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COTTONWOOD
CHRONICLE FRIDAY,
JUNE 28, 1929 NOBEL
HENRY TAKEN BY DEATH AT HOME Lapwai, June 27 – Nobel Henry, who came to
central Idaho when it was an uncivilized land inhabited by a few miners and many
Indians, died this afternoon at 4 o’clock at his ranch home on upper Tom Beall
creek. Henry had been suffering
from an infected foot which developed into blood poisoning and his 91 year old
body was unable to withstand the ravages of the poison. Henry, who was born in Arkansas, came west
from Indiana when he was 25 years old and went first into the Wallowa valley,
where the Nez Perces had their choice fishing and hunting grounds, in 1863.
A few years there and he came down into the Asotin creek region and was
one of its first settlers. In the days of the gold discoveries in
central Idaho, Henry operated pack trains, lugging in supplies to the thousands
of miners in the Elk City, Pierce and Warrens diggings and taking out precious
cargoes of gold dust. He also ran
pack trains from Wallula junction to Helena, Montana, and from Lewiston to
Missoula following the Lewis and Clark trail over the Lolo pass.
The trip from Wallula to Helena took three weeks, but from Lewiston to
Missoula it was a journey of only a week or ten days. He was a scout in the Nez Perce Indian war. After the mining excitement died down and
the railroads took away the business of the slow-moving pack trains. Henry came back to the Lewiston region, until the opening of
the Nez Perce reservation in 1895. He
has since farmed on the reservation lands. At one time Henry owned many head of cattle
and much land and it was nothing unusual for him to have 50 to 70 guests for
dinner at his home, killing a large beef to provide meat for the feast.
He was regarded as the toast of early pioneers since he was really of a
pre-pioneer stock. Henry is survived by his Indian wife and eight living children, five boys and three girls. A brother, Lynn Henry, lives at Sweetwater. He will be buried in the little pioneer cemetery at Jacques Spur, where Mission creek joins the Lapwai, beside Colonel Craig and other pioneers, who like him, helped push the frontiers westward BACK |
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