In the spring of 1879, McKenna became acquainted with itinerant firearms merchant Silas Anderson, better known as the "Prairie Peddler," himself a recent arrival in Denver and a man who shared McKenna's nomadic inclinations. From then on, the two often traveled together, Anderson to service and expand his market, McKenna to observe and write about the local color. Throughout 1879 and 1880, the companions roamed from Texas to Montana, witnessing the successive bloody conflicts between openrangers and homesteaders, cattlemen and sheepherders, and large ranchers and cowboys, and, on McKenna's part, accumulating material for a growing collection of short stories. In the meantime, the families also became friendly, and as children accumulated, they tended to float indiscriminately between them (two in each family eventually would intermarry). In October 1881, news of the silver boom in Arizona drew McKenna and Anderson to Tombstone, where they arrived only days after the notorious gunfight at O.K. Corral. Feelings on both sides of the EarpClanton feud ran high and Anderson found his wares in demand. For his part, McKenna was courted by both the Epitaph and the Nugget, each hoping to have its version of events reflected in wider reportage. Although predisposed by earlier acquaintance to side with the Earps, McKenna remained neutral throughout the official inquiry, which lasted through November and resulted in the formal exoneration, if not outright vindication, of the Earps and Doc Holliday. Thereafter, his articles largely paralleled those of Epitaph editor John Clum, though perhaps less passionately partisan. |
After accompanying the 4th on to Fort Sill in the Indian Nations, McKenna spent the next two years roaming the southwest. Spring of 1876 found him back in Dodge City, just in time to become acquainted with an aggressive young deputy city marshal named Wyatt Earp. A few months later, five companies of the 7th U.S. Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer perished at the Little Bighorn. The disaster shocked the nation, and as additional troops converged on the northern plains, newspapers across the country scrambled for firsthand reportage. McKenna, by this time known to editors on both coasts, was hired by the New York Herald as well as the Chronicle, and had no difficulty reattaching himself to the 4th Cavalry, redeployed to Camp Robinson, Nebraska to pursue Sioux chief Red Cloud and his Northern Cheyenne allies. The campaign ended in November with the Indians' return to their reservations. McKenna, his health depleted by the rigors of the campaign, decided to return east to Philadelphia where, youthful rebellion burned away, he reconciled with his father and spent the remainder of the winter and spring recuperating. That Christmas, he met Sarah Elizabeth Larkin, youngest daughter of one of his father's law partners, and after a brief courtship, they were married in Philadelphia in April, 1877. |
Cimarron Scribbler S.A.S.S. #24599 |
Campaigning With Mackenzie, Winter 1876 |
Page 2 |
Both his father and Sarah's parents urged McKenna to abandon the West and take a position with one of the city's newspapers. At 28, however, McKenna was a committed westerner; and in June, 1877, McKenna and his bride boarded a train for San Francisco. They remained a full year on the West Coast, during which, in January of 1878, Sarah delivered a daughter, the first of six children, of whom four survived to adulthood. McKenna had intended to establish his family permanently in San Francisco. Learning that he meant to return to the frontier, however, Sarah insisted on a home closer to her husband's "territory," and in summer of 1878, with Sarah once again pregnant, the McKennas took up residence in Denver, Colorado. In November, their second daughter was born, only to die of mountain fever a few months later. It was during this period that McKenna penned his first deliberately fictional piece, a short story about Kansas homesteaders entitled "The Last Grasshopper." It enjoyed critical if not great monetary success, and McKenna was encouraged to shift his efforts increasingly from reportage to outright fiction. |
Silas Anderson, "Prairie Peddler", June 1880 |
