Liver-Eating Johnston – The Real Jeremiah
Johnson
The other night, I watched the
movie, Jeremiah Johnson, starring Robert Redford.
Caveat: This is probably my
100th viewing. Curiosity got the best of me and I wondered if the
movie was based on a real character. Turns out it was.
There are ‘some’ similarities between
Redford and the real-life John Johnston. For instance, Johnston’s wife was a
member of the Flathead Tribe who was killed by a group from the Crow tribe. The
real-life Johnston spent a lifetime vendetta against the Crow, killing over 300
in his lifetime to avenge his wife.
Read how Liver-Eating Johnston got
his name:
Johnston is said to have been born
with the last name Garrison, in the area of the Hickory Tavern near the border
of what is today Alexandria and Union Townships in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.
During the Mexican–American War he served aboard a fighting ship, having
enlisted under a false age. After striking an officer, he deserted, changed his
name to John Johnston and traveled west to try his hand at the gold diggings in
Alder Gulch, Montana Territory. He also became a "woodhawk,"
supplying cord wood to steamboats. He was described as a large man, standing
about six feet two inches in stocking feet and weighing in the area of 260
pounds with almost no body fat.
Rumors, legends, and campfire tales abound
about Johnston. Perhaps chief among them is this one: in 1847, his wife, a
member of the Flathead Indian tribe, was killed by a young Crow brave and his
fellow hunters, which prompted Johnston to embark on a vendetta against the
tribe. According to a well-known historian, "He supposedly killed and
scalped more than 300 Crow Indians and then devoured their livers" to
avenge the death of the wife, and "As his reputation and collection of
scalps grew, Johnston became an object of fear."
Evidence says that he would cut out
and eat the liver of each Crow killed. This was an insult to the Crow because
the Crow believed the liver to be vital if one was to go on to the afterlife. This
led to him being known as "Liver-Eating Johnston". The story of how
he got his name was written down by a diarist at the time. There were already
two Johnstons ("Pear-Loving Johnston" and "Long Toes
Johnston"); nicknames were commonplace, and with Johnston's show of eating
the liver, he received his name.
One tale ascribed to Johnston was of being
ambushed by a group of Blackfoot warriors in the dead of winter on a foray to
sell whiskey to his Flathead kin, a trip that would have been over five hundred
miles. The Blackfoot planned to sell him to
the Crow, his mortal enemies, for a
handsome price. He was stripped to the waist, tied with leather thongs and put
in a teepee with only one very inexperienced guard. Johnston managed to break
through the straps. He then knocked out his young guard with a kick, took his
knife and scalped him, and then quickly cut off one of his legs. He made his
escape into the woods, surviving by eating the Blackfoot's leg, until he
reached the cabin of Del Gue, his trapping partner, a journey of about two
hundred miles.
Eventually, Johnston made peace with the Crow,
who became "his brothers", and his personal vendetta against them
finally ended after 25 years and scores of slain Crow warriors. The Crow tribe
called Johnston "Dapiek Absaroka" Crow killer. In his time, he was a
sailor, scout, soldier, gold seeker, hunter, trapper, whiskey peddler, guide,
deputy, constable, and log cabin builder, taking advantage of any source of
income-producing labor he could find.
The cabin inhabited by Johnston in
the 1880s in Montana, was moved to Red Lodge, Montana and on display at the
tourism office.
His final residence was in a veterans’ home in
Santa Monica, California. He was there for exactly one month before dying on
January 21, 1900. His body was buried in a Los Angeles veterans' cemetery.
However, after a six-month campaign led by 25 seventh-grade students and their
teacher, Johnston's remains were relocated to Cody, Wyoming, in June 1974.I
f you
haven't read my duet Moon of
the Sleeping Bear and Dark
Night of the Moon, you're in for a treat (remember, you can read
them both for FREE if you belong to Kindle Unlimited).
Both books are set during the Civil War and the Dakota Uprising in Minnesota
and include many colorful characters that are themed around twin girls
separated at birth. This is a family saga with lots of angst, drama, hope,
heartache and, as always, love!
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Wishing you all the very best READS, and don't forget, wear a mask all, and
hang in there!
