Ohio Biographies



Elmer A. Wigton


elmer wigton

There are few residents of Delaware County, in all probability, who have passed through so many thrilling experiences and survived more dangers or encountered more adventures than Elmer A. Wigton, who spent many years on the frontier, on the outskirts of civilization, but who now is an esteemed citizen of Liberty Township. Mr. Wigton was born in Brown Township, Delaware County, Ohio, June 22, 1839, and is a son of Sylvester and Elmina (Perry) Wigton.

The paternal grandfather, Thomas Wigton, was born in Pennsylvania in 1777 and came to Delaware County in 1819. He settled on a farm in Kingston Township, near the Blue Church, where he lived until 1852, when he moved to Berkshire. Four years later he settled on a farm between Berkshire and Sunbury, a property that is occupied by his grandson, Charles Wigton, and his mother. Thomas Wigton died in 1877 when almost 100 years old. His children were respectively as follows: David, Sylvester, Abiram, Jacob, James, Frazier, William, Mrs. Samuel Hall, Mrs. Orlin Root, Mrs. Joel Root, Mrs. Benjamin Lee. Mary Jane and Mrs. Peter Colum, all of whom are now deceased.

The maternal grandparents of Mr. Wigton were William and Electa Perry. After the death of William Perry his widow married Benjamin McMaster. The Perry children were: William A., Elmina Rachel, Philemon F.; and the McMasters children were: Robert Gordon, Horace P. and William A.; and the children of the McMaster-Perry marriage were: George, Esther, Hiram and Elosia.

The father of Mr. Wigton was born in Pennsylvania, in 1812, and was seven years of age when he accompanied his parents to Delaware County. He died in Brown Township, in March, 1873, aged sixty-one years. In 1837 he married Elmina Rachel Perry, who was born in Liberty Township, Delaware County. Ohio, October 11, 1819. Alter the death of Sylvester Wigton, she married Dr. Besse, of Delaware. The parents of Mr. Wigton settled in Brown Township, one and one-half miles west of Eden, when the country was yet all covered with forest. They had two children: William Perry and Elmer A. The former was born June 14. 1838. In 1862, just before entering the army, he married Esther E. Holt. He was a member of the Ninety-sixth Regiment. Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was killed at Arkansas Post, in February, 1863.

Elmer A. Wigton always had a strong instinct of direction and a faculty for woods travel. When a mere child of only four or five years of age, he would go far out into the dense woods alone and ramble about in every direction, amusing himself by throwing sticks at wild turkeys, and when he thought he had them driven far enough away, he would strike out in the right direction for the little cabin which was his home at that time. This latter feat he would perform as accurately as a pig would have done if it had been carried away in a sack and then turned loose.

About 1844 or '45 Brown Township was almost an unbroken wilderness, with the exception of the small patches that had been cleared around the cabins of the few hardy pioneers that came in from the East to establish new homes for themselves. Many times these settlers would become uneasy about their children when they had not seen or heard them for an hour or two, fearing they were lost in the woods. In those days there was more of harmony and friendly feeling existing between neighbors than now. They would take their families and pay their neighbors a visit and have a good time and a good dinner. On such occasions a strong cup of coffee, with cream and maple sugar, hot biscuit with flutter and maple syrup or honey, chicken and dumplings, fried ham, boiled eggs, mashed potatoes, boiled parsnips, pumpkin pie and cakes sweetened with maple sugar—all the cooking done on the fireplace—would have been considered a good dinner, and would not be very bad to take now.

At one time a family, the children of which ranged in age from eight to twelve years, came to the cabin of Sylvester Wigton, the father of the subject of this sketch, where they were cordially received. Neighbor settler and Mr.. Wigton were busily engaged in talking, when all of a sudden neighbor said, "Where are the children? I haven't heard them for some time: I am afraid they are lost." Mr. Wigton looked up in his good natured manner, and said, "They are not lost, for little Elmer followed them, and he will keep with them. When he gets hungry and tired, he will say, 'I am going home.' They will all be hungry about that time, and that little pig will start out on a bee-line for home." Neighbor said, apparently with some surprise. "Suppose they have rambled around in the woods until they do not know where they are, and he starts out in the wrong direction?" Mr. Wigton said with a smile, "He was never known to go the wrong way; I have had him in test for over a year. He has followed me many times into the woods, so thick with spice brush that a person could not see out one rod from where he started, and I would then ask him, 'Which way is home?' He would raise his little hand and point the right direction every time."

Mr. Sylvester Wigton was also a good woods traveler. He was never known to get lost, or to hunt for the moss which is always more plentiful on the north side of the standing tree in order to keep his course, although he traveled many dark, cloudy nights through the woods, and showed many lost persons to their homes.

Elmer A. Wigton in his boyhood days, went to school winters in the old log school-house, and in the summer assisted his father in clearing the land and raising crops. This life continued until March 6, 1860, when he left the parental roof and started for the West. going by rail to Cincinnati, where he took a steamer down the Ohio River. Then he took the steamboat "White Cloud" and went up the Missouri for Leavenworth, Kansas. It was the month of March, when the Missouri River is lower than at any other time of year. It was then so low that in many places the boat had to be moved by use of the spar and capstan. Many times passengers were landed and walked up the river a mile or more until deep water was reached, when the boat would make a landing and take them aboard. On March 26th he arrived at Leavenworth, having been twenty days on his journey. He remained in the city the first night; in the morning taking his grip-sack, he started out on the Lawrence and Leavenworth road, continuing on that road until he came to the stream, Little Stranger. Here there was a hotel which was a stage station on the route between Leavenworth and Lawrence. Here he took dinner and in the afternoon, abandoning the road, he went across the prairie in a southwesterly direction, and at night put up at John Wright's on the south bank of the Big Stranger, where lie remained a week, daily walking about the adjoining country, and down into the Delaware Reservation which was near by. The Indians were more of a curiosity to him at that time than they were later. Since then Mr. Wigton has passed weeks at a time without seeing any other class of people.

On the 16th of April he started on another tramp, going in a westerly direction. After traveling fourteen miles, he pulled into the little town of Osackee. The next day he took the stage for Le Compton, which was the first proposed capital of Kansas. He remained in this town and vicinity during the greater part of the summer of 1860, and in August left for the southern part of Kansas and northern part of Indian Territory. In October, 1860, while stopping at Le Roy, on the Neosha River in southern Kansas, he first met Capt. E. H. Mosley, the great trader and trapper of the Southwest. He was a hardy frontiersman, about fifty-four years of age, with long brown hair, and flowing whiskers mixed with gray. He wore a drab coat and badger-skin cap, to which raccoon skin was hanging in the rear. While on the plains he always had a revolver and a long knife hanging to his belt, and would entertain newcomers from the east with his thrilling adventures and hair-breath escapes from the Indians. This humorous old pioneer took quite a fancy to young Wigton, giving him a new name, which clung to him for years—Wild Buck. The Captain insisted on Buck accompanying him to the extreme frontier, which he consented to do. Soon after this an old Indian trader had returned to his trading post, which at that time was situated on the southwest bank of the Arkansas River, about one mile west of where Wichita now stands. At that time the region was the home of the wolf and the buffalo. The old Captain and a man named Moxley on the west bank of the Little Arkansas River, at the crossing of the old California trail of '49, which place is now within the limits of North Wichita, had the only houses west of EI Dorado, which is situated on the Big Walnut, twenty-five miles east of Wichita.

At the time young Wigton arrived at the trading post, Captain Mosley had several men in his employ putting up hay, there being numerous stacks which had been mowed on the surrounding prairie. A few days later an old Frenchman accompanied by an Indian came into the post, and requested Captain Mosley to take some merchandise and go with them to their camp, as they had many buffalo robes and other articles of traffic to dispose of. After loading some prairie schooners, Captain Mosley said, "Now, Buck, come and go with me. and we will see Indians in their purity. We will be off in the morning, as the wagons will be loaded tonight, and then we will have nothing to do but to yoke up the oxen—there were six yoke to a wagon—and start." In the morning when all was ready to start. Captain Mosley said to the little Frenchman, Lobo by name, "I will expect you to guide me to your camp, as you have not yet told me where it is located." At this request, Lobo told the Indian in his native tongue to act as guide. The Indian adjusted his blanket and started on about twenty paces in advance of the rest of the party. The whole outfit was soon moving, and Buck was standing with his rifle on his shoulder ready to start out on his first trip to an Indian camp. Captain Mosley gave a few orders to the men who were to remain at the post, and shouldered his favorite old rifle, "Sweet Lips," as he called it, said "We will go." Captain Mosley and Buck walked slowly and steadily on their way, about a quarter of a mile in the rear of the outfit. They did not come up with it until it had reached a little stream called the Cow Skin, about eight miles from the post. Here they had unyoked the oxen and struck camp to remain for the night. By this time there were many clouds in sight giving prospects of rain. By the time the cook had dinner ready, the clouds had become dense, and Captain Mosley said. "I wish it would rain, for it has not rained for so long that I have almost forgotten what it looks like." This was in the fall of 1860, the driest year ever known in that part of the country. Night passed but without rain, though it was still dark and cloudy. They broke camp at an early hour, and before they had traveled one mile drops of rain began to fall and soon it was raining quite hard and the prairie was becoming quite muddy. Captain Mosley, Buck, Lobo, the extra man and the cook, sought shelter in the wagons, while the ox-drivers and the Indian walked on in the rain.

While the Captain and Lobo were busy talking. Buck was seated in front on a package of goods looking out into the rain. After a short time, Captain Mosley came to the front of the wagon and seated himself on some goods. His face wore an uneasy expression. He said, "Well, Buck, how are you making it sitting here in silence this rainy day?" "Captain," was the answer. "I do not think I will ever learn to travel on the plains, although when I was four or five years old I was considered equal to a pig in traveling in the woods. Now here I am with an Indian guide at our head—and I have heard that they were the best guides in the world and can always strike their point under any circumstances—and I have been sitting here all the morning looking out in front, with my eye on the guide, and my mind wholly on the run of our travel, anil it does seem to me that we have been steadily swinging to the left, and are nowheaded to the north of the place we came from this morning. I have never felt so completely lost in my life." The Captain said, "Buck, you are right; that damned Indian has turned us around, and I am going to get out and do some guiding myself." The Frenchman said, "That Indian is one good gui-eed. He was raised on the prai-ree, and he does know where he does go." "I do not care what he knows. I ain going to get out and guide this outfit." By the time he had alighted from the wagon, the Indian had stopped and was looking at the ground. When Mosley came up to him he was standing as still as a mile-post, and gazng at the tracks they had made an hour or two before. The Captain turned the outfit around to a southerly direction and headed toward the Ninnesqua, and the Indian crawled into a wagon and covered his head with a blanket. When they had gone about a mile, it stopped raining and the sun came out. Mosley threw his blue blanket on the ground, motioning to the teamsters to pick it up and continued on. As Buck was tired of riding, he jumped out of the wagon and started on at a rapid pace to overtake Mosley. By the time he caught up with him they were at the banks of the Ninnesqua, and Mosley was looking for a place to stop for the night. After locating the camp, they were busily engaged in gathering wood. The sun was still shining, but low. They had a fire burning when the wagons came up. Coffee was soon made and the cook was occupied in making bread. Each man had his piece of buffalo meat cooking in a manner to suit himself. This was the second day out from the post, and they were only twenty-five miles away. When they had finished supper the sun had set, it was growing dark, the wind had shifted to the northwest arid the air was getting quite cold. The stars were shining and everything was wet with dew, and the silence of the night was soon broken by the keen sharp yelling of the coyotes and the low mournful howl of the big gray wolves. In the morning there was a heavy white frost on the vegetation, apparently the first frost of the season.

After supper the Indian had crawled out of the wagon and walking to the camp said, "I know where I am now, our camp is about five miles (holding up the fingers of one hand to indicate the number) from the place. Mr. Indian now acted as guide. As we reached the summit of the elevated prairie, we could see vast herds of horses grazing on the descending prairie, and farther on could be seen small clumps of trees, which were at the head of a small stream called Shumacusse. This was the long; looked-for camp, and the first Indian Indian camp Buck was ever in. In this camp could be seen Indians from the smallest pappoose in a parted raw-hide baby-cage suspended from the limb of a tree up to the big lazy buck sunning himself on the south side of a hill. Buck made himself useful in assisting the Captain in measuring out merchandise. Many times during the day the Captain and he were invited into the lodges of the chiefs and of the noble bloods for a feast, which invitation could not be refused without insulting the Indian. The cook, the extra man and the teamsters were invited into the lodge of Lobo and the other lodges of low rank. Lobo was living with an inferior looking old squaw, and though lie had lived many years with the Indians, he seemed to be of low rank in the village. By evening the cargo was very much reduced. When the cargo from a wagon was removed, the cover and bows were laid aside and the bed of the wagon was filled with buffalo robes, piled up until the top of the load projected over the sides and from there up would be ten feet wide and seven feet high, there being many hundred robes in the pile. Trading had about ceased when night came on. Bon-fires were being kindled. Small brush was gathered and saturated with buffalo tallow, and these when set on fire produced a brilliant light. As the fire began to burn, one could see the numerous warriors taking from their belts a small sack containing red, yellow and black paint, and a small looking-glass inserted in a board handle like a hair brush. In the morning the wagons were started back with the cargo, Mosely and Buck remaining in the camp. They were gone about four days, and by the time they returned, the entire stock of merchandise was sold out. The return cargo consisted of buffalo tallow and robes, dressed buckskin and robes. Mosley was to guide the outfit back. He stayed in just about foot behind Buck, and every once in a while would ask, "Where are we going now?" Buck would reply. "I think you are about right," and then conversation would be resumed.

After they had been back at the post a few days, an outfit was rigged up for a wolf hunt. Flour, coffee, sugar, dried fruit, beans, for the men. and a large stock of strychnine for ammunition for the wolves. The party consisted of Ashby, Engal, Condit, Hayden. Moffit and Wigton. When the party was ready, Mosley said, "If you are attacked, Ashley, you are Captain or this outfit, and I will expect every man to he under your command. Buck, you are the guide of this party, and Ashley, I want you to understand that he is the guide of the party, Buck, you go south to the Cimron (Cimarron), and if you cannot find plenty of wolves there, go up the Cimron until you do find them."

It took six days to reach the Cimarron, and then there were no buffalo or wolves. They started slowly up the stream until they reached the salt plain country. There they found plenty of wolves and made a grand hunt. The party got over a thousand wolf skins. Each man got one-half of what he made, the Captain furnishing all supplies, except fire arms and blanket. Baits poisoned with strychnine were set about dusk at evening for the wolves. One day on reaching camp, it was discovered that the Indians had been there, cut the tents and cut up the wagon and pitched it into the stream. They had taken all the provisions, so the party started back to the trading post. The third day they were going a little north of east, and when they reached a certain point a dissension arose as to the direction they should take. The party broke up, different ones going in the direction they thought right, only Moffit, the youngest man in the party remaining with Buck, the official guide. They reached Mosley on the fourth day, having had nothing to eat since the morning of the day they started back, except a few black walnuts which they had found on the evening of the third day. When Mosley saw them, he said, "What the devil are you doing there?'" "We have been robbed by the Indians." "Have they killed the men?" "No, the men left me at the Minnesqua." "Well, that's a devil of a note; which way did they go?" He was told the direction taken by the different men. It was several days before the balance of the party staggered into camp one and two at a time, and most of them with badly frozen limbs. In the interval Mr. Wigton spent two days with an old hunter. James Dewit.

Early in 1861, a party came down off the Cimarron River, to the trading post, reporting that two of their party, Shaw and Green, had been killed by the Indians. Mr. Wigton with Mr. Ashby and Mr. Ingle, went in search and found Shaw's body, which had been scalped, but Green's body was never recovered. In a few days, Mr. Wigton and bis companions returned to the post and shortly afterward Captain Mosley went back to his residence on Fall River, twenty-five miles east of Eureka, Butler County. Kansas. Mr. Wigton there raised some recruits to pursue the Indians, who had a council and camp at the mouth of Fall River. It was this camp that Mr. Wigton and Mr. Ingle raided, carrying off the Indian horses to Leroy, where they remained a few days, when Captain Mosley came with his ox-train of hides, to ship to St. Louis from Leavenworth. When the trader reached St. Louis they found that city in an uproar, and Captain Mosley could not sell his cargo and left Mr. Wigton in charge, while he went to Peoria, Illinois. Subsequently, Mr. Wigton placed the cargo of hides on a boat and shipped the same to Peoria, where Mr. Mosley traded the most of them for corn, which he shipped to Kansas.

Mr. Wigton then left Captain Mosley and went to Michigan. He also visited Chicago, and then returned to Leavenworth, going thence to Denver, from which city be went back to Leavenworth with a four-mule team, in preparation for entering the Government transportation service. He remained at different points in Kansas and Nebraska until June, 1862, when be started south with the first and second Indian regiments to Fort Scott, where he was employed in handling transportation. He was a member of the noted Colonel Coffey expedition and in December, 1862, participated in the fight at Perry Grove, later at White River, and at Springfield, Missouri, in March, 1863, after which he returned to Fort Scott. In the fall of this year be went to Fort Smith to pass the winter.

Up to January, 1865, when Mr. Wigton reached Leavenworth again, his life was one round of dangerous adventure and on several occasions he was the only member of bis party who entirely escaped injury. He remained in the service of the Government until October, 1865, when be was honorably discharged, having spent the previous summer putting up hay on the plains. He remained at Fort Scott, engaged in a traffic business for a time and then went down into the Indian Nation, with Chester Turtle, of Topeka. He remained variously engaged on the frontier of Kansas, until 1875, and then went into Western Texas, and in the spring of 1879, from there to Las Vegas, New Mexico. A few days later he went to Fort Union, in the Government employ, under Captain Hooker, as chief packer on the Apache expedition and remained out in the transportation service until September, a number of the men and horses of the troop being killed in the meanwhile. He remained at Las Vegas also as interpreter for Obirn & Hosick, of Chicago, dealers in hides. In 1882, he made a prospecting trip west of Las Vegas for coal and worked a coal bank that would have been profitable if transportation facilities had been near. Mr. Wigton then built a small mill near Mineral Hill and he also often served as a guide to tourists in the mountains, who visited the Mineral Hill Resort, which is 10,000 feet above sea level. The time came, however, when Mr. Wigton felt a longing for the scenes of his early life and he came back home in February, 1896.

He is a member of Lodge No 421. Odd Fellows, at Ashley. Ohio. In politics, he is a Democrat. He is engaged in the milling business at the old Beaver Mill, which he owns. He speaks Spanish, keeping himself in practice by reading aloud to himself Spanish papers. He also speaks four Indian tongues.

 

From 20th Century History of Delaware County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, Edited and compiled by James R. Lytle, Delaware, Ohio, Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908

 


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