Lost Soldier’s Cache
(Haakon County, S.D.)
While researching this book, The Lost Treasures Of The Dakotas, I came across a story that could belong in The Lost Treasures Of The Black Hills book. But I decided to include the treasure tale in this book since this lost gold could be in either Pennington County or Haakon County, South Dakota, who share a common border.
This treasure story involves U.S. troops led by General George Crook; the unsolved death of a gold miner; and the unknown location of a cache of $3,000 in gold dust. At the beginning of the Black Hills gold rush (1876-1877), General Crook and his troops were charged with protecting gold miners and others pouring into the Black Hills.
YANKTON DAILY PRESS & DAKOTAIAN
Yankton, Dakota Territory
July 16, 1875
THE BLACK HILLS
–––––––––––
LATE ORDER FROM THE
WAR DEPARTMENT.
–––––––––––
A telegram was received by Gen. Crook yester-day from Gen. Sheridan, announcing the receipt of instructions from the War Department by Gen. Sherman, to the effect that no one is to be admitted to the Black Hills country until the result of the negotiations of the commissioners sent out to treat with the Sioux Indians is known. Gen. Crook at once sent orders to all officers in the department to see that these instructions are carried out to the letter.
Judging from the communication which we publish this morning from our correspondent now with the commissioners, the result of said negotiations may not be known for some time yet, and these orders from the War Department will certainly raise a good deal of excitement farther West, as miners are pouring into the Black Hills country by the hundreds.
─Omaha Herald, 15th.
Crook’s troops made regular trips between Fort Custer, South Dakota, and Fort Buford, North Dakota. The troops had camp sites established along the route where they could stop to feed and water their horses.
YANKTON DAILY PRESS & DAKOTAIAN
Yankton, Dakota Territory
September 12,1876
INDIAN NEWS.
–––––––––––
INDIANS DRIVE BACK
A COURIER.
–––––––––––
Cheyenne, Sept. 11.–Advices from telegraph camp near Hat Creek, this morning, state that the Indians drove back the government courier, who left Ft. Laramie with dispatches for Gen. Crook. He will make another start from Hat Creek this morning.
SUPPLIES FOR GEN. CROOK
Red Cloud Agency, Sept. 10. –This morning a supply train of about thirty wagons left this agency, escorted by three companies of the 4th Artillery, equipped as infantry, for Custer City, about eighty miles distant. The supplies are for Crook’s command, which is expected to be there the 14th. inst.
For two days past, the Indian Commission has been quietly awaiting developments. It is hoped that Red Cloud will be prepared to make some response tomorrow to the propositions made by the commission on the 7th.
A number of Indians from Spotted Tail Agency came in yesterday. It is said the Indians at this agency are awaiting Spotted Tail himself, and that whatever he favors they will do.
THE NEW FORT.
St. Paul, Sept. 11. –A Pioneer Press special dated Sioux expedition camp, at the mouth of Glendive Creek, Sept. 5, via Bismarck, D.T., Sept. 11, says the recent order of Gen. Sheridan, designating the 5th infantry and a battalion of the 22nd as garrison of the new post, and directing these troops to put themselves ready for winter, has practically put an end to the campaign for this season, so far as the Dakota column is concerned.
Navigation of the Yellowstone has suddenly closed by the rapidly falling water, and supplies for the new post must be hauled in wagons from Fort Buford. The question of subsistence for the troops who are to remain has become so grave that all supplies brought up for the active column must be devoted to the use of the cantonment in order to provide against the danger of actual suffering.
GENERAL CROOK.
The general has been heard from under date of the 2d. inst. He has followed the trail to the Little Missouri, without finding any Indians. The trail is found to split, showing that the parties have diverged in several directions. Gen. Crook thinks that the southern band may have moved backward toward the mountains; and he is somewhat apprehensive for his wagon train. It is expected that he will move in that direction with his men.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
YANKTON DAILY PRESS & DAKOTAIAN
Yankton, Dakota Territory
June 25,1878
PROTECTION AGAINST INDIANS.
–––––––––––
The Provisions Made By The Military For The Protection Of Routes To The Black Hills.
–––––––––––
Chicago Inter-Ocean.–General Terry further states that which will be hailed with pleasure by the settlements in southwesterb Dakota, namely: the thorough protection during the summer and autumn months of the Black Hills, and the roads to them from Bismarck and Fort Pierre, from attacks by hostile Indians. General Terry advises that the cavalry be disposed into scouting parties of such size as the circumstances may render most advantageous; and with them, to establish a thorough system of reconnoissance from the camp at Bear Butte in all directions – north, south, east, and northwest.
On the northwest, it will be unnecessary to extend the reconnoissance further than to connect them with those of the troops operating from a camp which has been established by General Crook, of the department of Platte, under the instructions of Lieut. General Sheridan, in the neighborhood of the Big Bend of the Little Missouri River, about eight miles northwest of Deadwood. To the north, it is recommended that reconnoisance be well pushed, and especially into the region about Slim Buttes, for that is believed to be a favorite rendezvous for hostile Sioux. The eastern and southeastern portion of the Black Hills regions, and the Bismarck and Fort Pierre roads will also require constant watching.
General Sturgis is ordered to concentrate his forces at the first indication of the gathering together of any considerable body of hostile Indians, and move speedily to attack them.
General Sheridan is also in receipt of a copy of the instructions of Gen. Terry , Gen. Nelson A. Miles, in reference to the precautions to be taken by the latter in the district of the Yellowstone, commanded by him, with headquarters at Fort Keogh. Gen. Terry states, under date of June 15, that under the instructions of Gen. Sheridan, Gen. Crook has established the camp on the Little Missouri at Big Bend, already referred to; and the the department commander directs
Gen. Miles to keep the country southeast of Fort Keogh thoroughly scouted by his troops, with instructions to connect the operations with Gen. Bradley’s expedition which will make a summer camp on the Little Missouri.
By the contracts or orders, it will be seen that the military are intending to make hot for any hostile bands of Indians that may find their way to the Yellowstone south of that river. The Black Hills country is to be thoroughly protected from the four points named, that is, from the Powder River, the Little Missouri, Bear Butte, and from Fort Keogh; and the first Indian that gets there will climb a tree sure.
One morning, as troops prepared to leave the Sheridan camp (originally called Golden City), they realized that one soldier was missing. A detachment of men ventured into the booming mining town to search for their missing comrade, but the man was not found. He was declared to be “absent without leave” (AWOL). The cavalry headed north, leaving the missing soldier behind.
The tale goes on to say that the missing soldier awoke from a sound sleep in an abandoned shack that he had stumbled upon. Finding an empty camp, the lost soldier figured that the rest of the group had left without him. Heading north, he caught up with the Cavalry at their next stopping point.
At this point in the story, the plot takes a twist. Freighters find the dead body of miner Norman McCully near Burnt Ranch, a few miles east of present-day Sheridan Lake, the area where the lost soldier had found the abandoned cabin.
It was believed that McCully was on his way from his gold claim to Rapid City, where he planned to deposit $3,000 in gold dust. Investigators initially believed that Indians had killed McCully, but then they discovered Cavalry boot tracks in the dirt around the body. Law officers set out to intercept Crook’s 5th Cavalry whom they knew to be traveling in the area. Commander Crook admitted that circumstances certainly pointed to the missing soldier as being McCully’s killer. He informed the lawmen that the lost soldier had already been arrested for being absent without leave and was subject only to federal authority. General Crook did, however, agree to present the murder evidence at the next session of the military court of inquiry.
The lawmen headed back from whence they came and the Cavalry pushed on to Fort Benton, where the soldier in question was put to work in a sawmill. When another worker brought up the topic of the mysterious murder, the soldier under suspicion became angry. Wishing to shut the other man up, the soldier threw the man into a circular saw, killing him instantly.
The other mill workers dished out some vigilante justice: they seized the soldier and hanged him. The soldier never did admit his involvement in McCully’s murder, but it was generally believed that he had killed the miner and buried the gold dust somewhere near Burnt Ranch, intending to someday come back for it.
The U.S. Congressional Record from 1968 tells the story like this:
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD: PROCEEDINGS & DEBATES OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
Volume 114; 1968
Camping near Sheridan Lake? Go down the valley about two miles to the site of the old Burnt Ranch mining camp, and see if you can find the $3,000 secreted by the murderer of Norman McCully.
McCully had prospered in the diggings near Sheridan and was on his way to Rapid City with his gold. Waylaid by a deserting soldier, he was murdered, and his gold hidden somewhere. The soldier, apprehended, could not be convicted of the murder, but was sentenced to a term in the guard house at Fort Benton, Montana, for desertion. Put to work in the prison sawmill, he was one day chided by a fellow convict about the suspected murder.
Without a word, the soldier seized his accuser and shoved him into the circular saw, “parting the man’s hair clear down to his navel.” The outraged sawmill gang hanged him from the rafters without pausing to inquire about the missing gold. It is still missing.
Like Cuthbert Ducharme’s buried hoard of gold, the Burnt Ranch lost gold is hidden somewhere in the Missouri hills or Haakon County buttes. It is claimed that McCully’s gold would be worth over $65,000 today. Volume 114 of the U.S. Congressional Record from 1968 also tells of two heavy boxes of gold hidden in Palmer Gulch:
How much would a box of gold coins that it took two men to lift, be worth? Well, there are two such boxes hidden in Palmer Gulch, probably somewhere near where the old Hill City-Keystone Road cuts across it. It seems that a prospector once lived in what is now Addie Camp – at least he prospected for the fun of it – and made his living growing vegetables to sell to other miners. The mines and the truck garden together were so profitable that he accumulated two big boxes of raw gold – boxes so heavy that when he headed up to Deadwood with them and stopped for the night at Pactola, he had to have help lifting them out of the wagon.
At Deadwood, he changed the raw gold for gold coin, and returned again to Palmer Gulch. It is said that he buried his gold somewhere in the area. Old Uncle Bill Gordon always used to think it was near the old Merle Hendricks place, later owned by Martin Kuehn, about a mile east of the Gulch along the old Hill City-Keystone road.
But listen! Frank Mills, a rancher in the area, once told a friend that he dreamed of riding past two great split rocks, and saw in his dream the corner of a wooden chest, exposed by a fall of loose rock. He never went to the place himself, though, probably because he really did not know where it was.
Perhaps Mills actually did once ride past those rocks and subconsciously noticed the wooden chest; and then later dreamed it. Do you know where there are some huge split rocks near Palmer Gulch, which might have two heavy boxes of gold nestled between them?
To narrow down the search site for the lost soldier’s stash, consider the fact that the Army had campsites at Sheridan and Pactola. The troopers were at Camp Sheridan when the event supposedly occurred. A person traveling on horseback from Fort Buford, North Dakota, would not wait to water his horse near Pactola or Sheridan, instead stopping at the site of old Scooptown, north of Sturgis, later a stage stop for the Deadwood Bismarck Stage.
(Haakon County, S.D.)
While researching this book, The Lost Treasures Of The Dakotas, I came across a story that could belong in The Lost Treasures Of The Black Hills book. But I decided to include the treasure tale in this book since this lost gold could be in either Pennington County or Haakon County, South Dakota, who share a common border.
This treasure story involves U.S. troops led by General George Crook; the unsolved death of a gold miner; and the unknown location of a cache of $3,000 in gold dust. At the beginning of the Black Hills gold rush (1876-1877), General Crook and his troops were charged with protecting gold miners and others pouring into the Black Hills.
YANKTON DAILY PRESS & DAKOTAIAN
Yankton, Dakota Territory
July 16, 1875
THE BLACK HILLS
–––––––––––
LATE ORDER FROM THE
WAR DEPARTMENT.
–––––––––––
A telegram was received by Gen. Crook yester-day from Gen. Sheridan, announcing the receipt of instructions from the War Department by Gen. Sherman, to the effect that no one is to be admitted to the Black Hills country until the result of the negotiations of the commissioners sent out to treat with the Sioux Indians is known. Gen. Crook at once sent orders to all officers in the department to see that these instructions are carried out to the letter.
Judging from the communication which we publish this morning from our correspondent now with the commissioners, the result of said negotiations may not be known for some time yet, and these orders from the War Department will certainly raise a good deal of excitement farther West, as miners are pouring into the Black Hills country by the hundreds.
─Omaha Herald, 15th.
Crook’s troops made regular trips between Fort Custer, South Dakota, and Fort Buford, North Dakota. The troops had camp sites established along the route where they could stop to feed and water their horses.
YANKTON DAILY PRESS & DAKOTAIAN
Yankton, Dakota Territory
September 12,1876
INDIAN NEWS.
–––––––––––
INDIANS DRIVE BACK
A COURIER.
–––––––––––
Cheyenne, Sept. 11.–Advices from telegraph camp near Hat Creek, this morning, state that the Indians drove back the government courier, who left Ft. Laramie with dispatches for Gen. Crook. He will make another start from Hat Creek this morning.
SUPPLIES FOR GEN. CROOK
Red Cloud Agency, Sept. 10. –This morning a supply train of about thirty wagons left this agency, escorted by three companies of the 4th Artillery, equipped as infantry, for Custer City, about eighty miles distant. The supplies are for Crook’s command, which is expected to be there the 14th. inst.
For two days past, the Indian Commission has been quietly awaiting developments. It is hoped that Red Cloud will be prepared to make some response tomorrow to the propositions made by the commission on the 7th.
A number of Indians from Spotted Tail Agency came in yesterday. It is said the Indians at this agency are awaiting Spotted Tail himself, and that whatever he favors they will do.
THE NEW FORT.
St. Paul, Sept. 11. –A Pioneer Press special dated Sioux expedition camp, at the mouth of Glendive Creek, Sept. 5, via Bismarck, D.T., Sept. 11, says the recent order of Gen. Sheridan, designating the 5th infantry and a battalion of the 22nd as garrison of the new post, and directing these troops to put themselves ready for winter, has practically put an end to the campaign for this season, so far as the Dakota column is concerned.
Navigation of the Yellowstone has suddenly closed by the rapidly falling water, and supplies for the new post must be hauled in wagons from Fort Buford. The question of subsistence for the troops who are to remain has become so grave that all supplies brought up for the active column must be devoted to the use of the cantonment in order to provide against the danger of actual suffering.
GENERAL CROOK.
The general has been heard from under date of the 2d. inst. He has followed the trail to the Little Missouri, without finding any Indians. The trail is found to split, showing that the parties have diverged in several directions. Gen. Crook thinks that the southern band may have moved backward toward the mountains; and he is somewhat apprehensive for his wagon train. It is expected that he will move in that direction with his men.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
YANKTON DAILY PRESS & DAKOTAIAN
Yankton, Dakota Territory
June 25,1878
PROTECTION AGAINST INDIANS.
–––––––––––
The Provisions Made By The Military For The Protection Of Routes To The Black Hills.
–––––––––––
Chicago Inter-Ocean.–General Terry further states that which will be hailed with pleasure by the settlements in southwesterb Dakota, namely: the thorough protection during the summer and autumn months of the Black Hills, and the roads to them from Bismarck and Fort Pierre, from attacks by hostile Indians. General Terry advises that the cavalry be disposed into scouting parties of such size as the circumstances may render most advantageous; and with them, to establish a thorough system of reconnoissance from the camp at Bear Butte in all directions – north, south, east, and northwest.
On the northwest, it will be unnecessary to extend the reconnoissance further than to connect them with those of the troops operating from a camp which has been established by General Crook, of the department of Platte, under the instructions of Lieut. General Sheridan, in the neighborhood of the Big Bend of the Little Missouri River, about eight miles northwest of Deadwood. To the north, it is recommended that reconnoisance be well pushed, and especially into the region about Slim Buttes, for that is believed to be a favorite rendezvous for hostile Sioux. The eastern and southeastern portion of the Black Hills regions, and the Bismarck and Fort Pierre roads will also require constant watching.
General Sturgis is ordered to concentrate his forces at the first indication of the gathering together of any considerable body of hostile Indians, and move speedily to attack them.
General Sheridan is also in receipt of a copy of the instructions of Gen. Terry , Gen. Nelson A. Miles, in reference to the precautions to be taken by the latter in the district of the Yellowstone, commanded by him, with headquarters at Fort Keogh. Gen. Terry states, under date of June 15, that under the instructions of Gen. Sheridan, Gen. Crook has established the camp on the Little Missouri at Big Bend, already referred to; and the the department commander directs
Gen. Miles to keep the country southeast of Fort Keogh thoroughly scouted by his troops, with instructions to connect the operations with Gen. Bradley’s expedition which will make a summer camp on the Little Missouri.
By the contracts or orders, it will be seen that the military are intending to make hot for any hostile bands of Indians that may find their way to the Yellowstone south of that river. The Black Hills country is to be thoroughly protected from the four points named, that is, from the Powder River, the Little Missouri, Bear Butte, and from Fort Keogh; and the first Indian that gets there will climb a tree sure.
One morning, as troops prepared to leave the Sheridan camp (originally called Golden City), they realized that one soldier was missing. A detachment of men ventured into the booming mining town to search for their missing comrade, but the man was not found. He was declared to be “absent without leave” (AWOL). The cavalry headed north, leaving the missing soldier behind.
The tale goes on to say that the missing soldier awoke from a sound sleep in an abandoned shack that he had stumbled upon. Finding an empty camp, the lost soldier figured that the rest of the group had left without him. Heading north, he caught up with the Cavalry at their next stopping point.
At this point in the story, the plot takes a twist. Freighters find the dead body of miner Norman McCully near Burnt Ranch, a few miles east of present-day Sheridan Lake, the area where the lost soldier had found the abandoned cabin.
It was believed that McCully was on his way from his gold claim to Rapid City, where he planned to deposit $3,000 in gold dust. Investigators initially believed that Indians had killed McCully, but then they discovered Cavalry boot tracks in the dirt around the body. Law officers set out to intercept Crook’s 5th Cavalry whom they knew to be traveling in the area. Commander Crook admitted that circumstances certainly pointed to the missing soldier as being McCully’s killer. He informed the lawmen that the lost soldier had already been arrested for being absent without leave and was subject only to federal authority. General Crook did, however, agree to present the murder evidence at the next session of the military court of inquiry.
The lawmen headed back from whence they came and the Cavalry pushed on to Fort Benton, where the soldier in question was put to work in a sawmill. When another worker brought up the topic of the mysterious murder, the soldier under suspicion became angry. Wishing to shut the other man up, the soldier threw the man into a circular saw, killing him instantly.
The other mill workers dished out some vigilante justice: they seized the soldier and hanged him. The soldier never did admit his involvement in McCully’s murder, but it was generally believed that he had killed the miner and buried the gold dust somewhere near Burnt Ranch, intending to someday come back for it.
The U.S. Congressional Record from 1968 tells the story like this:
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD: PROCEEDINGS & DEBATES OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
Volume 114; 1968
Camping near Sheridan Lake? Go down the valley about two miles to the site of the old Burnt Ranch mining camp, and see if you can find the $3,000 secreted by the murderer of Norman McCully.
McCully had prospered in the diggings near Sheridan and was on his way to Rapid City with his gold. Waylaid by a deserting soldier, he was murdered, and his gold hidden somewhere. The soldier, apprehended, could not be convicted of the murder, but was sentenced to a term in the guard house at Fort Benton, Montana, for desertion. Put to work in the prison sawmill, he was one day chided by a fellow convict about the suspected murder.
Without a word, the soldier seized his accuser and shoved him into the circular saw, “parting the man’s hair clear down to his navel.” The outraged sawmill gang hanged him from the rafters without pausing to inquire about the missing gold. It is still missing.
Like Cuthbert Ducharme’s buried hoard of gold, the Burnt Ranch lost gold is hidden somewhere in the Missouri hills or Haakon County buttes. It is claimed that McCully’s gold would be worth over $65,000 today. Volume 114 of the U.S. Congressional Record from 1968 also tells of two heavy boxes of gold hidden in Palmer Gulch:
How much would a box of gold coins that it took two men to lift, be worth? Well, there are two such boxes hidden in Palmer Gulch, probably somewhere near where the old Hill City-Keystone Road cuts across it. It seems that a prospector once lived in what is now Addie Camp – at least he prospected for the fun of it – and made his living growing vegetables to sell to other miners. The mines and the truck garden together were so profitable that he accumulated two big boxes of raw gold – boxes so heavy that when he headed up to Deadwood with them and stopped for the night at Pactola, he had to have help lifting them out of the wagon.
At Deadwood, he changed the raw gold for gold coin, and returned again to Palmer Gulch. It is said that he buried his gold somewhere in the area. Old Uncle Bill Gordon always used to think it was near the old Merle Hendricks place, later owned by Martin Kuehn, about a mile east of the Gulch along the old Hill City-Keystone road.
But listen! Frank Mills, a rancher in the area, once told a friend that he dreamed of riding past two great split rocks, and saw in his dream the corner of a wooden chest, exposed by a fall of loose rock. He never went to the place himself, though, probably because he really did not know where it was.
Perhaps Mills actually did once ride past those rocks and subconsciously noticed the wooden chest; and then later dreamed it. Do you know where there are some huge split rocks near Palmer Gulch, which might have two heavy boxes of gold nestled between them?
To narrow down the search site for the lost soldier’s stash, consider the fact that the Army had campsites at Sheridan and Pactola. The troopers were at Camp Sheridan when the event supposedly occurred. A person traveling on horseback from Fort Buford, North Dakota, would not wait to water his horse near Pactola or Sheridan, instead stopping at the site of old Scooptown, north of Sturgis, later a stage stop for the Deadwood Bismarck Stage.
