It was dusk when I pulled over at a tiny cemetery just outside Victoria, Kansas. The air was crisp; the night was calm; in the fast-fading light the trees above became a black canopy and the objects below became blur. Known far and wide for its majestic “Cathedral of the Plains” – a monument in any American city – Victoria is a proud place. Maybe a thousand folks call this trim town home and truly the church is a mighty testament to the faith of the Scottish and German immigrants who raised it a hundred years ago. Hewn from native limestone, the twin steeples can be seen for miles on the flat plains. Imposing as the cathedral is, I think this humble dirt plot beside the Union Pacific railroad tracks says even more.
Reading the handful of markers in the murk was difficult. The largest was raised by the Union Pacific Railroad, Eastern Division (AKA Kansas Pacific) and dedicated to six workers who were ambushed and killed by Cheyenne Indians in late 1867. All the men, “track laborers,” are buried together beneath this monument.
P.S. Ashley, Foreman (Wisconsin)
Thomas Carney (Iowa)
Charles Watson (Canada)
John Harrington (Kansas City)
Pat Rafferty (Kansas City)
Hugh McDonaugh (Denver)
Nearby, boxed in an aluminum case covered with plexiglass, is a much smaller marker. This block of limestone, maybe one foot by two, is also in memory of the six men slain but since it was hand carved a short time after the event it seems much more personal. One can almost feel the pathos with each tap on the chisel. Even had the light been better, it would have been difficult to decipher the marker since both the spelling and carving were crude.
IN MEMORAIM of Mr. McDONNEY.
FIVE (?) . . . PERSONS HERE TO. ME. UNKNOWN.
TO THIER MEMORY
WE CARVED THIS STONE.
KILLED BY
INDIANS
IN THE YEAR 1867
Dock William
carver
Now, for those who grew up with Grade-B Westerns, reality check time: Death by Indian was not just an arrow to the back, maybe a lifted scalp, end of story. In a blink, legs, hands, feet, ears, eyes, noses, heads, and privates could be chopped off and table arranged for maximum effect: speed gutting was another favorite. If the Cheyenne were not pressed for time they might enjoy a day-long barbecue – victim staked out, small embers placed at select parts of his body, never enough to kill, just enough to entertain. Point being: To find your co-workers cut and/or roasted alive was obviously something one would never forget.
A few feet beyond these stones, arrayed in a row, are five more small stones, still sunk in the sod. A large Scottish family named Seth were traveling by boat up the Mississippi River, Victoria-bound. Disease swept the decks and before the craft could even dock in St. Louis five of the children were dead of typhoid. For reasons not given, the mother, Jeanne, also was “lost” and the grieving husband and father could do little else but continue to his new Kansas homestead with the three surviving children. Just when he brought the bodies is not clear but, by the summer 1873, all had eventually joined him here on the High Plains. A new marker, raised in 2008 by a descendant, Ernest Seth of California, tells the story. Once more, and unlike TV Westerns, nothing quick and sweet about this form of dying either. Those who suffered the typhoid could expect ferocious fevers of 104 °F; acute dehydration, chronic diarrhea, stomach extension, and delirium unto madness were other symptoms; and this howling horror could continue for a fortnight until life finally released its grip. To have witnessed five of your children go through this simultaneously? Well, what mother or father might not be ”lost” to the trauma?
Indian attacks and disease. That is the extent of the little graveyard, but what lessons learned about the perils of pioneering. The silence and serenity now in this little nook contrasts starkly to the hideous end each occupant experienced. Eleven bodies . . . 11 terrible ends. Requiescant In Pace.
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