The Shooting of LaMoure, Watson and Fletcher

In August, 1865, LaMoure and Thomas Watson, with the latter's son, Aleck, a boy of twelve or thirteen, were making hay in a bend on the Dakota side of the river, north of the mouth of the Brule. Ed. LaMoure was a settler on the farm lying on the west side of the road between Richland and Elk Point, where the bridge crosses Brule Creek. Watson lived just across the creek, on the east side of the road. Watson was mowing with a team of horses and a mower, some parts of which he had brought with him from his former home in Missouri. LaMoure had finished cocking up the cured hay and was leaning with his folded arms on the handle of the pitch fork. Aleck lay on some hay on the wagon.

Then Aleck saw an Indian suddenly appear in the tall grass and fire a gun at LaMoure, who instantly fell dead. The Indian ran toward Watson, shooting arrows at him from his bow. Watson leaped from his mower and ran; an arrow pierced his shoulder from the back, but he outran the savage and was soon hidden in the tall grass. The Indian climbed a tree to see him, but gave up the chase when he failed to do that and contented himself with driving off the horses. Watson ran to the creek and went home in the shelter of its high bank, as the boy Aleck had already done. Aleck was sent to the house of Thomas Fate, asking his son, James Fate, to come and extract the arrow. James declared that he could not possibly do it, as he knew nothing of surgery. Nevertheless he provided himself with a razor, a silver penholder and some camphor, and with his wife, the daughter of Ira Seward, went to the home of the last mentioned, which was between the Watson and Fate homes, also on the south bank of the Brule.

Here he found the wounded man and his family, also the widow and children of the murdered LaMoure. Watson insisted upon James Fate's removing the arrow, as there was no doctor nearer than Sioux City. The arrow had a point of iron or steel, triangular in shape, fastened to a short shaft whose other end was feathered. Watson was a fleshy man and the arrow was imbedded in the flesh upon his shoulder, its point almost through above the collar bone in front. It could not be drawn back because of the projecting of the metal point on either side of the shaft.

So Fate trimmed off the shaft close to the wound with the razor and made an incision over the arrow point. "Now comes the tug of war," said Watson and groaned as Fate pulled it through. Next the silver pen holder was converted into a syringe by piercing the closed end and fitting a wooden plunger wrapped with cotton into the end. With this instrument Fate thoroughly cleansed the wound with diluted camphor, bathed and bandaged it. It healed quickly.

Elmer and Lester Seward, sons of Ira, and Carl Kingsley went down to the bend for the body of LaMoure. They put it into his house overnight, secured the doors and windows and returned to the Seward home. There the party of neighbors spent the night in terror of an attack by the Indians. A Mrs. Taylor and her two daughters were in the party.

The Taylors lived on the Webber place. In the evening a sound of feet and a knock came at the south door of the house. Poor Mrs. Taylor in a panic jumped clean over the stove and bolted into the pantry, causing a great clatter of pots and pans. A demand of "Who is there?" was made, but no answer being given, the door was not opened. Someone peeped through a window and announced that the intruder was going around to the north door, where a noise and a knock were soon heard. An answer being given this time to their challenge, the door was opened and Taylor, husband of the frightened woman, joined them.

The next day the men made a coffin for LaMoure out of rough boards found overhead in his cabin; the next day he was buried at Elk Point. His widow returned to Lynn County, Iowa.

In a bend of the river just above the scene of the shooting of LaMoure and Watson, at the same time, a man named Fletcher and his wife were loading hay. The man was pitching, the lady on the load. Two Indians appeared and began shooting at Fletcher with bows, wounding him in the arm.

His wife called to him to run, which he did. Then the Indians came to unhitch the horses, but the plucky woman kept them off with the pitchfork. They drew off and shot arrows at her. But Mrs. Fletcher was a woman of fashion and wore wide hoop skirts, so the arrows stuck in her skirts. She pulled them out and dropped them in the hay. Again they tried to take the horses, but she again drove them away with her weapon. Finally, after talking together in their guttural tongue, they drew knives and cut the traces, out of reach of her fork.

Mrs. and Mr. Fletcher were then living in the old fort. They went home and gave the alarm. The .neighbors there gathered in the Stoddard house and spent the night on guard.

The next day a party of men pursued the trail of the Indians across the river. They easily followed it as far as the Indians had traveled in single file. They found the harness in one place with all the straps cut out, and near there was found a young colt belonging to one of the horses, tired out. Farther on they came upon the mother of the colt, riddled with arrows. She was thin and had given out. Soon the trail scattered and disappeared and the men gave up the chase. (Told by Mrs. James Fate, 1913.)

A man named Kittilson lived on the old Anderson farm in 1862. He joined the stampede to Sioux City. He had two pigs, which he turned out to shift for themselves in his absence. The Indians visited the place while the family was gone, caught the pigs, butchered them and roasted them at a fire they built in the stove from the rungs cut from the old fashioned bedsteads. They had left the stove open on the top while cooking; the stove was covered with grease and ashes. (Told by Elmer Seward, August, 1916.)

Source: South Dakota Historical Collections, compiled by the State Department of History, Volume X, 1920.