Freighting... and trying to get home with the money

Richfield

Territory of Utah -1878

After the demise of the United Order, the Ogden’s returned to the task of living life and making a living.  At the close of 1878, five of the seven Ogden children were married with young families.   Each of the families had acquired acreage; either through work, barter, or lottery, and were engaged in cultivating and developing farms.  In addition to farming they made additional money by freighting produce and supplies to other areas of the Territory, particularly the mining camps in Nevada.  This provided a market for the local crops and brought in much needed hard currency.  Although any man with a team of horses and a buckboard wagon could be a freighter, the enterprise was particularly dangerous due to the conditions of the roads and the also occasional patches of bad weather.  And probably worst of all there was always the danger of outlaws travelling the same stretches of roads and preying upon supply wagons.

All of the Ogden sons freighted at one time or another.  Typically two of them would travel together and would haul freight to mining towns like Pioche, Jackrabbit, Panaca, or Silver Reef, most of them just across the Utah border into present day Nevada.  On the return trip, wagon now mostly empty and pockets mostly full, they were particularly vulnerable to robbery.   

Many freighters would devise creative hiding places for their currency such as a small box built into the underside of the carriage or a hollowed out axle.  One Richfield man carved out the heels of his boots from the inside to carry what he had earned.  Another man from Redmond was not so fortunate in his efforts to conceal his earnings.  Robbers held him up a gunpoint and then proceeded to break four of his fingers until he showed them his stash in the hollow axle.

Butch

While we are on the subject of outlaws, it is interesting to note that Robert Leroy Parker, also known as Butch Cassidy, was born just 60 miles or so south of Richfield  near Circleville Utah, in 1866.  His family was some of the early Mormon settlers of the area.  Butch left home to begin his infamous career in crime in his early teens … which would have been around 1880 to 1884.  It is entirely possible that he visited Richfield sometime in his early years for supplies, etc. Later Butch joined up with Harry Longabough  (aka Sundance Kid), Matt Warner (native of Ephraim) and other men to form the Wild Bunch, pulling off several robberies in the central Utah area and then escaping to their infamous hideout, Robbers Roost, somewhere on the wild and isolated Utah Colorado border.  Yes, their travels might well have taken them through Richfield at times.  Perhaps they paused for a refreshing Coke, or to play a hand of cards, or maybe Butch wanted to drop in on a Sunday School class to keep current with the lesson schedule.