Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 2 2 48 Soon, the master tracker returned with his findings. Joe had found John Bozeman's body undisturbed, his gun, prized pocket watch, and other belongings nearby. He covered the body with a blanket and proceeded with his investigation. He found only the horse tracks of the three horses Bozeman and Cover had traveled with, and the tracks of the men them- selves. No tracks of the alleged Native Americans or their horses could be found. Joe followed the horses' tracks to the river and found the ground disturbed. He surmised that small rocks had been thrown, as if to scare horses across the river and away from the scene. He called out for the horses, but they were not found. At the ranch, rumors were flying. A man named W.S. McK- enzie shared a room with Bozeman on his last night alive and claimed that Bozeman had begged him to take his place the next day. Bozeman even went so far as to offer McKenzie his clothes and boots. Obviously, this offer was declined. Story Sr. returned to town and gathered a group of people to retrieve Bozeman's body for burial in the town that bore his name. The spring weather made travel difficult, so the group decided to bury Bozeman at the site of his death. Mis- ters Alderson, Rouse, Baptist, McKenzie, Story Sr. and Lund oversaw this burial of John Bozeman; he would be reinterred at his current resting place at the Story Family plot in Sun- set Hill Cemetery three years later. Could they have agreed upon Thomas Cover's (albeit hole-ridden) story, to justify the inevitable federal construction of what would become Fort Ellis, a mere six months later? An 1867 report published in the Virginia City Montana Post claimed that an expedition out of Fort C.F. Smith, led by Colonel Nelson, came across a "Blackfoot's camp" that had five outcasts from another tribe, exiled for murdering one of their own, living with them. It was alleged that they bragged about killing John Bozeman and claimed to have his horse. Their account taken by Col. Nelson follows closely with Cov- er's. The case acquired another wrinkle when, according to Jefferson Jones, T.B. Story, son of Nelson Story, Sr., came to his office at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle in 1946, after Jones published a piece on the mysterious death of Bozeman. T.B. Story claims that his father told him that Cover had killed Bozeman that day and shot himself in the shoulder to cover it up. Later, Merrill G. Burlingame found himself skep- tical of this allegation after finding no written accounts by Story Sr., nor had he told his wife or close friends. Story Sr. was well known for regaling anyone who would listen with his stories of the town's beginnings. He remained a skeptic, until he ran into one Lester Piersdorf, friend of Nelson Story, Sr., outside the Baxter Hotel in 1954. They got on the top- ic of John Bozeman's death, and when Piersdorf mentioned hearing "Nelson Story's account," they sat down in the Bax- ter where Burlingame "took extensive notes," which he later John Bozeman' s Belongings CAN BE SEEN ON DISPLAY AT THE MUSEUM OF THE ROCKIES IN BOZEMAN. He surmised at sma rocks had been rown, AS IF TO SCARE HORSES ACROSS THE RIVER AND AWAY FROM THE SCENE. HE CALLED OUT FOR THE HORSES, BUT THEY WERE NOT FOUND. Though historians doubt the historical accuracy of The Death of John Bozeman, by Edgar Paxson in 1898, the Museum of the Rockies has it in their permanent collection.

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