Liver-Eating Johnston: The Dust Never Settles On A Legend

Dennis J. McLelland Ed.D

LIVER-EATING JOHNSTON:

THE DUST NEVER SETTLES ON A LEGEND

By

Dennis J. McLelland Ed.D

Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2016 by Dennis McLelland.

All Rights Reserved.

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Frontispiece

Image Courtesy of Flash’s Studio Red Lodge, Montana

Table Of Contents

PREFACE

THE FORMAT OF THE BOOK

CHAPTER 1: THE HIDDEN CHAPTERS IN JOHNSTON’S BOOK OF LIFE

CHAPTER 2: WILL THE REAL LIVER-EATING JOHNSTON PLEASE STAND UP!

CHAPTER 3: VARIOUS OCCUPATIONS THROUGHOUT JOHNSTON’S LIFE

CHAPTER 4: RECOLLECTIONS AND ANECDOTES ABOUT JOHNSTON FROM FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES

CHAPTER 5:MULTIPLE STORIES ABOUT HOW JOHNSTON EARNED HIS NAMELIVER-EATING

CHAPTER 6: THE AVENGING FURY OF THE PLAINS JOHNSTON SIGNS ON WITH THEHARDWICK WILD WEST SHOW

CHAPTER 7: A COLLECTION OF THE STRANGE, BIZARRE, AND UNBELIEVABLE

CHAPTER 8: A GATHERING OF ODD’S AND END’S: FACTS OF VARIOUS SIGNIFICANCE IN JOHNSTON’S LIFE

About the Author

PREFACE

He was a creature of the woods and prairies – a great big animal of a man, with the primal instincts to live by fighting stirring in him to a degree that nocivilization could satisfy or appease.

The Jackson Citizen, Friday, May 4, 1900, Page 3

Original image courtesy of the History Channel – modified by author

The Dust Never Settles on a Legend clearly spells out the purpose of this book. The legend of Liver-Eating Johnston stretches and contracts. His biography is organic – it lives and breathes, as new revelations and information about Liver-eat Johnston emerges from long-buried chronicles of actual and imagined wilderness deeds.

John H. Alexander wrote, Storytellers seldom let facts get in the way of perpetuating a legend, although a few facts add seasoning and make the legend more believable, and alluring.

The title of this book, The Dust Never Settles on a Legend, was inspired by a desire to further flesh-out the heretofore hidden, undocumented, life of Liver-Eating Johnston, which many students of the enigmatic frontiersman heartily seek.

This book was created as an update based on exhaustive research conducted by this author. It is designed to answer the many questions which both new and established students of Johnston’s life may have pondered since his legend was resurrected in the fictional movie, Jeremiah Johnson. Albeit not factual, the movie has stirred me to provide facts, or better yet to say, continue to set the record straight.

This author has previously published a biographical ebook about Johnston entitled Liver-Eating Johnson: The Truth Finally Revealed (Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, etc.) which provides the reader a comprehensive study of the life of John Johnston.

However, in The Dust Never Settles on a Legend, the reader will discover many previously-buried stories and facts heretofore unreported by Johnston researchers.

Within the pages of this ebook, Liver-Eating Johnston is observed in his true character. This study of his incredible life includes a comprehensive array of minutia, often bordering on what the reader may perhaps consider near-inconsequential, but it nevertheless provides the interested reader with a large, in-depth dose, of the veiled life of Johnston.

The new data is often stark and disturbing. Conversely, the book also presents many fascinating, documented events in the life of Johnston which are often hilarious, bizarre, and perhaps hard to believe. The book may fuel a hearty laugh, or at least produce an incredulous shake of the head, as he or she attempts to digest the wide-range of newly uncovered exploits of the famous Montana pioneer.

THE FORMAT OF THE BOOK

Consider this book as a massive newspaper, replete with story-after-story of the adventures of the enigmatic frontiersman, John Liver-Eating Johnston. The layout of the book is unpretentious, direct and to the point. It provides a simple, item-by-item rendering of each new fact, including stories, anecdotes, newspaper articles, and recollections from turn of the nineteenth-century accounts, which highlight the intriguing life of the Liver-Eater.

There is no story-line to the book. There is a noticeable absence of an extensive narrative. As mentioned above, it simply presents each new source as an elongated newspaper of sorts, which presents the facts regarding the discovery of a part of Johnston’s life which has been virtually ignored by other researchers, and which may satisfy the reader’s desire to want to know more.

It is hoped that the reader will find the book entertaining, intriguing, and illuminating. May this book encourage the reader to conduct their own research on the life of Johnston and share their findings with those who find the life of Johnston as fascinating as I do.

CHAPTER 1

THE HIDDEN CHAPTERS IN JOHNSTON’S BOOK OF LIFE

Nineteenth-century English cleric and writer, Charles Caleb Colton, wrote Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This familiar quote is perfectly suited in application as we give thought to perhaps one of the most beautifully created western movies ever produced – Jeremiah Johnson, starring thirty-six year old Robert Redford.

The 1972 film, Jeremiah Johnson, has grown to become recognized as one of the classics of the genre, and even of cinema, as a whole. Millions of people have embraced its simple message: a deserter from the Mexican War wages an often brutal struggle in the wilderness against the elements and various Indian tribes in seeking his ultimate quest - a life of solitude.

However appealing the movie, Director Sydney Pollack’s attempt at myth-making failed the reality test of historicity. This was, of course, by design, because Hollywood is typically predisposed to manipulating historical facts, replacing them with a screenwriter’s whims and fancies, with the ultimate purpose of maintaining a healthy financial bottom line

Regardless, millions of people rushed to movie theaters to see this western spectacular on the big screen. For most moviegoers, this was the first time they were introduced to the secretive, enigmatic, mountain man. Little did they know that virtually every movement Jeremiah Johnson made in the movie had no basis in old west history.

THE GOAL OF THIS BOOK

There are countless numbers of old west devotees who remain fascinated with the beauty and romance of the Jeremiah Johnson film, and the era into which the film was cast. As a student and researcher of the old west, I strive to be diligent in presenting history clearly, and with a forthrightness of purpose.

We will examine the peculiar appellation Liver-Eating, and study the many stories associated with its origin. The reader will be introduced to the peculiar evolution of the nickname Liver-Eating, and how it expanded over the years from the plausible to the preposterous.

An anonymous writer, after visiting the wild west of the 1870’s, reflected upon the romance of the open plains when he stated, If the Wild West had never existed, it would have to be invented.

Interestingly, that prophetic formula was grasped by authors Raymond Thorpe and Robert Bunker as they introduced the world to a fictional representation of a genuine frontiersman named John Johnston, through a well-written novel entitled Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson (Indiana University Press, 1956)

The mystery behind the true mountain man has extended to include a lack of clarity about Johnston’s actual last name. The reader will observe in this book that John Johnston’s last name was actually Garrison. Similarly, although the frontiersman was known as Johnson throughout the early west, his military and pension records records his last name as Johnston.

It has already been mentioned that due to an absence of biographical information about Johnston’s life, people reading Thorpe and Bunkers’ book, Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver Eating Johnson, accepted as truth the experiences found within its pages. Since readers had no other frame of reference from which to draw comparisons and conclusions, the Johnson myth rapidly evolved.

The informed reader strives to discover the truth about a specific topic he/she is studying, such as the life of John Liver-Eating Johnston. My book helps resolve many of the questions which readers may hold concerning the adventures of perhaps one of the most mysterious frontiersman to have wandered the plains and mountains of western America.

Peeling back the curtain from Hollywood’s movie studios and filming locations was necessary in order to discover the identity of the true frontiersman upon whom the movie Jeremiah Johnson was very loosely based.

As mentioned, the specific goal of this book is to introduce the reader to the many of the hidden stories of John Johnston. To accomplish this, the author was determined to proceed cautiously and judiciously in researching and reporting on Johnston’s true wilderness experiences.

If one had the opportunity to view the movie Jeremiah Johnson, the reader discovered that Hollywood’s protagonist was portrayed as a principled man of honor who simply wanted to be left alone in his effort to create a life for himself and his family.

In reality, as the reader will shortly observe, Johnston was essentially a sociopath with a profound hatred for any Indian who had the potential to remove his top-knot from his skull.

The reader will discover the various newspaper accounts which detail the number of warriors he killed over his Indian fighting days. Estimates run from 156 killed to 1,230 killed and scalped, when he thrived in the early wilderness of a young America.

As testament to Johnston’s determinate hatred of any warring Indian, he affixed a telescopic sight onto his 18 pound Sharps rifle which carried a bullet containing 120 grains of powder. He would sit high atop a hill and wait until a hated Sioux, Blackfeet, or Cheyenne would come into view.

In comparison, the U.S. Army, at the time, used only 70 grain projectiles in combat with their Indian foe. Without conscience or remorse, he simply ended their life from hundreds of yards in the distance. Johnston was essentially a sniper in his own Army.

As the movie begins, Jeremiah Johnson is portrayed as a young pilgrim, struggling to survive in the brutal conditions of the Rocky Mountains, searching for bear, beaver, and other critters worth cash for trapping.

Johnson’s journey in the movie was intended to lay the outline and course for his lifetime in the mountains. To achieve that goal, Johnson chose to immerse himself into a harshly-beautiful, often terrifying wilderness — a wilderness which seemed to pile up with the dead – victims of Johnston’s battles and wars with various Indian tribes.

As magnificent as the movie was, we must now step back into the factual world of John Johnston’s reality. To accomplish this, we must examine the two distinct sources from which the myth of Jeremiah Johnson evolved.

Clearly, as you begin reading this book, you will discover that the true life of the iconic mountain man, objectified in the movie as Jeremiah Johnson, had mostly been buried over time – until now.

WAS LIVER-EATING JOHNSTON A CANNIBAL?

The reader may not be familiar with the origin of the rather bizarre nom de guerre attached to the real Johnston. Many students of the American West familiar with John Johnston, mistakenly believe that Johnston was, indeed, a cannibal who ate the livers of the warriors he killed in battle (hence the name-Liver-Eating Johnson).

Virtually all information found on the internet about Johnston is in error. The origin of Johnson eating human livers originated in the fertile minds of authors Thorpe and Bunker. In their book, Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver Eating Johnson, the ravenous, vengeful frontiersman, plunges his knife under the rib cages of his enemies in order to remove, and consume, his gruesome, blood-dripping trophy – a still-warm liver.

The practice of eating human organs is termed exocannabilism. Various Indian tribes, among them the Iroquois, Ashantee and Anasazi, among many others, are known to have eaten the hearts and other body parts of slain enemies.

This culinary proclivity was, indeed, not foreign to frontiersmen. However, the reality is that John Liver-Eating Johnston never ate anyone’s liver. The myth found productive soil in an actual incident featuring Johnston and a group of men attacked by the Sioux in 1869.

The origin of the story is found in the occasion whereby a band of about sixty Sioux attacked Johnston and about fifteen other woodcutters as the men were cautiously cutting cords of wood on Sioux land. The men knew that the Sioux don’t take kindly to trespassing. Their goal was to sell the wood to the captains of passing steamboats, who would, in turn, give the wood hawks gold in exchange, if the men left a pouch into which the gold would be placed.

As the battle with the Sioux wore on, Johnston chased down an escaping warrior and thrust his knife into his side. When he withdrew his knife, a bit of liver remained attached to the knife. As a joke, Johnston held up the portion of liver to his friends and asked them if they wanted a taste. Johnston pretended to eat the piece of liver. Hence, the birth of the nickname, Liver-Eating Johnston.

SOURCES OF RESEARCH MATERIALS

Materials used to provide documented information about John Johnston were culled from principally three sources: 1. Newspaper accounts of Johnston’s exploits both during his life, and after he died in 1900. 2. Anecdotal recollections of Johnston as recorded by intimate friends and acquaintances. 3. Relevant books of historical significance whose authors were often eye witness observers of Johnston’s exploits.

It is indeed difficult to flesh out a broad, comprehensive, biography about Liver-Eating Johnston. However, I believe that this book, The Dust Never Settles on a Legend, will greatly assist the readers in discovering a more complete biography of Johnston’s life.

At the conclusion of reading this book, it is hoped that a clearer impression of who John Johnston truly was, will