Curious Mind: Area grave may have been Mexican territory | Local

A: According to the Buhl Herald on June 28, 2017, J. H. Billin was buried about 13 miles south of the Three Creek post office in Idaho, four miles south of the Nevada state line and a quarter of a mile east of the road leading to the Pole Creek ranger station and one mile south of the forest boundary fence on a north slope where lies the lonely and unknown grave. “Rolland Patrick a lad of 16, was out hunting horses in this region when he came upon a large solid piece of lava rock which appeared to have some inscription upon it. However he was able to decipher but little. Later he and others returned to the spot and it was found that a shadow thrown upon the stone caused the white moss-filled crevices or scratches, to stand out more clearly and with careful study the following inscription was deciphered. ‘This marks the grave of J. Billin, killed by Indians’ with the date ‘1850,’ and on a rock directly to the left of the larger rock was scratched, ‘Born 1794.’”

“In 1850, Idaho was part of Oregon Territory. Maybe he had come to the territory on the Oregon Trail or perhaps on the California Trail and took a side trip,” said Shauna Robinson, a board member for Preservation Idaho.

A local historian Karen Quinton said, “He could have been here for a variety of reasons. The Oregon Trail travel began in 1843 but most travelers didn’t stay in this area due to the dry hot conditions. Gold was not ‘discovered’ in Idaho until about 1862 and trapping had pretty much died out. I read in one of the histories that beaver were scarce along Salmon Falls Creek by the 1830s. The region that became Idaho, below the 42nd parallel, was quitclaimed to the United States by Spain in 1819-20. This was a stipulation when Spain ceded Florida to the U.S. He must have been there with others, or he wouldn’t have had a headstone. He could have been here earlier with one of the trapping parties and returned. Several of the earlier trappers became guides to the Oregon Trail travelers. The area, including the now Idaho, Washington and Oregon, was called the Northwest Territory. It was 1863 before it was referred to as Idaho Territory, and even then it wasn’t quite what it is today.”

“By 1850, Nevada was part of the Utah Territory,” said Chimalis Kuehn, Northeast Zone Archaeologist for the Forest Service Mountain City-Ruby Mountains-Jarbidge and Santa Rosa Ranger Districts Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. “It was acquired from Mexico in 1848 as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War.”

“I do not have much light to shed here as I’m not sure what mister Billin’s business would have been in this area. While records for very early grazing are sparse prior the 1890s, it was reportedly prevalent in areas around Jarbidge Canyon. Cattle and horses would have been the primary stock grazed in northeastern Nevada prior to 1890. Prospecting is also a good possibility, though we have no records indicating much activity prior to the 1860s—1880s. Local ethnography indicates that the primary Native American population in the area during the mid-1800s were the Western Shoshone and they are known to have traded with emigrants, as well as their subsistence resources having been heavily impacted by the influx of explorers, emigrants, and their livestock. Emigration to Nevada (and beyond to California) started in earnest in the 1840s and 1850s. The closest known emigrant trail is about 50 miles east of the reported grave site. Trappers may have largely left the area after the 1830s due to having wiped out the beaver populations,” said Kuehn.