Fanny Kelly

Fanny Kelly had grown up in eastern Kansas and married a local farmer, Josiah. Because of a severe drought in 1860, a grasshopper plague the next year, and border conflicts in the Civil War, the Kellys decided to move west in 1864. They brought with them a good supply of trade goods: flour, coffee, dried and canned fruit, whiskey, brandy, and a herd of fifty milk cows and twenty-five calves worth $15,200. They traveled in a small party with seven men, two women and two children including their eight-year-old, adopted daughter, Mary. Fanny was optimistic about her family's prospects for a new life in California.

Shortly after passing Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff in Nebraska, they met a band of Sioux. The Indians traveled with them for an hour and then attacked without warning. The Sioux killed three men, wounded two and captured...