And in the End...

Sometime in 1868, Captain Joe Walker went to live with his nephew (probably Jeemes) in Contra Costa County near San Francisco.  Joseph R. Walker passed away on October 27, 1876, at the age of  77.  He is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery in Martinez, California. 

The lives of many of the leaders and heroes of the west ended  badly.  Some died young like Jedediah Smith at the hands of Indians because they were careless or arrogant, and some died with little dignity like Joe Meek who died in poverty and bitterness because of the treatment his Indian family received from whites.

Jim Bridger was driven from his trading post in Utah by the Mormons and spent his last years in a small house in Kansas City nearly blind, watching the West and wishing he was "back there among the mountains again, you can see so much further in that country."


I hope you have enjoyed this journey of Joseph Walker's life and the characters that were party of it.  Hopefully, like me, you have developed a fondness for Captain Joe and a sincere appreciation and respect for the man he was and what he did for the Old West.  I shall miss him :) 


Next time...we will explore some myths and mysteries of the Old West.

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On This Day in History:  On February 8, 1887, President Grover Cleveland, in a well-meaning but ultimately flawed attempt to assimilate Native Americans,  signs an act to end tribal control of reservations and divide their land into individual holdings.

The Final Interview

The last interview Joseph Walker gave was in August 1867 to George Gift.  He was 69 years old.  Gift asked Walker what he thought about the military and all the Indian fighting.  Walker said that  "it was not surprising since as long as he could remember, federal troops had performed indifferently on the plains.  Soldiers are well enough to mount guard and make a show on dress parade, but are poor things when Indians are to be fought."

About the Sioux Walker said, "They are numerous and therein only are they formidable.  I have always considered them as inferior to other tribes, man to man.  They will fight, but they still are not to be feared by men who understand Indian fighting, if the numbers are anything like equal.  I have fought better Indians than the Sioux with the odds 5 to 1 against me and the position of their own choosing. I still wear my hair", he joked.

When asked about Fremont, he said, "Fremont... they tell me that Stonewall Jackson whipped him battle.  It was no credit to him for an old squaw could whip Fremont."

Walker was too feeble to talk much, but he still refused to contribute to frontier fiction which was already replacing the facts...

Next time...And in the End

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On the Day in History:  On February 5, 1883, the Southern Pacific Railroad completes its transcontinental "Sunset Route" from  New Orleans to California, consolidating its dominance over rail traffic to the Pacific.

The Victory Lap

In the summer of 1867, Captain Joseph Walker made his final trip, traveling through the Grand Canyon and La Paz, a river port on the Colorado.  He stopped for supplies and food for the mules,
paid for with what Walker's bad eyes thought was a silver dollar but later turned out he gave the Indian a $20 gold piece.  He went in search of the Indian and his change.  When he found him, he also discovered he knew him from the Apache days and the Indian returned the coin saying he would never cheat Captain Walker.  Quite a tribute to the man Captain Joseph Walker was. 


Even with his poor vision, his instincts never failed him.  From Colorado, Walker continued westward through the Mojave, following trails he no longer could see clearly but knew by instinct.  He arrived home for the last time in the fall of 1867. 

Next time...The Final Interview

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This Day in History:  Oh February 2. 1812, Russians establish Fort Ross on the coast north of San Francisco, staking a tenuous claim to the riches of the Far West.
 

Prescott Honors Captain Joe

Joseph Walker continued to keep a small cabin near Prescott, Arizona.  In 1864, he led Governor Goodwin and other officials on a tour of the Little Colorado River basin. He was 66 years old.

Walker returned to California and spent several months on his ranch, returning to Prescott to lead private explorations, visiting the country along the south rim of the Grand Canyon where he had been so curious 30 years before. 

At the 4th of July celebration in 1866, the new Governor McCormick said, "The real pioneer is seldom a man of words or seeker of notoriety...Walker is one of a few who has experience so rich and valuable and worthy of public presentation."

Walker left Arizona for good and returned to the family ranch in California in 1867. 

Picture of Captain Walker by Matthew Brady circa 1860...


Next time...The Victory Lap

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On This Day in History:  On January 28, 1855, the Panama Railway, which carried thousands of unruly miners to California via the dense jungles of Central America, dispatches its first train across the Isthmus of Panama.  (Nothing newsworthy happened on January 29th :) 

Civilized Arizona?

Arizona had 1000 people at the Prescott diggings by1864.  Prescott was rough, even as mining camps go.  They prohibited Asians and Mexicans from filing claims, and  working or living in the district. A committee was established to determine who was and who was not a Mexican.  Bigotry was rampant, even in the 20th century.  Prescott prided itself as being the "Only White Man's Town in Arizona".  Without Joseph Walker, the Indian situation worsened and whites suffered from Indian attacks.  The Indians, who were used to someone fair and reasonable like Captain Walker, were lost.

The Arizona Miner, a weekly newspaper established in Prescott in 1864, pretty much told the mood:
"We see no other way than to eliminate the savage race on the Pacific Coast and the sooner the better for this country.  The Indian race has served its day and generation, and will eventually be studied as an extinct species of man, as naturalists now study the dinosaurs." 

What a sad thought that consumed these people - to exterminate a people and their culture because they didn't care to understand or integrate that culture.  What we lost to ignorance can never be regained. Is that what civilization is all about?  Civilized people don't exterminate another people - how is that civilized?  Gheesh...

Next time:  Prescott honors Captain Joe

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Today in History:  On January 27, 1888, the National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, DC for "the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge."

Failing Eyes

In 1858, Captain Joseph Walker went back to Colorado as a guide for a military party near present day Needles.  Walker led them through the Yuma desert to Fort Yuma on the lower Colorado River.  In January 1859, Walker went up the Colorado River toward the Grand Canyon.  While camping Captain Joe  practiced with "rifles and revolvers just to keep his hand in it he told us" one man reported.  The men noticed that Captain Walker's eyes were not a sharp as they had been and his vision continued to worsen throughout his life.

Next time...In Search of Gold
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This Day in History:  On December 25, 1869, 16-year-old John Wesley Hardin reveals a singular lack of Christmas spirit by shooting James Bradley dead in the street over a card game.

From our Florida home to yours - the very warmest and blessed of Christmases!!  And yes, I posted this automatically before the holiday :)  Thanks for being a follower of Pioneer Pieces.

California Rancher?

1848 was a busy years in California.  The Treaty of Guadalupe giving the territory of California to the United States along with gold being discovered at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento were both major magnets attracting people to the Pacific Ocean.

By the end of 1849 over 100,000 settlers had found their way to California.  Joel Walker (Captain Joe's older brother) worked as a freight hauler, delivering beef, kidney and draft animals to the gold miners.   Captain Walker himself purchased a ranch to use as a holding place for horses and cattle he was buying and selling.

The Walkers actually did better in the gold rush than most miners.  By their findings, they built the first hotel in Sacramento - the Mo House, a canvas and plank place that they sold in the summer of 1849.

Captain Joe Walker, who was seldom near the mines, was quite a prosperous rancher.  Trailing herds seemed to have been only part of what interested him, but he was rarely at the ranch either, hardly long enough to be involved in routine feeding, branding or round ups.  He used the business as a way of funding his adventures in the wilderness - now in his 50s, he wasn't down yet!  Ranching was sort of Captain Joe's IRA for retirement...he'll be back,  but meantime...

Next Time...2 Routes, 2 Ways

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Today in History:  On December 7, 1802 having spied the Pacific Ocean for the first time a few weeks earlier, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark cross to the south shore of the Columbia River (near modern-day Portland) and begin building the small fort, Fort Clatsop, that would be their winter home.

Jumping Off Points

Captain Walker and his wife arrived
in Missouri and spent the winter of 1841-42 in Jackson County.  Much of his extended family still lived there, some so young he had never seen them before.  The migration fever had reached epidemic proportions by then in Missouri where supplies had even made Independence and St. Joseph "jumping off points" - places where wagon trains would make final preparations, dispose of unnecessary item, and buy supplies they had forgotten.  Local merchants bought at rock bottom prices from travelers to sell again at high profit.

Outfitters, invested trader, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, life insurance salesmen, and guidebook salesmen - it was a bustling and hustling time for Missouri!

Next time - California or Bust!

Due to Technical Issues with Blogger - I can not update "On this Day in History"...so I will add one to each day a post is made.  Sorry :(

On October 7  1816 in Old West History:  
A steamboat with a design that will soon prove ideal for western rivers arrives at the docks in New Orleans. The Washington was the work of a shipbuilder named Henry M. Shreve, who had launched the steamboat earlier that year on the Monongahela River just above Pittsburgh

Rules of the Road

In June 1840 Joseph Walker was carving his name into Independence Rock, the first of 1000s of settlers who

would do the same, making the natural tower the "Gateway to the Rockies".  Later that month he met up with some of his brother, Joe's men who led them further into Oregon, being the first to go beyond Boise and entering the Columbia Plateau.

Somewhere in that region they ran into Indian trouble because the Walker children remembered their mothers leading them to the river to hide.  Joel then composed a formal set of safety rules for settlers traveling to the Northwest:

1.  Be careful never to camp in timber.
2.  Be careful never to let Indians come among you.
3.  Never let Indians have any ammunition on any account.
4.  Keep careful watch day and night.
5.  Never neglect camp - guard at any account.
6.  Never fire a gun after crossing the Umqua Mountains until you cross the Siskiew Mountain perhaps a 5 day travel..
7.  Keep  yourselves as close as possible  in traveling through the brush.
8.  Never scatter after game or make any division.
9.  Keep your guns in the best firing conditions.

Next time...19th Century Pharisees