Re: MT Woman seeks her father's unpaid claim from 1882


"earthage" <earthage2002@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:7bae6c23-357e-43a6-8f73-32bc81bf6ea1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/10/25/news/local/18-claim.txt

Long but interesting. How much would it be worth today?

Woman seeks her father's unpaid claim from 1882
Nez Perce with Chief Joseph killed farmhands, stole horses and goods
from homesteader
By ED KEMMICK
Billings Gazette Staff

Excerpts:

An amateur historian may finally have solved a Billings mystery that
is more than a century old.

Cleve Kimmel thinks he has discovered why Joseph M.V. Cochran, the
first settler to file homestead papers in what would become
Yellowstone County, was never compensated by the government for
damages he suffered at the hands of a raiding party of Nez Perce
Indians in 1877.

snip

It was not until September 1882 that Cochran filed his depredation
claim in Miles City, seeking damages totaling $654.50 from the Nez
Perce. In it, he laid out an itemized list of property that he said
was taken by the raiders.

Heading the list were four horses, each described in detail. One
description read: "One gray mare (previously designated as a horse)
six years old, weight 850 pounds, sound and gentle, and well broken to
harness."

The list also included two harness sets, two regular saddles, two pack
saddles, a tent, a large zinc trunk and numerous items of clothing,
including three suits of woolen underwear and "one fine cloth coat,
very good coat, not much worn."

Also stolen, according to Cochran, were enough supplies to last his
camp for six months, among them four 100-pound sacks of flour, 60
pounds of sugar, 60 pounds of bacon, 25 pounds of beans, 25 pounds of
green coffee and a "7 pound caddy of tea, very good tea."
Miscellaneous stolen goods included ammunition for a Winchester gun,
two buffalo robes, implements, hand tools and "one silver watch, I
believe Elgin works, a very good watch."

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/10/25/news/local/18-claim.txt

The worth? Does one take the orig total and apply time value principals? Or
does one merely look at replacement value in today's dollars? I'd think the
flour would have had more value then, in terms of sustaining life for 6 mos?
Plus all the other food. Not to mention the horses which would also have had
lifesaving properties disproportional to the values of similar animals
today. Too bad they didn't get compensation back in the day. Wonder how he
and his group survived?

jc


.

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