Joplin Globe
February 5, 1920
'FRONT LINES' of INDIAN WAR DAYS
RECALLED by DEATH of TOM CLARY
When Thomas C. Clary of Villa Heights was buried this morning in Forest Park Cemetery another link was severed in the human chain that binds the world of today to an American age of historic, romantic interest, the period when Indians roamed the hills where Joplin now nestles and railroads are still an object of wonder.
As the engineer who pulled the first passenger train into Baxter Springs, Kans., Clary was widely known, but few persons remembered that in his young manhood the bow and arrow of the Red man was to be reckoned with in the advance of civilization across the Kansas prairies. Clary left no written memoirs, so the full, rich details of his romantic life will be lost, fragments only being available from the lips of relatives who used to sit around the fire in his East Seventh street home on those rare occasions when he chose to live his Indian encounters over again.
There was the day when as a fireman, he helped send a little locomotive across Kansas plains. A new railroad took supplies, food and materials to the workmen on the "front line." The journeys were dangerous because Indians would treacherously ambush the train at frequent intervals. On the day in question the little locomotive started its way down a hill at "daring" speed toward a trestle spanning a wooded creek.
As the engine neared the structure a big log was noticed across the tracks and the engineer threw on the brakes, not the quick, positive air contrivances of a modern age but a direct action, lever brake adapted from the lumber wagon and the prairie schooner; then the direction of the locomotive was reversed. On every side of the trestle Indians arose shouting their war cries; bows twanged and arrows clattered against the sides of the steel horse. A few of the Red men had guns and leaden pellets flattened around the cab as a peculiar race began.
"By Jupiter," the engineer shouted as the locomotive drew slowly backward but failed to gain on the running Indians, "the brake is caught."
Clary crawled out to the tender, in those days a combination car carrying both water and logs - wood was locomotive fuel then - and while arrows dropped all around him seized a length of wood. Using it as a lever he managed to pry the brake loose and the engine crew away from the murderous band that continued the chase until it was hopeless.
Was War Veteran
Clary also saw fighting in the Civil War as a Union soldier. The late W. M. Johnson, a coal dealer of Joplin, was in his "outfit" and the two engaged in the same actions on Missouri fields. The incident that Clary ---must to relate was Johnson's battle with a plucky woman near Lees Summit, Jackson county, near Kansas City. In a series of engagements with a force of southerners the Union detachment has been badly chopped up and scattered. Johnson sneaked through a corn field and crawled into a haystack hoping to escape the notice of rebels who were beating the district for stragglers.
"He didn't figure on those plucky rebel women," Clary would say, A[ as he crawled into the stack his boots much have looked like two water towers to a woman at the farm nearby. Anyhow she saw him and Bill soon had help.
The woman took down a squirrel rifle and began to pump lead at his rear section. Every time the woman shot Bill jumped ahead a foot or two, and soon he was clean through the stack.
After the war the men met in Joplin nearly twenty years after the Lees Summit incident, but each remembered.
_______________
T. C. CLARY DIES AT VILLA HEIGHTS HOME
As Pioneer Engineer of Fort Scott & Memphis, Pulled First Train Into Baxter Springs
Thomas C. Clary, a retired railroad engineer and mine operator and owners of a controlling interest in Forest Park Cemetery, died at 10 o'clock last night as his home in Villa Heights. He had been ill a week.
Mr. Clary was a resident of Joplin for twenty-nine years and was widely known in this district.
Prior to moving here he was a resident of Baxter Springs. As engineer on the Fort Scott and Memphis railroad, now owned by the Frisco, he pulled the first passenger train into Baxter Springs, Kans., fifty years ago. He was retired by that road twenty years ago.
Engaged in Mining
Mr. Clary, after his retirement from the railroad became actively engaged in mining.
He is survived by his wife, two daughters, Mrs. W. H. Brookshire and Mrs. W. C. Grafton, three sons, James, Frank and Joseph Clary, all of Joplin; a brother, John C. Clary of Osawatomie, Kans., and a sister, Mrs. Maggie McCann of Wisconsin.
Although Mr. Clary's illness was not considered serious by relatives, he entertained no hopes for his recovery, and three days ago summoned an undertaker whom he had known for many years, and made complete arrangements for his funeral, leaving only the time and place to be decided by relatives, which they will announce today.
February 5, 1920
'FRONT LINES' of INDIAN WAR DAYS
RECALLED by DEATH of TOM CLARY
When Thomas C. Clary of Villa Heights was buried this morning in Forest Park Cemetery another link was severed in the human chain that binds the world of today to an American age of historic, romantic interest, the period when Indians roamed the hills where Joplin now nestles and railroads are still an object of wonder.
As the engineer who pulled the first passenger train into Baxter Springs, Kans., Clary was widely known, but few persons remembered that in his young manhood the bow and arrow of the Red man was to be reckoned with in the advance of civilization across the Kansas prairies. Clary left no written memoirs, so the full, rich details of his romantic life will be lost, fragments only being available from the lips of relatives who used to sit around the fire in his East Seventh street home on those rare occasions when he chose to live his Indian encounters over again.
There was the day when as a fireman, he helped send a little locomotive across Kansas plains. A new railroad took supplies, food and materials to the workmen on the "front line." The journeys were dangerous because Indians would treacherously ambush the train at frequent intervals. On the day in question the little locomotive started its way down a hill at "daring" speed toward a trestle spanning a wooded creek.
As the engine neared the structure a big log was noticed across the tracks and the engineer threw on the brakes, not the quick, positive air contrivances of a modern age but a direct action, lever brake adapted from the lumber wagon and the prairie schooner; then the direction of the locomotive was reversed. On every side of the trestle Indians arose shouting their war cries; bows twanged and arrows clattered against the sides of the steel horse. A few of the Red men had guns and leaden pellets flattened around the cab as a peculiar race began.
"By Jupiter," the engineer shouted as the locomotive drew slowly backward but failed to gain on the running Indians, "the brake is caught."
Clary crawled out to the tender, in those days a combination car carrying both water and logs - wood was locomotive fuel then - and while arrows dropped all around him seized a length of wood. Using it as a lever he managed to pry the brake loose and the engine crew away from the murderous band that continued the chase until it was hopeless.
Was War Veteran
Clary also saw fighting in the Civil War as a Union soldier. The late W. M. Johnson, a coal dealer of Joplin, was in his "outfit" and the two engaged in the same actions on Missouri fields. The incident that Clary ---must to relate was Johnson's battle with a plucky woman near Lees Summit, Jackson county, near Kansas City. In a series of engagements with a force of southerners the Union detachment has been badly chopped up and scattered. Johnson sneaked through a corn field and crawled into a haystack hoping to escape the notice of rebels who were beating the district for stragglers.
"He didn't figure on those plucky rebel women," Clary would say, A[ as he crawled into the stack his boots much have looked like two water towers to a woman at the farm nearby. Anyhow she saw him and Bill soon had help.
The woman took down a squirrel rifle and began to pump lead at his rear section. Every time the woman shot Bill jumped ahead a foot or two, and soon he was clean through the stack.
After the war the men met in Joplin nearly twenty years after the Lees Summit incident, but each remembered.
_______________
T. C. CLARY DIES AT VILLA HEIGHTS HOME
As Pioneer Engineer of Fort Scott & Memphis, Pulled First Train Into Baxter Springs
Thomas C. Clary, a retired railroad engineer and mine operator and owners of a controlling interest in Forest Park Cemetery, died at 10 o'clock last night as his home in Villa Heights. He had been ill a week.
Mr. Clary was a resident of Joplin for twenty-nine years and was widely known in this district.
Prior to moving here he was a resident of Baxter Springs. As engineer on the Fort Scott and Memphis railroad, now owned by the Frisco, he pulled the first passenger train into Baxter Springs, Kans., fifty years ago. He was retired by that road twenty years ago.
Engaged in Mining
Mr. Clary, after his retirement from the railroad became actively engaged in mining.
He is survived by his wife, two daughters, Mrs. W. H. Brookshire and Mrs. W. C. Grafton, three sons, James, Frank and Joseph Clary, all of Joplin; a brother, John C. Clary of Osawatomie, Kans., and a sister, Mrs. Maggie McCann of Wisconsin.
Although Mr. Clary's illness was not considered serious by relatives, he entertained no hopes for his recovery, and three days ago summoned an undertaker whom he had known for many years, and made complete arrangements for his funeral, leaving only the time and place to be decided by relatives, which they will announce today.
Joplin Globe
February 5, 1920
'FRONT LINES' of INDIAN WAR DAYS
RECALLED by DEATH of TOM CLARY
When Thomas C. Clary of Villa Heights was buried this morning in Forest Park Cemetery another link was severed in the human chain that binds the world of today to an American age of historic, romantic interest, the period when Indians roamed the hills where Joplin now nestles and railroads are still an object of wonder.
As the engineer who pulled the first passenger train into Baxter Springs, Kans., Clary was widely known, but few persons remembered that in his young manhood the bow and arrow of the Red man was to be reckoned with in the advance of civilization across the Kansas prairies. Clary left no written memoirs, so the full, rich details of his romantic life will be lost, fragments only being available from the lips of relatives who used to sit around the fire in his East Seventh street home on those rare occasions when he chose to live his Indian encounters over again.
There was the day when as a fireman, he helped send a little locomotive across Kansas plains. A new railroad took supplies, food and materials to the workmen on the "front line." The journeys were dangerous because Indians would treacherously ambush the train at frequent intervals. On the day in question the little locomotive started its way down a hill at "daring" speed toward a trestle spanning a wooded creek.
As the engine neared the structure a big log was noticed across the tracks and the engineer threw on the brakes, not the quick, positive air contrivances of a modern age but a direct action, lever brake adapted from the lumber wagon and the prairie schooner; then the direction of the locomotive was reversed. On every side of the trestle Indians arose shouting their war cries; bows twanged and arrows clattered against the sides of the steel horse. A few of the Red men had guns and leaden pellets flattened around the cab as a peculiar race began.
"By Jupiter," the engineer shouted as the locomotive drew slowly backward but failed to gain on the running Indians, "the brake is caught."
Clary crawled out to the tender, in those days a combination car carrying both water and logs - wood was locomotive fuel then - and while arrows dropped all around him seized a length of wood. Using it as a lever he managed to pry the brake loose and the engine crew away from the murderous band that continued the chase until it was hopeless.
Was War Veteran
Clary also saw fighting in the Civil War as a Union soldier. The late W. M. Johnson, a coal dealer of Joplin, was in his "outfit" and the two engaged in the same actions on Missouri fields. The incident that Clary ---must to relate was Johnson's battle with a plucky woman near Lees Summit, Jackson county, near Kansas City. In a series of engagements with a force of southerners the Union detachment has been badly chopped up and scattered. Johnson sneaked through a corn field and crawled into a haystack hoping to escape the notice of rebels who were beating the district for stragglers.
"He didn't figure on those plucky rebel women," Clary would say, A[ as he crawled into the stack his boots much have looked like two water towers to a woman at the farm nearby. Anyhow she saw him and Bill soon had help.
The woman took down a squirrel rifle and began to pump lead at his rear section. Every time the woman shot Bill jumped ahead a foot or two, and soon he was clean through the stack.
After the war the men met in Joplin nearly twenty years after the Lees Summit incident, but each remembered.
_______________
T. C. CLARY DIES AT VILLA HEIGHTS HOME
As Pioneer Engineer of Fort Scott & Memphis, Pulled First Train Into Baxter Springs
Thomas C. Clary, a retired railroad engineer and mine operator and owners of a controlling interest in Forest Park Cemetery, died at 10 o'clock last night as his home in Villa Heights. He had been ill a week.
Mr. Clary was a resident of Joplin for twenty-nine years and was widely known in this district.
Prior to moving here he was a resident of Baxter Springs. As engineer on the Fort Scott and Memphis railroad, now owned by the Frisco, he pulled the first passenger train into Baxter Springs, Kans., fifty years ago. He was retired by that road twenty years ago.
Engaged in Mining
Mr. Clary, after his retirement from the railroad became actively engaged in mining.
He is survived by his wife, two daughters, Mrs. W. H. Brookshire and Mrs. W. C. Grafton, three sons, James, Frank and Joseph Clary, all of Joplin; a brother, John C. Clary of Osawatomie, Kans., and a sister, Mrs. Maggie McCann of Wisconsin.
Although Mr. Clary's illness was not considered serious by relatives, he entertained no hopes for his recovery, and three days ago summoned an undertaker whom he had known for many years, and made complete arrangements for his funeral, leaving only the time and place to be decided by relatives, which they will announce today.
February 5, 1920
'FRONT LINES' of INDIAN WAR DAYS
RECALLED by DEATH of TOM CLARY
When Thomas C. Clary of Villa Heights was buried this morning in Forest Park Cemetery another link was severed in the human chain that binds the world of today to an American age of historic, romantic interest, the period when Indians roamed the hills where Joplin now nestles and railroads are still an object of wonder.
As the engineer who pulled the first passenger train into Baxter Springs, Kans., Clary was widely known, but few persons remembered that in his young manhood the bow and arrow of the Red man was to be reckoned with in the advance of civilization across the Kansas prairies. Clary left no written memoirs, so the full, rich details of his romantic life will be lost, fragments only being available from the lips of relatives who used to sit around the fire in his East Seventh street home on those rare occasions when he chose to live his Indian encounters over again.
There was the day when as a fireman, he helped send a little locomotive across Kansas plains. A new railroad took supplies, food and materials to the workmen on the "front line." The journeys were dangerous because Indians would treacherously ambush the train at frequent intervals. On the day in question the little locomotive started its way down a hill at "daring" speed toward a trestle spanning a wooded creek.
As the engine neared the structure a big log was noticed across the tracks and the engineer threw on the brakes, not the quick, positive air contrivances of a modern age but a direct action, lever brake adapted from the lumber wagon and the prairie schooner; then the direction of the locomotive was reversed. On every side of the trestle Indians arose shouting their war cries; bows twanged and arrows clattered against the sides of the steel horse. A few of the Red men had guns and leaden pellets flattened around the cab as a peculiar race began.
"By Jupiter," the engineer shouted as the locomotive drew slowly backward but failed to gain on the running Indians, "the brake is caught."
Clary crawled out to the tender, in those days a combination car carrying both water and logs - wood was locomotive fuel then - and while arrows dropped all around him seized a length of wood. Using it as a lever he managed to pry the brake loose and the engine crew away from the murderous band that continued the chase until it was hopeless.
Was War Veteran
Clary also saw fighting in the Civil War as a Union soldier. The late W. M. Johnson, a coal dealer of Joplin, was in his "outfit" and the two engaged in the same actions on Missouri fields. The incident that Clary ---must to relate was Johnson's battle with a plucky woman near Lees Summit, Jackson county, near Kansas City. In a series of engagements with a force of southerners the Union detachment has been badly chopped up and scattered. Johnson sneaked through a corn field and crawled into a haystack hoping to escape the notice of rebels who were beating the district for stragglers.
"He didn't figure on those plucky rebel women," Clary would say, A[ as he crawled into the stack his boots much have looked like two water towers to a woman at the farm nearby. Anyhow she saw him and Bill soon had help.
The woman took down a squirrel rifle and began to pump lead at his rear section. Every time the woman shot Bill jumped ahead a foot or two, and soon he was clean through the stack.
After the war the men met in Joplin nearly twenty years after the Lees Summit incident, but each remembered.
_______________
T. C. CLARY DIES AT VILLA HEIGHTS HOME
As Pioneer Engineer of Fort Scott & Memphis, Pulled First Train Into Baxter Springs
Thomas C. Clary, a retired railroad engineer and mine operator and owners of a controlling interest in Forest Park Cemetery, died at 10 o'clock last night as his home in Villa Heights. He had been ill a week.
Mr. Clary was a resident of Joplin for twenty-nine years and was widely known in this district.
Prior to moving here he was a resident of Baxter Springs. As engineer on the Fort Scott and Memphis railroad, now owned by the Frisco, he pulled the first passenger train into Baxter Springs, Kans., fifty years ago. He was retired by that road twenty years ago.
Engaged in Mining
Mr. Clary, after his retirement from the railroad became actively engaged in mining.
He is survived by his wife, two daughters, Mrs. W. H. Brookshire and Mrs. W. C. Grafton, three sons, James, Frank and Joseph Clary, all of Joplin; a brother, John C. Clary of Osawatomie, Kans., and a sister, Mrs. Maggie McCann of Wisconsin.
Although Mr. Clary's illness was not considered serious by relatives, he entertained no hopes for his recovery, and three days ago summoned an undertaker whom he had known for many years, and made complete arrangements for his funeral, leaving only the time and place to be decided by relatives, which they will announce today.
