A couple of weeks ago Kevyn Mack of the White River Museum produced Letter No. 56. Correspondence between Nathan Meeker and E.A. Hayt, commissioner, Indian Affairs. On July 2, 1879, the commissioner had approved the appointment of five employees and mentioned two resignations: Edgar E. Clark and James S. Fullerton.
This brief note about the two Agency employees, struck my boss, Niki, as something worthy of some ink. Reading our local history, most of us are left with the impression the 10 victims were employees killed at the Powell Park Agency.
Two of the dead were not even employees. They were teamsters (hired freight wagon drivers). They had the bad timing to be on the road bringing goods from Rawlins, Wyoming. They were killed six miles away from Powell Park. One teamster was bringing supplies and the other a new threshing machine. Nathan Meeker, the optimist, had convinced Washington that he needed a threshing machine. Nathan claimed that they would soon have big acreage plowed and in grain production. He was probably talking about the race track pasture that sparked an angry response from the Utes. I will cover my nomination of N. C. Meeker as Diplomat of the Year Award in a story later. This story is about those few Agency workers who dodged the bullet in 1879 and lived to tell the tale.
Edgar Clark was one of those lucky ones. Edgar E. Clark was working as a laborer until he resigned on April 30, 1879. Edgar was one of many recruits Agent Meeker brought up from his old stomping grounds, the Greeley Colony. Edgar’s job as laborer was listed as paying $720 a year. I will presume that his resignation had something to do with his very pregnant wife Adele back in Greeley. Following the pattern of wives everywhere, Adele probably wanted him during childbirth so she could blame him for all her pain. Little Fredie Wilson Clark was born June 20, 1879. Edgar apparently didn’t stay in Greeley. In the days following the Milk Creek Battle, Edgar was traveling in Northwest Colorado once again.
The September Ute uprising news melted telegraph wires from Rawlins to Denver and Greeley. The Army battle and deaths at the White River Agency alarmed families in Greeley. They feared the worst about relatives anywhere near the Ute reservation. Knowing that his family would also be concerned E. L. Mansfield wrote a letter from Hayden, Colorado, on Oct. 1, declaring that he was 90 miles from the Agency and did not fear an attack. Mansfield, an old freighter named Gordon, two scouts and his friend, E.E. Clark, were all together and safe. The letter mentioned meeting up with a company of colored soldiers who were on their way to relieve the troops entrenched at Milk Creek. Mansfield and E. E. Clark planned to accompany the troop’s wagon train to Fortification. [according to Terry Mobley, Fortification was a geologic landmark north of present day Craig].
In the 1880 census, the Edgar Emerson Clark family was listed as living in Greeley near relatives of his former coworkers. The families of the not so fortunate widow Sophronia Flora Ellen Price and the Dresser parents (George and Sarah). Sophronia outlived two more husbands and died in Tulare, California in 1927 at the age of 66. George (1822-1888) and Sarah (1825-1901), were parents of the ill-fated brothers Harry Strong Dresser and Frank George Dresser. George and Sarah lived out their lives in Greeley and are buried in the Linn Grove Cemetery there.
Edgar Emerson Clark died in 1898 and is buried along with his wife Adele also in the Linn Grove Cemetery. This is the same cemetery where Nathan Meeker was reburied. More next week on the Meeker survivors.
By ED PECK