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After my father died at our home in Napton, Missouri, as the result of exposures suffered during the Civil War, my mother, sister and I started by train to join my two brothers, Clarence and Will, in Rawlins, Wyoming. We decided to winter in Wichita, Kansas. I was fourteen years old that year. It was in Wichita I saw a sight I never forgot--prairie chickens were piled like cordwood all around the depot in huge piles as high as the building; to be shipped out to various places. We reached Rawlins March 21, 1879 and decided to go on to the Little Snake River Valley, where I later, as soon as age permitted, homesteaded one of the first homesteads on Savery Creek. Through all the years I have never regretted the decision to spend my life in this beautiful valley. One day in September of that year while we were living on the Strobridge property, a rider came by at breakneck speed on a foam-flecked horse, warning all the residents of the Valley that the Ute Indians had gone on the warpath and were moving to massacre the people at the Agency at Meeker, Colorado, after which they planned a foray to the Valley of the Little Snake, on a similar mission. We made preparation and left within the hour for Rawlins, traveling in a spring wagon. As we drove along we were joined by other settlers and finally we formed quite a caravan. As we approached the Stage Station or Sixteen Mile Ranch south of Rawlins, we saw three companies of cavalry and about that many of infantry camped there. A neighbor in our caravan, August Reschke, who was wearing a bright red shirt, walked out ahead of us and immediately we saw a band of scouts from the army camp who were sent out to reconnoiter and make sure whether or not we were hostile Indians. Col. Wesley Merritt, later promoted to the rank of General, was in command of these troops, on their way to relieve the poor soldiers on at Milk River. But the sad tale of the Meeker Massacre is another story. We camped at the Station two days, under the protection of the troops, and then proceeded on to Rawlins where we lived two years. The next spring after our hurried departure, a neighbor entered our house at Savery, unoccupied all winter, and found bread in the oven and flatirons on the stove where mother had been ironing as she tended her bread--all forgotten in the terror of the moment. * * * RAWLINS SCHOOLS IN 1979 When I viewed the beautiful new school buildings while on a recent trip to Rawlins, they brought to my mind my pleasant school days in 1879 and the contrast compared with buildings and school routines of today. I enrolled October 1, 1879 and attended two terms. The frame school building, painted white and with shingle roof, had two large rooms. It was located about one block north and a little west of the old Catholic Church. The building faced south and was set on about one half block of ground. A neat picket fence in front and a high board fence around the other sides kept the children off the street. The same type of high board fence divided the playground in half--the boys’ side and the girls’ side. The boys and girls were not allowed to play together. This custom necessitated two anterooms, one for boys and one for girls on their respective sides of the playground. These anterooms were on the front of the building and the entrance faced the street. When the pupils entered the schoolroom, the boys were required to sit on the west side of the room and the girls on the east side. The inside of the building was painted a drab gray. It was wainscoting partway up from the floor and the two rooms were divided by a partition which had two doors next to each wall. The partition. had sashes with windowpanes above the wainscoting and these sashes could be lowered to make the two rooms into an auditorium. All the desks were double and in the front of them were long recitation benches where the pupils sat to recite. The teacher’s desk faced these. Each room had long windows a1ong one side and was reasonably well lighted for that day and age. On the front of the building, inside, was a rostrum which extended across the entire front, so when the building was used as an auditorium, it had a speakers’ platform. The rooms were heated by the traditional pot-bellied stove. The water system consisted of a large tin pail with common drinking cup. Toilet facilities stood on the back of the school ground. Schoolroom equipment consisted of a poorer grade of blackboards than now used in schools, a globe, a large dictionary, standard maps and one set of maps drawn according to scale, and hand painted in oil on window shade material by Professor Belcher, of whom I shall tell you presently. These maps were tacked up on the wall around the room and used daily. I wonder if perchance this set of maps has been preserved. Slates and slate pencils were used regularly. Pencils and paper were prized possessions, used for examinations only. My first teacher there was Harry F. Belcher, a handsome man of about 35 years, more than six feet tall, with black hair and eyes and black waxed mustache. His wife taught in the "little room" at the same time. Professor Belcher was dismissed about three months before the end of the term and M. D. Houghton finished that term of school. Houghton was an artist and he illustrated Cotant's History of Wyoming". It was under Houghton that I first started painting in oils. Next came Professor T. N. Wells who instructed us for a term. There were nine month terms. This school was designated as a grammar school and was ungraded. Neither were the students grouped as to age and each student could choose any subject he wished to take. Some of the more advanced classes were Latin, Philosophy, Composition and Higher Arithmetic. Higher Arithmetic was a stiff course and my textbook, which I still have, was Davie‘s Higher Arithmetic, third book. My classmates were Charlie and Fanny Sullivan, Will and Allie Baxter, Gillie and Morgan Maghee, Thomas Gillison, Rinnie, Annie, and Katie Smith, Dan Healy, Frank and Nellie Scott, Lodi Smith, Jennie Magor, Carrie and Frieda Wold, Molly Nicholls, Minnie Nicholson, Will and May Foote, Charlie Matthews, Dore Goodsell, Roy Bailey, John Heagney, Fred Smith and Lillie and Mae Heath. Of all these schoolmates I know of only one who is still living--Jennie Magor Hopka, who resides in Cheyenne. We played baseball but we spent most of our time playing marbles. I have never known since of boys playing "roly-poly" for "knucks" as we played it. The victors in the ordinary marble game were required to put their knuckles in a ring and the losers were given a chance to shoot at the knuckles with their marbles. During marble season we were constantly nursing bloody, split knuckles. Our favorite pastime however was teasing the girls over the fence. Square dances were held in the school house on Friday nights. The sashes were let down in the partition and called for dancers on both sides of the room. One of the callers, and there was none better, was Fred Palmer, a restaurant owner. Palmer was tall and slender and wore red sideburns. A dance he often called was "Fireman's Dance". When the music started and Palmer began to call "Couples face, inside here and outside there" we knew one of our very special favorites, "Sicilian Circle" would be next. Music was furnished by Lem Learn on the violin and Judge Ash on the Bass viol. Sometimes they were joined by Mr. Robinson, a jeweler, on the second violin. No lunch was served at these dances and they usually lasted until daylight. Although the equipment in this school was simple and we had no reference library, the training was thorough and the knowledge I gained I have retained clearly in my mind for the ensuing seventy one years. The Daily Times editor added a note to the article which follows: "The Lem Learn mentioned in this interesting story by Mr. Hays as playing violin at the schoolhouse dances is living in Roseburg, Oregon. Mr. Learn wrote about his experiences here in territorial days in a by-line story that appeared last month in the August 18 annual Carbon County Fair and Red Desert Stampede edition of The Daily Times." **** CANUTHE Canuthe, a German who had a saloon in Rawlins located south of the railroad tracks (in 1879), had the habit of throwing down anyone who owed him money and taking the money away by force. One day a "yellow fellow", name unknown, came to town and after stabling his horse in the livery stable owned by my brothers, entered the saloon. Canuthe, knowing that he owed him a little money, didn't tarry about, grabbing him, bending him back over a billiard table and proceeding to search him. With the speed of lightning the youth grabbed a butcher knife out of his boot and ran it into Camuthe, cutting off several ribs and the point of his heart--so that settled Canuthe's hash. When the trial was held and Canuthe's heart was brought into the courtroom, the lad sneered at it. The judge turned to the "yellow fellow" and said, "I wou1d have acquitted you--but for that sneer you get six years in prison." * * * * THE TIN HAT MAN Coming home from school one day in the fall of '79 I encountered the Tin Hat Man in a store. After that I saw him quite frequently and he was always a source of curiosity to me and to my school mates because he had soldered a ten pound lard pail to his head with tar. He said he did this so spirits wouldn't peck on his head. In the store the man was putting groceries he had bought, in a barrel. After each addition of groceries to the barrel he leaned and put his head down in the barrel, explaining that that would keep the "spirits" out. This man had made two carts out of a low wheeled vehicle and used a horse to pull one cart and a cow to pull the other. He rode the horse and led the cow hitched to the other cart. He had taken an old gun to pieces and carried that along. After loading his groceries, the Tin Hat Man started out of town. Outside of town he evidently succeeded in putting the gun together, for he wounded himself with it and was found by a resident who brought him to town and nursed him back to health. After this incident he moved to Bear River, Colorado, in the vicinity of Craig, came into possession of four burros and used them to freight supplies from Leadville. The last word I had of the strange man with the tin hat soldered to his head brought the news that he was seen chasing a Bear River mail carrier (who rode horseback with mail tied on behind the saddle) and tormented him for miles trying to shoot "spirits" off the mailbags.