Annie Tallent was the first white woman to enter the Black Hills, Dakota Territory. She was a member of the Collins-Russell Expedition, also called the Gordon Party, which illegally traveled into the Black Hills in December 1874.
Among the group with Annie were her husband David, their nine-year-old son Robert, and twenty-five additional men.
Gold!
Five months after Custer’s troops found gold on French Creek in the Black Hills during July 1874, the Gordon Party arrived and set up camp just east of present day Custer, South Dakota.
Before mid-January the men constructed the eighty-foot square Gordon Stockade with seven log cabins inside. Tallent spent her days within the stockade which felt akin to a prison. She ventured forth by herself one time and was so convinced she saw Indians lurking behind every bush, she didn’t go out alone again.
Annie Fraser was born in York, New York in 1827, was reared and educated in that state. She married lawyer David Tallent in 1854. Nine years later Robert was born.
Annie Tallent’s brothers lived in Elgin, Illinois, and they enticed the Tallents to move there. This connected them to the men who sought to organize a gold-seeking venture to the Black Hills, Charlie Collins and Thomas H. Russell. Collins was the editor of the Sioux City (Iowa)Times, and in 1872 he began his boosterism campaign.
An experienced frontiersman, Russell had heard of the proposed trip by moccasin telegraph. Collins and Russell joined forces and opened an office on Clark Street in Chicago in the summer of 1874 to encourage adventuresome individuals to sign on for the expedition.
Rumors about gold in the Hills had been circulating for years. In the summer of 1874, under the command of LTC George A. Custer, Captain William Ludlow, Corps of Engineers, led a reconnaissance of the Black Hills, leaving from Ft. Abraham Lincoln in present day North Dakota on June 24 and returning there on August 30.
The Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean August 28th issue stated, “The Gold Fever. Intense excitement in the City yesterday over the News from the Black Hills.”
The Journey
That was all Collins and Russell needed to finalize their plans and set a date certain to embark. The expedition launched near Sioux City, Iowa, on October 6, 1874. Five horses and six canvas-covered wagons, pulled by oxen, and two greyhounds, made up the caravan.
The trip was difficult. Leaving late in the fall put them at risk for terrible weather which they encountered. They packed their feet with gunny sacks for protection against the snow and cold. The cattle were emaciated; their hooves were cracked so the men fashioned leather boots to protect them.
Tallent was a hardy soul, though she referred to herself as “a delicate woman,” which her photo portrays, yet she walked the long trip. The wagons traveled between ten and twenty miles each day. By the end of the trip, she had worn out two pairs of shoes. Knowing she would be bereft of reading materials, Annie had surreptitiously cached two books, Milton’s Paradise Lost and The English Orphans.
Along the trail, stories and music were shared over the campfires. Since part of their trip was in violation of the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty, she wrote in her 1899 memoir and history, The Black Hills: Or, Last Hunting Ground of the Dakotahs, “Storytelling being in my line, I would sometimes rehearse a tale calculated to harrow up the soul, free the young blood, etc.—usually one in which tomahawks and scalping-knives conspicuously figured.”
With more realism she also wrote, “It was truly glorious out under heaven’s dark canopy, with its myriads of bright stars twinkling lovingly down up on us like a very benediction—more especially so in that we realized we were soon to become trespassers and outlaws, without the pale of civilization.”
The first several pages of her book were written with a sympathetic bent toward the plight of Indians. She wrote an overview of the history regarding forced migration, broken treaties, and additional difficulties.
The balance of the publication relates Tallent’s observations and recollections of the general history and happenings in the area and is recognized as one of the most complete histories of the Black Hills for that era.
Her tome gave insights into how she was treated by the men and showed that her opinions and suggestions were generally dismissed out of hand.
Early in their travels the men were shooting for recreation and she questioned the wisdom of wasting ammunition frivolously. After a sharp retort she wrote, “I meekly yielded the point and referred no more to the subject.”
When one of the men decided to return to Sioux City she wrote, “A council was called that night (I was never admitted to the conferences), at which a preamble and resolution were adopted,” to stop individuals from leaving the expedition.
One man had returned to Sioux City before the council was called and a second one died along the route, leaving twenty-six people to reach French Creek, east of Custer, Dakota Territory, on December 23, 1874.
During a ferocious snowstorm in April of 1875 four horsemen, including two US Cavalry soldiers, arrived. They stated that the Collins-Russell group was under arrest for trespassing and had twenty-four hours to leave and head to Fort Laramie.
A temporary Army camp was just twelve miles away on the first leg of the trip.
Tallent was granted a saddled government mule, which she had to ride astride, instead of sidesaddle as was her custom. Alas, at the first crossing of French Creek, the mule would not cross. She praised, then cajoled the mule, and kicked her spur-less feet into his side to no avail.
Determined to cross the creek, she resorted to a willow whip. On the first blow, the mule reared and took a mighty leap across the creek and Tallent stayed on the rearing, jumping mule. These antics were repeated at every crossing.
After arriving at Fort Laramie, the civilians were released and journeyed on to Cheyenne.
Wild Bill
While perambulating with her friend through the main streets of Cheyenne in the early spring of 1875, Tallent saw a man who wore a broad-brimmed hat and no revolver nor spurs, approaching.
The man suddenly stopped, doffed his hat and said, “Madam, I hope you will pardon my seeming boldness, but knowing that you have recently returned from the Black Hills, I take the liberty of asking a few questions in regard to the country, as I expect to go there myself soon. My name is Hickok.”
She recognized the name. After a few pleasantries he remarked that she had a lot of “sand” for her part in entering the Hills. Soon Wild Bill took his leave, parting with these words, “Perhaps I yet may die with my boots on.”
Tallent didn’t hear of Wild Bill again until the cries, ‘Wild Bill has been shot!” echoed throughout Deadwood Gulch, the Black Hills and the world.
The Tallents remained in Cheyenne for a year awaiting the time they would be allowed legal entry into the Black Hills, which occurred in May 1876.
Teaching Again
The family spent four years in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, then moved to Rochford, also in Dakota Territory.
Tallent was college trained as a teacher and she became one of the first teachers in Pennington County. She organized several one-room schools, teaching in Rochford and later at Tigerville and Hill City, after which they moved on to Rapid City.
When Annie and Robert went to visit relatives in Elgin, Illinois, during 1887, her husband disappeared. She never saw him again.
Tallent was Pennington County superintendent of schools for January 1891 to January 1895 after which she served on that county’s board of education for three years.
She was one of 153 charter members of the Society of Black Hills Pioneers. Membership in that group was exclusive to individuals who arrived in the Black Hills before December 31, 1876.
When she died, the Society chartered a train from Deadwood to attend her funeral. She was accompanied by Robert and grandson Paul to her final resting place in the Bluff City Cemetery in Elgin, Illinois.
Honors
In 1924 a granite monument was erected near the site of the Gordon Stockade. A bronze plaque is inscribed, “In memory of Anna Donna Tallent, Teacher & Author. Born in NY, April 12th 1827. Died at Sturgis, SD Feb. 13th, 1901. The first white woman to enter the Black Hills. The monument is erected by the Society of Black Hills Pioneers, & many admirers. The world is better because she lived & worked in it.”
The Annie D. Tallent Club, to honor South Dakota’s women educators, was formed by the South Dakota Education Association in 1954 under this premise, “In an evaluation of Mrs. Tallent, all the evidence shows that she was a woman of dignity, refinement and she contributed to the advancement of culture in the Hills. Not a single serious item of disparagement has been found. She was a brave woman, a devoted mother, a skillful teacher, an efficient school administrator, a writer of history, a leader in community affairs, and finally, a lovely Christian character who was always highly regarded by all who knew her.”
In 1950 Rapid City, South Dakota constructed the Annie Tallent Elementary School, in honor of her work in education.
A scant forty years later, when Annie’s writings fell into disfavor, a vocal and litigious minority forced the board to change the elementary school’s name to South Park.
The Annie D. Tallent Club name was changed to “Honored Women Educators” in 1993. These attempts to obliterate Annie from history were not successful.
Historians have access to the legacy provided by the writings of her book, a primary source. Tallent continues to be respected as shown when the Rapid City Council honored her with the Millennium Allstar Award for the Past in 2000.
Peggy Sanders can be reached at peggy@peggysanders.com
