Name/Title
Legends of Prospect HillEntry/Object ID
L2012.21.330Description
Legends of Prospect Hill. Photocopy of typewritten page. Source : News Press, Mar. 13, 1926 (As told by Miss Ada Lyon from hearing the legends from Miss Mary Alicia Owen.)
Many interesting legends now forgotten by most of the people of St. Joseph have Prospect Hill as their scene of action.
This commanding hill, from which as many as five curves of the Missouri River may be seen was once the place for Indian councils. These fires could be seen in what are now parts of four states--Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska.
The Indians believed that the rays of the setting sun, when they were level with the summit, formed the Long Ghost Road along which the soul of the good traveled until they came to what is now nick-named the Milky Way, but what the Japanese call the Silver River of Heaven.
On the northeastern slope of the hill was the Indian Cemetery but here were no worn paths there because Indians did not visit their cemeteries after their Moon of Mourning for they feared the vampire ghosts of those whose bodies did not receive sepulture and attendant ceremonials. The slope was a source of disquiet to many Indian mothers for many evening primroses grew there, pale golden flowers that were supposed to have sprung from the dust of falling stars known to primitive peoples as butterflies of the night. It was believed that they were asleep and dreaming. It was thought dangerous to awaken the sleeper suddenly for "the soul away in fear or play" might not find its way back to the body, which would thereafter wander without a will.
"The Stone Squaw"
There is said to have been on the side of Prospect Hill, until mischievous white boys pried it loose and tossed it in the river, a stone squaw. But she was not always stone. No, she was a beautiful girl who fell from the heavens during a thunderstorm in the "Month of the Green Leaves". The young braves who saw her fall thought she was the prettiest girl they had ever seen and reversed the usual way of all Indian man with a maid and ran to her assistance. But she hid from them in the fissure of a rock. Next day, they saw her building a lodge of willow withes which never withered but always remained green.
Braves went to visit her in her lodge and she welcomed them, this Indian Circe.
But when they came out they were babbling idiots. This should have deterred the others but brave after brave entered the lodge and came out without his wits.
She would go to the bank of the river, in the shallows and sing a magic song to the fish which came to the surface in great numbers and she ate as many as would a wolf pack. The medicine men did not know the secret of her power, but a young wife discovered it when she saw the witch strike her husband. A flash of firelight revealed the witch's right arm was made of stone.
The people prayed then to Kaumee, the great prophet catfish and he answered their prayers. When the witch next came down to the water to call the fish, only one came, and he stuck in her the throat and began to swell. The witch tried to pull him out with her left hand but still it swelled. She became confused and frightened and pulled with her right hand and the fish turned to stone. In her dying agony the witch pulled at her body and limbs and she too turned to stone. The image all passersby could see until white boys, who fear nothing, threw her into the river.
"Doctor Betsey"
There once lived on Prospect Hill a woman with a heart even harder than the Stone Squaw. Dr. Betsey, because lingering superstitions made it a lonely place, bought the hill cheap and built a home and office tare about the middle 1800's.
Here came, with the secrecy that never removes secret, silly, frivolous young matrons who dared the terrors of the desecrated Indian cemetary and the tangled brush to purchase her evil drugs.
Finally Dr. Betsey became ill and her own potions failed her. One stormy night she sent for a young lawyer and made him her heir with the provision that he bury her on Prospect Hill and see that her grave should be taken care of forever.
This done there began what the watchers called the "change" and as the gray pallor deepened on her face she cried out that the baby children she had deprived of life were peering in at the windows. After midnight she died wailing, shrieking, and when a crashing thunderbolt came filling the house with flame, the terrified watchers ran out into the storm and ever afterward believed they had seen the evil one come for her soul.
The lawyer had her buried as she wished and with a little white fence around her grave but within this enclosure nothing green would ever grown, no matter how carefully seeds were planted and tended. When the grave was opened after remaining undisturbed for two score years or more, there was nothing in it--not a bone--not a button or lock of hair, except a wisp of back satin torn maybe e from her skirt that fell into dust at a touch.
"The Guardian of the Gold"
A forlorn friendless Indian boy was walking along the levee at the foot of Francis Street early one morning just as the captain of the "War Eagle" was putting tow gamblers off the boat. They were in effect murderers.
Their story was later made known. Two men calling themselves Spanish Majors had played for high stakes with a young man who had just sold his father's crop in St. Louis and was returning home to Weston where he was to be married and live on land his father had promised to deed to him. At first the gamblers let him win and the "skinned him" of his father's money and his own. At last the desperate youth staked the land that was not yet his. When one of the Majors showed a straight flush, the prospective bridegroom reached for his pistol and blew his brains out. While he was being carried out someone looked at his cards and saw that he had held the Dead Man's cards and saw that he had them with tradition says no man has yet lived to play out; two black jacks, two red sevens, and a deuce!
To hide their gold the gamblers followed a path that led to Prospect Hill on the bluff side, that the changeable river had made by cutting away the western side of the hill. Here they found shovels some plasterers had left and catching sight to the poor Indian boy who had followed them beat him down and stabbed him to death with their knives.
They buried their gold in a gully the rains washed out and because one of the Majors had Indian blood they took off the Indian boys scalp and threw it on top of the gold, for the red men believe the soul sticks just under the scalp. This the Major believed would guard the gold till they returned. There was still plenty of room in the gully so they threw in the boy's body and covered up their twice blood-guilty cache. Then they escaped.
Nobody missed the Indian boy but charitable women who had fed him. No one knew what happened to him until a year or so later when Jules Robidoux who was postmaster received a letter from a priest in New Orleans who said that a Major Sanchez had died of a fever and had requested that the gold be found in order that Masses might be said for the souls of the Major, his sinful companion, and the poor Indian boy. Major Sanchez had left directions where the gold and the grave were to be found.
But the soul under the scalp lock that was to guard the gold did its duty. Jules and the Sanganettes, and a couple of Sollars boys said the finders would be keepers, followed them until the whole hillside was dug up, but the Indian kept the secret which he holds to this day.
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Long Ghost Road, Sunbridge, Legends of Prospect Hill, Indian Lore, Prospect Hill, St. Joseph History, Lyon, Ada, Owen, Mary AliciaPublication Details
Author
St. Joseph News PressDate Published
1926Call No.
StJoArea STNotes
Copy No.: 1Relationships
Related Person or Organization
Person or Organization
Mary Alicia OwenPerson or Organization
Ada LyonPerson or Organization
Jules RobidouxPerson or Organization
Michael Fisher