ЛУИЗИАНА СКОТТ ШУМАН (LOUISIANA SCOTT SHUMAN)Bequest of
LOUISIANA SCOTT SHUMAN
OLIVE OATMAN.
CAPTIVITY
OATIAN GIRLS iii 0f f if*
AMONG THE
APACHE AND MOHAVE INDIANS.
CONTAINING
AN INTERESTING ACCOUNT OF THE MAS3ACUE OF THE OATMAN FAMILY, BY TIIH
APACHE INDIANA, IN 1851; THE NARROW ESCAPE OF LORENZO D. OATMAN;
THE CAPTURE OF OLIVE A. AND MARY A. OATMAN; THE DEATH, BY
STARVATION. OK THK LATTER; TUB FIVE YEARS 1 SUFFERING AND
CAPTIVITY OF OLIVE A. OATMAN; ALSO, HER SINGULAR RECAP
TURE IN 1S56; AS GIVEN BY LORENZO D. AND OLIVE A.
OATMAN, THE ONLY SURVIVING MEMBERS OF THE
FAMILY, TO THE AUTHOR,
E. B. STRATTON.
V
TWENTIETH THOUSAND.
PUBLISHED FOE THE AUTHOR,
BY CARL-TON & PORTER, 200 MULBERRY-STREET.
POR SALE BY INGRAM &- BRAGG, 67 SUPERIOR-ST., CLEVELAND, O.
1858.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
LORENZO E>. OATMAN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of the
State of California.
FT
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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
DURING the year 1851 news reached California, that in the spring of that year a family by the name of OATMAN, while endeavoring to reach California by the old Santa Fe route, had met with a most melan choly and terrible fate, about seventy miles from
Fort Yuma. That while struggling with every diffi culty imaginable, such as jaded teams, exhaustion of their stores of provisions, in a hostile and barren region, alone and unattended, they were brutally set upon by a horde of Apache savages ; that seven of the nine persons composing their family were murdered, and that two of the smaller girls were taken into captivity.
One of the number, LORENZO D. OATMAN, a boy about fourteen, who was knocked down and left for dead, afterward escaped, but with severe wounds and serious injury.
But of the girls, MARY ANN and OLIVE ANN, noth ing had since been heard, up to last March. By a singular and mysteriously providential train of cir cumstances, it was ascertained at' that time, by per sons living at Fort Yuma, that one of these girls was then living among the Mohave tribe, about four hun dred miles from the fort. A ransom was offered for
.
6 PREFACE TO THE FIKST EDITION. her by the ever-to-be-remembered and generous Mr.
GRINELL, then a mechanic at the fort ; and through the agency and tact of a Yuma Indian, she was pur chased and restored to civilized life, to her brother and friends. The younger of the girls, MARY ANN, died of starvation in 1852.