Luther Frost: The Kansas Years

After living together for a couple of years, Luther struck out on his own; moving to Kansas
with his new wife and son. Eventually contact was lost and his whereabouts were unknown
for many years. It was only when Mary Van Pelt of Great Bend, KS, one of Luther's
grandaughters, sought kinfolk in Jasper County did we learn the story of Luther and Lydia
Hammers Frost. Mary was a very helpful source of information and delighted to find out
that she had a large, extended family. Mary was able to attend several family reunions in
Carthage before she passed away. Mary provided extensive written documentation of her
life and that of her mother and grandfather.
Luther and Lydia homesteaded on two parcels of land in Barton County:
Luther Frost, 22, sec. 9, se. qr 20-14.
Lydia E. Frost 21.
Luther tried his hand at carpentering in and around a growing Great Bend, Kansas, but as this
recounting tells, work soon became hard to find. Luther took up his rifle and began to hunt
buffalo as a means to make money. Luther was an accomplished hunter and marksman so this
was a natural avenue for him.

HENRY FRUIT'S EXPERIENCE

HENRY FRUIT, an old timer of this section of the state recalls his arrival here and tells of a trip
to Dodge City in the early days. Mr. Fruit says:
"I landed in Great Bend on the 12th day of March, 1872, and found here some old friends from
my native state, Illinois. I was well pleased with the appearance of the country, and on the 13th,
my brother-in-law, W. W. Hartshorn and I started out to locate a claim. We had no trouble in
finding a good location, and after I had made the necessary improvements to hold it, I began to
look for a job and let it be known that if anybody wanted a carpenter I was their huckleberry. I
did not wait long for there was one Harry Lovett, then living in Zarah, about four miles east of
Great Bend, who wanted a frame work put inside his big wall tent, so he was sent to me. To tell
the truth I did not fancy the job a great deal. I had heard of Mr. Lovett and did not fancy his style,
for a short time before he had pumped a cowboy full of lead and then finished him by beating
his brains out with a revolver. Knowing all of this I began to make excuses, but he would not
hear them: "Dn it," he said, "I want the work done," he said it as though he meant it too.
Remembering the fate of the cowboy I concluded to go. I got through with the desperado in two
days and got seven fifty for my work, and got back to Great Bend O. K. By the middle of May
the cattle trade began to blossom, buildings began to loom up, houses, stores, barns, saloons,
and dance halls were to be seen at frequent intervals and carpenters were in good demand, so i
had plenty of work at my trade until about the middle of August. The word soon went out that
Great Bend was a haven for carpenters and by the first of August there were more carpenters
here than there are fiddlers in Helena or anywhere else. There being more carpenters than jobs
I concluded to try my hand at buffalo hunting. Mr. Frost, W. H. Quincy, or "Tough" as he is better
known and myself, started for the buffalo range about twenty miles south of Dodge City, where
we heard there were thousands of buffaloes. We had no adventure to speak of until the second
day out, when we stopped to feed and get our dinners. Just after dinner there was a big flock of
buffalo birds lit in some weeds along the trail, and Frost said to Quincy, "if you will let me have
your shotgun I'll bet you a quarter I can kill fifty of them birds at one shot." The bet was made.

Frost fired into the bunch and such a slaughter I never saw. He picked up and counted 136 and
was not through when we happened to look southward and there we saw something that
caused us to pause and our hair to stand up. It was about 150 men on horseback coming
straight for our camp. We at once jumped to the conclusion that it was a bunch of hostile Indians
for we heard they were on the warpath. The party was too far off for us to tell exactly what they
were but we imagined we could see the paint on their faces and the feathers on their heads, so
what were we to do? We were too far from Fort Dodge to think of making there, they would
overtake us before we had covered half the distance, so we concluded to drive about a half mile
north of a hill covered with loose stone and build a fort, and then sell our lives as dearly as
possidle. We had two needle guns. By this time the front of the line had reached the river and
the horses were drinking leisurely. By this time we were ready to start and the horsemen were at
the river. We looked again, and oh; joy, our hearts gave a great bound and our hair began to
settle down for we saw coming out from the sand hills a covered wagon drawn by four mules,
and just behind it two men on horses, one of them carrying an American flag. We knew at once
no band of Indians would be carrying Old Glory nor would they have a covered wagon. I never
was so glad in my life to see the American flag, for I knew no harm could come to us from that
source. Now to explain why Uncle Sam's cavlary was out. It was not for the purpose of scaring
the life out of three hunters."
"Two or three nights before a gang of horse thieves mostly white men, stampeded about fifty
horses and mules, belonging to a railroad contractor, then working about five miles west of
Dodge City. The commander at Fort Dodge had sent out two companies of cavalry after the
thieves. They caught them in the brakes of Medicine Lodge river, re-captured the stock and
killed some of the bandits. When we saw them they were on their way back with the stolen
stock. We started on our journey mighty glad that we had escaped alive, having forgotten about
the bet Frost won. We got to the old government crossing about one mile west of Dodge City,
and found old Bob Robinson, a buffalo hunter of great fame. We found a great deal of water in
the river at this point. Robinson and a man from Ellsworth doubled their teams and got across
the river. We tried it alone and got across O. K. We found the buffalo by the thousands at the
heads of Mulberry and Indian creeks. We succeeded in killing about 200 in ten days, after which
we started on the return trip. When we got to the river it was much lower but we had to make
several trips in order to get our loads across. At Dodge we traded our green hides for dry ones
and camped for the night about a mile east of the city. About three o'clock in the morning we
were awakened by somebody galloping across the prairie, the moon was about two hours high
and we could see quite plainly. Frost raised to see what it was. I asked him "what do you see?"
He replied, "two men on horseback." They stopped near our horses and one of them
dismounted, and I heard Frost say, "Halt, hold on there, what do you want?" and in the same
breath he whispered, "Bob, they have your horses." Bob said, "shoot the son-of-a-gun," and the
crack of Frost's rifle broke the stillness of the midnight air. This was followed by several shots in
quick succession. By this time the would-be horse thieves began to think it was getting mighty
hot, for they mounted their ponies, and ran for their lives. They had cut the rope tied to Bob's
horses, and were making off with them when we called a halt. They made a water haul that
time. We got to Great Bend without any more adventures and sold our hides for $1.15 each and
that was the end of my first buffalo hunt, but it was not the last one."
Transcribed from Biographical History of Barton County, Kansas. ; Illustrated. Published by
Great Bend Tribune, Great Bend, KS : 1912. 318 p. : ill. ; 28 cm. Transcribed by Carolyn Ward,
July 2006. http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/barton/history/1912/026.html