Pictures Lost On Plains In 1865 Brought Back Here

ANDERSON, GREEN, HARVEY, HARVIN, HURST, IRWIN, MABLE, MERSHON, PARDOE, SEYMOUR, VAUGHAN, VOWELL, WILSON

Posted By: JCGS Volunteer
Date: 1/25/2015 at 13:08:37

Pictures Lost On Plains In 1865 Brought Back Here
Nebraska Woman Returns To Jasper County for Visit and Brings Pictures to Relatives
(Jasper County History)
COLFAX – Pictures lost on plains in ’65 have been returned to friends here.
Mrs. Gotleib Mable – known here in an early day as Miss Lib Vowell – came recently from her present home in Nebraska for a visit with her nephew, Grant Hurst in Sherman township and with her cousin, Dave Harvin in Newton. While in town she met a number of old friends of over 50 years ago, among them Mrs. W. H. Pardoe and Mrs. John N. Wilson, whom she knew in her girlhood as Fannie and Jennie Green.
Mrs. Mable brought with her pictures of Mr. and Mrs. William Vaughan and Chester Seymour, which were lost on the plains in 1865, and which accidentally were found and fell into her hands when she was serving as an army nurse among the soldiers who were fighting the Indians 41 years ago. Below is an interesting account of the incident written by Miss Harvey for the Daily News.
“Who said, “Truth is stranger than fiction”, do you know? I don’t but it is isn’t it? Something happens every day to prove that it is true. Only last week an incident occurred here, which was rather out of the ordinary.
“A woman coming from her western home to visit relatives in this vicinity brought to the members of the Vaughan family, four pictures which were lost on the plains in Colorado nearly a half century ago.
“The person into whose hands they fell formerly lived near this place, being a daughter of Anderson Vowell, whose farm was just west of town near Cherry Creek. She recognized the pictures, kept them all these years and now coming to visit in Iowa, returned them to the rightful owners.
“How they were lost out in Colorado so many years ago is this way:
“Way back in May, 1865, a freight train known as the Mershon and Anderson train, consisting of twelve wagons loaded with flour, each drawn by 10 yoke of oxen, left Newton for Denver, Col. Accompanying this train were George T. Anderson and Jim Irwin, who represented J. R. Mershon as managers, 12 drivers and two night watchmen. One of these drivers was Fred Vaughan, the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. William Vaughan, who, though only a boy was anxious to have a taste of true western life, and so had persuaded his parents to let him go with this train.
“The parents, especially the mother, had found it very hard to let the son go on such a dangerous journey, as the plains trip was at that time.
“The first night the train camped on Skunk river west of town, and Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan and several others went down and spent the night with them, bidding them goodbye the next morning with many misgivings and much anxiety.
Mr. Anderson, even after all these years, speaks with much praise and pride of the lad. Fred Vaughan, of his bravery and sturdy endurance. How, though he was not used to such work, did well his pat, hitching up his 10 yoke of oxen each morning even though they trod on his toes, and without a word of complaint driving them thru to the end of the long tiresome journey.
“Seventy-two days passed before this train, escaping the Indians and all kinds of disasters, passing through hardships not easy to bear, at last reached Denver. Here the flour was disposed of at $18.50 per hundred and the party instead of starting back that fall as they had expected to do, changed their plans and took the cattle to the foot of the hills where they were wintered and in the spring sold them at 7c on foot.
Fred was one of their herders that winter, and had until a letter came telling of his mother’s serious illness, expected to remain and return with the rest of the party. Soon after the first letter, another one came urging that he return hoe as soon as possible as the mother was very sick. This he did, working his way back to the Missouri river with a train of 80 wagons.
“What narrow escapes they had from the Indians we do not know for he is not here to tell the story but we do know life on the plains at that time was very dangerous. He knew that any night’s sunset might be the last he would behold, and this uncertainty of life, together with the anxiety he felt in regard to his mother’s illness, made him have very tender thoughts.
“So one night when the whole camp was sleeping, he drew from his hand bang the pictures he carried of the home folks, and by the light of the moon which shone marvelously bright he hazed long on the face of each, especially of that of his dear mother, wondering if he ever got home might it not be too late to see her. As he lay watching the silent stars he fell asleep, and the pictures dropped into the grass at his side.
“Before day break the next morning all were astir and the boy rolled up his blanket only half awake, leaving the pictures where they had fallen.
“And now, after all these intervening years, those pictures come back to the home.
“Strange that any one should come across them on those miles and miles of plains and stranger still that it should be one who recognized them as being portraits of someone they had known, and thus years and years after the incident of their loss had been forgotten, that they should be returned.
Source: Newton Daily News; October 9, 1935, page 3