Old Pioneer’s memory

By "The Cowboy" Jim Gray
THE WAY WEST

Thomas Benton Murphy came west from his home near Pattonsburg, Mo., just after the Civil War.

He found work as a teamster for the military, witnessed the 1867 Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty, learned the ways of the native Plains Indians from men who had lived among them, and fought the Cheyenne and Sioux with Forsyth’s Scouts at Beecher Island and Gen. Sheridan’s Winter Campaign of 1868-69.

While camping on Bluff Creek in December 1870, Murphy crossed paths with Phil McClusky, an interpreter for the Comanche people at Medicine Lodge.

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