Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Let's hear some family stories from the frontier days Western folks,please?

Seeing as how my family came to NJ & Pa in the 1700's and never made it further west than Harrisburgh,I got none.
I would love to hear family stories from the decsendants of pioneers and homesteaders and such.
I believe history is more honest and interesting coming from the common man/woman.

thanks

Well as the story goes my ancestors were immigrants from Norway, settled in Wisconsin and Minnesota prairie in the 1880's I think. After their first prairie winter they said enough of that, it was warmer in Norway. Anyway, they decided to pack up and head to Bella Coola, BC. Country that was very similar to the coast of Norway. Well the first night on the train to BC from Wisconsin my relatives got drunk and got kicked off the train in South Dakota, they never left.

how far back yah wanting?my great grandfather moved here from Norway in about 1910 or so.....was one of the younger brothers in the family so he wasnt gonna get the family farm in the old country and was kinda tired of hauling grain down the mountain on his back so when one of his uncles came over after living in the US for awhile and filled his head with stories he packed his stuff at age 16 and followed his uncle back across the pond....lived in Minneapolis for a short while to learn English than joined his uncle on his homestead in western North Dakota before heading west a lil farther and set up shop in northern McCone County Montana.....built his house and barn, the house is laid out exactly like the family farm house back in Norway other than a sun porch was added....

my dads side of the family, no one has a serious clue bout it, other than via certain branches of the family tree we have been here since we were a British colony but the various members of the family pinballed around the country so much its hard to track down...

my wife however has an interesting family tree....her great-great grandmother and Jesse Jame's grand mother were sisters if i remember correctly, i know my father in law has a picture of his granddad and Jesse taken at a county fair.....said they never knew what color horses were gonna be in the barn when they woke up

very cool,keep em coming

Dingo's ate one of my great great great great grandmas babies.

Hell just ask Terry about Dan'l Boone while yer at it, I understand they was tight!

thats South West JM,very SW.

My Great-Great Grandpa's brother killed a man down in Texas. Great-Great Grandpa went along on the posse to track him down. He was the one that found him. He shot his own brother. So the story goes, anyway.

We don't have many "stories" that far back but my grandmother is a history nut and she's big into the DRT (Daughters of the Republic of Texas) and thus has a history forever back on both sides. We still have document copies of ship records of them coming to the US before it was the US.....My grandmother can reel all that stuff off on the top of her head.

On my father's side the family came to the US before there was a US from France. Kept moving south and west and wound up in Miss. around 1800.

In the 1830's my great great grandfather fought in the battle of San Jacinto in the Texas revolution and signed the Texas Decleration of Independance.

Got a land grant from the state in a place called spindletop - near Beaumont, TX. He traded it for land further north in East Texas.

"Spindletop" might ring a bell. At one point it was the most valuable land on earth per square foot and where the first time the term "GUSHER" was used in reference to oil wells. Talk about bad timing lol. Missed the boat on that one.

My mother's side is too hard to tell. My grandmother was part Indian and she was adopted at one point by an old man that was a veteran of the civil war. He remarried late in life and that threw a wrench into my grandmothers last name. Because he was soo old when he adopted her and she was soo old when my mother was born (my mother had a brother die in WWII before she was even born) it's only like 4 generations back to the civil war on that side which is odd.

No "frontier" stories but my great grandfather (who didn't die till I was 21) never left the county he was born in until he left on a train on his way to Europe in WWI with his 3 brothers. All 3 fought in the trenches and all 3 came home. He had burns from being gassed.

My Great Grandparents (Maternal) immigrated from Sweden in the late 1880's, passed through Ellis Island and settled in Northern Minnesota. Shortly after my thirteenth great aunt/uncle was born my Great Grandfather passed leaving my Great Grandma Anna to raise them all.

My Great Uncle Jalmer documented the trials and tribulations of live in Northern Minnesota in a book. My Great Grandma was a true matriarch, from killing a cat that pissed all over the house, to feeding the kids castor oil to get rid of their ailments. He's in his late 80's, spry and still makes deer camp every year. I haven't picked up his book in a while, but it is always a fun read. I really need to make deer camp out there.

On a serious note, They came from Scotland in the 1640's and landed in Virginia, Members of my bunch migrated southward thru the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and most live in Mississippi and Texas.

Sorry for the unexciting tale but that's it.

JM

Dude...I bet we're related. Daughters of the Republic and all.

My GGF "Curg Border...

"San Augustine was also the scene of one of the more interesting feuds in Texas history. It's roots were in the 1890s, but things didn't really get going until the Spring of 1900 when Lycurgus (Curg) Border stirred things up in the Wall-Broocks-Border feud. Curg, who was a handsome man and a good dancer until he was partially crippled in a shooting, shot Sheriff George W. Wall, who died a few days later. Curg Border was elected sheriff in 1902 and served until he was suspended in 1904 by the district judge. W.S. (Sneed) Noble took over the sheriff's duties and found himself caught up in the feud. Sheriff Noble shot and killed Curg Border in May of 1904. (This information is from Texas County Sheriffs by Sammy Tise)."

Of course, you might be related to them no'count Walls!

On my mother's side, My great grandfather was a horse trader and a rancher. I've seen entries in the last subtler at Fort Laramie, John Hunton's, diaries that mentions dealing with Hawkins over horses. He somehow was related to the Hawkins of the Missouri gun makers and the Hawkins' Rifle. I guess he also bought a lot of horses and broke and sold horses to the Cheyenne/Deadwood Stage Company. He and his wife, a Lakota woman, my great grandma, lived in the hills on a ranch NW of Hat Creek Wyoming as far back as in the 1880s, not far from the Black Hills. I guess that they also tried nearly every year to get their ranch to be one of the stage stops, but never did. He died before I was born, but I used to know my great Grandma pretty well. She died when I was seven, she was ninety seven at the time. That was in 1969 so she must of been a little girl when Custer bought it on the Little Big Horn.

My Father's side immigrated from Germany not too long before they made it to Wyoming. My father's parents were gone before my time, but from what I gather, That grandmother never did learn English very well. They started out on a homestead here between Chugwater and Hawk Springs Wyoming. There were six boys and three girls all born right at home. My dad was one of them, he was born out there on the rim in a farmhouse in 1917. One of the girls (my aunt) died in a blizzard when she was eight years old -- they never found her until some drifts melted several weeks later. She was over 10 miles from home. The school that she had left from that day was just a mile and a half away from home.

My familys is from and currently lives in that county. We have a historical marker for our family in the southern portion of that county.

My grandfather (on my mother's side) ran for sherrif of that county and was ambushed coming back to town and held until he decided to drop out. Right around the turn of the century there were a lot of killings and the TX rangers were called in to stop the Burlesons from killing each other and the whole county.

It's always been known as an outlaw area and many known outlaws would seek hiding in the area including Bonnie and Clyde. My grandmother has all the pictures and books on the subject.

I think it's called Gunsmoke in the Redlands

The noble mentioned family still lives there and he writes history books on outlaws in the area.

Fathers side landed in Jamestown Va. in 1732. Later to St. Louis then grand father (born 1871) homesteaded in NM.
Grand mother born in 1890 in Texas, named Arta after Bill Cody's daughter. No idea how early her family went to Texas. Her father homesteaded in Lincoln Co. NM early 1900's
He had severe problems with a neighbor over water. Neighbor ended up killing a deputy and was shot dead for it.

Mothers side as far back as I know are from Ark. Grandmother was a Newton. Newton Co Ark. was named after one of her ancestors. I have wondered if some of the Newton Boys of movie fame were related to me somehow.

Also had family that was killed in the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre in Southern Utah. Two of the children that survived and returned to Arkansas were children of of my direct ancestry's siblings.

One of the more interesting family stories I heard a few years ago from my dad, was about his grandfather which is my great grandfather.

Story goes that a couple guys robbed the local bank and the word spread throughout the region to be on the lookout for the bad guys. Seem's the robbers got spotted, and several locals my greatgrandfather included, knew the country better and forced them to hole up in some rough cliffs where the lead got poured into them. By the time the law arrived on horseback, the bad guys where dead and that was it. Can you imagine if that happened today?

Not a very old story but kind of funny.


When I was about 12 years old my dad and I went out to bring in an old Charolais bull. We'd already gathered the cows off the pasture but this particular old bull was extra grouchy so he got left behind. During the roundup he charged my dad's horse, knocking the horse right off it's feet sending pops flying so horses were out of the question.

Anyway we went back out there with a pitchfork, a lariat and the old F250. Found the bull layed up right next to a stock damn and proceded with the plan.
Roping the bull was simple, he just stood there pawing the ground and blowing snot at us while we threw a loop over it's massive head. So now we got him roped and tied onto the flatbed of the truck. My dad says, you just put the truck in low gear and idle back towards the corral,about a mile away, and I'll walk behind encouraging him with the pitchfork.

Okay, so we start off down the trail, bull being stubborn as ever but cooperating as good as could be expected. Things were going fine until you guessed it. The bull stops, I don't hit the clutch quite quick enough and the rope snaps!

I hear GOD DAMNIT-SON OF A BITCH and look back to see the bull wheeling around looking to put the kibash on my dad. Dad is standing there, pitchfork in hand about 15 feet away from the 1800lb, highly aggitated bull with nothing but sagebrush to hide behind!

I got the truck turned around and somehow made it back to my dad before the bull attacked. Why the bull didn't just stomp him right there remains a mystery but I'm sure glad he didn't.

So what do we do now?
Knot the rope back together and try it again!
Second try it actually worked, I think the bull was just so tired out he didn't give a damn and went along with it.


I'll never forget that afternoon as long as I live.
Good times.

I have the book. My Mom's maiden name is Stanley (north county) and my Dad's a Powell (of course) from south county. I grew up huntin' the old Wade place which is now in Bannister and Ayish Bayou.

Must have been a Scandinavian exodous in the 1880's. My mom's side came from Finland (I'm 50% Finn) at that time, moved to Minn area too.
Don't know my dad's side at all.