Sunday, May 23, 2021

The Curious Tale of “Skunk” Johnson ©

 

 

A Skunk (mephitis mephitis) in defensive posture with erect and puffed tail, indicating that it may be about to spray, from Wikimedia, by Wallace Keck on April 8, 2011, HERE.


I first read about “Skunk” Johnson when my Uncle George gave me a large box of old magazines about trapping.  One of them, Trapper’s World, from April 2001, had an article in it called “Skunk Johnson & His Handcarved Home”. 

 

It was such a good story that I thought I would do a little bit of digging and see what else I could find out about Ole’ Skunk and how he got his name.

 

The best source, other than Mr. Moderow’s article, from which it differed in some ways, was The Pratt Republican, a local newspaper, that in 1911 published two articles about “Skunk” Johnson. 

 

A map of Pratt County, in 1887, from the Kansas Historical Society, HERE, showing the general location of “Skunk” Johnson’s cave.


Little is known about “Skunk” Johnson before the summer of 1874, which is when our tale begins.  In fact, we don’t even know his full name1, since after 1874 everyone just called him “Skunk”.  What we do know is that he was a trapper and a hunter, and in fact The Pratt Republican states that he came to the area as a buffalo hunter.  Also, we can assume that he would have had to arrive at the headwaters of the Ninnescah River well before the summer of 1874, to have had time to dig his two-room dugout out of the hard clay of the riverbank.  Johnson’s dugout, or cave as it was later called, was entered by a small hole in the riverbank, and was complete with a spring, a “kitchen”, a “bedroom”, and a fireplace with a mantel that connected to a seam in the bluff, which acted as a natural flue.  It was recorded by The Pratt Republican, that Johnson would make a trip to Wichita, Kansas, four times a year to sell the hides of the creatures that he shot or trapped and to buy coffee, beans, flour, bacon, and other supplies; it was in the summer of 1874 on his return trip from Wichita that our tale begins.

 

A race to the cave...

 

By the summer of 1874, the Native Americans of Kansas, were becoming frustrated with the buffalo hunters, trappers, mass destruction of the buffalo and other game and the ever-increasing number of settlers and they were on the warpath.  Just as Johnson was nearing what is today Kingsman, on his return from Wichita, he spotted 20 Native American warriors, well mounted and well-armed – and worse yet, they spotted him!  The race was on!  So, throwing away all his newly purchased supplies, Johnson rode for his life and the safety of his cave.  Reaching the dugout just ahead of the pursuing Native American warriors, he turned his pony loose, crawled through the entrance, blocked it up and waited for them to arrive. 

 

Johnson shot down several of the warriors with his rifle as they approached his front door, which only served to enrage them and make them more cautious at the same time.  So, they decided to smoke him out of his hole, just like they would have smoked a skunk out of its burrow.  First, they tried burning piles of dried prairie grass at the entrance of the dugout, but the smoke just poured out through the chimney hole in the top of the bluff.  Noticing this, they tried stopping up his chimney, but they still couldn’t get “Skunk” out of his hole.

 

So, they settled down to wait him out, figuring he couldn’t have much food or water in his cave and eventually he would have to come out and that then they would have him.  What they didn’t know was that “Skunk” had a spring in his dugout and had plenty of water.  So, after a siege of 15 days, they gave up and “Skunk” crawled out of his cave and into legend.

 

An excerpt from “Skunk Johnson & His Handcarved Home”, from Trapper’s World, April 2001, page 9, illustration, and article by William Moderow.


Why was he called “Skunk”?

 

So, just why was he called “Skunk” Johnson, anyways? 

 

Apparently at some point, maybe due to the rapidly decreasing number of buffalo2, Skunk decide to specialize in the trapping of skunks.  Skunk fur is warm and durable, and the back fat is creamy and when rendered into “skunk oil”, was highly valued then, and could be sold for its medicinal value.  The problem with trapping and skinning skunks is the trapper is going to smell like a skunk3. 

 

But it wasn’t because of the summer breezes that would waft the smell of skunk from his clothes and into the nostrils of all those around him, that he was called “Skunk” though.  He got the name “Skunk” because, during the 15-day siege of his dugout, he in his own words, “was compelled to eat the meat of skunks to stay alive4.  So, Ole’ “Skunk” was a skunk eatin’ man!

 

“Looking For His Father”, The Pratt Republican, March 30, 1911, from Newspapers by Ancestry.com, HERE.


But maybe he was a skunk?

 

And now for the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey always used to say.  It is possible that Johnson wasn’t just called “Skunk”, but that he might have been one.  Shortly after the first article about “Skunk” Johnson appeared in The Pratt Republican on February 16, 1911, another appeared on March 30th asking for information on how to contact “Skunk” Johnson because as a Mr. J. C. Johnson of Franklin, Pennsylvania said, he thought that “Skunk” might be his long-lost father, whom he had lost contact with 40 or so years before.  Was “Skunk” a runaway, dead-beat Dad?  It is possible, many people had trouble readjusting to life after the American Civil War.  Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t.  We will never know, because unfortunately this, and so much else has been lost to history and the sands of time.

 

I hope that you have enjoyed this ramble in the past and learning about the curious tale of “Skunk” Johnson.

 

“Skunk Johnson’s Cave, The Pratt Republican, February 16, 1911, from Newspapers by Ancestry.com, HERE.


Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Backyard Birding Flashcards©”, where we will talk about mute, tundra, and trumpeter swans and why you want to have a set of Sibley Backyard Birding Flash Cards, so you will know which swan you saw on your walk.

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

1 “Skunk” Johnson apparently is not the same as A. J. Johnson, who was the first settler in Pratt County, and “...who located in the southwestern corner of the county, in the vicinity of Springvale, in the fall of 1873.  Johnson was the first man in the county to break sod and raise a crop”.  This is because Skunk Johnson had his dugout in the banks of the Ninnescah River, in the northern part of Pratt County, about four miles west of the town of Pratt.

 

History of the State of Kansas, William G. Cutler, 1883, Transcribed by Marvin Woltje, Bonnie Bunce, and John Matthews

 

2 According to Beccy Tanner, in “Buffalo shaped the culture of Kansas”, published on June 12, 2011 in the Wichita Eagle, the last buffalo (which is more correctly known as American Bison or in Latin, bison bison) to be killed in Kansas, was killed in April 1887 in Cheyenne County.  By the 1890’s bison in Kansas had been reduced from the tens of millions to less than a thousand.

 

Beccy Tanner, “Buffalo shaped the culture of Kansas”, June 12, 2011, Wichita Eagle

 

3 When you kill them, they spray and if they don’t spray then, then they will spray as you skin them.  According to Eric Space in “45 Years of Knowledge”, “A skunk shot in the head will spray every time.  A skunk that is shot in the body will spray some of the time...When skinning a skunk, cut off the tailbone and leave it in the tail.  Remove it after skinning the rest of the animal.  That way you are not putting undue pressure on the scent glands.

 

Eric Space, “45 Years of Knowledge”, The Trapper & Predator Caller, January 2004, page 62

 

 

Sources

 

Blackmar, Frank W., Editor, A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, Volume 2, [Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, 1912], page 496, https://books.google.com/books?id=V6IUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA496&lpg=PA496&dq=%22skunk+johnson%22+pratt+kansas&source=bl&ots=Gq9aBFCGlO&sig=ACfU3U14bE1VWR-or1zeQ2jXQdWP_uGing&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjEsfHMn9_rAhVxZTUKHe4VD4k4ChDoATAHegQIAxAB#v=onepage&q=%22skunk%20johnson%22%20pratt%20kansas&f=false, accessed September 20, 2020

 

Cutler, William G.; History of the State of Kansas, [A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL., 1883], Transcribed by Marvin Woltje, Bonnie Bunce, and John Matthews, https://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/pratt/pratt-co-p1.html, accessed May 19, 2021

 

Kansas Historical Society, [© 2021 The Kansas Historical Society], https://www.kshs.org/p/pratt-county-schools-bibliography/13674, accessed May 19, 2021

 

Moderow, William; “Skunk Johnson & His Handcarved Home”, Trapper's World, April 2001, [Galloway, OH], page 9 to 12

 

O”Ceillaigh, Setana; “A Homesteaders Guide To Tanning”, The Backwoodsman, May/June 2021, Vol. 42, No. 3, page 75

 

Tanner, Beccy; “Buffalo shaped the culture of Kansas”, June 12, 2011, [Wichita Eagle], https://www.kansas.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-story-of-kansas/article1066397.html#:~:text=The%20last%20buffalo%20killed%20in,sell%20to%20parks%20and%20zoos, accessed May 22, 2021

 

Space, Eric; “45 Years of Knowledge”, The Trapper & Predator Caller, January 2004, page 62

 

The Pratt Republican (Pratt, Kansas), “Skunk Johnson’s Cave”, Thursday, February 16, 1911, page 6, [Newspapers by Ancestry.com], https://www.newspapers.com/image/379672329, accessed September 10, 2020

 

The Pratt Republican (Pratt, Kansas), “Looking For His Father”, Thursday, March 30, 1911, page 3, [Newspapers by Ancestry.com], https://www.newspapers.com/image/379672972, accessed September 10, 2020

 

Wikimedia, “Skunk about to spray”, by Wallace Keck, taken on April 18, 2011, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Skunk_about_to_spray.jpg, accessed May 19, 2021

 

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