Dakota Diary - 21 - The Marquis de Mores

The Marquis was on the train, but he was very agitated, and annoyed. “Things are pretty dangerous around here. I want you girls to get the train home tomorrow, first thing, And I’m sorry but I haven’t got time to have a meal with you or anything at the moment. I don’t know if Frank told you, but Eldridge Paddock, one of my employees overheard a death threat against me, and I need to get myself geared up to deal with that. I was advised by Mark Bateman, a justice of the peace, to defend myself. Sorry, but that’s just how it is.”

So we regretfully went back to our hotel, but being the only place in town where people came to meet at the moment, as we were sitting at a table near the bar, we couldn’t help but over hear what people said as they came in.

“Frank O'Donnell,” one man said to the barmaid, “was really mad over the fact that one of the
Marquis's fences crossed a trail which had long been in use by the hunters. A few days ago, him and two of his hunter friends were in town and had been drinking quite freely. I heard that O’Donnell, Luffsey and Wannegan had been doing some wild shooting around the town. Threats against the life of the Marquis were made in the presence of one of the Marquis’ builders who took the word back to him. So the Marquis went off to try to have O'Donnell arrested.”

When Frank came over I asked, “Has this Mr. O’Donnell been an enemy of the Marquis from the
beginning then?”

“No," he told me, "O'Donnell was one of the first men that he met when he came to Little Missouri
and he hunted with him. He offered the Marquis sheep, employment, and any favors he might ask. We all thought they were friends.”

He left us and somebody else came in and gave their version of the recent events loud enough for
us to hear. “Mandan Deputy Sheriff Henry Harmon came back here with the warrant. He supposedly met the men he was looking for and read his warrant but was told to 'go to hell.' Harmon says he couldn't do anything about it because he was only armed with a pocket pistol, and the hunters went off in pursuit of the Marquis.”

At breakfast the next morning, we had our next installment of the drama. We found out that Monday
evening the Marquis spent from 5 to 7 o'clock at the depot, armed and prepared for the worst. About 8 o'clock, the three men approached the depot, and the Marquis made for the brush where he met Paddock. They were followed closely by O'Donnell's gang. Marquis took shelter in Paddock's house and remained on guard all night. In the meantime they sent a telegram to the sheriff in Mandan asking for protection.

Frank was expecting us to leave, but we didn’t want to. How often do you have history being made in
front of you? We weren’t in anyone’s way, and not in danger ourselves, so we stayed put.

We heard some more at lunch. O'Donnell had laid all forenoon waiting for the Marquis to come out
of Paddock’s house.

About 11 o'clock O'Donnell and his friend Riley Luffsey advanced toward the Marquis' house from
different directions. When the Marquis grabbed his rifle they both retreated.

It was mid afternoon before the next news flash came through.

Apparently at 12:30 Howard Eaton went to meet the sheriff, who was coming on the train, and to inform him that the three hunters were at the depot awaiting his arrival. Also that the Marquis's men had been stationed on the various roads leading from the town.

Frank Miller and the Marquis guarded the road to O'Donnell's camp, Captain Paddock and his nephew watched another, and Dick Moore, Frank’s brother, a third. When the train arrived the three men were seated on their ponies facing the train with their guns in hand ready to shoot. When the sheriff began to read the warrant they answered that they wouldn't be taken alive.

About a half hour later the Marquis saw them riding rapidly on the road toward where he was
stationed. Their firearms were in position for action. When they caught sight of Miller and the Marquis the firing commenced resulting in the death of Luffsey and two ponies. O'Donnell was wounded in the right thigh. As he ran, Dick Moore came to the assistance and shot the pony
from under him. O'Donnell and Wannegan were captured by Paddock and his nephew, Tommy Crothers, and were turned over to the sheriff”

“But what about the Marquis?” we asked.

“The sheriff is going to take them all off to Mandan on the train tomorrow. I guess the drama
around here is over for awhile, girls. You might as well go home,” Frank said.

Wednesday June 27th

So we decided to take the train back to Bismarck, and hoped that we might be allowed to talk to the Marquis during the trip. We boarded the train, just after the sheriff and his party of men, and waited until we were well under way before we put the next part of our plan into action. We went up to the sheriff, and asked nicely, if we might talk to the Marquis. “You can listen too, if you want,” said Cora Sue, “but we came to this area and were invited specifically by him to interview him about his building plans, and so far we haven’t been able to talk to him.”

“We have a letter of introduction from Mr. Bennett of the New York Herald,” I added, “if you doubt our story.”

Again, our good friend’s name did its magic, and we were allowed to sit at a table near the back and talk to the Marquis. He seemed quite pleased with the diversion, and as he was very happy to think that his town, Medora, as he called it after his wife, would be getting more newspaper attention, he was all in favor of us writing about him.

He said he was sorry our trip had turned out to be such a disaster, but we assured him we had enjoyed every minute of it.

“Why did you chose this area to build your project?”

“It was a cousin who suggested this spot. After a close examination of this region,” the Marquis said, “we found that all the advantages needed by the shipping point for the cattle produced in the country exist at the crossing of the Little Missouri and of the N.P. railroad. These advantages are: eastern limit of the range; shortest haul to market; railroad facilities; water and ice to any extent;
abundance of fuel in the shape of lignite; immense amounts of range, shelter and grass along the Little Missouri river, allowing the beef crop to be concentrated and held within reach, before or during
shipping time, not only without loss of substance, but with constant increase of same; possibility at that time to secure a perfect title to enough land to own a permanent right of way to said shipping
point.”

“What further plans you have in mind, and why you are doing it?”

“Well, the first thing I did was to get a share in the refrigerated car on the Northern Pacific. That will be paramount when we get the abattoir up and running.”

As he said, since 60% of a slaughtered cow was worthless, and cattle lost weight on the long journey to faraway abattoirs, he reckoned that he could save shipping costs and preserve the quality of the beef by doing the processing here, taking advantage of the emerging technology of refrigerator cars.

“I want to connect the Badlands to a larger world. The Northern Pacific Railroad made that possible, but of course its owners lived elsewhere and were quite happy to exploit the isolated and politically weak plainsmen of Dakota.

“And I plan to create the Medora to Deadwood Stage Line, for the purpose of cornering the lucrative Black Hills freight and passenger market at a time when no direct rail line extends from Chicago, Denver, or Minneapolis, to the gold fields of the Black Hills. I understand the importance of connectivity.

“I also wanted to grow cabbages in the Badlands, employing as fertilizer the offal from the slaughterhouse. Thus I would be turning those otherwise worthless by products of beef production into a vital ingredient of a related agricultural industry.”

In his scheme to create a Badlands pottery industry, he told us that the local clays, which were essentially free for the taking, could be made into finished dishes and pots. He said he realized that North Dakota commodities (beef, grains, earth, coal, etc.) are heavy and therefore expensive to ship, but that when they are processed here they are much more profitable thanks to the value added in the field, not in faraway factories.

“I know that there are half empty trains going out to the west coast every day, and they might as well come back stocked with something that we in the Midwest could use but can’t get here - like fresh
fish. And even expensive fish like salmon can come through here on refrigerated rail cars and get to Chicago the same way, for use in fancy restaurants there.”

Although we found his boasting to be rather distasteful, we could not help but think that he must be a man of great insight who instantly grasped situations that took others a long time to figure out. 

“Will you be going to jail now?” I asked him as we drew into the outskirts of Mandan

“No, I have already made provision for my bail, Mandan banker C. Edgar Haupt, one of my business partners, and Hiram R. Lyon, Cashier of the First National Bank of Mandan - were willing and able to put up the $3,000 bond necessary to assure my freedom.”

“Can you tell us something about your wife - where you met her, things like that?”

“Medora is the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in New York City. Baron von Hoffman works for the Stock Exchange. We met and married in Paris last year. We moved to New York, and with the help of her father, I decided I could make millions in the cattle business out west. Another thing you should say in your article about me. I am an excellent marksman, second only to my wife, and I admit that she is superior. Did you manage to see around my chateau?”

“Yes, and it seemed truly remarkable. From the outside it seems to fit in well with the countryside around.”

“Yes, the gray and red exterior of this house is being built in the simple design of local customs, but the interior when it is done we will have furnished in the high style typical of wealthy Europeans and
urban Americans of this Victorian era.”

“Thanks for everything. We think your town and your ranch are wonderful. We hope we will see you again before we go home,” I said, as he got ready to leave the train.

The Northern Pacific freight train No. 14 reached Mandan at 6:30 p.m. bringing Deputy Harmon, his prisoners and all who had either participated in or witnessed the events of recent days. But whereas
0'Donnell and Wannegan were marched off to jail, it appeared that the Marquis and his supporters were to be put up at Mandan's largest hotel, the Inter-Ocean.

We eventually arrived back in Bismarck, and hurried to our hotel, absolutely brimming over with excitement about this latest adventure. Funnily enough, we didn’t feel any sympathy at all over the dead man. And because the Marquis was so self-confident that he would get off the charges, we were too.

We got a hold of the latest issue of the Bismarck Daily Tribune and read the next chapter in the story.

Back at Little Missouri, a coroner's jury met over Luffsey's body and concluded that the dead man had been killed “by a shot or shots from the Marquis de Mores, Frank Miller and Dick Moore.” These men will appear before Mark Bateman, Mandan's justice of the peace.