The Incident at Murderer's Bar

The Incident At Murderer's Bar

Trouble with Indians at the California Gold Mines in April 1849

As the Oregonians told the story

Seven Columbia River Men had discovered gold on the middle fork of the American River, about 15 miles from Coloma, California. It was 1849 and they had a rich strike. The location was later called Murders’ Bar in memory of four of the party. The seven men were Talmage B. Wood, Robert Alexander, (Nathan) English, Arthur H. Thompson, Ninian and Crockett Eberman (brothers) and Humphrey O’Brien.

The Incident At Murderer's Bar | by Roy S. Kirkham

A historical report

by Roy S. Kirkham

The camp was running out of provisions, so, the Eberman brothers and O’Brien took a night journey to Coloma to get supplies. Travelling at night helped to keep their strike a secret and prevent claim jumping.

When the three returned to the camp site they found their partners, Wood, Alexander, English and Thompson had been murdered. The only traces of the camp site that remained were a heap of ashes containing burned human bones, an incomplete gold rocker device and two sacks of gold. Everything else was gone. The only signs of a struggle were Woods’ black hair strewn around the ground. It was assumed that Indians had committed the murders because the gold was left behind and only the clothing and tents were taken. Indians had little sense of the value of gold and had not taken it with them. Later Ninian Eberman took the two sacks of gold to the widows of the married men.

Another massacre had taken place up river at about the same time. Three other Columbia River Men, named Leonard, Sargent and Carter were ambushed and Carter took off running with a powerful Indian in hot pursuit. When the bodies of Leonard and Sargent were found, Sargent’s body was mutilated. Again the murders were committed for the clothing and tents, not for the gold.

When news of the massacres reached Coloma the Oregonians there held a secret meeting after which they bought ammunition and provisions to outfit a posse to pursue the murderers. After tracking the killers many miles the trails ran out and the posse returned to Coloma. Because the Indians were suspected to be the murderers, one man had been designated to remain in Coloma and keep an eye out while the posse had gone out to search. Sure enough, there were Indians in Coloma exchanging signals and lurking suspiciously around. It was reported that some Indians had crossed the river and dispersed. These were the valley Indians who worked in the gold fields and did business with the California traders. Earlier these same valley Indians had strongly asserted that innocence and laid the blame on the wild Indians up in the mountains. It became obvious to the posse that the valley Indians were the culprits, had sent the posse on a fruitless search, and that the murderers were still in the vicinity. The posse then crossed the river where the valley Indians had crossed, and started to track them.

The trail led to the Indian camp at the mouth of Weaver Creek, about 20 miles from Coloma. The Indians did not suspect the Oregonians were on to them and the posse entered the camp, rode among the Indians and saw that these were the Indian men they were looking for. It was decided that the Oregonians would attempt to kill all of the men, if they could. Shots rang out for a little over a minute leaving twenty-six valley Indian men dead. Six men surrendered and the women fell down weeping. When the Indians asked why this was done, the Oregonians told them it was because they had murdered six Columbia River men at two different camp sites. Four Indian women immediately acknowledged that the Indians had been told they should kill the Oregonians and named the California traders that had told them to do it. The California traders had told the Indians that the Oregonians were stealing their money by giving them poor goods in return for trades with them. The irony of this was that the California traders were doing exactly what they accused the Oregonians of. The Oregonians were realizing that mining for gold was not the way to make money and many started trading goods for gold, just like the California traders, only the Oregonians were undercutting the Californians , taking less gold in trades and establishing a competitive business situation. The Californians did not like having the Oregonians cutting into their lucrative business, so, they told the Indians that the Oregonians were cheating them and the Oregonians should be killed.

Now the Oregonians knew who the killers were and who had put them up to it. They brought forty-three prisoners back to Coloma, the six men and all the women and children from the camp. When the Indian spy, who worked and the sawmill, was brought in to be with the other prisoners, the Indian women wailed and cried out that he was no longer one of them. “You have deceived us. You were going to save all our husbands and now they are all killed”. The women pushed him away. The sawmill supervisor attempted to free his Indian employee and the Oregonians, now realizing how the California traders and businessmen had tricked the Indians into killing Oregon miners, shouted out, “Shoot him, shoot him, the damned son of a bitch, shoot him!”, another Oregonian grabbed the sawmill supervisor by the collar and told him to get out of the area, fast, or be riddled with bullets.

The Oregonians finally let all the Indians go, except the seven prisoners, which included the one from the mill. There was more scheming by the Californians to get control of the Indian prisoners, but the Oregonians declared they were capable of doing justice themselves. The prisoners were confined in a house and, as soon as they were led out of the door for a speedy trial, a command was given among the Indians and they scrambled for freedom. The Oregon guards started shooting and several Indians fell at once. Two reached the river where one was shot and sank in the water. One swam across to the opposite shore where he was shot getting out of the water. One Indian ran for a steep hill being pursued by Billy McGee, a little man but a swift runner. The Indian stopped, turned, drew a concealed knife and swinging at McGee lost his footing, fell at McGee’s feet where the Indian was then killed.

The situation calmed down for a few days until another Oregonian was murdered about eleven miles from Coloma. The Oregonians raised another posse and went out killing Indians on sight. They had agreed to kill all Indians on sight until they were either all destroyed, or, attacks on Oregonians stopped.

The Indian women and children, released by the Oregonians, went up into the mountains to be safe from the Columbia River men. The California traders and business men sent beef and flour up to the starving Indians and the entire tribe died, from some mysterious disease, after eating the food.

The Indian women, who acknowledged that the California traders told their men to kill Oregonians, paid the ultimate price. Their bodies were found shot full of arrows. The citizens of Coloma generally opposed the execution of the Indians and looked upon the methods of the Oregonians as too severe. They feared that this incident would bring on a general Indian uprising.

It was generally understood that traders profited greatly by the Indians trading for items, like cloth and clothing, with gold. The Indians did not understand the value of gold and would often give an ounce or more for a piece of calico. When large quantities of gold were brought to Coloma by the Indians, the merchants and traders were immediately suspicious that murder or robbery had taken place, but they continued to profit greatly.

As the Californians tell the story

Capt. Ezekiel Merritt, Thomas Buckner and an Indian boy called “Peg” started out from Knight's ranch, on Cache creek in late April 1849 on a venture to the gold mines. They packed up their animals and went first to Weber creek. The outlook there was not good and they headed off in a northerly direction, crossed the South Fork of the American River, a few miles below Sutter's mill, traveled across the divide and descended into the canyon of the Middle Fork, reaching a stream near a waterfall.

It was April and this new location did not appear to have been worked by white men. They found evidence of Indians and, because they were a small group, they used precautions in the event the Indians were hostile. The group searched for gold for a couple of days, but did not find any. They broke camp and started down the stream.

Being an experienced frontiersman, Captain Merritt took the lead. They had only proceeded a short distance when they reached the head of a large bar, situated on the South side of the river. Below them, and some distance down the bar, was a jutting point of rocks which blocked their view. When the Captain was a few yards down the bar, he suddenly stopped short, bringing the train to a halt, shouting out, “By God, here’s white man’s hair, here’s an Injun’s hair, too!” On the pebbly bar, above high water mark, among evidences of a plundered camp, was the white man's hair strewn around with that of the Indian, silent evidence that the white man’s life had not gone to the great unknown unavenged and without a struggle. An ash heap close by contained burned human bones.

The men decided the point of rocks was a barrier beyond which white men dared not go for fear of an ambush. They decided to camp at the head of the bar, where they had found the evidence of death, in an open space. They prepared for an attack and remained in this location until the following morning. No Indians appeared and the three, with weapons at the ready, set out to explore down river. They had barely passed the point of rocks when some sixty or seventy Indians appeared on the higher ground, armed only with bows and arrows, yelling and gesturing at them in a frightful manner, but they did not attack. The white men watched and waited and, after a few hours, the Indians retreated up the mountain and disappeared from view.

The small party had won a temporary victory and lingered there a short while. Buckner thought about the other river bars, all having names, so he took his pocket knife and cut on the bark of an alder tree, “Murderer’s Bar”, by which the spot was since known. The party then crossed the river establishing themselves on the opposite side from the Indians in an open spot, less liable to be ambushed.By the summer of 1849 there were companies of miners working on this and nearby river bars. By 1850 road systems were being developed to Cave Valley, Pilot Hill and toward Yankee Jim’s, becoming quite a traveled road from Sacramento to all the mining camps in this part of Placer County.

By 1850 the miners cabins made up a little village, which they named Murderer’s Bar, and soon there were stores and a saloon. The population of Murderer's Bar was growing constantly and in 1855 the town had over five hundred inhabitants and was thought of as one of the liveliest mining camps up to about 1860.

Credits

The Oregonians view of the story is based on the account of Mrs. Fannie Clayton, who later moved to Seaside, Oregon. Mrs. Clayton witnessed the break for freedom by the seven Indians and saw all of them quickly dispatched. Her account was published in The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Volume II, Number 2, June 1901. Another report in the same OHS book, “The Columbia River Men in California, 1848-49” by William M Case, furnished details of the pursuit, capture and demise of the Indians.

This Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society was in the collection which Genevieve Butterfield Young contributed to the Seaside Oregon Public Library, and which was subsequently given to the Seaside Museum & Historical Society. Genevieve had noted on the pages the full names of three of the murdered four Columbia River Men, (Talmadge) Ben Wood, (Arthur H.) Thompson and (Bob) Alexander.

Miriam Robinson-Thompson-Tuller, the widow of Arthur H. Thompson (one of the six Columbia River Men murdered by the Indians) had her “Crossing of the Plains in 1845” recorded in the Oregon Pioneer Transactions, Number 23, 1895. At the end of her story she told of the murder of four men on the American River. It seems that a man named Nathan English left Astoria, Oregon in 1848 for the California gold mines, with several other Clatsop men, and was never heard from again. Miriam Tuller listed a man named English as the fourth man that was murdered at one of the camps. In the writings of Jessie Thompson-Stilson, Arthur H. Thompsons daughter, she gives the date of her fathers death as April 17, 1849. Jessie was about three years old at the time of her fathers murder, living on their land claim on South Clatsop Plains, the site of present day north Seaside, Oregon.

Miriam Robinson-Thompson-Tuller was the great great grandmother, and Jessie Thompson-Stilson was the great grandmother of Roy Stilson Kirkham, the author of this report, who resides in Seaside, Oregon on what he suspects is the historic Thompson Farm.

The Californians view of the story is based on the recollections of Mr. D. Fairchild of El Dorado County, California. This report was found on theWebsite of the Western Living Center (

Author’s Recap

The Oregonian’s and Californian’s view of how the incident at Murderer’s Bar took place start with the same murder of the gold miners, but the story takes a twist because the Indian women acknowledged that the California traders said the Oregonians should be killed. John Sutter had tried to intervene and defend the valley Indians, but the Oregonian’s would not hear of it. They assumed that what the Indian women said was evidence that the valley Indians had done the murders. The Oregonian’s rampage of killing valley Indians fits the description of vigilante justice.

James Marshall, the owner of the sawmill and one of the California traders, tried to defend the valley Indians, also, but Coloma Valley history tells that he was forced to flee for his life. He didn’t return to Coloma for years.

The story that was passed down, generation to generation in my family, tells of Arthur H. Thompson being “burned at the stake”. I took this with a grain of salt until I read that Mr. D. Fairchild found a heap of ashes with burned human bones in it. Undoubtedly this had horrified the Oregonians and set off their rampage of killing Indians.

Mr. Fairchild’s recollections of the 60 or 70 Indians, armed with bows and arrows, stopping the party of 3 from advancing any further, gives credence to the valley Indian’s story that the murders were being committed by the wild mountain Indians.

I can stop searching for my Great Great Grandfather Arthur Thompson’s grave. He and his three gold mining companions were consumed by fire at Murderer’s Bar.

Roy Stilson Kirkham