Twenty-Five Years among the Indians and Buffalo: A Frontier Memoir
560Twenty-Five Years among the Indians and Buffalo: A Frontier Memoir
560Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Nearing 60, William D. Street (1851–1911) sat down to write his memoir of frontier life. Street’s early years on the plains of western Kansas were both ordinary and extraordinary; ordinary in what they reveal about the everyday life of so many who went out to the western frontier, extraordinary in their breadth and depth of historical event and impact. His tales of life as a teamster, cavalryman, town developer, trapper, buffalo hunter, military scout, and cowboy put us squarely in the middle of such storied events as Sheridan’s 1868–1869 winter campaign on the southern Plains and the Cheyenne Exodus of 1878. They take us trapping beaver and hunting buffalo for hides and meat, and driving cattle on the Great Western Cattle Trail. They give us insight into his evolving understanding of his multi-decade relationship with the Lakota. And they give us a front-row seat at the founding and development of Jewell and Gaylord, Kansas, and a firsthand look at the formation of Jewell’s “Buffalo Militia.”
In later life Street rose to prominence as a newspaper publisher, state legislator, and regent of the Kansas State Agricultural College. At the time of his death—noted in the New York Times—he was still at work on his memoir. Handed down through his family over the past century and faithfully transcribed here, Street’s story of frontier life is as rich in history as it is in character, giving us a sense of what it was to be not just a witness to, but a player in, the drama of the plains as it unfolded in the late nineteenth century. Edited by Street’s great-grandson, with an introduction by Richard Etulain, a leading scholar of the West, this memoir is history as it was lived, recalled in sharp detail and recounted in engaging prose, for the ages.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780700636167 |
---|---|
Publisher: | University Press of Kansas |
Publication date: | 11/17/2023 |
Pages: | 560 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.14(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Introduction, Richard W. EtulainEditor’s Foreword, Warren R. Street
I. Early Years in Kansas: 1861–1867
1. Boyhood Becomes Early Manhood: 1861–1867
2. Frontier Teamster: Summer 1867
II. Nineteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry: 1868–1869 Winter Campaign
3. On the March to Camp Supply: October–November 1868
4. The Balance of Forces on the Plains: 1868
5. Custer at the Washita: November 1868
6. Winter March from Camp Supply to Fort Cobb: December 1868
7. Arrival at Fort Cobb: December–January 1868–1869
8. Winter Camp at Fort Cobb: January 1869
9. Winter March to the New Fort Sill: January 1869
10. Fort Sill. Exploring the Wichita Mountains: January–February 1869
11. Fort Sill. Indian Legends: January–February 1869
12. Fort Sill. A Soldier’s Discontents: January–February 1869
13. March from Fort Sill to Fort Hays: February–March 1869
14. Fort Sill to Fort Hays. Joining Custer’s Command: February–March 1869
15. Fort Sill to Fort Hays. Custer Pursues Medicine Arrow: February–March 1869
16. Fort Sill to Fort Hays. Custer Declines to Attack: February–March 1869
17. Fort Sill to Fort Hays. White Captives Released. Troops Eat Their Mules: March–April 1868
18. Mustered Out. Following the Family Westward: March–April 1868
19. Homesteading in Jewell County: May 1869
III. Frontier Patrols With the Kansas State Militia: 1869–1870
20. Company D Patrols North Central Kansas: May–October 1869
21. Contacts with Settlers and Kansas Geological Survey: May–October 1869
22. My First buffalo Kill: Fall 1869
23. Discharged from the Militia and Trapping Beaver: November 1869
24. Hunting and Trapping Forays: Winter 1869–1870
IV. Jewell City Beginnings: 1870
25. The Buffalo Militia and Fort Jewell: Spring 1870
26. Jewell City Celebrates the Fourth of July: May–1870
27. Organizing Jewell County: July–September 1870
V. Settling Smith County: 1870–1872
28. Locating Townsites for Gaylord and Cedarville: September 1870
29. The First building in Gaylord: 1871
30. Organizing Smith County: Fall–Spring 1871–1872
VI. Following the Frontier West to Decatur County: 1872–1873
31. Exploring Decatur County: Fall–Winter 1872–1873
32. Homesteading in Decatur County: Winter–Fall 1873
VII. Hunting and Trapping Adventures on the Great Plains: 1873–1874
33. An Omaha Indian Buffalo Hunt in Northwestern Kansas: October 1873
34. On the Range for Buffalo, Beaver, Otter, and Wolves; October –November 1873
35. More Hunting Adventures: November–December 1873
36 Buffalo Camp on the Republican River: December 1873
37. Beaver Trapping Tactics: January–March 1874
38. Hunting and Trapping on Big Timber Creek: March#8211;April 1874
39. Hunting Buffalo on the State Line Trail: April 1874
40. A Prairie Storm Scatters the Horses: April 1874
41. Two Lance’s Lakotas Visit the Camp: May 18774
42. Buffalo Hunting on the Republican and Big Timber: June–August 1874
43. A Friendly Parting of the Ways: August–October 1874
44. A Moonlight Hunt on the Republican: October 1874
45. Buffalo Camp on the North Fork of the Republican: October 1874
VIII. Life With the Lakota: 1874–1875
46. A Visit from Sitting Bull and Big Horse: November–December 1874
47. Lakota Neighbors on the Republican: December 1874
48. Lessons in Tribal Justice: January 1875
49. Storms in Eastern Colorado: January 1875
50. Taking Hides to Julesburg, Colorado: February 1875
51. Accused of Stealing Indian Ponies: March 1875
52. Hired to Recover Stolen Horses: March–April 1875
53. Cheyenne Massacre on the Middle Fork of the Sappa
IX. On the Trail of Horse Thieves: 1875
54. Captured by Horse Thieves: June 1875
55. Hunting Down the Outlaws: Summer 1875
56. The Fate of the Horse Thieves: Fall 1875
X. Two Years as a Cowboy: 1876–1878
57. An Introduction to Cattle Herding: Spring 1876
58. Herding for High and Mayfield and the Adair Brothers:April–July 1876
59. Riding for Quinlan and Montgomery and Elwin Webber: Summer–Fall 1876
60. A Big Roundup on the Smoky Hill River: 1878
61. Driving a Herd on the Great Texas Cattle Trail:July 1878
62. Giving Lessons to Greenhorns: August 1878
63. Headed Home to a Crisis: August–September 1878
XI. Cavalry Messenger and Scout: 1878
64. In Pursuit of Northern Cheyenne Bands: September–November 1878
Notes
Bibliography
Index