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| Nathanial Rudolphus and Mathilda Anderson Burns Bennett |
The memory of Rodolphus Bennett told by his daughter Effie
In August, 1871 or 1872, a band of Indians riding some horses they had stolen from the bishop came across the hills to Fairview where my Grandfather and two other men were taking the town herd home to Fairview. It was a dark rainy night and as the herders passed a stone quarry, at the point of a hill near the river they were fired upon by some of the Indians lying in ambush. My Grandfather, Peter Larsen Sr., saw one of the Indians just as he was firing, he jumped just in time to save his life but was shot in the hand and an arrow pierced the back of his neck. He mounted his horse and rode for home where his wounds were treated. One of the men made it home but died a few days later. In one instance, in the early spring of 1866. Mr. Bennett with his Captain, caught nine Black Hawk Indians, and put them in the jail at Manti, Utah. About April 14, they broke jail, three of them being killed while trying to escape, the others going as far North as Fountain Green, then called Uinta, going into the mountains on the West. On April 18 Chief Sanpitch was killed in Birch Creek Canyon. Mr. Bennett and others followed the other Indians until dark that night. The next day he was detailed with others to take up the tracks. They followed on over the big mountains south east of Nephi, over taking one Indian, and killing him. Four miles farther on they over took another one. (This was an Indian called Tankwitch). Mr. Bennett had a hand to hand fight with this one, he having a big butcher knife and Mr. Bennett a pistol. Kill or be killed, Mr. Bennett finally killed him. Not long after, they were sent to surround a camp of Black Hawk warriors in Juab Valley, where they captured a number of them, killing five.
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