Camp Waupaca Stories - Liver Eating Johnson – Based on the life of an actuarial live of a mountain man as introduce to Camp Waupaca by Chuck Cooper.

His first name might have been Jeremiah, Jeremy, Jack, or John. His last name may have been Garrison, Johnston, or Johnson. He may have worked as a sailor, farmer, teamster, trapper, hunter, wilderness guide, Union Army Private, scout, deputy sheriff, or other jobs. One thing that all can agree on is that there was a “Liver Eating Johnson” and you had best not get him angry with you. His mother must have told him, “Eat your liver, it's good for you.” The problem seems is that he preferred to eat someone else's liver. Today there are legends of the famous Crow Indian killer called “Liver Eating Johnson”.

At the age of 16 John Garrison joined the Navy and found it not to his liking. When he was told to do some duty he objected to, he beat the living crap out of his Capitan. To avoid a whipping and time in the brig he ran away. The West was a place where a man could get lost and never found by the law or the Navy. John Garrison became Jeremiah Johnson and he traveled West at night like some kind of ghost. He lived by stealing what he need to survive. He avoided people as he walked away from trouble. When he got to St. Louis he found some work and met a guide named John Hatcher who agreed to take him to an abandoned cabin in the Rocky Mountains. The deal may have been that Johnson would pay him with a portion of beaver hides that he would trap.

After a winter of isolation the mountain men would gather for a Ron-de-voo. This was a meeting where fur pelts were traded for the things the hunters and trappers would need for the coming year. It was common for some Indian Tribes to trade daughters and captured women for goods and whiskey. It was often called the biggest party west of the Mississippi River.

Johnson met a minor Flathead Indian Chief and made friends with him. Using trade goods and perhaps a bit of whiskey Johnson bought a young daughter of the Chief in the spring at a Ron-de-voo. They spent the summer at the cabin gathering supplies for winter. Johnson gave his bride a 30 caliber rifle and taught her how to use it as in the winter he would be high in the mountains trapping beaver. When he left he made sure that his bride would be comfortable until spring.

The winter was severe and to find beaver to trap Johnson had to work hard to find beaver. The trap line he ran was miles long and he had to keep at it to get a good catch. He did not return until late spring to his cabin. There he was faced with a horrible sight. The door to the cabin had been broken open Goods that had not been stolen were scattered about the yard. In his ruined positions were the scattered bones of his wife and the skull of his unborn child. This was the worst insult to a man of those times. A man that did not protected his wife and child was thought to be less than a man. Jeremiah felt that the other mountain men would think of him as foolish to leave his family unprotected and a coward. He would have to revenge this murder or leave that part of the country. Even if he left the shame would follow.

He learned that the fall after he left to trap a group of young Crow warriors had been on a raiding murdering and stealing. The signs the warriors left at the cabin were signs confirmed that the killers were Crow Indians. Jeremiah Johnson was not a man to be trifled with. He sold his beaver hides and bought a fine 30 caliber rifle with a large supply of bullets and powder. A new scalping knife, Bowie knife, tomahawk, and Walker Colt pistol. This may him the best armed man in the Bitterroot Valley. With revenge on his mind he set off after the Crow Tribe.

The first month after Johnson vs Crow War began bodies of Crow warriors began showing up all over the valley. Their stomachs slashed open and the liver removed. On some of the bodies a small piece of liver sat on the chest. That piece of liver always had tooth marks on it. Not animal tooth marks but tooth marks like only a man would make. Even the hardest hearted mountain man had trouble believing that a person could have eaten another man's liver.

The Crow Tribe was terrified as to them the liver is vital if the spirit to go to the afterlife. It he liver was removed from a body its spirit could not enter the realm of the dead. Removing the liver of a dead enemy was to deny his spirit peace. When Jeremiah Johnson brought a dozen Crow scalps, he admitted that he had eaten the Indians livers. Each time he came to the trading post he had dozens of scalps to collect a bounty on. From that time forward the legend of Liver Eating Johnson began. His story became a tale that gave both the Crow and the mountain men shivers.

When a Crow hunting party went out to get meat for their village, they had to be extremely careful. If one man lagged behind, or left the group to track wounded game the men with him would find his body with the scalp gone and the liver eaten. They might be sleeping in a camp they had set up with a guard. When the men woke up the guard and possible a couple of others would be dead, scalp gone and liver eaten.

When skilled trackers were sent out by the Chiefs, they also would be killed. It seemed that Liver Eating Johnson was not human but an evil spirit. Twenty of the bravest and most skilled warriors were sent out to kill Johnson. The Chief told them that the fate of the Crow people was in their hands. This time no one knows what happened to them as no bodies were found and not one of them returned.

Finally a group of Blackfeet warriors captured Liver Eating Johnson alive. The Crow tribe had put a bounty on Liver Eating Johnson and the Blackfeet intended to collect it. They put Johnson in a teepee, striped to the waist and bound with leather straps. They left a young warrior to guard the teepee. In the night Johnson chewed threw the leather straps and caught the young warrior off guard. The next morning the Blackfeet found the guard dead. His face had been smashed with a terrific blow. His scalp was gone. His right leg had been cut off at the hip. His liver had been eaten. Liver Eating Johnson was gone and he left a trail not tracker could follow. As it seemed that he had vanished in the air the Blackfeet warriors did not search long. Johnson must not be a man but an evil being.

Liver Eating Johnson made his way to the cabin of his trapping partner Del Gue. To survive the 250 mile trip he ate the leg he had taken from the young warrior. It served as food and a weapon. He told of eating the raw meat off the bone, but never told he used the bone to kill anyone.

The Indians has almost put an end to Liver Eating Johnson but instead of stopping his revenge it seem to stimulate his bravo. He got brave enough to kill close to the villages. The Crow Tribe feared going to their corn fields. They carried their guns with them at all times. It seemed that when any man of age of a warrior was always in danger. If a breeze moved some leaves they would fire their guns at the noise or movement. More than once a person walking in the nearby forest was nearly killed by a spooked warrior.

For 25 years Jeremiah Johnson killed Crow Indians, over 300 of them, and ate their livers. The war between the Crow tribe and Jeremiah Johnson was intolerable for the Indians. With fear in the heart of every tribal member, the Crow Chief sent a message with a mountain man to Johnson. He wanted to end the war and live in peace. He offered to make Jeremiah a member of the tribe and his choice of any unmarried Indian maiden of age for a wife. Jeremiah excepted and from then on he always called the Crow Indians my brothers.

Jeremiah Johnson changed his name to John Johnson and enlisted in the Union Army where he served as a scout and sharpshooter. After the war he moved around the West working at many kinds of jobs. He died on January 21 at the Veterans Home in Santa Monica, California. His remains were moved to Cody, Wyoming in 1974.

Although he stopped killing Crow Indians and eating their livers, he is still best known to history as Liver Eating Johnson.