An Old West Story

 An Old West Story

A compelling story of the old west had roots in the eastern part of Ransom County, in Owego, to be exact. Several members of the Ward family settled here in the early 1870s after leaving Minnesota. Little did they know they’d become central figures in the March, 1876, Battle of Big Meadow.

An interesting incident preceded that however while they were still in Ransom County which seems to stretch belief. Each time I read the account, I have to wonder if it really happened. F. A. Baguhn, an early county historian, passed along a story he’d found about an unknown child who lies in an unknown grave. He relates that the Wards were haying and trapping along the Sheyenne River when one day a man came asking them to help bury one of his children.

Nobody knew the family but about fifteen community residents gathered next day at the cabin. The roughly made coffin rested on a couple of stools and was surrounded by the mourners crowded into the little cabin. A problem arose: a clergyman was not present and no one came forward to conduct a proper service. Now what?

Was the next scene possible? The written account says the door opened and two children entered, a boy of about 16 and a girl of 14. They were children of a French half-breed family from about a mile away. Apparently wise in the ways of Christian ritual, they knelt and the girl offered up prayers and her brother sang a hymn. To quote the account, “It made a profound impression on those who looked on. Everyone who saw and heard the little girl and her brother that day left better men and women.” We don’t know how many hands the story passed through before Baguhn learned of it, but it was recalled by one of the Wards in later years.

We’ll move on with telling a story of the old west where the Wards were key figures in a drama. They had been eying a destination further west and trekked to Bismarck the next year, arriving just before the Northern Pacific rails reached there in 1873. The following year, in July 1874, Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills, an event that would change the history of the region. His orders included searching for a good spot to build a new fort and finding out if there was anything to the rumor of gold in the hills. He sent out news - gold was indeed present, news which created a stampede of miners to the hills. Of course, this was treaty land and these interlopers made the Indians none too happy.

Growing numbers of miners were creating a big market for products such as meat, clothing, ammunition, shovels, and, of course, whisky. Like many other gold rush situations, astute businessmen saw profits in selling these necessities to the miners and not digging in the dirt themselves. Here the Wards re-enter the narrative. By 1876, they had acquired some beef cattle and saw profit in trailing a herd to hungry miners who craved a good steak.

With that first Northern Pacific train in 1873 came the printing press that Clement Lounsberry used to print the story he headlined three years later as “The Battle of Big Meadow.” He tells us that in March, 1876, Oscar Ward led a party from Bismarck to the Black Hills consisting of 50-60 men and a few women. They were scattered along the trail for about four miles. While they camped one night at Big Meadow, Indians stampeded twenty-seven head of stock which prompted some men to go out to regain possession of them. Oscar’s brother George accompanied this group. Running gun battles occurred, but they did retake some of the cattle, although they had to fight to keep them. Men were wounded including George who took bullets in his shoulder and a life-ending shot to his chest. Of the fourteen men who pursued their stolen cattle, only two were uninjured. They buried George, wrapped in blankets, on the prairie and the wagons and cattle rolled out again the next day.

Another character who reported his version of the story to Lounsberry was Donald Stevenson. He might be remembered as the owner of a wagon train that stalled in 1867 during a three-day blizzard near what is now Lisbon. He also saw profits supplying the Black Hills miners and passed through the area with his train shortly after the Ward train. He found the body of George Ward that Indians had dug up and stripped of clothing. They reburied him and then disguised the site by running animals back and forth across it. A few months later when George tried to find his brother’s grave, he was unsuccessful.

As I stated earlier, the Indians became angry at white miners and settlers trespassing on land they had been granted by treaty. Only three months later, June 25, 1876, they brought down Custer’s command at the Little Big Horn.