Background
Simpson was born on August 25, 1849 in Tennessee, United States, the son of William and Clara Stilwell. While he was still a youth the family moved to Missouri and afterward to eastern Kansas.
Simpson was born on August 25, 1849 in Tennessee, United States, the son of William and Clara Stilwell. While he was still a youth the family moved to Missouri and afterward to eastern Kansas.
At his youth he attended elementary school, later in life he studied law.
At the age of fourteen he left school and joined a wagontrain for Santa Fe, and for several years remained in New Mexico. On June 18, 1867, at Fort Dodge, Kansas, he engaged for his first service as a scout, and on August 28, 1868, he joined Major G. A. Forsyth's company of fifty scouts, operating from Fort Wallace in search of hostile Indians.
On September 17, on the Arikaree Fork of the Republican River, this company was suddenly surrounded by a force of 900 Cheyennes and Sioux, under Roman Nose, and a desperate battle followed, continuing until the arrival of a relief force eight days later. On the first night, Stilwell, with a companion, crept through the hostile cordon, and three days later reached Fort Wallace with the news. For this exploit he became famous.
During the next thirteen years, enrolled under the names Simpson E. Stillwell, J. E. Stillwell, and Jack Stillwell, he was irregularly employed as a scout, serving under Custer, Miles, Mackenzie and others, and was often detailed to exceptionally hazardous ventures. His scouting service ended on January 22, 1881.
On hearing that his brother Frank, who had become an outlaw in Arizona, had been shot to death by Marshal Wyatt Earp at Tucson in March 1882, he started for the scene to avenge the killing, but it seems that on learning the facts of the case he quietly returned. For a time he was a United States deputy marshal at the Cheyenne-Arapaho agency, in the present Oklahoma. On the opening of Indian territory to settlement, he made his home at El Reno, where he was elected a police judge.
In 1894 he was appointed a United States commissioner, with station at Anadarko, and was reappointed in 1897. In the meantime he had studied law and had been admitted to the bar. His health failing, he resigned his post on November 10, 1898, and accepted an invitation from William F. Cody to move to the new town of Cody.
On January 14, 1899, he was again appointed a United States commissioner. He was cared for in his last years on the ranch of "Buffalo Bill, " and died at Cody.
Simpson Everett Stilwell served in Major George A. Forsyth's company of scouts when it was besieged during the Battle of Beecher Island by Indian Cheyenne Chief Roman Nose and was instrumental in bringing relief to the unit. When he returned to Indian Territory, he became a Deputy United States Marshal headquartered in Anadarko, Oklahoma.
In his scouting days he was slight and lithe, though later he became somewhat corpulent. His intelligence, daring, and resourcefulness are highly praised by all his commanders. He had an excellent command of Spanish and a workable knowledge of most of the languages of the plains Indians. He was modest in manner, and, as a rule, reticent of speech.
He had been married, at Braddock, Pennsylvania, on May 6, 1895, to Esther Hannah White, who survived him.
