Name/Title
Plum Creek Massacre Marker, Photo, 1959Entry/Object ID
P1995.1P.367Description
Plum Creek Massacre Marker, Photo, May, 1959. Photo of stone monument that marks the site of the Plum Creek Massacre, where in 1864, confederate Indians waged a war along the Oregon Trail, hoping to take advantage of the U.S. entanglement in the Civil War. b/w
In August 1864, more than 100 Indians attacked a wagon train carrying freight from Sidney, Iowa, to Denver. Eleven people were killed in the attack, including Thomas Morton, the owner of the freight wagons, and his brother-in-law, William Fletcher and his wife’s cousin, John Fletcher.
The men were all scalped, killed and partially burned, their bodies thrown into a ditch as a sort of mass grave.
Nancy Jane (Fletcher) Morton, Thomas’ wife, escaped the killing, but was kidnapped along with a boy, age 7 or 8, named Danny Marble, the son of one of the hired drivers.
95.1P.367 = Mrs. Alma Sheldon of Lexington, NE(with black dog) stands at the marker. Inscribed: "Oregon Trail. To the Frontier Men and Women who Lost their Lives by Hostile Indians in the Plum Creek Massacre, August 7, 1864. Erected in Remembrance by Phelps Co.
old digital file name: NE-PlumCreekStationMade/Created
Date made
1959Notes
Early Date: 1959Lexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Secondary Object Term
Print, PhotographicNomenclature Primary Object Term
PhotographNomenclature Sub-Class
Graphic DocumentsNomenclature Class
Documentary ObjectsNomenclature Category
Category 08: Communication ObjectsLOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials
Pony expressSearch Terms
Trails, Oregon Trail, Plum Creek MassacreProvenance
Notes
Photo taken by SJM staff photographer