Here’s a story so unique that readers might wonder if it is true. It was passed down from a Sheldon area historian named F. A. Baguhn. We’ll repeat it in his words but will take it further as the story progresses. The following is printed using Baguhn’s words
At countless little cemeteries in the state the day before Memorial day, farmers, their wives and children were pulling weeds, working flower beds, planting fresh blooms and placing bouquets. A visit to one of these, a reading of some of the markers over the graves of pioneers was followed by a trip by this writer to an old farm and to the telling of this story about an unknown child who lies in an unknown grave.
The place was in the sandhill country southeast of Sheldon, in Ransom County. In the year 1872 two families, the H. R. Wards and Oscar Wards, and a relative, a Mr. Griffith, were haying and trapping along the Sheyenne. A man came and asked them to go to his cabin three miles away the next day to help him bury one of his children.
About 15 settlers came for the funeral. When they got there they found the father had built a coffin of rough lumber and had dug a grave under a tree. The coffin was in the house, resting on some home made stools. The parents and several other children were at hand. The settlers walked to the coffin and the little body. Then moved back and stood looking at each as much as to say “what are we to do next.”
Then 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 about a mile away. They stopped near the door for a few seconds, looking at the settlers wonderingly. Then they walked to where to where the coffin rested, dropped on their knees, made the sign of the cross. Each repeated a few words in a language those assembled could not understand. They arose and stood with heads bowed.
One of the men motioned and the group carried the coffin to the grave. At the side of the grave were other stools to rest the coffin on. When all was ready there was another pause and again none seemed to know what to do. The little half-breed girl was standing next to the coffin, looking from one to another as much as to say, “Don’t you know what to do?”
The settlers stood mute in their hopelessness. The little girl sensed what they wanted. She knelt and offered up one of the finest prayers many there had ever heard. With her brother she sang two verses of a hymn. 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.
… … …
The Wards, who were among the witnesses of the little boys’ burial, told this stirring episode in which they became involved some years later. The Ward family left Owego and traveled with wagons pulled by oxen and a small herd of cattle to the Bismarck area. H. O. (Henry) Ward then wrote the story of traveling from Bismarck to the Black Hills with a herd of beef to sell to a growing market of miners for their appetites.
Along the route they camped one night at a location known as Big Meadow Creek where they were attacked by Indians who wanted to take the beef herd for themselves. They did get away with some, but a gunfight ensued and George was killed. With no time to mourn, they buried him wrapped in two new blankets. They went on to arrive in Rapid City with some spreading out to Crook City.
Another party followed and reported that they camped at Big Meadow and found George’s body had been dug up by Indians who stole the blankets wrapping him and left him there on top of the ground. Those travelers reburied him. On the return trip to Bismarck the Wards looked for his grave but could not find it on account of there having been so much traffic trampling the ground and erasing any sign of its location.
Two stories and no stones mark the graves. History tells us that this wasn’t unusual in those old pioneering days.
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