Back in Kansas, her father, Thomas Watson, hears about her
murder, from reading about it in the Omaha Bee, the newspaper from Omaha, Nebraska. He sets down and writes to Bothwell about it and
gets no reply. Ralph Coe sends him a letter about the situation.
Ella’s mother, Frances Watson, was beside herself, and it almost
did her in, when she heard about her oldest daughters death.
Thomas Watson decided to make that long trip out to Wyoming to
the inquest and maybe a trail. One of the neighboring wives,
came over and agreed to set with Frances and help take care of the children that were still at home, while Thomas was gone.
Thomas took the train from Red Cloud, to Rock Springs, Wyoming, about a hundred miles west of Rawlings being about a two-day trip from Kansas,
and stayed in a hotel there, under an assumed name. He had to
take the train back to Rawlins and look up George W Durant, the
court appointed Administrator of Ellen Watson, and Jim Averell’s
estates. Durant was appointed her administrator on August 5, 1889.
The following is the excerpts from Thomas Watson's interview with the newspaper
in Rock Springs, Wyoming:
"I am 52 years of age, and have a wife and nine children living. She (Ellen) was with us for the last time nearly two months, June and July, a year ago (1888). We were always in regular correspondence with her.
In answers to my questions as to how she made a living on her
ranch. She said she worked part of the time for Averell and she
had saved considerable money while working out before she located
her claim. I read the first account of the hanging of my daughter
in the Omaha Bee. I wrote the postmaster at Sweetwater for
particulars. I received no answer from him, but had a letter from
young Cole, to whom Bothwell, the Postmaster turned over my
letter. Cole is now dead, and Bothwell is accused of being one of
the ones, who murdered my child. In his letter Cole referred me
to George W Durant, the administrator appointed for the estate. I
opened communications with Durant, and as a sequence I arrived in
Rawlins on the 26th of August.
On the following day I
accompanied Durant to Ellen’s ranch and served as clerk at the
sale of her property. In that country I traveled under a assumed
name and no one knew I was the father of Ellen, the murdered girl.
Two ponies and eight head of stock were sold, together with the
improvements on the ranch. Ellen’s brands recorded in Rawlins.
She had sixty acres under a three-wire fence strung on strong
cedar posts. The fence on the east and west sides was torn down
and Bothwell’s cattle were running over everything and
everywhere. At the time she was forcibly taken from her home and
hanged, she was building a new log house and some of the doors
and windows were in. It is situated at least 1-1/2 miles from
Averell’s. Ellen lived alone, with no one about her premises,
except a young boy DeCory, 14 years of age, to whom she was
paying wages. She had about forty head of young stock running in
her pasture, which the devils who took her life drove away.
I am told, The Wyoming Stockgrowers Association got them after the lynchers had committed their bloody work.
After Durant went away, I remained in Averell’s ranch all day
Sunday alone. In the afternoon, I rode to the very spot where my
Ellen was strangled to death, and saw the limb of the tree over
which the rope was thrown. The bark is abraded and plainly shows
the mark of their fiendish work. Underneath the limb, a little
to one side, stands a rock, from which they no doubt were shoved
off after the ropes were adjusted around their necks. The tree
stands at the head of a rocky canyon, a weird looking place, about
two miles from Ellen’s ranch.
J.L. Sapp, who was Bothwell’s
foreman, on learning what had taken place, raised a vigorous howl
against such unjust and unlawful procedure, which of course
precipitated a quarrel with Bothwell. Sapp, however, held his
own, organized a posse of friends, cut down the bodies after they
had been hanging over twenty-four hours and have the remains of
both a decent burial. Side by side they lie near Averell’s house.
I visited Bothwell’s ranch, but failed to find him at home. I
also called at the head quarters of the Sweetwater Chief, a sheet
published where there are two houses and a vacant town sight. I met Fetz, the presumable editor, and Speers, the supposed
associate editor. With the latter, I entered into conversation.
After some hesitation and evasim, he pointed his finger to the
very spot where the lynching was done, and when I informed him I
had just come from there, his curiosity became aroused and he drew
himself within his shell. Both his looks and his actions excited
suspicion within me, but further probing on my part could elicit
no response about the hanging. He informed me that Cole had died
from the effects of an operation that had been performed for the
mumps.
After my interview with Speers, I returned to Rawlins."
The following is from the letter sent to Lebanon Times in Kansas
from Thomas Watson in Aug 1889.
Sweetwater News:
"I thought I would send you a few lines as to how I found
everything out here. After two days travel on the cars I arrived
at Rawlings and inquired for Mr. Durant, the Administrator or my
daughters Ellen’s estate and found him in the office of an
attorney by the name of Smith. After having a friendly chat with
him, he showed me the principal parts of the city. We visited the
leading business houses of the day, among them the Journal,
office of the leading newspaper in Carbon County.
During the afternoon I happened to meet several citizens of the
city and was informed that they would like to see me in the
evening at the city hall. I promised to meet them in the evening.
I went and heard what they had to say. The chairman of the
meeting after calling it to order, said that the hanging of Ellen
Watson and James Averell was one of the most cold-blooded murders
on record, and that something must be done to prevent such
crimes. A fund was started to bring these criminals to justice
and there was $75 raised and $100 subscribed that evening.
The next morning I took the stage for Sweetwater. After arriving
there,(at Averell’s ranch), I visited the graves of the dead, and
could not help but weep to think of the kind of death she (Ellen)
had come to.
In company with the administrator, I went to see my daughter’s
land. It is a quarter section with 60 acres fenced; has a creek
running through it called Horse Creek, also an irrigation ditch
running the entire length. She had two houses on her claim and
was about to move into one she had just built at the time she was
taken away and hanged. Her cattle and household goods were sold
to pay her debts which mounted to about $100.
Next day I took a pony that formally belonged to my daughter and
visited the place where she was hanged. It is on the south side
of the Sweetwater where a small cannon runs up into the rocks and
at a point where some small pine are growing at the head of the
cannon. After going around a little I came upon the very
identical tree she was hanged on. It was a pine tree whose same
rocks raised out of the ground, about four feet high, near a
large limb that extended out from the tree over the rocks and from
what I could learn, it was from off this very rock they were
swung into eternity. I visited the sodo lakes around the
neighborhood. Some of these lakes are crusted about five inches
thick around the sides.
Today I went into the office of the Chief, a paper published in
the interests of the cattlemen and after having a talk with the
editor, found that he was from Red Cloud, Nebraska. He gave me a
hearty welcome, when I informed him that I was near the same
place. I will close for now." Thomas Watson.
The following information is from George Hufsmith's book,The Wyoming Lynching of Cattle Kate, 1889.
While at the Averell’s ranch Thomas was accompanied by Stewart
Joe Sharp and Bothwell’s foreman, J.L. Sapp. who showed Thomas the
graves of his daughter and Jim Averell. Ruth Beebe, Joe Sharps
youngest daughter, very well recalls her father telling about
that sorrowful moment: "When they arrived at the gravesite,
Ellen’s father slowly let himself down off his horse and stood
silently looking down with his eyes fixed on the large, soft
mound of dirt and, for a very long time, he just kept on staring
down at his daughter’s grave. He then turned to my father (Joe
Sharp) and chokingly said: "I wish my little girl had listened to
her mother. She told her not to leave home. If she had listened
to her mother, she wouldn’t be buried here today". Then he
suddenly lost all composure and began sobbing uncontrollably. His
poor little girl, his first-born baby lay murdered under all that
soft, fresh dirt.
The forty head of cattle that Ellen had was stolen by Durbin and
Bothwell a few days after her lynching. They split the cattle
among both of them, and rebranded them, and sold them in Cheyenne at the
stock market there. Since they were hot cattle, they only brought
about a dollar a head. George Durant as administrator of Ellen’s
estate sued both Durbin and Bothwell to recover the combined
value of the cattle, the destruction of property, court costs and
legal fees in the amount of $1,100 as compensation to her estate.
I do not think he ever got any of the money. They probably just
laughed at him.
In the same year as the lynching, both Albert Bothwell and Tom Sun were made members of the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association Executive Committee and Captain Galbraith elected to the legislature, just as if the lynchings had never happened. John Durbin served one year on the committee with his two neighbors in 1894. Albert J Bothwell and Tom Sun were best of friends all of their lives, after the lynchings. I believe they stayed friends so one of them wouldn't tell the truth, what really happened that day. Tom Sun made his own children believe the story. Even today, they think she was a criminal. They even believe she was a prostitute and giving favors to cowhands for cattle. The trouble is, Tom Sun lived near Split Rock, out of view and several miles from where Ellen and Jim Lived. I do not believe personally that Tom Sun knew the two that well. I think he only met them that one day. He may of read some of Jim Averell's articles in the Casper newspaper. He probably knew where Jim's roadhouse was, since it was located in a very good location to the different roads that passed by it. He might have even had a beer or two there. No one knows for sure, how well he knew them.
Thomas was the clerk at his daughter’s estate sale. The following
is the contents of her house: 2 Cows and calves, 1 cow, 1 two
year old steer, 4 yearlings, 1 pony, 1 mare and colt, 15
chickens, 1 cook stove and furniture, 1 heating stove, 4 doors, 5
windows, 1 bedspread and bedding, dishes and kitchen utensils, 1
grind stone, 1 hoe, 1 rake, 1 clock, 1 sewing machine, 1 dining
table, 1 starred quilt, 6 chairs, 1 sidesaddle, 1 hanging lamp,
set of knives and forks, 1 set of bracelets, 1 breast pin & ear
bobs,2 finger rings, 1 chain,1 trunk and contents, 1 log house on
claim, wire fence on claim, about 200 feet of boarding.
Everything was sold except for her jewelry and clothes and sewing
machine (which I have today). She also had a trunk, that he
brought her clothes home in. Since she had a sewing machine, she
made her clothes, and since she had a side saddle, that was the
way she rode her horses.
After the inquest and trial was over, Thomas Watson packed
Ellen's things up that he didn’t sale and headed home. While he was
in Wyoming, he was threatened by the cattlemen who did the
lynching. They told him, that he would end up the same way his
daughter did, if he didn’t leave the country, and never come
back. He also was told not to say anything about what had happened in Wyoming. He went back home, probably scared, and when he returned
home, he told all of his other children that were at home, never
to mention Ellen’s name again, as long as he and their mother were alive. He did this to protect his family’s lives. They never did, ever mention their sisters name again. Thomas burned a lot of her letters, and
some of her other things, including some of her clothes. They
used her sewing machine in the family and passed it down to one
of the siblings. I received it later on. Her trunk is still in
the family. One of her grand nieces still has it. Her cupboard that she once owned, is in a museum in Wyoming.
Her moccasins she wore at her lynching are in the Wyoming State Museum, in Cheyenne.
A few years after Ella’s death, Bothwell finally acquired her
land, and one of Jim Averell’s homesteads. He moved his house onto
her homestead claim. He Moved his log home from its original
location by rolling the building on logs. His actual ranch house had three rooms and was
situated at the northwest edge of the town of Bothwell, adjacent
to Steamboat Rock. He finally got what he wanted. The ditches
she dug are still there and they use them today, to irrigate the
pasture fields. As for Ellen’s log cabin, according to Stanford,
who later bought the Bothwell place, stated that her house was
used for the ranch’s new, modern Lolley light plant, which
generated electricity for the ranch buildings and before that it
was used as a one-room schoolhouse. Sometime, probably in the
middle twenties, Ellen’s house caught fire and burned to the
ground.
Averell’s icehouse was not log, but a unique two-room frame
building. It was moved to the Sanford complex, and some have
confused it with Ellen’s homestead cabin. Averell’s icehouse
finally became too unstable, and the Sanford’s tore it down about
1921. After Bothwell moved his house over to Ellen’s and
Averell’s final homestead property, the house was expanded by
abutting several other log houses up against it. The Sanfords
occupied Bothwell’s expanded ranch house for several decades, but
tore down the wolf pen. After several years the ranch house was
torn down, and a new ranch house was built in its place. Today
the ranch house sets on the Pathfinder Ranch lands. The ranch
house sets on Jim Averell and Ella Watson’s original homesteads
sites.
News of the Averell-Watson Hanging
We received a letter Monday from Thomas Watson, dated at
Sweetwater, Wyoming, August 30, 1889, which we give below:
Get Your Own Free Home Page