46 



THE IBBIGATION AGE. 



CHARLEY'S BUTTE. 



W. A. CHALFANT. 



Midway between Independence and Big Pine, in 

 eastern California, a spur of the Sierra Nevadas almost 

 cuts Owens Valley in two. When the land was in the 

 making, this uplift from below had accretions from 

 craters which lie against the Sierra base a few miles 

 westward. A broad tongue of lava juts across much of 

 the valley's width a veritable riot of matter which, as 

 it flowed or fell, and as its molten glow changed to 

 eternal blackness, took fantastic shapes, and lies in 

 recesses, miniature precipices, caves, every conceivable 

 roughness of surface. Affording many hiding places, 

 it became one of the natural strongholds of the Piutes 

 in their war against the white pioneers; and there they 

 were lurking the day this story was acted. 



Near by is Charley's Butte. A new interest at- 

 taches to it now, as the landmark of the Head of the 



further on, signal smokes were seen; and as the party 

 passed the barrier of hills a band of at least 150 Indians 

 came into view. Turning from the rough road they 

 had followed, the Summers-McGee party tried to cross 

 the river, opposite what has ever since been known as 

 Charley's Butte. The wagon stuck in the soft mud of 

 the bottom ; the horses were cut loose. By the time the 

 party was well out in the water the Indians were on the 

 bank, sending arrows and bullets whistling around 

 them, but doing no damage. On the eastern side of 

 the river, the ladies and child were placed on the team 

 horses' backs, the men holding to the animals' manes 

 and running alongside. Charley, the negro, fared 

 worse. His efforts to catch one of the band of loose 

 horses proved unavailing; and as the whites fled for 

 their lives, Charley was seen running and fighting with 

 the Indians, who had by then crossed the river and 

 were closing in on him. The fugitives went on without 

 further interference, and on reaching a ford a few 

 miles below, again crossed the river and made their way 



"CHARLEY'S BUTTE," INYO COUNTY, CAL. 



Los Angeles aqueduct proposed to tap Owens river at 

 that point. Being only a low mound, it would be prob- 

 ably even yet as little regarded "and as nameless as a 

 hundred other hills, but for the affair which christened 

 it. Manv versions have been told, and some have been 

 printed. This is the true story, as Mr. McGee's narra- 

 tion is remembered: 



Early in 1863 a party of travelers entered Owens 

 Valley on their way from Aurora, then a booming min- 

 ing camp in western Nevada, to Visa.lia, California. In 

 their camp near the later site of Owensville, on the 

 night of March 7, were Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Summers, 

 Mrs. Margaret McGee, her son Alney (then in his later 

 teens), a little girl (a relative), and a negro named 

 Charley Tyler. Resuming their journey on the morn- 

 ing of the 8th, they crossed the river and had gone 

 ahout twenty miles, when near the present locality of 

 Big Pine thev found the body of a man who had been 

 murdered by the Indians a few days before. 



Taking alarm, a hastv flight began. A few miles 



to Camp Independence, where they were cared for by 

 soldiers. 



The fate of Charley was never learned by white 

 men. He had killed several Indians in previous battles, 

 and unless he met death outright in his last stand there 

 may have been grounds for the surmises of death by 

 torture. Later that fall two prospectors found the 

 head and upper vertebrae of a man hanging in a clump 

 of willows about two miles west of where the flight 

 began. Their opinion was that the body had been 

 burned, probably after death, the top of the skull hav- 

 ing been crushed in. Whether the bones were those of 

 Charley or of some other victim of the redskins they 

 could not answer positively, nor can any one living, un- 

 Jess it be some aged Indian. Mr. McGee's belief is 

 that Charley died fighting. 



The Summers-McGee party lost all their posses- 

 sions except the clothing they wore and the horses the 

 ladies rode. A band of seventeen loose horses and the 

 wagon, in which were household goods and $600 in 



