Jake and Alonza. Daughters are: Mrs. Majors of Ontario, Mrs. Frankie Russell (Widow) Ontario, Mrs. Alta Coughanour Payette. Sons: Stretter Stroup, living on the old homestead in Washoe and Guy, living near the home place. |