Anyone who has visited the coast of Northern California has marveled over the giant redwood trees called Sequoias.  Have you ever wondered where their name came from?

It comes from the name of a Cherokee Indian born in 1760 in Tennessee.  As a young man he was a metal craftsman, making silver jewelry.  While fighting on the American side in the War of 1812, he became intrigued with what he called “talking leaves,” or words on paper.  Although Sequohah had no formal education, he comprehended the basic nature of the symbolic representation of sounds.

In 1809 he began working on a Cherokee written language.  At first he tried picture symbols, but found them impractical.  Looking at English, Greek and Hebrew, he developed 86 characters that would express the various sounds in the Cherokee language.  It was so simple that it could be mastered in less than a week.

In 1821 he submitted his new written language to the Cherokee leaders.  As a demonstration Sequohah wrote a message to his six-year-old daughter.  She read the message and responded in kind.  The tribal council immediately adopted the system.

The Cherokee were divided into two groups, Sequohah’s in Georgia and Tennessee, and the western Cherokee in Oklahoma.  In 1822 Sequohah went to Oklahoma, and taught the alphabet to the Cherokee there.

Finally, on February 21, 1828 a printing press with Cherokee type was developed.  Within months, the first Indian language newspaper appeared, called the Cherokee Phoenix.

While in Mexico teaching the Cherokee language, he became ill with dysentery, and died.  Although the spelling is a bit different, the giant Sequoias stand as monuments to the man who developed the Cherokee alphabet.

One of the codes of the Old West was that women were not to be hurt.  In an incident that took place near Yuma, Arizona on February 7, 1901, that code was broken.

The ownership of a ranch occupied by Joseph and Mary Burns was under dispute.  Constable Marian Alexander went to the ranch to serve papers on the Burns.  With Joseph Burns away, Mary Burns met Constable Alexander with a rifle.  Unarmed and unprepared for a confrontation, Alexander left.

Alexander returned with two other men and a shotgun.  Mrs. Burns still had her rifle.  The two men stayed on their horses while Constable Alexander walked over to Mary Burns.  An argument ensued, and Alexander pulled the triggers on both barrels…killing Mary Burns.

The news spread across the area like wildfire.  Constable Alexander surrendered, and was placed in the Yuma Territorial Prison…more for his protection.  The papers editorialized that “the jail was not deemed strong enough to save the murderer from the anger of the citizens.”

Mary Burns’ brother Frank King, and father, Samuel King, arrived in town.  Alexander and the other two men were indicted by a grand jury, which, incidentally contained Samuel King, Mary Burns’ father.  Alexander was sentenced to life in prison.

As Alexander was leaving the courthouse in the company of police, a sniper fatally shot him.  The police hurried to the shooter’s location, and found both Frank and Samuel King nearby.  Neither was armed, and no one identified them as the shooter, they were released.

For years, a rumor circulated that after the shooting of Alexander, a rifle belonging to Samuel King was found in a nearby bale of hay, but in the spirit of frontier justice, it disappeared.

Ma and Pa Dalton had ten sons.  Most of them grew up to be law-abiding citizens.   One of the brothers, Frank, was killed while serving as a deputy for “Hanging Judge” Isaac Parker.   Following their brother’s example, Grat, Bob and Emmett worked as lawmen in the Oklahoma Territory.   But, they spent their spare time rustling cattle, and accepting bribes from whiskey smugglers.  Although they managed to escape prosecution, by 1890 they were discredited as lawmen.

Deciding it was time for the Daltons to engage in some serious crime, Bob and Grat headed for California where they met up with their brother Bill.   On February 6, 1891 Bob, Grat and Bill decided to rob a train.   A little north of Bakersfield, they managed to flag down a Southern Pacific train traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

          While Bill kept the passengers occupied by shooting over their heads, Bob and Grat asked the engineer to show them the location of the express car.   But the engineer refused, and he tried to escape.   One shot from a Dalton pistol stopped the engineer in his tracks.

Bob and Grat found the express car on their own.   They demanded the guard open the express car door.  But he refused.  And not only that, he started shooting at them from a small spy hole.

Totally frustrated, the Daltons rode away empty handed.   Now, after the fiasco of their first major attempt at outlawry, the average person would probably decide that maybe the outlaw trail was not for them.   But the Daltons weren’t average.   And they kept it up, until a year and a half later when they decided to rob two banks in Coffeyville, Kansas, and the Dalton gang was wiped out.

I guess sometimes when a person fails they shouldn’t try try again.

It required a special “Man of God” to minister to wild frontier towns.  There were few towns as wild as Tombstone, Arizona…and there were few ministers who were capable of bringing God to a town like Tombstone than Reverend Peabody.

In 1882, Tombstone, Arizona was a wild frontier town.  Of every three downtown businesses, two were either saloons or gambling dens.  At this time, Tombstone had approximately 4,000 residents.  Only a few citizens were interested in attending church.  Churches were usually in a tent.  And, the sound of the honky-tonk pianos and the nearby saloons would often drown out the minister.

All of this changed on January 28, 1882 when Reverend Endicott Peabody arrived in town.  Although Reverend Peabody was an Episcopal Minister educated back east and in England, he wasn’t a typical minister.  He weighed around 200 pounds, enjoyed boxing and baseball, and worked out every day.  As one contemporary said, “He had muscles of iron.”  While not tending to his perish, Peabody umpired baseball games, and refereed boxing matches.

The Episcopal women had been holding raffles for the building fund, and their husbands were working on the church.  Progress was slow.  Peabody, not one to be easily intimidated, solicited donations on both sides of Tombstone’s “Dead Line.”

He went into a hotel casino; walked up to a high-stakes poker game; introduced himself; and asked for a donation for the church.  One player handed over $150 in chips, and told everyone else to do the same.  The local musical society put on the opera H.M.S. Pinafore with the proceeds going to the church building fund.  It raised $250 because saloons bought a lot of tickets that were never used.

Six months after Reverend Peabody’s arrival, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was completed.  Right after its completion, Peabody went back to Massachusetts.  St. Paul’s is still in Tombstone, and is one of Arizona’s oldest Protestant churches.

On January 21, 1900 one of the Old West’s most intriguing and gruesome men died in a veterans’ hospital in California.  This was a strange ending for this man who was depicted in a movie Starring Robert Redford called “Jeremiah Johnson”.

John Johnson was a red bearded giant of a man who headed to the mountains when most mountain men were leaving them.

Early on Johnson came across a covered wagon that had been attached by Indians. The only survivor was the mother…and she had been driven mad from the experience.  Over the years John Johnson provided her with food.

The Indians left her alone because they felt she had been driven mad from the touch of the Great Spirit.

Johnson took a Flathead woman as his wife.  When he was away trapping, a Crow raiding party killed his wife, and the baby she was carrying.

This started the legend for which “Liver-Eating” Johnson is known. For 20 years Johnson took revenge against the Crow.  He supposedly killed as many as 300 Crow Indians, with a few Sioux thrown in for extra measure…And legend says he ate the livers of the Indians he killed.

Later “Liver-Eating” Johnson came out of the mountains, and joined the Union Army during the Civil War.  After the war, he was a deputy sheriff in Wyoming.

As he got older, Johnson made peace with the Crow Indians…And on January 21, 1900, he died in a veterans’ hospital in California.

Why did John Johnson eat the livers of the Indians? Was he a cannibal?…Technically, yes…But Indians often ate the raw liver of animals they killed.  They believed it would transfer the power of the animal to the hunter.  Maybe he wanted the Indians to think anyone who would do something this gruesome was touched by the Great Spirit.