How to Download Life at Musselshell in 1869 and 1870 (1896) DOC
"Clendinnen paid Peter Koch...to take charge of his trading post on the fork of the Missouri and the Musselshell Rivers in 1869." - Producing Predators (2016)"Seven woodhawks were murdered by the Indians...the diary of Peter Koch...who cut wood at the mouth of the Musselshell River...cogently reflects the lot of the woodhawk." -The Mammoth Book of the West (2012)"A few years after his woodcutter winter, Peter Koch...'wondered that we were not all killed.'" - When Money Grew on Trees (2014)"Peter Koch...had been busy erecting...a crude stockade...for the lucrative Indian fur trade." - Yellowstone Denied (2015)What was life like in 1869 at Ft. Musselshell, Montana----the stomping grounds of infamous mountain man "Liver-Eating" Johnson?In 1896, Hans Peter Gyllembourg Koch (known as "Peter") (1844-1918) traveled to this isolated wilderness outpost and wrote a short 20-page account of his stay at Musselshell as it was in 1869, titled: " Life at Muscleshell in 1869 and 1870."Koch would go on to become a trapper and trader with the Crow tribe. In his book, Koch describes not only the famous "Liver-Eating" Johnson, but also the lives of other white traders, trappers, and wood choppers; the status of Indian affairs with special regard to Sioux; battles, skirmishes and killings; the general locations of Indian groups and their accustomed routes of travel.In describing his first sighting of "Liver-Eating" Johnson, Koch writes: "Along the brink of the river bank on both sides of the landing a row of stakes was planted, and each stake carried a white, grinning Indian skull. They were evidently the pride of the inhabitants, and a little to one side, as if guarding them, stood a trapper, well known throughout eastern Montana, by the sobriquet of 'Liver-eating Johnson.'"Known as simply "Peter Koch," Hans Peter Gyllembourg Koch (1844-1918), was a Danish immigrant arrived on the Montana frontier in 1869 at 24 years of age. After the steamboat he had booked passage on ran aground near Ft. Musselshell, he began a new life as a wood chopper for steamboats and traded goods with the Crow tribe.
