JOHN WILLIAMSON

[Published in The Columbus Journal on September 1, 1901]

Another old-timer in this vicinity is John Williamson of Genoa, who fought with the Pawnees in their last battle with the Sioux on the Republican river in Kansas in 1873. Williamson has been a resident of Genoa for nearly forty years. He was a great favorite of old "Fighting Bear" of the Pawnee Chiefs, who made Williamson his confidant and told him many stories of his career as a warrior against the Sioux and Cheyenne. It was from the old chief's own lips that Williamson was told about the tragedy at Ash Hollow, or Rawhide Creek, as it was later called. It was in the fifties that three Ohio men on their way to California, while passing along the trail near Ash Hollow noticed a Pawnee squaw washing blankets on the bank of the creek. One of the men had previously expressed his determination to shoot the first Indian he saw after crossing the Missouri, and when one of his companions reminded him of what he had said, he raised his gun and fired. The woman fell dead. The companions of the murder were horror stricken at the crime, but finally agreed to keep the matter a secret, and hurried away. That evening twenty miles from the scene of the tragedy, they were overtaken by a band of Pawnees and conducted back to Ash Hollow. After threatening to kill all of them, if the guilty one was not pointed out, the murderer confessed. After hearing the confession, the Indians pronounced the death penalty, and the form of execution was by skinning the criminal alive. The self-confessed murderer was immediately suspended from the limb of a tree by his feet and his hands tied to stakes driven into the ground. Then his tongue was cut out and his executions commenced at his feet and slowly proceeded to skin him, in the same manner that a butcher skins a beef. Before the job was completed the man had passed away. The remains were then cut into pieces and fed to the dogs. During the execution, the companions of the victim were compelled to witness the horrible butchery, but were later released, and told to leave the neighborhood at once.