Killed by the Indians

Pioneer Days - Two of the White Men who Were Killed by Hostile Coquille Indians
December 31, 1912

Names referenced in this article:

Killed by the Indians. --
     In looking over some old papers the other day, we ran across an account of the murder of two white men by Indians on the Coquille in 1854. The account was written by the late A.H. Hinch, of South Slough, who gave it to us one day in Marshfield early in the 80's. He spells the names of the men as Venerable and Burton. The had been working on the beach at Randolph with Hinch and Jake Evans, and left the camp in August, 1854, to go up the Coquille river on a prospecting trip. They were killed by the Indians at Dead Man's slough, so called on account of the tragedy; but later changed to Iowa slough. Hinch was a young fellow of 19 or 20 at the time, and Evans was probably a year or two older. The story, as written by Hinch, will prove interesting not only to the old timers but to the new comers as well, and we will take pleasure in publishing it in the near future.
Coos Bay News, Dec. 24, 1912

Pioneer Days. -- Two of the White Men who Were Killed by Hostile Coquille Indians. --
     (The following account of the murder of two white men by Indians on the Coquille in 1854 was written by the late A. H. Hinch, who gave it to us it Marshfield early in the '80's. The Jake Evans mentioned, who was Hinch's partner in blacksand mining on the Randolph beach, was murdered a few months ago at South slough. At the time of the occurrence, Hinch and Evans were only boys aged 17 years. They were raised in Kentucky and crossed the plains with a wagon train seeking adventure in this portion of the then unknown West. We have re-written the story, using as nearly as possible Hinch's own words. He promised to add another chapter, telling what finally became of the Indians who did the killing, but we never received it.)

     Venerbal and Burton were two of the early settlers of Coos County who were murdered by Indians on the Coquille river in 1854. They left Jake Evans and my camp at the Randolph beach mines about the middle of August and went to the Coquille river, near the Hamblock place. There they dug and burned out a canoe, big enough to carry them and provisions and started up the river with the intention of prospecting one of the tributaries for gold. The only took a small supply of provisions, as they expected to be gone about a week or ten days.
     The Indians of the Coquille were always hostile to the whites and would commit crimes whenever they could find an opportunity. They always kept spies out for that purpose, nevertheless the prospectors would take chances an venture out in the mountains to hunt for gold.
     The boys proceeded up the river until they got as far as what was after wards called Dead Man slough. (Now called Iowa slough.) They met a canoe loaded with Indians coming out of the slough, and there were Indians also on both banks of the slough. The Indian attacked them at once, shooting arrow at them. Venerbal was killed instantly and the canoe in which were their rifles and ammunition was upset. Burton got to shore and made a hard fight before they killed him, as one of the Indians confessed afterwards.
     A few weeks after the boys had left our camp, Jake Evans and myself concluded that they would have returned if something had not happened to them, so we decided to start out and try and hunt them up. There were no settlers' any where along the Coquille river except at the mouth, where Uncle Tom Lowe and James Sanders kept a ferry. We made our way up the river as far as the middle fork, hunting and keeping a sharp lookout for signs. On our way up we saw no sign anywhere of the boys, so we turned back and when we reached Cedar Point [Coquille] we met two Indians in a canoe. There was a little sand bar at the Point, which was a nice place to land, so we ran our canoe ashore. The Indians also landed at the sand bar, and we made signs and talked with them as I well as we could, trying to find out if they had seen any white men in a canoe. They made signs that they had not. When we were ready to continue our journey down the river, one of the Indians made signs that he wanted to come with us in our canoe. I told him that he could come, but I suspected treachery, and we watched him closely. We placed him in the center of the dugout, so that if anything went wrong we could stand a better show to defend ourselves. We had not gone far before he strung up his bow and made an attempt to shoot me. I was in the bow of the canoe, Jake in the stern. Jake noticed his motion with his bow and told me to look out. I turned on him, made him lay his bow down and told him to take my paddle and go to work. He at first refused, but I raised my tomahawk, which made him change his mind. I was standing over him with the tomahawk in my hand, when Jake, who was watching the shore carefully, sung out; "Look at the Indians on the banks!" There must have been 50 or more among the trees, armed with bows and arrows, and they also had a couple of guns.
     When they noticed that we had discovered them, they came out and made signs for us to come ashore, at the same time talking in their own language to the Indian in the canoe with us. We kept our canoe under full headway, although the Indian with us made several attempts to stop. I stood with my tomahawk over his head, and the Indians on the bank saw that if they shot at us it was sure death to the Indian in the canoe. We got away all right. Neither of us had a gun or pistol with us, the only weapons we had to defend ourselves with were knives and tomahawks.
     On our way down the river we met John Craden and a man named Elk Davis. We told them about our trouble, but they only laughed and said we were scared. When we got down as far as the mouth of Beaver slough, we let the Indian out on the bank and continued on down the river. We had only got about half a mile when we noticed some buzzards and ravens sitting on a pile of drift wood. Having a curiosity, as boys will, to see what these birds were doing there, we ran our canoe alongside of the drift and the first thing we saw was Venerable's head and shoulders. We identified him by a silk handkerchief that he had borrowed from Jake to wear around his neck on leaving our camp. He had been shot in the back of the neck with a bullet from a gun of some kind, and the buzzards had been eating the flesh around the bullet hole. [missing section, probably read "We made our] way safely to the mouth of the river.
     The game night, two men named Santagram and Billy Burrows, an old trapper and pioneer of Oregon, were coming down the river and they ran their canoe ashore at the place after wards owned by Mr. Lowe and called Myrtle Grove. Their canoe ran up on something they thought was drift wood but on investigating they found it was the body of a white man. It was dark and they could not tell who it was. There was a rope made of grass around the body, and with this rope they anchored the body to a stake and came on down to the mouth of the river. When we met them and they told Jake and me about it. We were satisfied that it was the body of Burton, so the same night we went up the river and found it as they had stated, and it proved to be Burton's body. We had the two bodies on our hands then, and both of us being boys hardly 17 years old we didn't know what was the proper thing to do. Finally we concluded to take the bodies up the river to the old scow landing at John Hamblock's.
     We left the bodies in the canoe and went up to Randolph and informed the miners that we had found Venerbal and Burton, and told them all the circumstances. The miners helped to bring the bodies to Randolph, where they appointed a coroner, selected a jury and held an inquest, after which the bodies were buried. Venerbal had $42 in his pockets, but Burton had no money Burton's body was horribly mutilated.
     The murders caused great excitement among the miners. It was their rule to protect each other, and the penalty for stealing or murdering by whites or Indians was death. All such cases were closely investigated, and if the miner were satisfied that a crime had been committed no pains were spared to bring the guilty parties to justice. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict that Venerbal and Burton had been killed by Indians, and immediately afterwards a volunteer company was raised and set out to find the murderers. The company consisted of 50 men. Of this number 31 started up the Coquille river and 29 went down to the mouth. I was in the company that went up the river. Our captain was a lawyer a tall, slim fellow who bad brought a stovepipe hat with him to the diggings, and for this reason he was known as "Stovepipe". We made our way up to the mouth of Dead Man slough, where we separated. Twenty-six went on up the river, and Stovepipe, Ike Mocketlee, Frank Daniels, Bill Copely and myself went as far as the Isthmus. On our way we captured an Indian, who confessed that he helped to murder the boys and said he could show us where the Indians did the work. We tied him and placed him in the canoe and went back to the mouth of Dead Man slough. He made signs that the boys were killed up the slough and that we would find their canoe hauled out on the bank. We left Copely to guard the prisoner and we started up the slough two on each side. We had not gone far before we found the canoe. We were standing talking when an arrow passed close to me and struck Stovepipe in the forehead. The blood from the wound flowed into his eyes, blinding him. Immediately afterwards we heard Copely holler and two of us ran towards the place where we had left him guarding the Indian. We met him half way, as white as a sheet and pretty badly scared. When he rested a little he told us that the prisoner had succeeded in freeing himself from the ropes which bound him, and that at the same time two more Indians had suddenly appeared. One of them jumped into the bow of the canoe and fired at Copely, the ball making a flesh wound between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Copely drew his revolver and shot the Indian, killing him instantly, the body falling into the slough. The prisoner picked up a paddle and struck at Copely, but he warded of the blow and shot the Indian twice in the breast. The Indian jumped overboard and swam ashore, and while he was climbing up the bank Copely shot him twice in the back; nevertheless with four bullet wounds in him he ran about 100 yards to the river, jumped in and swam to the opposite side, making his escape.
     By this time Stovepipe and his comrade had joined us and we got into our canoe and started up the river. We fell in with our company a little later on, and on our way up the river we captured 16 Indians. That night we placed them in an old Indian hut and three men of the company were put on guard. About midnight, when everybody was asleep but the guards, the Indians made a rush and escaped from the hut, taking one of the guards with them. The noise woke the members of the company who commenced shooting at everything they thought was an Indian, which resulted in the killing of one little boy about 12 years old, all the rest making their escape. So our hunt for the murderers proved a complete failure. We had lost our prisoners and our captain, Stovepipe, was suffering from a severe wound in his head. (The Indian who led the attack when the boys were murdered was afterwards captured and was hanged at Empire. but that is another story. Ed. News.)
Coos Bay News, Dec. 31, 1912