A new article has been added at Newspaper Abstracts > United States > New York > Genesee http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/index.php?action=displaycat&catid=637 Also visit our new sister sites: http://www.AncestorsOnTheWeb.com http://www.Genealogy101.com Direct link to article: http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=44503 Submitted by: New York Contributors Article Title: Daily News Article Date: November 29 1895 Article Description: Rev. Smith and the Deadwood Story. Article Text: Originally submitted by: Linda Conpenelis Schmidt A Deadwood Story It is told by Dan Costello, the Old Time Circus Clown There was a little gray haired old man, sitting in the corridor of the Tiffe Hense[sp?] the other day who seemed to be taking a lively interest in what was going on around him. Nobody spoke to him, and he sat alone and unnoticed for he was a complete stranger in the city. He was from Dakota, and it had been nearly a quarter of a century since he had made his home in the east. Years ago he had been a man of wealth and had owned interests in Dakota, mines worth many thousands of dollars, but he now had a very little of that fortune left, and his name was no longer known among the business men of the state where he had lived. He was Dan Costello, the once famous clown, who for several years was in partnership with P.T. Barnum in the show business. Costello was in Deadwood in the old pioneer days, when the town was filled with lawless characters, cowboys, Indian fighters and desperadoes. It was just after he had left Barnum, Wild Bill and a score of other characters whose names have since been prominent in 10 cent blood and thunder literature were there, and Costello knew them all. Sometimes he played poker with them in the Belle o' Union, the old gambling place where they gathered together at night and where several of them were killed. "Going down to the Belle o' Union to see somebody get shot:" was quite a favorite pastime with Deadwood citizens in those days. One of these lawless men whom Costello knew was California Joe, and it was about this man that the ex-clown told an Express reporter an interesting story, which, although it happened 15 years ago, has never crept into print. Here it is: "Well," as Costello told it, "it doesn't make much difference how we mortals die, and it didn't matter much to California Joe, except that he always said he would rather like to quit the world with his boots on. And he did. To begin with, there's an Indian's head, with some of the skin and hair still clinging to it, in the Smithsonian institute in Washington. I don't suppose any of the people at the institute know how that Indian came to be killed, but it happened in a peculiar way. In Deadwood, when I was there, there was a minister hanging about the town and holding street services for the miners. What was his name or to what denomination he belonged I never knew, and I don't suppose there were many who did, but that doesn't matter so far as this story is concerned. One day this minister started out on horseback to ride over to butte mountain. The road he took led around through the hills and then across the plains. It was a very dangerous one, for there were many good places for the Indians, who were thick in the neighborhood, to lay their traps and more than a few of the whites had been waylaid and killed on it. Butte mountain overlooked the plains, and the Indians could see for miles from its summit and watch for travelers. The minister rode slowly through the hills with his gun hanging across his saddle and his Bible bulg! ing out from his coat pocket, and he did not see so much as a sing of an Indian. It was not until he reached the plains and was spurring his horse over the long, straight stretch of road that lay before him that he heard a warwhoop, and suddenly half a dozen Indians rode out from their hiding place. the minister had fighting blood in his veins and he began to shoot right away. He got a bullet in leach leg, and then succeeded in killing one of the Indians. But the Indians got the best of him, and his body was found riddled with bullets. "It happened that California Joe and his partner were on their way from Crook city to Deadwood that day, and it was their misfortune to meet the same band of Indians on the road across the plains. California Joe's partner was killed almost as son as the firing began, and at the same time one of the Indians fell. Joe stood his ground and fired shot after shot in quick succession. Two more of the Indians were killed; and then the rest, taking fright from Joe's good marksmanship, hurried away. Joe then bent over one of the Indians lying in the road. The Indian was dying, and Joe finished the job by cutting off his head. Then he mounted his horse, took the head with him and rode full speed for the town. He rode in through the streets as fast as his horse could go, holding the Indian's head, the blood from which had spattered his saddle, by the hair. The lights were just being lighted in the Belle o'Union, and everybody left the gambling tables to hear Joe's story. "That Indian's head was hung on the wall in Belle o'Union, and it was there for a year or more. Then somebody threw it out on a garbage pile. It lay there all one summer. After the Deadwood fire somebody who took an interest in such relics found it lying out in the yard, and in some way or other it got to the Smithsonian institute. "As I said before, California Joe died with his boots on. It was only a little while after his adventure near Deadwood that he had a falling out with a man near Red Cloud agency. Joe called him a liar, or something of that sort, and the fellow took offense. He hung around trying to get the drop on Joe for a week, and finally he landed him. Joe was coming down the street when the fellow sent a bullet into his back. He is buried out in a lonely spot on the plains, not far from there. Some of his old friends stopped playing poker long enough to go to his funeral, and they chipped together and put a little picket fence around the grave to keep the coyotes away and put up a headstone on which were simply the words, 'California Joe.' " The minister in Costello's story was mentioned in the article on Deadwood in The Illustrated Express. He was the Rev.. Henry W. Smith, the first missionary to the Black Hills. ~ Buffalo Express. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ NY-Old-News ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ NewspaperAbstracts.com - Finding our ancestors in the news! TM http://www.NewspaperAbstracts.com