I like the way some stories reveal themselves, especially after their seeds germinate in my thoughts for a period of time. I’m inclined to write about pioneer stories set at least partly in our small region, especially Ransom County, and I found some pieces of information that will permit me to continue one tale. Owego Township generates many narratives because it stood midpoint between Fort Abercrombie and Fort Ransom where so much traffic passed between. The Sheyenne River, its neighboring woodlands, and an abundance of wild game attracted some of the early settlers here, among them members of a family named Ward.
A few weeks ago we told a story they figured in, the one where a new and unknown settler came to ask the Ward brothers for help burying his young child. Then, after a small group of about fifteen neighbors gathered, it seemed no one knew any proper words to say. Unexpectedly, two French and Indian children living somewhere nearby arrived to mourn and stood near the coffin reciting, as I imagine, a Hail, Mary, “Je vous salue Marie, pleine de grace, le Seigneur est avec toi…” At the gravesite they might’ve recited the Lord’s Prayer, “Notre pere qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifie…”
Unusual as it seems, the story can be found in the ancient annals. As for the burial site, the exact spot where the child rests in his unmarked grave is lost to memory. But the story of the Ward family and another unmarked grave continues further west in the Bismarck area. The Northern Pacific reached Bismarck in 1873 and edge of the frontier followed right along. River boat traffic grew, Fort Abraham Lincoln was constructed, and the smell of gold was in the air.
Custer had led an expedition into the Black Hills where miners found gold. Another person associated with Ransom County, the freighter Don Stevenson, had returned to Bismarck from the Black Hills with the first shipment of gold ore. Get-rich-quick fever reached epic proportions and caused a flood of hopeful miners to that area, in spite of angry Indians who’d signed a treaty barring whites from the hills.
Not everyone wanted to dig in the dirt. Apparently the Ward brothers and other entrepreneurs didn’t either, who instead spotted potential for selling goods to the miners. Bull trains hit the trail filled with merchandise; some drove cattle for dairy or butcher purposes.
In March, 1876, Oscar Ward led a party of about twelve people from Bismarck to the Black Hills and were joined at the Little Heart River by another group of about fifty-five people. One evening they camped at a place about midpoint on their journey called Big Meadow near the Grand River. A group of Indians attacked in the dark and got away with 22 head of cattle and a number of horses. Sadly, the younger brother George was killed in the gunfire. They buried him there with the intent of reclaiming the body later and moved on to their goal.
Another group that followed had to rebury him after they discovered Indians had dug up George’s body, stole the blankets wrapping him plus all his clothes, and then left his naked body lying there exposed. The memory of the exact place of his burial became lost and as many times as Oscar passed this spot, he could not locate the resting place of his brother.
Further commerce between Bismarck and the Black Hills grew in spite of Indian trouble. In fact, miners were getting ambushed all the time, but the promises of riches kept them working their claims.
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