Silas Malcolm McCall was born on September 19, 1843, to John Argyle & Catherine (Campbell) McColl, Scottish immigrants then living in Stormont County, Ontario, just west of Montreal. His father John was from the Isle of Mull, Scotland, and had immigrated to Canada with his family in 1821, and in 1837 married Catherine, a Canadian-born child of Scottish immigrants.
Five of the McColls’ ten children were born in Canada before the family immigrated to Scott County, Minnesota, in 1855. (All of the couple’s children changed the spelling of their last names to McCall as adults.) The McColls were farmers, and were industrious; they built a log house the year they arrived, then built a frame house the following year. Silas and his older brother Neil, along with three other boys, also built a log schoolhouse—the first in their township.
In August 1862, when Silas was 19, a prospector named John White discovered gold along Grasshopper Creek in what is now Montana. Because the Civil War was raging, and because much of the Northern Plains was (rightfully) controlled by Native Americans, getting to the goldfields was difficult. The US Army put Capt. James Liberty Fisk in charge of 50 soldiers to escort wagon trains from Minnesota to Washington.
The first Fisk “expedition” left Minnesota in the summer of 1862, the second in 1863, and a third in 1864, which was attacked by Sitting Bull and 100 Hunkpapa Sioux warriors. That train only got as far as Fort Rice, North Dakota, where it disbanded. There was no expedition in 1865.
A final expedition left Minnesota in 1866. Five hundred people, most of them prospectors, would take 160 wagons as far as Helena. Silas Malcolm McCall, then 22, and his older brother Neil (25) were two of those prospectors. Just as Frederick Baer had done on his search for gold in Alaska, Silas McCall kept track of the trip in a journal. Though the original journal was lost, it had been transcribed (and edited into third person) into the account that follows:
Journal Account of the Journey Taken in 1866–1869
Names of the members of the party going from Minnesota to Montana:
Fuller, from Faribault, Minnesota
Bebee
Thomas Holmes, scout and trader
Dick O’Brien, young boy
Lew Blackmore
Tillie, from Farmington
Hugh Christie
Bob White
Neil Jerry McCall, born in 1841
John Doyle, still at Prior Lake, Minnesota
Silas Malcolm McCall
As the spring work was nearly done and the June breezes came across the lake, the thought struck Silas and Neil McCall with hearing of the gold strike out in Montana, to make up a train and see what they could do in mining gold. They talked the matter over with their father, John M. McColl Sr., and he decided to allow the boys a covered wagon, two yoke of oxen, two cows, and whatever provisions they thought necessary to start on such a journey. So the men commenced to circulate the news among a few friends and to write to some of the people they knew along the route they expected to travel.
On the morning of June 5, 1866, [160 years ago today,] the boys rose early, yoked the oxen, tied the cattle behind the wagon, and started down to Prior Lake and from there to Shakopee. The first night they camped about one mile west of Shakopee. We omit telling of the parting at home, of the eight or ten children being left, of the first camping, and the suffering, and of the other teams commencing to congregate.
June 6th: The party drove a little west of Jordan and camped. Here more teams [from the Fisk expedition] met them.
June 7th: The boys struck up a trade and got a nice large pair of oxen for a pair of steers and a cow. Drove on and camped near Belle Plaine, up along the Minnesota River.
June 8th: Party drove on until they came near St. Peter, and camped on the outskirts of what was then a lively town. Here the men got all kinds of provender. Some would get a barrel of smoking tobacco, others a large supply of hard tack, medicines, herbs, coffee, sugar, crackers, flour, and guns and ammunition. Some smuggled in liquor.
June 9th and 10th: They had picked up some forty wagons and extra oxen and cows, and some of the party had horse teams.
The 1866 Fisk expedition near St. Cloud, Minnesota.
June 11th: The train started west and as it had been raining the roads were heavy and the cattle traveled slowly. They went up along the Minnesota River. The party passed through Granite Falls, Montevideo, and Ortonville. . . .
June 12th: Here the company passed the grounds where the battle had been fought between Grant’s soldiers and the Sioux Indians in 1862. This was known as the old Birch [Coulee] Battle. The boys got out of the wagons, and as the cattle moved slowly, went over the ground and picked up relics. Silas said that the bullets were so thick on the ground that it put him in mind of acorns which fall from the old oak trees in the fall. It looked as though the soldiers must have been poor marksmen or else there were a good many Indians killed.
For a few days, the company only traveled ten or fifteen miles a day. This was to allow other parties time to catch up with the train. By the time the wagon train had reached Browns Valley, the company was two hundred ten men strong, besides the women and a few children. It made quite a sight, the seventy-two wagons and all the oxen and cattle starting off in the morning.
We made our way westward until we struck the north end of Big Stone Lake, on the west line that now defines the boundary of Minnesota. Between here and Lake Traverse, Silas McCall and a few of the boys, after the train had camped for the night, went over to a large mound and were interested in seeing one place where the water flowed south into Big Stone Lake on one side, and another stream flowed north into Lake Traverse on the other. Silas was surprised to learn in after life, that the stream flowing south to Big Stone emptied into the Gulf of Mexico and the other flowing north to Lake Traverse emptied into Hudson Bay of the north. Here at this point, the next day being Sunday, the boys rested their oxen.
On Sunday, Silas and some of the boys who could talk the Indian language went over to where the Indians had been holding Sunday School. They found a number of them in one tepee practicing or singing the songs they had learned. As the boys came up, one of the Indians handed Silas a song book, and as he used to be considered a good sight reader, he picked out one of the songs and commenced to hum it over. This song they called Balermia and it seems they had lost the air, but as soon as he hummed they recognized the tune and grabbed their books. They told the boys they had been asked to sing this song at the meeting, but could not, for they had lost the tune. They had Silas start it three or four times and they sang it through and told him they would not forget it again. After visiting here, Silas saw the Indians had plenty of buffalo hides and watched for a herd, hoping to be able to kill one of them.
The road from here west was very hilly and the soil heavy. They struck Ft. Sisseton after a few days and it did the men good to see a little civilization. One of the things that pleased the boys was seeing a fellow drive a pair of buffalo calves hitched up like a yoke of oxen.
From here to the James River, the party would occasionally see some buffalo, and they succeeded in shooting three. On the way from Sisseton, the party had hired two Indian guides to show them the way to the Missouri River. These guides took the company over some very rough roads, and the Indian chief followed them and took them back with him. He said they were not fit to be guides. They ran across two families of half-breed Indian guides near the James River. They had their papooses and dogcarts and tepees with them. The party hired them. One was named Davis, the other Garest Perrise. David could talk some English, but Perrise only spoke French, Sioux, and Cree Indian, but as Silas talked Sioux they got along nicely, and entered freely into the conversation the next day.
The boys thought it queer that the Indian chief would follow them and take the guides away, and when the train was going along and they saw a great cloud of dust and discovered it to be a band of Indians, they thought that the Indians had led them off from the fort, and were now coming to capture them. The men lost no time in corralling their wagons by unhitching them from the oxen, and running one wagon behind the other, with the tongues underneath, making a circle. There were a few wagons placed in the center of the corral for the women and children. Then the oxen, horses, and extra stock were placed between these wagons and outer circle of wagons. The men were in the outer wagons ready for battle. The guides made their way out to a place where they could see who the band was. They found they were half-breed Sioux and that some of the party were relatives of theirs. Upon inquiry it was found that they were out on a buffalo hunt. This gave some of the party time to collect their thoughts and tell what they would have done if the Indians had made an attack.
The train followed along up the Jim River and crossed at a place which would now be near Houghton, or Hecla, North Dakota, about thirty-five miles northeast of where now is Aberdeen, South Dakota.
They came in contact with quite a number of the half-breed Sioux Indians. The chief told the party not to do any shooting until they came close to the Missouri River. Silas thought this was partly on account of their not wanting the buffalo driven from those parts. It was promised that if at any time the train was attacked by any other tribe of Indians that the company were to corral their wagons and hold the Indians at bay, while the guides came back under cover and told the chief about it. He would, then, come and drive the hostile Indians away. If we wanted any meat the guides would kill it for us.
As we were traveling in a northwesterly direction, crossing about where Ellendale, or Edgeley, North Dakota, now are, and going west, we came across a herd of buffalo. The train was stopped and the guides rode out close to the herd and then made a quick run into the midst of them. One of the guides shot three buffalo and not any of them were over fifty yards apart. It was done quickly and did not seem to disturb the herd to any great extent. But as the train came up, they moved slowly off. A buffalo calf seemed to stay around the dead buffalo and a man named Fuller, from Faribault, Minnesota, took after the calf and had quite a time running it down, and even more trouble holding it after he had caught it. But finally he got a rope on it and tied it behind his wagon. This was something strange, and the calf fought and worried so that Fuller butchered it.
From here on toward Bismark, North Dakota, on the Missouri, the roads were very poor and the water scarce. We used water out of sloughs and mudholes and were glad to get it. We would sometimes be very dry and the cattle would move slowly on account of thirst. We once ran across what we thought to be a lake and the cattle quickened their pace, but as we came near, we found it to be an alkali bed with nothing but the appearance of water. Another time we came to a spring where the cool water trickled down and looked fine. We soon found that appearances were again deceiving, for it was an alkali, or bitter salty water. We drank only a little of it and each man suffered in accordance to the amount he drank. We had now been on the road almost a month, and on the 3rd of July, were camped near the Missouri River. The boys played hand ball on the 4th of July, and as the cattle were foot-sore and lame, we rested and celebrated for a couple of days.
The next day we came across an Indian graveyard. The bodies were placed on a scaffold about ten feet from the ground, and it was the custom of the Indians to place different articles with the dead for their use in the other world. . . .
We came upon a spring and one of the party who had a very lame ox left it at this place. The train moved on up the river and we camped on a Friday night about five miles east of Berthold. The inhabitants were in the habit of driving their stock to the outskirts of Berthold and let them gather what grass they could, and then bring them back to town. So the feed around here was not of the best.
The company lay here all day Saturday, and on Sunday morning we drove five miles west of Berthold and camped the balance of the day. There were several men and women who got horses and drove to the fort. On their return, one of the women who was a good horse-woman told the crowd to go on and she would pick some roses and then would catch up with them. After they had traveled for a while, they thought it about time for her to appear. On looking back they saw her going toward the east. They told her husband and he started after her. When they caught her, she was way back to the large spring where he had left the ox. She had started to drive the ox but it was too lame and could not travel. It grew late and they did not get back to camp until the next day.
The men were around here so long that the fellows who had the whiskey got to selling it to the Indians. They sold it as high as $8 a bottle. This was kept up until they had all the Indians’ money and a horse. The Indians carried some of the whiskey to the camp with them and got several of the tribe drunk.
That night we camped along the side of a bluff and when it got dark, fifty Indians came up from the south on top of the bluff and began to fire in our direction. Some two or three hundred shots were fired. But as they were up so high, and it was very dark, the shots went over us. There was one Indian who acted as leader and urged on the band by shouting. He had the loudest and most piercing voice of any human being or animal that was ever heard of. So says Silas. It would fairly make your blood run cold. One of the Red River half-breed guides, Yeset (Yasset?) Perres, told Silas in his own language that if Father and two other men would go with him, he would stop that yelling. He had us go about half way up the cliff and told us to stay there and shoot and scare the Indians off if they chased him and save his life. He lay down close to the ground and crawled snake-like through the grass with surprising speed. It seemed no time before we saw a fire and heard a report very close to where the Indian was. At the instant the shot was fired the yelling ceased. The rest of the band picked up the body, placed it on a horse, and went back to the fort. When they got back, we could hear the squaws crying and beating their drums mourning over the death of the Indian. This was five miles away. Then we heard the bugle blow and the soldiers came out and quieted them, as they were getting ready to renew the battle with us. It was learned afterwards that the Indian was shot in the right breast and that he died at eight o’clock the next morning.
At about one o’clock in the afternoon, the whole band came out to our camp and lined up before us for battle. We lined our men in front of them, and as we had an old Indian trader with us, Thomas Holmes, we let him act as spokesman. He consulted with the chief and told him they were in the wrong in coming out and firing on us the night before. They blamed us for the men selling them whiskey. So after a long talk, it was decided to compromise the matter, and we gave them a big dinner. We got some large pots and made the coffee so hot they could hardly drink it. After they had eaten a lot of hardtack and drunk a lot of coffee, they got out the pipes, filled them, and began smoking the “pipe of peace.” This was done by drawing three long puffs and holding the fourth while the pipe was passed to a white man, and then he did the same and handed the pipe back to the Indian. After this was done all around, the Indians left quite contented.
We hitched up and drove about six miles and that night kept a very close watch. The guards found some Indians trying to steal the horses, but when they saw they were watched they went back to the fort.
We traveled all week until the following Sunday. Then we rested our cattle at a place near the river. We could see a number of boats on the river. While resting here we counted six boats going in the different directions. There were parties along here who cut wood and sold to the steamboats. A small crowd was getting up wood here, and while the men were out from the cabins, a band of Indians came up and killed a squaw, and just as the men were coming up, and Indian was scalping a white woman. He was shot. The boat came along then and drove the Indians away. This woman lived and Silas McCall said that he afterwards saw her and that her scalp had all healed over except where there was a place about the size of a silver-dollar. Seeing the boats along here made the company homesick.
The train started on, early Monday morning, and that afternoon camped on a small stream where there were large holes or dead springs of cold water. One young man decided to take a bath. He stripped and plunged in, but it seems he had no sooner struck the water when he cramped and would have drowned had it not been for a young boy, Dick O’Brien, who spring in and pushed the fellow to the shore, saving his life.
We had with us an old trapper named Lew Blackmore. He used to go ahead of the train, and kill a lot of deer and other game and lay it beside the trail where we could get it as we came along. One day he started out and went up, or was going up, a ravine, when looking up he saw an Indian running his horse toward him. He started also, and after a while he came to a cross-ravine where he noticed a large rock off to one side. He quickly got behind this. The Indian came to this ravine and upon entering it, looked up the ravine, then to either side and at last with cunning instinct centered his eyes on this rock. Blackmore was watching him, and the moment he looked away, shot the Indian dead. Blackmore tried to catch the pony, but it was an Indian pony and would not let the white man catch him. He then made for the train and told us what had happened.
We drove hard and late that night, and the next day, and got as far from that place as we could.
The Fort Union trading post, North Dakota, 1866.
When we came to the mouth of the Yellow Stone River there was a band of three thousand Indians camped on the south side of the river, and eight hundred camped at Ft. Union. There was a company of soldiers who had commenced to build Ft. Buford. The traders got permission at Ft. Union to trade with the Indians. As they were to draw up a treaty with the party that was to meet them, the boat drew up at Ft. Union. Silas said that he stood by and heard the treaty read to the eight hundred Indians representing seven different tribes. They presented one Indian with a double-barrel shotgun, a flask of powder, a box of caps, and a pouch of shot. He came over to Silas and said that it was “chestnas,” meaning that it was not enough. They gave another Indian a barrel of smoking tobacco and other trifles. Then they commenced to work on the three thousand, trying to make the treaty with them. They were at the mouth of the Yellow Stone. It was drizzling rain and the men that were talking with the Indians wore army overcoats with a heavy belt. The Indians were angered at the way the men were talking the treaty, and the boats were called to come where they were. But before the boat arrived at that point one of the Indians shot at one of the men with a bow and arrow. Luckily for him, the arrow struck his belt where the canvas was doubled through the keeper. It passed through these thicknesses of belt, his over coat doubled, his trousers, his shirt, and entered a half-inch into his flesh. Another man was shot in the back, the arrow lodging in a bone. They gave the alarm at the fort and the soldiers shot off a small cannon across the river to where the three thousand were and quieted the Indians. When the boat got to where the party was, there was not an Indian in sight.
Word was sent to us that this band of three thousand Indians who were camped across the river were going to cross over and capture our train. The soldiers thought we were in for a battle and ordered the eight hundred who were more civilized to move away from there. It was the greatest excitement I ever had. They took down their tepees and bundled their stuff together and put it on dogcarts. These were nothing but two small saplings side by side like a pair of shafts and the dog would be placed between the two small ends and would drag the load behind them. There was a train of these dogs and carts over a mile long. The squaws had a great time beating the dogs into line and getting them to haul their loads.
The night passed very quietly although we had guards out and were ready for battle all night. We hitched up very early the next morning and just as we had hitched up there was a band of about two hundred Indians came running their horses toward our train and lined up in front of us. Our man, Holmes, who was always alert commenced to talk to them and finally asked them what they wanted. While they were talking several of our men shot off their guns in the woods and reloaded as quickly as they could. The Indians’ curiosity was aroused and they asked Holmes what they were doing that for. He told them every one of our men was a dead shot, and wanted to be sure that the guns were well loaded, so in case we had to defend our train we would be ready, and if that was what they had come out for, we were ready for battle. At this the Indians held a little consultation in whispers, then whirled their horses around and made off faster than they had come. The train moved on as fast as possible and traveled as far as they could that day.
The Indian guide, half-breed Yasset Perres, was talking to Silas a great deal that day, and he told him that he could tell when they were getting close to a herd of buffalo. He promised to let Silas know when they were nearing a herd. The next night Yasset came to Silas and told him to follow. He led him to where it was quiet and told him to place his ear to the ground. Silas said he could hear a sort of rumbling sound. Yasset said it was a very large herd of buffalo ahead of us in the direction we were going. The following day we got to the Big Muddy River. It had a bad quicksand bottom and we had to be very careful so as not to get any of our cattle or wagons into the sand. The mend got a lot of brush and branches and laid them in the quicksand and got the loads across by carrying them. But when they tried to haul the wagons across, it was found that this was almost impossible, so it was decided to take the wagons apart, and they were carried across in pieces.
It was while crossing the Big Muddy River that we saw the largest herd of buffalo that we have ever seen, and have never seen anything since to compare with it. This was the herd that Yasset Perres had detected. There seemed to be a steady stream of buffalo crossing here, going in a northeasterly direction. To avoid a stampede, we set up camp here until the party passed. They kept this up all day, and the next morning it was the same way. It seemed as though the buffalo had been driven from the south and east and from all parts of what was called the prairie desert and had gotten pocketed in this place. There was a bunch that seemed to be scared and were running toward the center of our train. Six of the boys got out and shot them as fast as they could. Most of the buffalo were headed around the train, but a few of them went through in the gaps between the wagons, breaking the tongues of some of them. As we traveled further, the buffalo seemed to be in small bunches grazing close to each other. They travel in bunches of fifty to two hundred in a herd. Some of the boys got after the buffalo and drove them back and collected the small bunches together. They did this for about two miles and then we came out into a large valley, and we saw the most beautiful sight I have ever seen or expect to see again. The herd at this place was a solid mass of buffalo, nearly a mile in width and a half-mile deep. Silas said he never thought there were so many buffalo on the plains as he saw there.
We traveled three days from the time we stuck the Muddy and there was not an hour of this time that we could not look up and count a bunch of from fifty to five hundred buffalo. The train traveled on until we got to the Milk River. This stream had a quicksand bottom and was dry in some places.
There was one fellow who wanted to kill a buffalo by himself and happened to see a bull buffalo that had been whipped out of the herd and was straggling around. It is the habit of the bull buffalo or wild horses to drive off the male of the herd and take possession himself. The stallion or bull buffalo herds his cattle or horses taking them to feeding grounds and to water. If they become lazy, he whips and kicks them to obtain obedience.
He made his way around the bluffs, got close to the buffalo and fired. Not knowing the proper place to shoot a buffalo, he stuck it in the forehead. A buffalo has a great bunch of wool on his head which is usually matted with mud, and the animal did not drop as our friend expected, but just shook his head and made a rush for Mr. Man, and Mr. Man made a rush for a crack in the rock at the side of the bluff. He dropped his gun in the excitement. The buffalo seemed intent on getting him somehow, for he fed around where he could keep watch on the fellow and when he crawled out to sneak over to his gun, the buffalo made a rush and nearly got him. We watched this as we traveled on, but thought best to let the man get a little experience. The guides went back after a time and shot the buffalo. It seemed that when a man is on a horse a buffalo will not attack him. This fellow was mighty glad when help came and let him out of his stone cage.
The train traveled on until we came to Milk River. Sometimes we would be where there was water in the stream, and then, again, we found dry quicksand for several miles. One night after we had camped, a black-tailed deer came close to our place. Silas said to the guides, “Here is your chance to run down a deer as you said you could.” So Davis went out to where the deer was, about a half-mile from the camp, and made a run towards the deer with his horse, and as it passed the camp, Yasset took after it and run it for quite a distance and then turned it back towards the camp. When it got close to the camp, Davis took up the chase and soon caught it as it was out of breath and could run no further.
The next day one of the guides ran across a herd of five elk. He made a dash at them with his horse and got them scared, and they started off on a lope. They can only travel about half as fast when they lope as when they trot, they seem to bound more in the air and make less headway. He had only run them a short ways when he got close enough to kill them, and left them by the trail for us to pick up as we came along.
As we were passing along Milk River, we saw a herd of buffalo coming at full speed. The guides said they were chased by somebody. They ran along the high bluffs and came to a place where there was a steep wall, or jump-off place about thirty feet deep. The buffalo that got there first tried to stop but the ones coming in behind crowded them off. They would jump off and when they struck the bottom there would be a heavy thud. But true to their training they would scamper off with great speed to get out of the way of the ones coming after.
The following day a man who had a lame cow took an early start to allow the cow more time than the train to make the day’s trip. As he was traveling along he passed a grove of willows. When he got to about the center, he saw two Indians jump across the road. He turned back and got out of the grove. The Indians followed and wanted to make conversation with him. They told him that they wanted to see his gun. But he would not let them get very close, and kept traveling backwards finally reaching the camp.
We drove the same direction and when we got through the grove of willows a short distance, we came to a small stream. Here was a band of a few Indians. Silas went up to the tepees, looked into one of them, and commenced talking to the squaws. He saw they had a white girl about eight or ten years old. The squaws were greatly confused when Silas said the girl was white, and insisted that she was an Indian girl. He went to the train and told the rest of the men, and two men went over to the camp. But the Indians had hidden the girl and the men could get no trace of her. Finally they had to give up and catch the train.
This was a great place along here for all kinds of game, deer, elk, bear, and fur-bearing animals. One day while a lot of us men were in bathing, a large deer jumped into the water not more than fifteen feet from where we were. But before we could get back to the bank for our guns, it was out and away. We then tracked a bear into a grove of trees. One man offered to go into the grove and scare it out where we could get a shot at it. The bear went down near the water and the man walked out on a tree which had fallen out across the stream. The bear ran out under the tree and it scared the man so he could not shoot. When the bear came out and ran past me, I got the fever and could not shoot either.
When we got near the Bear Paw Mountains, about twenty of us men went up into the mountains to prospect for gold. We traveled all day looking at the rocks and panning everything we thought might carry values. At night we camped on a high ridge. Along towards dusk, we looked over across the ravine and counted at one time, seven bears sitting upon their haunches and looking at us. They would play around and then sit up and look over to see what we were doing.
Sketch of Fort Benton, Montana, 1869.
The following day we traveled on to Benton. This was the first time we had seen miners and gamblers. We saw some pretty tough characters. They had all kinds of gambling devices here. We only stayed there a short time and then we started for the mountains near Sun River. The air that morning was so clear that the distance was very deceiving. When we were fifty miles away from the mountains, it looked to be only about ten miles. In the morning before we hitched up, there were three boys started out to go over to the mountains to hunt. They traveled until they got tired out and sat down until we caught up with the wagons. We drove on and came across a small river. One of the boys commenced to take off his clothes. We asked him what he was doing this for and he said that everything was so deceiving, the water might be deeper and farther across than we expected. But he found that it was not very deep or far across.
When we came to the Sun River, we saw a beautiful stream of water as clear as crystal. A man named Tillie, or Tilly, from Farmington, saw a beaver out in the water and shot it. The beaver turned over on its side and began floating downstream. A man named Bill Kidd stripped off his clothes and started to swim out to get the beaver. When he got within some six feet of it, the beaver turned and started for him. It looked as though Kidd was going to get the worst of it, when Tillie pulled his gun and shot it dead.
Bird Tail Rock, Montana.
When we got into the mountains we saw some queer sights. One place they called Bird Tail Rock. It was queer to see the water flowing from the top of some of these rocky ridges. But by going up, there would perhaps be a plateau of eighty-five or a hundred acres of level fertile ground. There seemed to be but one place to get up to these plateaus and we saw a lot of rattlesnakes in these places.
We stayed here for some time and traveled around to different places prospecting, and while we were traveling through here we had some very bad roads on account of the steep hills. Some places they had graded roads up along the side of the ridges and would charge toll. Some places you could travel along for miles where two teams could not pass. Parties had to be very careful not to get started and have two teams meet each other on these narrow places. You could generally see the parties coming at different places on the road and you would have to figure out where you could pass the team coming from the opposite direction.
One time there was a party coming down the canyon and they saw another party hitching up about five miles away down the canyon. The driver got out, and as he was an expert in cracking his whip, he cracked it so loud that the party down the ravine did not start up as they thought he must be close as they could hear the snap of the whip.
We traveled along and finally got near Helena and camped. This was on a Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, a man by the name of Hugh Christie and I went over to Helena. There were about twenty thousand transients and other people at this place. We became parted and did not see each other again until we got back to our wagon. We prospected around these places for some time and once Neil McCall struck a pocket where he took out $1,500 in a few days and then it played out. Afterwards parties found a large deposit just over a small hill from where he had made his strike. This was at Diamond City, forty-five miles east of Helena.
Bridge Street in Helena, Montana, c.1865.
There were so many horses around Helena that they would have to picket them out quite a ways from Helena to get grass enough. The Indians got to stealing the horses, and we decided to send Bob White over on horseback, as he could talk good Indian and was a brave young man. He got ready and started long before daybreak and went this sixty miles over into the mountains where the chief was. Occasionally he would stop and take off the saddle and let his horse rest and eat. When he arrived there, his horse was still quite fresh. He saluted the chief who asked him where he had come from. White said joshingly that they had better horses than the Indians had. He went on and told the chief about having come to ask to have the Indians stopped from stealing the whites’ horses. The chief got angry and spoke to one of the Indians standing back of him, and that Indian went and got a basin of water. The chief too it and washed his hands in it, then handed the basin to White with orders to drink it. White decided to drink it while he thought of something to do. He drank for some time and handed it back to the chief using some words of praise and honor suitable to a man in the Indian’s position. This surprised the chief and he said “You are a brave man.” He told White that he had intended to kill him, but for his bravery he was going to give him a chance.
The chief pointed out a place about five miles away and told White that when he got there to look back and he would wave a white cloth and at the same time start ten of his best warriors on ten of their best horses. He said he would prove to him that his horses could catch him, and that the Indians when they caught him would kill him. White again thanked the chief and started off. White said that if ever in his life his brain got busy, it was then.
Being quite an athlete, he thought he might favor his horse by jumping off when they were to go down a hill and run up the other side and remount without stopping the animal. By the time he got to the point where he was to make his last race, he watered his horse and gave him a few minutes to rest and eat. Then he got up to the high point and looked back. He saw the white flag, and the Indian savages starting off. They ran their horses very fast and the first ten or fifteen miles they went, they gained upon him steadily. He only took a moderate pace and the next ten miles they did not do as well. But when his horse began to tire, they commenced to gain on him again. That evening there were some men out feeding their horses in the direction from which he was coming. They heard the reports of rifles and started out to where the noise was coming from, and when they got a short ways they saw the Indians chasing a white man and the bullets falling about him. When the Indians saw the whites, they stopped and turned back. If there had been a few more miles to travel, they surely would have gotten and killed White, for the bullets fell just a little short of hitting him.
The Indians appeared to fall in love with White’s horse, or perhaps they did not want to return without some excuse as to their failure of catching their man, and thought they ought to have a story about his leaving the horse and escaping. For one night they managed to steal his horse, from between two buildings not more than ten feet apart.
One day a big Frenchman came to Helena to get some supplies. He did not say anything but seemed to have enough gold dust to lay in a big supply of provisions. One fellow asked him where he came from. He told him, and the man said, “You must have something pretty good up there.” He said it was good enough for him and that he was going back to stay for another six months. The news commenced spreading of a big strike up where this Frenchman said he had come from, and the more it spread, the better it sounded, until finally one cold day the different parties began striking off in that direction. When they got to the old Frenchman’s, there were some eighteen-hundred of them, and they were pretty sore when they found no gold. They caught the Frenchie and were going to hang him. The man he had spoken to said, “You told me you had something good and were satisfied to stay another six months.” The Frenchman laughed, “I will show you what I meant when I said it was pretty good.” He went into the shack and brought out a half-breed squaw. “She is good enough for me.” They asked him where he got the gold dust and he said that he could pan out three or four dollars a day and that was all he needed to keep him and his squaw. They were then angry with the fellow who had circulated the report, and as it turned very cold it was hard for them to get enough to eat and to get back without being frozen to death.
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Silas and Neil McCall stayed out in this country three years and then started for home. They decided to go down the Missouri by boat and had a nice trip. Silas tells of getting stuck on a sandbar and having to wait until the current had washed the sand away and had changed the passage of the stream. They passed where Yankton is and when they got to Sioux City they were in such a hurry to get off the boat that each one thought the other had the sack of relics, thus losing all they had collected for the period of three years. They went from Sioux City on the train and arrived in St. Paul, finally getting home in July 1869.
The next time Silas McCall appeared on the public record was June 5, 1872, when he married 16-year-old Sarah Emily Robbins, our 2nd cousin 4x removed on the Robbins/Green branch, in Scott County, Minnesota. While living here they had four children: Jane “Jennie” Catherine (1873), Arthur Floyd (1875), Samuel Malcolm (1878), and Archibald “Rex” Silas (1881).
It seems McCall initially worked on a farm, but around 1880 took a job laying track for the Milwaukee Road as it expanded into the Dakota Territory. On June 6, 1881, the first Milwaukee Road train arrived in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and the town was officially incorporated the same day. Four days later on June 10, the McCalls arrived. They added three more children while living in Aberdeen: Lewis Dougal (1883), Grace Pearl (1886), and Florence Louella (1891). All seven children lived to adulthood.
For the next 20 years, Silas McCall worked as a foreman in the “car shops” of the Milwaukee Road, but had other jobs on the side . . . a drayman, a rooming house operator, and a proprietor of a dry goods store. He was an active member of the Aberdeen Masonic Lodge No. 38 and a firefighter for the Aberdeen Fire Department. He’s in the first row, far left, in the photo below.
Around 1909, Silas McCall injured his foot in a minor accident, but he contracted blood poisoning and his leg had to be amputated. The following year, he had to have the other leg taken off.
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Hoping to improve his health, he moved to his son Rex’s home in Los Angeles, but it didn’t work. According to his obituary, Los Angeles Times, November 27, 1912:
Victim of Apoplexy
Silas Malcolm McCall died last night at 7:30 o’clock of apoplexy at the family home, No. 635 W. Thirty-fifth Street. He was 69 years old and had been in the city a year, having come from South Dakota. He leaves a widow and two daughters.
Silas Malcolm McCall was buried in the Masonic section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, cemetery to the stars. He shares space with Humphrey Bogart, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr., George Burns and Gracie Allen, Ethel Waters, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Dorothy Dandridge, Billy Barty, Walt Disney, W.C. Fields, L. Frank Baum (who lived in Aberdeen at the same time as the McCalls), and many more.
Sarah Emily (Robbins) McCall and her grandchildren, Horace (standing) and Bernace.
Sarah Emily (Robbins) McCall lived until June 20, 1931, when she died at her final home in Tacoma, Washington. She was buried at Mountain View Memorial Park in Lakewood, Washington.
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