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Show I ADVENTUROUS I AMERICANS By Elmo Scott Watson A Frontier Paul Revere TAMES WATSON WEBB was the " famous editor of the New York Courier and Enquirer who also had a career as a politician and diplomat. diplo-mat. But he deserves more honor for a daring exploit which he performed per-formed as a young man on the Illinois Illi-nois frontier. The scion of an old New York family, Webb ran away from home at the age of 17 and went to Washington where he persuaded John C. Calhoun, secretary of war, to give him a commission in the army. In October, 1821, young Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Webb was sent to join the garrison garri-son at Fort Dearborn. In the middle mid-dle of the winter John Kinzie, the Indian agent at Chicago, reported to the commander that the Sioux and Foxe Indians were plotting to surprise and massacre the garrison at Fort Snelling the next spring. Colonel McNeil immediately called for volunteers to carry the news of the plot to Fort Armstrong (near Rock Island, 111.) so that word could be sent up the river to Fort Snelling. Lieut. Webb offered to make the Journey. Accompanied by a sergeant and a Pottawatomie guide, he set out early in February. He intended to go first to the post of a French trader on the Rock river and there secure a Winnebago Win-nebago guide. But when he reached the post he found the Winnebagoes holding war dances. So Webb and the sergeant cautiously circled around the camp and headed toward Fort Armstrong. The weather was bitterly cold and the two men faced the danger of perishing in the raging blizzard. But in spite of this they reached Fort Armstrong in safety. As a result of their trip, the commander at Fort Snelling so reinforced his post that the Indians did not dare attack and a possible massacre was averted. A Safety-Minded Adventurer THE Colorado river was referred to as a "mysterious monster" until Maj. J. W. Powell made the first authentic survey of its canyons in 1869. It lured many daring adventurers ad-venturers to their death both before and after his first expedition. Strangely enough, Powell was a scholar and not an adventurer by purpose. Even when he made his successful journey down the river, it was his methodical preciseness rather than engineering or navigating navigat-ing ability that brought success. The Colorado descends an average of more than eight feet each mile and makes this drop by a series of rapids. It rages through canyons with perpendicular walls that often tower several thousand feet. Powell never ran into anything dangerous when he could avoid It. Being a geologist and not a navigator, naviga-tor, he beached his boat and sent men along the cataract walls to re-connoiter re-connoiter the rapids ahead before he attempted to descend them. Powell's Pow-ell's methods were so successful that he is one of only a few who ever made expeditions down the Colorado Col-orado without losing a single life. He traveled the Colorado from the Green river in Wyoming to Virgin canyon below the Grand canyon, bringing back the first authentic information in-formation about that natural wonder. Although he was a professor of geology at Illinois Wesleyan university univer-sity and had had no navigating experience ex-perience before his first venture, he designed boats that became models for Colorado river work. Major Powell was a paradox a cautious man whose motto was "safety first" and yet he was one of America's greatest adventurers. King Strang IN 1847 James Jesse Strang and the first two names are in the proper order! led a colony from Voree, near LaCrosse, Wis., to the Beaver islands just west of Traverse Trav-erse bay in Lower Michigan. There he set up a "kingdom" over which he ruled with an iron hand. He was a picturesque figure with his flaming whiskers almost as red as the kingly robe he wore. Not only did he dispense his own cruel brand of justice to the people in his colony but he constanUy made war on the Irish fishermen on the mainland and often pillaged their homes. Finally he became so bold that President Fillmore issued a warrant for his arrest on a charge of treason for setting up an independent inde-pendent government within the United Unit-ed States. For some unknown reason rea-son he was not found guilty and returned re-turned to his "kingdom." But his downfall was not long in coming. He made a law that all women were to wear short skirts with baggy bloomers. When Mrs. Thomas Bedford refused, her husband hus-band was flogged for upholding her refusal. This was a fatal mistake. . For Bedford and another man who had been flogged at the same time, waylaid their hated monarch and , shot him. He was taken back to die of his wounds at Voree and the people peo-ple of his "kingdom" were driven away from their island by the inhabitants in-habitants of the Michigan mainland. e Western Newspaper Union. |