Pistol Packin' Women

 Pistol-Packin’ Women

The year was 1882, a full 20 years past the bloody Indian uprising in Minnesota, and the settlers were still distrustful of the Indians. An incident this year occurred when a few armed Indians were spotted “performing some queer antics” in Owego. The alarm spread quickly and several Norwegian families living there packed up and left by ox team to escape to Colfax.Then news of it took a roundabout path of reaching people who could investigate it.

A message was sent to the news editor of The Fargo Argus who in turn contacted the commander of the troops in Fort Sisseton. He mustered three troops of cavalry to ride and camp somewhere east of where the Dead Colt Creek campground is now located. Next day, he rode into Lisbon accompanied by a dozen cavalrymen. Here the imagination struggles to guess what they did until the next afternoon when two scouts “dressed in the characteristic fringed buckskin suits” arrived with their findings.

They reported a small party of Sioux had been chasing antelope in the sandhills area. A detachment of cavalry was dispatched to catch and escort them back to Sisseton. The facts of that relatively peaceful ending hadn’t reached Lisbon, and rumors of an impending attack circulated wildly. The practice of “yellow journalism” by newspaper editors flourished at the time and when the Fargo Argus circulated a sensationalized and exaggerated report of the situation, the presence of soldiers seemed to confirm it.

The frightened citizens of Lisbon had knowledge of the 1862 uprising in Minnesota where many settlers had been killed. This town wasn’t going to go down without a fight and armed themselves, the women with revolvers, the men with rifles. They spent a watchful, fearful night, not knowing what to expect. Finally, after everything got sorted out, word reached them that the apparent threat had ended.

Turn to the history of Sheldon and find another story of a pistol-packin’ lady named Margaret Callan Hickey. To see her picture is to see a diminutive lady wearing granny glasses and swept- back hair that ties into a bun at the top. Her grandson wrote she had such small feet that she had to wear baby shoes until she could have shoes custom built for her.

Despite her size she was not about to be intimidated by any of the lawlessness surrounding her in Sheldon. The grandson wrote, “She carried a Colt revolver with her at all times when the men were away from the house because there were many unsavory characters prowling the countryside at that time.”

To illustrate some of the flowery language printed in the day we only need to read her obituary. Besides describing the profusion of flowers and well wishes brought for this well-respected person in the community, her obituary stated after saying goodnight to her family that night in

By Lynn Bueling

1907, “she sank peacefully into the sleep from which the awakening comes in the light of the everlasting morning.”

We’ll recall another facet of her life by saying she was married to the rugged Westerner John Hickey who brought his family to Sheldon to operate the livery stable. It is from his obituary we learn he was a participant at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Obviously he was not slain with those of the 7th cavalry because as a freighter hauling Custer’s supplies and ammunition his rig sat parked away from the battle with Major Reno’s detachment. The Hickey grave marker can be found in the Sheldon cemetery.

One more historical lady of the pistol-packin’ sorority was a gal from Winona, ND. Winona no longer exists because of its inundation by the waters of Lake Oahu, but in the days that Fort Yates stood as a working fort, it was important as a recreation site. No liquor sales were allowed on the fort or the reservation. Interestingly enough, with Winona’s location on the east side of the Missouri River and Fort Yates on the east side, soldiers exhibited creativity to cross the river, whether by ferry, ice skates, rowboats, or even swimming.

To this town came a lady with business acumen who became known as Mustache Maude because of the dark growth on her upper lip. Even though the town had several dance halls and casinos in operation, she built and successfully operated one of her own. In a town well stocked with rowdy soldiers and cowboys who often drank too much, she punctuated her authority with the big revolver she wore holstered on her hip.

The atmosphere became charged with the alcohol problem and murder of a family by Indians looking for liquor. The county commissioners started cracking down and many of the dance halls closed their doors. Maude relocated to start a ranch across the river at the town of Shields. There she found herself charged with cattle rustling by the attorney general William Langer. She told of the whereabouts of a cattle rustling gang working in the area and received a light sentence. She went on to be a sort of “Florence Nightingale” in the community by ministering to their medical needs. She stated once that as a midwife, she’d spanked half the bottoms in Grant County.

The brief accounts here of women from Lisbon, Sheldon, and Winona give us a small slice of their lives, but facts are few. I remember a quotation made by the historian/author Dee Brown where he states “Sometimes there isn’t enough material. There’s a story there and you can’t fill it in with facts, so you let your imagination run wild.” While thinking about these women with so little information about them, I can still draw vivid pictures in my imagination.