A Grand Buffalo Hunt
Hunting the plains buffalo was the ultimate hunting experience for Kansas settlers. In early September, 1873, John Hannibal Trautwine, Alex Weaver, and Thomas Fall left their homesteads in eastern Kansas to harvest a winter meat supply on the great buffalo range of the high plains. Their trek to western Kansas was documented in a previous story taken from Trautwine’s diary.
Traveling by wagon, the hunters arrived at Stockton, Kan. on Sept.
18. They were now on the very edge of civilization. Nothing but grass could be seen beyond the visible horizon. Trautwine noted “ … none of the three have ever been on a buffalo hunt and we might make a sorry hunt of it by ourselves.” They hoped someone in Stockton could guide them.
They were directed to Mr. Avery, a preacher and farmer with a reputation as a very good hunter. Having secured a guide the inexperienced hunters returned to camp “ … to dream of buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, wolves, and everything that inhabits the plains.” The next morning Mr. Avery led the hunting party westward “ … on the trackless plains.”
The third day out the hunters began to see large numbers of wolves. “ … we guess we are not many miles from buffalo, as wolves are not found in any large numbers distant from the herds at this time of the year. We can see three distinct species of the wolf — the coyote, which is small about the size of the common Shepard dog — the black and the gray wolf, the two latter about the size of a good Newfoundland dog.”
Tuesday morning, Sept. 22, the hunters turned north, crossing the North Fork of the Solomon River, Sappa Creek, Beaver Creek, and Prairie Dog Creek. Allowing that they probably camped on further north of the mentioned creeks, their next camp would have been on Beaver Creek, somewhere near the Nebraska state line. Three hundred lodges of Pawnee were pitched nearby.
The guide, Mr. Avery had become ill. Unable to continue, Avery requested to be left with the Pawnee. “ … he being acquainted with several of their chiefs and also speaks their language fluently.” Luckily, Al Williams, an experienced hunter was in the Pawnee camp in the company of six other men. Williams was described as being 5 foot, 6 inches, clean shaven, with light gray eyes and sandy hair. He spoke the dialect of six different tribes of Indians and was said to be a dead shot at 1,000 yards.
On Wednesday, Sept. 23, 1873, with Williams in the lead, buffalo were sighted several miles north of the Nebraska line. “ … only nine of them, but that is as good as a thousand to us ... ” Their guide stalked and shot one while the untried hunters watched and learned. “We enjoyed our next meal hugely, I assure you.”
That evening the buffalo hunters crossed the Republican River. Near present-day Culbertson, Neb., camp was made at the mouth of Frenchman’s Fork while Williams scouted the surrounding area for buffalo. After a couple of dull days in camp a herd was found seven miles to the west. Nineteen buffalo were killed, mostly by Williams. Never mind, the rest of the party excitedly butchered the animals with visions of their own triumphs yet to come. “We are all in a flurry for the morrow ... ”
As Friday, Sept. 27 dawned, the hunters left camp under an ominous sky. They had barely crossed the river when Al Williams recognized a “norther” brewing on the horizon. An hour after returning to camp Trautwine wrote, “a prairie storm in all its fury bursts upon us. We were nearly covered with sand, but by night the storm had spent its fury and the night was as calm, clear and serene as could possibly be imagined.”
The camp was moved approximately 60 miles west to the very southwest corner of Nebraska. Williams found a great herd of buffalo at the mouth of the Arikaree River. The outfit make camp west of present-day Haigler, Neb., and preparations were made for a “grand hunt.”
There was plenty of opportunity for hunting excitement. The inexperienced hunters “found an abundance of game and could get plenty of shots but it seemed that nothing fell.” Fortunately, their guide was able to bring down another nineteen buffalo. Trautwine continued. “We all felt quite good… even if we greenies had done nothing toward accomplishing anything.”
A few days later Trautwine was finally able to celebrate his first kill. There would be even more adventure to come. The hunters remained on the plains long enough to witness a pitched Indian battle between warring Indian tribes. Their hunt for winter meat had turned into quite an excursion. One that would provide years of storytelling of exciting days on a grand buffalo hunt on The Way West.
“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, executive director of the National Drovers Hall of Fame. Contact Kansas Cowboy, P.O. Box 62, Ellsworth, Kan. 67439. Phone (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.
