Park Predators - The Pioneer

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

When a pioneer and one of his companions are gunned down in cold blood while prospecting for silver in the great American west, the sole survivor of the attack is quick to blame a group of Native Americans for the crime... but evidence emerges that raises questions about whether the survivor and possibly more white men hungry for power and riches might have been responsible for the mysterious case of double murder.View source material and photos for this episode at: parkpredators.com/the-pioneer Park Predators is an audiochuck production. Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra, and the story I'm going to tell you about today happened 165 years ago, which officially makes it the oldest case I've ever featured on this show. It's the tale of two murders that were so noteworthy and shocking that the victims' names are now memorialized in parts of the landscape in the western United States. I'm talking about the shooting deaths of pioneer explorer Peter Lassen and his friend Edward Clapper. Today, the exact location of where these two men were gunned down in cold blood while on a prospecting expedition is unknown, but it's believed to have happened somewhere inside of or near Black Rock Canyon in northwest

Nevada. There's a creek in Black Rock Desert that's now named Clapper Creek, commemorating Edward. But Peter Lassen got a much cooler honor, in my opinion, because Lassen Volcanic National Park in northeastern California bears his name. Back in 1859, when Peter and Edward embarked on a journey through this rugged terrain that few people had ever ventured into, it was truly considered to be the Wild West in every sense of that phrase. The more I've researched what happened to these men, the more I've come to realize that their demise might not be a simple case of two silver prospectors just stumbling upon unforeseen danger in an unpredictable landscape. Their killer might have been a predator right in their midst, who was masquerading as a friend. This is Park Predators. On the morning of Thursday, April 28, 1859,

a man named F.N. Spalding was at a ranch near Susanville, California, in Honey Lake Valley, when a bizarre scene unfolded in front of him. In the distance, Spalding and some other people working at the ranch saw a man riding toward them at full speed, and he was bareback on a horse coming straight into the property. As the rider got closer, Spalding and the others realized that the man was 60-year-old Lamericus Wyatt, a guy they knew. Lamericus had literally just left the ranch the previous week to go on a silver mining expedition with a man named Peter Lassen and another prospector named Edward Clapper.

As Spalding watched Lamericus arrive, I imagine he had a lot of questions for him. Like, why was he alone? Where were his companions? Why was he riding on a horse without a saddle? And what in the world had caused him to be in such a hurry? Well, according to an article in Hutchings California Magazine and reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle, when Lamericus dismounted his horse, he told Spalding and the others that Peter and Edward were dead inside Black Rock Canyon. He said that two days earlier, on the morning of Tuesday, April 26th, he and Peter had woken up to the sound of a gunshot

firing somewhere near their campsite near the mouth of the canyon. Shortly after hearing the shot, they quickly started packing up their stuff to continue toward a silver mining site, but discovered Edward inside his bedding dead from a gunshot wound to his head. According to Lamericus, he leaned over to rouse Edward from his sleep, but when he touched his shoulder and rolled him over, he saw blood coming out of Edward's head. Freaked out by the sight, Lamericus yelled to Peter that they needed to run because someone had shot and killed Edward. A few seconds later, Lamericus said Peter told him to hurry up and pack the rest of their stuff because he suspected Native Americans might have been responsible for the attack on Edward and might still be lurking nearby. Peter then peered up toward the top of the canyon and said he was going to keep watch for any potential threats.

And I can totally see where Peter was coming from here. I mean, being in the bottom of a canyon was a vulnerable place to be in, especially if whoever had fired on Edward had the higher ground. place to be in, especially if whoever had fired on Edward had the higher ground. While Lamericus hurried to get the group's stuff packed away, he heard another gunshot ring out and looked over and saw Peter collapse. He quickly ran to Peter's side to try and lift him up, but realized it was no use. Right before passing away, Peter said to Lamericus, quote, they have killed me, end quote. As soon as Lamericus heard those words and realized Peter was dead, he left everything else except his personal rifle at the camp behind and headed to unhitch his horse.

But when he got to the spot where he and his friends had tethered their animals the previous night, he noticed that someone had already pulled up the picket ropes they'd been tied to, and the horses were running free. Eventually, he managed to wrangle the horse that belonged to him, but he didn't have time to put a saddle on it because he just wanted to get the heck out of there. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, right before Lamericus rode off, a bullet pierced through the leg of his pants but didn't injure him. He told everyone at the ranch that he rode non-stop for two days until he finally saw Honey Lake Valley ahead of him. At the time, the distance Lamericus traversed to get to the ranch was roughly 124 miles, though the San Francisco Chronicle later stated it was closer to 140 miles. But either way, I cannot even imagine covering that much distance riding on a horse without a saddle,

thinking that at any moment someone could be following me trying to kill me. When F.N. Spalding and the folks at the ranch heard Lamericus's story, they didn't know what to think. It was a disturbing tale and one that Spalding later wrote had, quote, thrown the valley into great excitement, end quote. quote, had, quote, thrown the valley into great excitement, end quote. Lamericus's suggestion that a group of violent Native Americans were responsible for attacking him and Peter and Edward was a theory some people at the ranch considered to be the scenario. According to author Asa Merrill Fairfield in his book, Fairfield's Pioneer History of Lassen County, California, there had been a number of reported incidents

of Paiute men or Pit River Native American men raiding white settlers' camps who were venturing in small groups in the Black Rock Desert. For example, the summer of Peter and Edward's murders, an area rancher documented how he believed a group of Native Americans had stolen 120 of his cows from his farm. When a volunteer search party he put together eventually caught up with the alleged thieves, the rancher said the suspects were found shooting his cattle dead. A historical research study conducted

by the National Park Service decades later detailed how devastating the influx of white settlers to the American West was to Native American nations already living in the western part of the country. Conflicts were inevitable because everything from resource extraction, introduction of diseases, natural habitat destruction, removal of natural food resources, to cultural dislocation were all consequences of explorers rushing to California and Nevada in droves and disrupting the Native Americans' way of life.

Now, whether that one rancher's allegation about his livestock being stolen and shot was ever proven, though, is not in the source material available. But according to Lamericus Wyatt, something he felt everyone at the ranch needed to know was that the day before Edward and Peter were killed, a Paiute man riding on a horse

had been watching their campsite. Eventually, he said this man joined them and told Peter that he was one of six Paiute men keeping an eye on them in the canyon. There's no source material that goes into detail about if this interaction with the Paiute man was confrontational or not, but based on what I read, it didn't seem like it was. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Native American man showed Peter, Edward, and Lamericus that he had a rifle with him, but he didn't have any gunpowder or bullets. Lamericus and Edward told Peter they didn't think it was wise to give their visitor ammunition because they were unsure whether he was a threat to their safety or not,

but Peter overruled his companions and gave the Paiute man what he was asking for. Peter's rationale for giving the man some gunpowder and bullets was he didn't believe anyone in the Paiute tribe would hurt him because many of the people in the nation knew him or knew his reputation of being in a good relationship with their chief. After Peter gave the powder and bullets to the Paiute man, Lamericus said the visitor left their campsite. It's unclear if Lamericus thought this guy was the person who killed Edward and Peter, but he offered up the story that Peter had armed the Paiute man just a day before the murders to at least let folks at the ranch know it was possible he could have been the perpetrator.

The same day Lamericus arrived on horseback and told his story of what happened, 20 men left the ranch and traveled in the direction of Black Rock Canyon to investigate. That group's mission was to recover the supplies and other horses that Lamericus had left behind when he fled. The group was said to be looking for two horses, two pack mules, rifles, and everything Peter's group had packed to mine for silver. They were also going to try and track down whoever had shot and killed Edward and Peter, which again, at the time, everyone presumed was a group of Native Americans. A second group of men from the ranch with a wagon in tow went out shortly after the first group to

transport Edward and Peter's bodies back to Honey Lake Valley. Everyone's safety was a major concern, and not just for themselves. There was another group of prospectors who'd left Honey Lake Valley just a couple of days before Peter, Edward, and Lumericus. Those men were still out in the landscape somewhere, and F.N. Spalding was worried that whoever had attacked Peter's group might have already gotten to those guys, too. Thankfully, that didn't end up happening. According to author Asa Merrill Fairfield, the other prospectors who'd gone ahead of Peter's group were camped about a mile away from where Peter and Edward had been attacked. They didn't learn about the murders for a few days because they were busy mining for silver.

It wasn't until they were traveling back to Honey Lake Valley toward the end of the week that they bumped into the search party that was tasked with collecting Peter and Edward's remains from the crime scene. None of the source material says exactly what day or time the second search party found Peter and Edward's bodies or bumped into the other prospectors returning from the canyon, but Asa Merrill Fairfield reported in his book that it wasn't very long after Lamericus showed up at the ranch claiming he'd survived a shootout before the second group from the ranch made it to the canyon. When the victims' remains were finally discovered, their bodies were said to be in the advanced stages of decomposition. So the searchers decided to just bury their bodies

right there in the canyon instead of transporting them back to Susanville. their bodies right there in the canyon instead of transporting them back to Susanville. Meanwhile, the first group of searchers who went out to collect Peter and Edward's stuff and try and track down possible suspects ultimately decided not to go after any Native Americans because they felt whoever the killer or killers were had already gotten too much of a head start and were likely long gone in the frontier somewhere. On Saturday, April 30th, four days after the shooting and two days after Lamericus arrived at the ranch, F.N. Spalding wrote a letter to the Mountain Messenger, which explained everything that was going on. After that, word of Edward and Peter's murders spread fast, and almost right away,

many people began to have doubts about Lamericus Wyatt's wild story. In the first few weeks of the murder investigation, a man from Carson City, Nevada named Major Frederick Dodge began looking into the crime and interviewed Lamericus Wyatt. There's no source material that specifically says if he also spoke with the other prospectors who'd gone ahead of Peter's group or not, but I imagine he did. Even without the details of what might have been said

during these conversations, the article I mentioned earlier by Francis Fairchild does say that Major Dodge wrapped up his investigation of the murders, having serious doubts that members of the Paiute tribe were the perpetrators responsible for the crime. He wholeheartedly thought a white man or a group of white men had killed Edward and Peter. Reason being, Major Dodge reportedly traveled to meet with the Paiute people after the murders. He even spoke with the tribe's chief,

who then tried to get information from his people about the incident. But the chief came back and told Major Dodge that none of the men and women in his 3,000-member tribe knew what happened to Peter and Edward. According to Major Dodge, evidence that he thought supported the Paiute people's innocence was the fact that when one of the searchaiute people's innocence was the fact that when one of the search groups from the ranch arrived at the crime scene after the murders

and found Edward and Peter's bodies, they'd also discovered bags of flour, dried beef, some liquor, and blankets just sitting in the camp, untouched. According to an article by Don Buck published in 2004, something that wasn't there was Peter's rifle. But I guess Major Dodge's assumption was that if Paiute men or women had committed the murders, they likely would have robbed Peter and Edward of their supplies, not just a gun. But because the flour, blankets, whiskey, and dried meat

were still there inside the camp, that sort of pointed away from members of the tribe as being viable suspects. Basically, Major Dodge felt like the food and supplies still being at the campsite was unusual. So unusual that he believed that meant someone else with a different motive committed the crime. In a California newspaper, he published his official conclusion, which was that white

men were likely responsible for the two murders. his official conclusion, which was that white men were likely responsible for the two murders. And you might have guessed it, that did not go over well with the other prospectors who'd made it out of the canyon alive. When they read Major Dodge's statements in the press, they felt like he was pointing the finger straight at them. These prospectors had all been camping a mile or so away from the murder scene, and they felt like Major Dodge was essentially saying, since they were the only white men who were even remotely close to the crime scene when the murders took place, that meant they had to have been the ones who killed Peter and Edward.

Even though Major Dodge didn't say it quite so directly, that was definitely what was implied. The leader of this other prospecting group told author Asa Merrill Fairfield that Major Dodge's conclusion was both unwarranted and offensive. The fact that he'd published it in a newspaper made it even worse. This prospector accused Major Dodge of conducting a less than thorough investigation because he said Dodge had not spent much time in the area and he really didn't talk to as many people as he should have before publishing his final thoughts on the case.

Eventually, this guy's complaints worked because Major Dodge took back what he said about white men likely being responsible for Edward and Peter's murders, and the whole thing pretty much fizzled out. The alternate suspects the upset prospector pointed toward were members of the nearby Pit River Native American tribe, who were known to inhabit the area in addition to the

Paiute Nation. He told Asa Merrill Fairfield that the reason he thought the Pit River people were responsible for the crime was because they were known to regularly clash with white settlers, and they didn't have the same friendly relationship with Peter Lassen that members of the Paiute Nation did. This prospector said, quote, There had been no difficulty of any kind between the Honey Lake people and the Paiutes that would have provoked them to want an act of revenge,

especially upon Peter Lassen, who had ever been their firm friend. End quote. Because Peter had spent so much time in the region, he'd gotten to know members of the Paiute tribe well and ended up becoming friends with several of them. He was even given the nickname Uncle Pete by some members of the nation because of how well he got along with them

and helped them settle disputes with settlers and neighboring indigenous tribes. The Pitt River tribe, on the other hand, did not have as nice of a relationship with Peter. According to Asa Merrill Fairfield's book, in the early 1850s, so several years before the murders, Peter and 13 men killed a group of Pit River Native American men who'd kidnapped some women from a neighboring tribe. Peter himself killed three of the men by ambushing them in the woods. Peter himself killed three of the men by ambushing them in the woods.

So in some folks' mind, it was at least plausible that members of the Pit River Nation had held a grudge against Peter for that violent interaction and sought to kill him if they ever got the chance. Other than that, though, no one who knew Peter believed he had any real enemies. Most of the source material I read states that when Peter died, he was a well known and well-liked man in California. He was an active member of the Freemasons, and after his murder, many lodges in the state printed tributes to him to honor his life and legacy. None of the articles had a bad word to say about him. He was originally from a suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark, and as a young man, he'd

learned how to be a carpenter and blacksmith, which turned out to be useful trade skills when he set his sights on coming to America. He'd arrived in the United States when he was 29 years old and worked in Boston for a few months as a blacksmith before eventually moving to Missouri for a few years, where he joined a group of about a dozen people who wanted to venture into untraversed parts of Oregon. By the time he was in his 40s, he'd settled in Santa Cruz, which historians say was technically governed by the Mexican government at the time. There, Peter operated a sawmill he built for a landowner, which did really well, and after leaving that business, he herded cattle and journeyed with several pioneers into unexplored parts of Northeast California and modern-day Nevada. In 1855, he settled near Susanville, California for good,

where he built a log cabin on a friend's ranch in Honey Lake Valley. His log cabin became a sort of headquarters for people wanting to explore and prospect in the surrounding landscape and mountains. Most of his visitors were immigrants looking to strike it rich or settle in the western U.S. The only source material that talked about if Peter developed problems with anyone other than the Pit River Nation were articles written by Carl Nolte for SFGate in 1998 and a historical research paper by Ruby Johnson Schwartzlow for the California Historical Society Quarterly in 1939.

Both of those sources say that in 1849, 10 years before Peter and Edward's murders, a group of immigrants Peter had led out West threatened to kill him. The story goes that while Peter was leading this group through some awful terrain, he'd gotten turned around or been unfamiliar with what direction to go, and he ended up getting the whole group lost. Many folks ran out of food and got sick. Some men in that group had threatened to hang Peter

because of his careless miscalculation of where to go. But obviously, they didn't go through with that threat, and Peter lived to blaze another trail. And to be honest, I don't think these folks probably had anything to do with Peter and Edward's deaths. Ribby Johnson Schwartzlow's piece also explained that in 1850, Peter had gotten into the bad habit of starting businesses that failed.

At one point, before ending up in Susanville, he'd sold half of a property he owned to buy a steamboat that he thought people would wanna use to transport supplies up and down the Sacramento River. But that endeavor quickly failed because traversing the river was extremely challenging and there weren't enough people in the area who needed the ship's services.

In the end, the whole steamboat venture landed Peter in a lot of debt and he had to sell the remaining ownership rights of his ranch and livestock to make ends meet. But again, I don't think anyone from that part of his life was directly suspected of being connected to his murder. It's just worth mentioning that at least one author I found brought these instances up. Anyway, despite his apparent business failures and missteps as a pioneer guide, there was one thing Peter was good at and became known for, finding silver and gold. In fact, many people believe that throughout all the years he lived and worked in Northeast California, Peter had amassed a big cache

of precious metals that he'd kept hidden in a mine somewhere in Black Rock Canyon. So it's no surprise that men like the group who went into Black Rock Canyon a few days ahead of him in April 1859 had plans to meet up with Peter when he was going to prospect for silver. I imagine they figured if he was in any way involved in the expedition, they would probably come home with a decent payload. Unfortunately, that never happened, at least not for Peter and Edward. The other group I mentioned earlier, though, did manage to go out and look for Silver before learning about the murders.

According to the oldest source material I could find, it was never reported where exactly these men were looking for Silver in the canyon. The only thing the article says is that the group who went ahead of Peter, Edward, and Lamericus was supposed to eventually link up with Peter's group, but for some reason, the two parties missed one another. According to an article published in the Oakland Tribune, the mine both groups set out to find was one a previous company of men had sought to locate the previous year in 1858, but failed to discover.

The mine was reported to yield large clumps of lead and silver ore. In November 1859, seven months after the murders, with still no real answers as to what happened to the two victims, a group of Freemasons ventured into the canyon and exhumed Peter's body. They transported his bones to the ranch property in Susanville and reburied him beneath a large ponderosa pine tree at the end of that month. Three years later, the citizens of the town built a tall stone monument and erected it over his grave. Decades later, the monument was replaced with a new one and rededicated in Peter's memory.

Edward Clapper's remains stayed buried in Black Rock Canyon, not far from where he died. Some citizens were upset by this, thinking that maybe he should have been shown a little more respect and not been left out in the vast landscape without a proper grave marker. For the next few years, that was kind of where the case stayed. A lot of people still had questions, but no one really was able to get any answers or refute Lamericus Wyatt's story about what he said had happened that fateful morning. Despite people doubting him, Lamericus continued to tell whoever would listen the harrowing

event he'd survived. His boss, a man named Ephraim Spencer, heard the story many, many times, and according to him, Lamericus seemed to be a trustworthy guy. Ephraim had employed Lamericus for two years after the murders and told the San Francisco Chronicle he had no reason to think that Lamericus would lie about what happened to Peter and Edward. But researchers and historians have taken a very close look at the details of Lamericus's tale, and they found some problems. For starters, Ruby Johnson Schwartzlow noted in her paper for the California Historical Society Quarterly

that it seemed very odd Lamericus had claimed that he and Peter had been woken up by a gunshot, but not noticed until minutes later that Edward, who was asleep next to them, had been shot through the head and was dead. She also pointed out that it was very unusual how precise the shots were that had killed Edward and Peter. She said that if they'd come from a shooter perched high up on the canyon wall, the killer likely would have missed. She suggested it was more likely the shots were fired at close range, not from a great distance.

She alluded to the fact that maybe whoever had killed Peter and Edward had left all their supplies untouched because they weren't after those things. They were after something much smaller, a map. You see, according to what many people believed about Peter, he was known to keep a map with him that charted the directions on how to get to a silver mine that was reported to be very valuable. It's unclear if this mine the map was said to lead to was the same place people thought Peter kept his huge cache of precious metals, or if it was another mine. But regardless, this map he allegedly kept on him was believed to be the key to finding

something of great value. But unfortunately, there's no documentation that states whether the map was found on Peter's body after his death. Hypothetically, if that was taken, then that would point to somebody who wasn't a Native American being the killer. That person likely knew ahead of time that Peter even had the map and they wanted to kill him to get it or whoever else might stand in their way. Don Buck made an interesting point in his article though when he said that in order for the killer to fire off three back-to-back shots, one for Edward, one for Peter,

and the one that pierced Lamericus's pant leg, that person would have had to have been skilled enough to know how to load a rifle with gunpowder and a bullet, fire, and then reload in very quick succession. Another possible motive for the murders that's been speculated over the years is that perhaps the group of other prospectors who went ahead of Peter's group got directions from Peter that were bad. And that's why they never linked up with Peter and his men like they were supposed to. One archeologist who spoke with SF Gate

said those men might've become so angry with Peter that they killed him and Edward because they'd followed bad directions that caused them to encounter more challenges on their journey than necessary. But that theory feels like a bit of a stretch to me, though. In my opinion, and this is strictly just my opinion, I think it makes more sense for one of those prospectors who went ahead of Peter's group, or perhaps even Lamericus himself, to have murdered Peter and Edward so that they can make off with more silver for themselves, not because they were

angry about possibly getting turned around. Another interesting factoid I read in Don Buck's article, though, is that the leader of the other prospecting party that went ahead of Peter, you know, the guy who was so adamant that Pit River Native Americans killed Peter and Edward? Well, that guy apparently found Peter's missing rifle in 1862, three years after the crime. And it was in the possession of a Paiute man who'd allegedly killed some miners. The validity of that prospector's story about finding Peter's gun, though, was never proven. And I can't help but find it awfully convenient for this leader of the other prospecting group to just randomly say he found Peter's gun with a Paiute man.

I don't know. It just feels kind of fishy to me. The next time the case got any updates or renewed attention was decades later. According to reporting by the Lassen County Times and the Black Rock Explorers Society blog, in 1990, a visitor exploring Black Rock Desert stumbled upon some human bones near

the mouth of a canyon and reported them to Nevada authorities. When investigators arrived to retrieve the bones, they initially thought the discovery could be a modern-day murder situation, so they treated it like a potential homicide. The remains they located were just a skull and some bones from a person's upper body. None of the remains some bones from a person's upper body. None of the remains included bones from the person's lower body. Eventually, the bones were sent off to the FBI and the Smithsonian Institution for further examination, and for a while, they were believed to possibly belong to Peter Lassen. I know, confusing, right?

Well, turns out, all those years ago in November 1859, when the Freemasons thought they dug up Peter's remains in the canyon and relocated him beneath that ponderosa tree in Honey Lake Valley, they might have actually unearthed another man's remains, not Peter's. And I know you're probably asking yourself the same question I had, which is, wait, then who is the person whose bones were found in the desert in 1990? And the answer is, most sources claim most likely they belong to Edward Clapper, but there's no agency that has definitively said that 100%. A lot of the confusion about whether the bones were Edward's or not came because very little information was known about

Edward Clapper at the time of his death. I certainly couldn't find much out there about him, and according to an article by the Lassen County Times, published in 1992, nobody in 1859 knew how tall he was, how much he weighed, or if he had any distinct features that would have made his skull

or upper body skeletal remains easier to identify. One archaeologist who was intimately involved in the case told the newspaper that it was impossible to positively identify the bones found in the canyon in 1990 as Edward. But facial reconstruction technology did eventually rule out Peter. So if the bones found in 1990 aren't Edward, then I don't know who in the world they belong to, and neither does the FBI or Smithsonian Institution. In May 1992, two years after the discovery of the bones in the canyon, authorities decided to formally declare the remains to be Edward Clapper just to give his family closure. Historians finally buried his remains next to

Peter Lassen's monument near Susanville and gave him the proper entombment he deserved. Five of his descendants attended the ceremony, and it was reported to be a really nice event. Author and professor Franklin D. Scott wrote a good article about Peter Lassen, which I found in the Brigham Young University online library. He summed up a few things about the late pioneer's life that I think we should all strive to take to heart. Who knows, maybe one of us might just end up with a park named in our honor one day.

Regarding Peter's life story, Franklin Scott wrote in part, quote, he was intelligent, versatile, indomitable, to a point of stubbornness, kind to a fault and trusting, and ever a seeker for something new. He was quick to give aid to immigrants wearied after travel over deserts and mountains. He helped others more than himself. He left no descendants and no story of his life, but his memory is preserved in the names of a pass through the mountains and a road, a county, a national park.

End quote. Park Predators is an Audiochuck original show. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?