Post by elisabeth on May 20, 2006 7:16:57 GMT -6
Just a trivia snippet, really, but (I think) a fascinating sidelight onto what people were doing when not fighting Indians.
In 1867 Fort Wallace earned a place in history for more than just (a) the Barnitz fight and (b) its role in the events leading up to Custer's court-martial. It has a third claim to fame, as well. The post surgeon, Dr. Theophilus H. Turner, was responsible for one of the most celebrated US fossil finds of the 19th century!
Here's the story:
www.oceansofkansas.com/Tale-tail.html
Primitive as it was, Fort Wallace must have been a most remarkable place in those early years. It had Lt. Fred Beecher, son of Henry Ward Beecher and nephew of Harriet Beecher Stowe. It had Will Comstock, grand-nephew of James Fenimore Cooper. It had an orchestra. It had a library. Its graveyard had (am I right, Billy?) the only proper monument to the fallen in any of the frontier forts. It contributed perhaps the most famous photograph in Old West history, the Wyllyams one. And it had Dr. Turner doing this astounding work -- only, what, eight years after Darwin's Origin of Species was published. Quite something, really ...
In 1867 Fort Wallace earned a place in history for more than just (a) the Barnitz fight and (b) its role in the events leading up to Custer's court-martial. It has a third claim to fame, as well. The post surgeon, Dr. Theophilus H. Turner, was responsible for one of the most celebrated US fossil finds of the 19th century!
Here's the story:
www.oceansofkansas.com/Tale-tail.html
Primitive as it was, Fort Wallace must have been a most remarkable place in those early years. It had Lt. Fred Beecher, son of Henry Ward Beecher and nephew of Harriet Beecher Stowe. It had Will Comstock, grand-nephew of James Fenimore Cooper. It had an orchestra. It had a library. Its graveyard had (am I right, Billy?) the only proper monument to the fallen in any of the frontier forts. It contributed perhaps the most famous photograph in Old West history, the Wyllyams one. And it had Dr. Turner doing this astounding work -- only, what, eight years after Darwin's Origin of Species was published. Quite something, really ...