James Hartley - Columbia River Collector - Cruelly Tortured!

[PacificNorthWest-Relics]

Lately I've been doing some research related to early Columbia River artifact collecting. I ran across a wild account that appeared in the Oregonian on September 9, 1896. So it is old news, but something that most area collectors likely have never heard about. The following is the tale of James Hartley, an early Columbia River artifact collector... David

RELIC-HUNTER'S FATE
September 9, 1896
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Cruelly Tortured to Death By Superstitious Indians.
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His Transfixed Remains Found in a Canoe on an Island After a Lapse of a Year.

Two miners who have been prospecting in the region of Mount Hood arrived in Portland yesterday and report that the body of James Hartley, a collector of Indian relics and curios, was found last Thursday by Henry Peterson, a timber cruiser, on a small island in Deadmans Lake (Cowlitz Co., WA), in the dense forest which stretches from Mount Saint Helens to the Columbia River. The condition of the body, which was found in an old canoe, the hands and feet were bound by writhes of hazel and fastened to the stem and stern of the canoe, with a stake of hazel driven through him just below the breast bone, showed conclusively that Hartley had been put to death with cruel tortures such as were inflicted upon white men taken prisoner by Indians in the early history of this country.

Hartley has been missing for over a year, but the body was in a comparatively good state of preservation, and was readily recognized by the clothes of peculiar greenish colored corduroy, which he invariably wore, and by letters and papers found in his pockets.

Some such dreadful ending had often been predicted for Hartley, as he had been for years engaged in collecting Indian relics and curios, and has probably robbed more Indian graves and scattered broadcast the remains of more Indians than any other one man ever did. There is scarcely an Indian burying ground on the Columbia River, or the islands therein, or along the coast of Oregon, where Hartley had not ransacked in search of stone knives and hammers, beads, flint arrowheads, and other articles which Indians used to bury with their dead: and in several places, notably at Long Island in the Upper Columbia River, dead houses of modern construction were torn down by him, and the only partially decayed bodies of those buried therein dragged out and thrown about to bleach in the sun and wind in his search for any articles which might have been buried with them.

It was the custom of nearly all the tribes of the Indians in Oregon to dispose of their dead by placing the body in Canoe, with the most prized effects of the deceased, and then inverting another canoe over it. This made the burial places very easy to be discovered and easy to be robbed.

Since the Indians have been removed to reservations, in most cases far from the burying grounds of their ancestors, such men as Hartley have plied their horrible business without much fear of being disturbed. Hartley had been so long and so actively engaged in the business, and his operations had extended over such a scope of territory, that he was known by reputation at least to many Indians, and when ever it was known that he was in any part of the country - Indians from that section sent out guards to protect their old burying places.

Some two years since, while he was operating in an extensive Indian burying ground at the mouth of the Alsea River, he was shot at and narrowly escaped being captured by Indian guards sent down from the Saletz reservation to keep watch for him, the Indians having learned that he was on the way to that place. Another time, when collecting Indian skulls at a burial place on Little Memaloose Island, in the rapids at the foot of The Dalles, he narrowly escaped being captured as the canoe of his pursuers having been upset by their over eagerness to catch him.

Period Photo of Memaloose Island Burial Vault

Owing to dread of Indians, Hartley had for some time kept his movements as secret as possible, and so his disappearance attracted no attention until some six months since, when his brother came out from the East to inquire about him. The last his brother has heard from him he was collecting Indian curios along the banks of the Cowlez River, where there use to be many Indian villages in the early days, and where thousands of Indians from the interior gathered during the spring and summer to put up smoked salmon for winter use. He had written to his brother that he intended to go to some Islands in Silver Lake, over toward Mount St. Helens, to examine an old Indian burying ground there, and that was the last that was known of Hartley's whereabouts. His bother visited the islands in Silver Lake, and found traces of him in scattered remains of Indians and canoes, and here all traces of Hartley failed.

It seems probable that Hartley had learned of the burying ground on the island in Deadmans Lake, some 20 miles further in the forest, where tradition says chiefs and medicine men of several tribes along the Columbia River use to be buried, and lured by the prospect of a rich find of curios, he had ventured to visit the place, imagining that he would be safe from molestation in the depths of that great forest. The Indian guards evidently caught him and put him to cruel death, and his fate might never have been known had not the timber cruiser, Peterson, been led by curiosity to visit the island.

[jeremywilliams]

Thats what I am sure happened. I have heard other storys about guards that were watching the banks at graves to hold off who ever wanted to "stop by"

[paleo_joe]

He was pushing his luck for quite a while. I doubt I would go artifact hunting if real live Indians were out to catch and torture me. Digging graves like that is sure to catch up with you, now or later...

[mootsman]

I guess that fits the saying of "hoisting one's self on one's own pitard."

[blueovalfever]

he got what he had coming...in my eyes anyway

[Markus]

Picking up artifacts found not near an obvious burial site is one thing...what he did was horrible.

[highsierra]

Served him right; he certainly earned his fate.

[litzer]

Great article. I love reading about this area.

[Buckeye]

Those who live by the sword...

[Gibby]

It was guys like this who give us all a bad name. This is why we get called grave robbers. It is a shame they couldn't have caught him earlier. He got what he deserved. I am not sure what I would do if I seen someone digging up my grandmothers grave. Throwing her remains to the side to see what " goodies " was in there.

Makes me sick.