The Kelly-Larimer Train: One of Many Murders on the Oregon Trail
It All Started With One Woman’s Scream
In 1864, the Oregon and Overland Trails through the Laramie Mountains in Converse County, Wyoming ignited in guerrilla warfare almost instantaneously on July 12, lasting through to July 14. Read on to learn who else got swept up in the action…
*As heard on “Wake Up Wyoming” with Glenn Woods (November 2022).
*Please note: the following article contains graphic descriptions that may be disturbing to readers.*
As five covered wagons in the Kelly-Larimer Train from Kansas wound through the northern stretch of the “Big Bend” in the North Platte River, they were confronted by an extremely large, mixed band of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe who appeared to be dressed for war. The chief amongst them promised the fearful families that the three hundred warriors with him were in the area for hunting and that they had no ill intentions.
All was well on the evening of July 12. Two hours before sundown, they spoke. They shook hands. They made trades.
Then, various detachments of the Native American army broke up and continued south while the chief and others who remained led the five wagons into the meadow valley of Little Box Elder where Sarah Larimer could hardly take her eyes off nature’s beauty and refreshment.
There, the chief requested dinner accommodations for his men. While the men in the train obliged and started the camp meal, the two women (Fanny Kelly and Sarah Larimer) remained inside their wagons with their children. When one Native man reached for William Larimer’s gun, near where Sarah sat, she protested. (In her 1870s memoir, Sarah admits to this response, but does not go into detail about exactly how she protested.)
With One Wrong Move…
In the next instant, three men were shot with bullets, pinned with arrows, and had their heads scalped and skulls crushed. Two more were wounded, but able to flee the scene with another two. The women and their two children were left standing amongst the deceased — both husbands having left them at the scene of sudden violence.
Death Toll: 3
Coming up along the trail, witnessing the scene, were the Morris and Hastings families with hired hands and some lone travelers, including a Canadian named Arthur Wright. Later reminiscences tell of seeing the wreckage and glowing ashes of burning wagons. These wagons were chased from the scene and arrows rained down on them; some passing through the shirt sleeve of Mrs. Morris’ youngest child. Others were sent into Arthur Wright, turning him into a roadside pincushion (some accounts say ninety arrows were pulled from his body prior to burial).
Death Toll: 4
That evening, the women and children of the Kelly-Larimer train were set on horseback and taken by the Natives in the direction of the Powder River region, north of the area. Right away, Fanny Kelly dropped her adopted daughter Mary Hurley Kelly (who is actually her niece) down to the ground with instructions to save her own life.
Little Mary Did As Told
She found her way back to the trail near the creek. There, she was seen by some soldiers passing the area, waving and calling for help. They did not respond to her cries. Some accounts claim they thought she was part of the Indians’ trick to draw them near and into an ambush. (Further research reveals they were delivering wages and whisky to Deer Creek Garrison from Fort Laramie — a precious cargo that they did not wish to risk losing by getting involved.)
The men who pursued their lost captive capitalized on her location reveal and sent whizzing arrows into her while her hands were still held high.
Death Toll: 5
Finding The Bodies
On the morning of July 13, survivors Josiah Kelly and his employee Andy, met up with the Morrises at Le Prele Creek. On July 14, they returned to the tragic scene and collected the bodies of those lost: Noah Taylor, Franklin NLN, Rev. Sharp, and Arthur Wright. (Some writers have given Franklin a last name, though there is no empirical evidence to support the add-on, nor is his full name ever provided by future memoirists and kidnappees, Sarah Larimer and Fanny Kelly.)
The search party also found the two wounded men who lay in hiding: Gardner Wakefield and William Larimer.
Mary was believed to still be alive and with her kidnappers at this time. She was not sought for, though her remains were right under their noses. Also, just up ahead was the body of yet another traveler: an employee with Jacob Hastings’ family. Like Mary, he was not sought after or discovered by the search party either, since they were unaware of his death out beyond the immediate scene.
Death Toll: 6
Though he initially survived, Gardner never made it home to his family. He died a few months later in Glenrock from arrowhead wounds.
Death Toll: 7
Buried By The Wayside
Days later, passing the area, the Hawley family detoured from the Granger Train and found Mary’s body by accident. Another traveler, George Forman recorded that the dogs in the train were first to spot the rotting corpse (and even tore into it). Yet another traveler, Julius Merrill, detailed in his journal that Mary’s skull was cleaved by a tomahawk, then her light-colored hair scraped clean off. Julius offered no aid to the young girl’s burial, allowing George and the Hawleys in the Granger Train to do so while he moved on.
Their grave locations and the site of the July 12 incident are marked for the curious, though they remain on private property and are not to be disturbed.
But That’s Not All…
While this well-told tale has gained plenty of attention since 1864, the bigger reveal is how the seven lives lost in this one-night, single-location summary are only a drop in the bucket. The running death toll is actually much higher.
That’s right… During the Platte River Raids of July 1864, there were more attacks, more murders, more battles between the Native tribes and emigrants, and even battles and chases between emigrants and the Union Army!
The extent of horrors stretched from just out of reach of the Deer Creek Garrison (near Glenrock, WY), south to just out of reach of Fort Laramie. There is even a plot twist where one emigrant family tries to overtake and kill the family ahead of them. (Yikes!)
Using trail diaries, letters, and other records from travelers on the road, and with the help of living descendants from the families mentioned (and others), there is now a running tally of fifty traveling parties who got swept up into the dangerously laid out and calculated attacks in the “Black Hills of Idaho Territory” that week.
More on this story — as told by first-person eyewitnesses and related source material — will soon be made public through the forthcoming nonfiction trail diary companion, Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids.
Learn more:
- Read about which famous Wild West legend survived the attacks in 1864: More Than Massacres by Janelle Molony
- Read the memoir of Fanny Kelly (FREE digital copy)
- Read the memoir of Sarah Larimer (FREE digital copy)
- Read the journal of Julius Merrill (transcribed by Irving Merrill)
- Read the journal of George Forman (transcribed by Dean Galliver, housed at the American Heritage Center)
- Read a related article from WyomingHistory.org
- Read a related article from LegendsOfAmerica.com
- Read about the legal battle between Larimer and Kelly after escaping
See more from the author by following on Medium and on social media. More publications by Molony can be found on her official author webpage.
