Bio, Edward Nutfield Russell, Prowers County, Colo =================================================== Contributed for use by the USGenWeb Archive Project USGenWeb Project NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the internet, this data may be used by non-commercial researchers, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, nor for presentation in any form by any other organization or individual. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than as stated above, must obtain express written permission from the author, the submitter and from the listed USGenWeb Project archivist. Transcribed by Donna L. Drummond email: genemous@ris.net Donated to the Archives 1998 The interview for this bio was conducted by the WPA in 1934. Edward Nutfield Russell by Margaret Merrill Russell, #1 Prowers County, Colorado Mr. Ed Russell was born in 1870 at Kit Carson, Colorado on the 28th day of July, the first white child born there. His parents, Benjamin and Kate Russell, came to Colorado in 1865. Benjamin Russell and a John Bush were partners in a contract for building the Kansas Pacific, now Union Pacific, railroad. Kit Carson was then located about three miles west of the present site on the banks of Sand Creek. As the terminus of the railroad and the big shipping point for that territory it was a flourishing town, larger than the present one. The railroad was completed to that point in 1870 and the company then ran out of funds and was obliged to discontinue work for a time. There were a few adobe houses in the town, but it was mostly a tent city, Mr. Russell being born in a tent house. In 1870 the partnership between John Bush and Benjamin Russell was dissolved and with their young baby they traveled on the Kansas Pacific line as far as Ellsworth, Kansas, where they crossed to Rice County, Kansas and took a homestead there on Cow Creek. Benjamin Russell was the fourth man to settle in that county. He put in wheat on his land and farmed it for eight years, then sold out an started back to Colorado by covered wagon. The Russell's stayed for about two month in Dodge City before going on to Colorado. Dodge City was at that time and for some years the toughest town in the United States. The killings there were said to average one a day. In 1886 the cattle trail was changed and no longer ran through Dodge City. The town was then "cleaned up" and the gamblers, crooks and bad men who had made it their headquarters were scattered all through the southwest along the border. The Russell's went on to Pueblo finding very little settlement between Dodge City and Pueblo. A company of soldiers were encamped at Old Granada, but Mr. Russell remembers there was very little else except a supply store and railroad siding. Pueblo itself was not much larger than Lamar is today and Rocky Ford was only a crossing at the river. They went on from Pueblo to Chaffee City in Chaffee County where Benjamin Russell engaged in the mining business for some time. A year or two later they went to Trinidad and from there drove a mule and oxen team to Garden City, Kansas. They stayed at Garden City for seven years and Mr. Ed Russell went to school. He also worked on the range for the Circle Cross and the ZX which was near Ulysses, Kansas. While at Ulysses Ed Russell became involved in the county seat fight there. Word was spread around that the ballot boxes were going to be taken. Mr. Russell and about a hundred other men were made deputy sheriffs. Breastworks were thrown up across the streets, consisting of 2 by 12s set edgeways and deputies were stationed behind them to protect the ballot box. Other deputies including Mr. Russell were stationed with their rifles in the voting places. After the voting was over the boxes were taken to the First National Bank for counting and were guarded until they were locked up in the vault. Mr. Russell learned the blacksmith trade in Lyons, Kansas. He returned to Garden City and went on the range again working for the Ravenger Brothers near Syracuse and the XY Ranch in Colorado. He and his father started out in '87 to take a herd of 3,000 sheep and 50 head of cattle from Garden City to Carriso Springs. They were caught in a storm near Lamar and the cattle stampeded and got away. They chased them as far as Sand Creek before turning them. As a result of the exposure Benjamin Russell became ill and died at Las Animas in October, 1887. His mother disposed of the stock in Las Animas and returned with her son to Garden city, where Ed Russell worked on the range. He came to Lamar to stay in 1905, and engaged in the blacksmith trade there. Benjamin Russell had many experiences with the Indians, which his son describes as follows: "The Indians in those days would have scouts to spy on the leading trail from the East on the emigrant trains. They would report back to their chiefs what they had learned and sometimes, if it was thought advisable, they would make raids on the emigrants, massacre the people, burn the wagons and take all their stock and provisions. They would then hide away on Sand Creek or Clay Creek for a month or so until it blew over. Then they would start the same tactics again. They did that through this country for years." "In 1868 my father was in the battle of Big Sandy. He was one of the citizens that mobilized with the soldiers at Fort Lyon under Colonel Chivington. Their scouts were sent out and located the band of Indians on Sand Creek and reported back. They made a forced march all of one night and part of day before and attacked the Indians at dawn in the morning. The Indians were camped under a high bank at a turn in the creek. There was a gap in the bank through which the soldiers marched. They killed all the Indians even the papooses. My father said there were about 600 Indians in camp." "While at Kit Carson my father ordered all the guns cleaned and oiled as he had heard the Indians were uprising. One morning he was going down to the Big Sandy to cut grade stakes. Mother spoke like something was going to happen as she had had a dream the night before. She got him to stay until after lunch and while they were at lunch the men yelled "Indians". Sure enough it was a raid. The Indians rode around the camp. All the men went out with their guns and so they did not attack the camp much. They went to the surveyor's cook camp about three fourths of a mile away and tried to get the cook. Realizing he was in danger the men from the camp followed the Indians and when they got there the cook was fighting them with a butcher knife through the door of his tent. The Indians saw the men coming and got horses and made their getaway after setting fire to the cook's hut. The cook who was know as "Red" Kelley came to meet the men with his hair standing straight up." "Another time when the Indians were on the warpath a shoemaker came to camp. He was on his way to Denver and stayed a few days at the camp. My father wanted him to stay and not leave camp for fear he would be scalped by Indians. He would not listen and started for Denver and about eight miles west of the camp they found him and a bunch of Mexicans. My father took a arrow out of a Mexican and kept it for several years. Doctor Richardson of Lyons borrowed it for exhibition and we never got it back." Later the Indians became more subdued. " Mr. Russell describes his Childhood in Rice County: The Indians used to trade up and down Cow and Jarvis creeks. Mother traded them cornmeal and groceries for wild turkeys and for good buffalo robes. We had lots of buffalo hides in those days. We would put the top box on the wagon, hitch the horses up, fill the wagon half full of hay, take four or five big buffalo robes and drive fifteen or twenty miles to a dance. We got all our supplies from Ellsworth sixty miles away, north." "My father always had one or two buffalo hanging in the meat room in the winter time. I remember one day when my father was going out to hunt buffalo meat. Mother talked him out of it as the Indians were a little bad. He agreed to wait. During the same afternoon a big buffalo came down to the crossing on the creek. My father took his six shooter and killed it and said he wouldn't have to go on a buffalo hunt now." "The cattle men in this section were all ruined by the blizzards in the last part of the '80s. During December of '85 and '87 and in the spring of '86 there were terrible blizzards which were like arctic storms. Mr. Russell says, "It was as if the air was filled with fine white flour. You could hold out your hand and not be able to see it. The country was thinly settled then, most people living near the river in sod houses, dugouts and shacks. In this territory there were probably a hundred people frozen. Some were found lying a hundred yards from their houses, some even closers." "Cattle were piled up three and four hundred in a bunch frozen to death. Marsena McMillin said after one of these storms he went to the river to cut ice so as to water the cattle and saw an old cow on the opposite bank. The next morning when he came back to cut the ice again there was the same animal. She was frozen in her tracks. Other cattle drifted way south. All the cattle companies here went broke, around Garden city and up here. The east made up car loads of provisions, bacon and groceries and clothing to send out here. Guards were set over the cars until the authorities could distribute the things as the desperate people would steal them. These storms and the railroads also ruined Trail City which sprang up after the trail was moved from Dodge City to along the border line between Kansas and Colorado. It became the bad city of the plains, but only lasted three or four years as the cattlemen began shipping by train." Interview by Margaret Merrill January 22, 1934. Signed: Ed Russell Address: 105 North Seventh St. Lamar, Colorado DATES IN QUESTION: Sand Creek Indian Massacre. Historical date of this battle is 29 Nov. 1864. This leads me to believe that the Russell's were in Colorado before 1865. =================================================== Contributed for use by the USGenWeb Archive Project USGenWeb Project NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the internet, this data may be used by non-commercial researchers, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, nor for presentation in any form by any other organization or individual. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than as stated above, must obtain express written permission from the author, the submitter and from the listed USGenWeb Project archivist.