John Liver Eating Johnston

P.O. Box 33842
Granada Hills, CA 91394
dormannelson@JohnLiverEatingJohnston.com

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John Liver Eating Johnston. Farmer, sailor, teamster, trapper, hunter, guide, scout, deputy, Union Private, trader, and more. A frontiersman born in New Jersey, sailing the seas then digging for gold in the Montana Territory and continuing to live a robust, adventurous life in the west dodging arrows, bullets, fists, weather, animals, until the frailty of old age came upon him.

John Liver Eating Johnston was known as John Johnson, Jack Johnson, John Johnston, Liver Eating Johnson, the Livereater, and probably other names no one would dare say with him nearby. He was noted to be surly, extremely strong and a loner. But did you know his birth name was Garrison?

What kind of man was he? What was his roots? What did he do to be remembered even now 107 years after his demise? And, who is he related to? Where is he buried? How big was he?

There are many seeking the answers to these questions and more.

Do, write in, ask, seek answers, add your own findings. Information is out there, in archives, libraries, diaries, and folk's dusty memories. A culmination of gathered facts can bring Johnston's real life to canvas.

Fouch photograph

Dr. James S. Brust wrote a fine article on John H. Fouch in the American Heritage Magazine (November 1992 Volume 43, Issue 7) History's Homepage: AmericanHeritage.com

This image is the first known photograph of Johnston. He was on scout during the 1876-1877 Sioux campaign in Montana Territory.

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This is the Hunter Hot Springs photo. See the fellow in the beard? Supposedly that is Johnston. Jason Leaf has spent a considerable amount of time researching this picture.

See: http://www.huntershotsprings.org

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Calamity Jane at age 33. Photo by H.R. Locke.Henry R. Locke was an American photographer in the 19th century who photographed the Wild West. He ran a studio in Deadwood, South Dakota. He photographed the Black Hills area, Deadwood, Crow Indians, farmers, miners, railroads, but also Calamity Jane (1885) and the Little Big Horn battlefield.

NEW FROM HARLEY O'DONNELL

Montana Monographs is a series of interviews, anecdotal historical stories and short biographies of the pioneers of Montana in the 1870’s and 1880’s. It was edited by, my grandfather, I.D. O’Donnell in the late 1920s. The stories, with archival photographs, cover over 60 pioneers including John Burkman (Custer’s orderly), “Calamity Jane”, “Liver Eating” Johnson, Parmly Billings, “Teddy Blue” Abbott, “Swordbearer”, and “White Quiver”.

Diamond R. Brown was building trading posts on the “Whoop Up” trail in the 1870’s. Joseph Cochrane, Johnnie Reardon and Forest Young were here when the Nez Perce came through in September 1877. This was the time of the “Indian Wars”. Montana Monographs is an accurate snapshot of what life was like in the “Clarks Fork Bottom” in pioneer days.

Montana Monographs is available for $34.95 plus $5.00 shipping (in the US) from Harley O'Donnell, 1133 S. 72nd St. W., Billings, Montana, 59106.
My e-mail address is HOdon21621@ aol.com.

Liver Eating News:

Montana Quarterly(Myths of the Mountain Man by John Clayton) Spring issue 2006

Calamity Jane by James D. McLaird(University of Oklahoma Press) with a fine chapter noting the wild west show of 1884 she, Johnston and others were in.

▪ The fictional biography, Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson by Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker (1969) ISBN 0253203120

Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher

▪ Jeremiah Johnson, a 1972 film by Sydney Pollack starring Robert Redford
▪ John Johnston (spelled with a "t"), Felton & Fowler's Famous Americans You Never Knew Existed, By Bruce Felton and Mark Fowler, Stein and Day, 1979 ISBN 9780812825114

For recent academic scholarship on "Liver-Eating Johnson", see the following book chapter and journal articles:

Jon Axline, "In League with the Devil: Boone Helm and 'Liver-Eatin' Johnston'," in, Still Speaking Ill of the Dead: More Jerks in Montana History, edited by Jon Axline and Jodie Foley. Guilford, Connecticut and Helena, Montana: Two Dot,Globe Pequot Press, 2005.

Nathan E. Bender, “Perceptions of a Mountain Man: John “Jeremiah Liver-Eating” Johnston at Old Trail Town, Cody, Wyoming.” The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal v.1 (2007): 93-106. Published by Museum of the Mountain Man, Pinedale, Wyoming.
Nathan E. Bender, “The Abandoned Scout’s Revenge: Origins of the Crow Killer Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson,” Annals of Wyoming v. 78 n. 4 (Autumn 2006): 2-17. Published by the Wyoming State Historical Society.
Nathan E. Bender, “A Hawken Rifle and Bowie Knife of John ‘Liver-Eating’ Johnson,” Arms & Armour: Journal of the Royal Armouries, v. 3 n. 2 (October 2006): 159-170. Published by the Royal Armouries, Leeds, England.

NEW NEW NEW NEW Johnston biography, written by Dr. Dennis McLelland, entitled, The Avenging Fury of the Plains, John 'Liver-Eating' Johnston, Exploding the Myths - Discovering the Man

AVAILABLE AT:

buybooksontheweb.com

Johnston was portrayed by actor Robert Redford, in the movie, Jeremiah Johnson as a character separate from the historical facts. The book details, and corrects, the many errors about Johnston's life as found in the historical fiction of Thorp and Bunker's The Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson.

Review by Dorman Nelson July 5, 2009

CROW KILLER by Raymond Thorp and Robert Bunker

Interesting to note that Crow Killer was written in 1956 and first published in 1957. Despite the cruel depictions of battle, attitudes and man vrs man and nature; Bunker actually wrote nurturing prose about the Native Americans in Other Men's Skies and other publications.
Raymond Thorp was the mover and shaker in getting information and tracking down individuals involved in the Liver Eating Johnson saga. (He wrote about Black Widows and Jim Bowie's knife, as well.) There are pictures of him with Johnston's National Cemetery Stone in Sawtelle, California, of some of his weapons and areas in the Johnson arena while rambling after the real man. He spent a lot of time talking to veterans of the plains and mountains, many of them coming to Pasedena pastures to graze in arthritic old age. (Hard to move around in the cold crippled up.) Del Gue was the one fella I could never find any historic facts about. Not even his name is mentioned anywhere. Others are looking as well.
White-eyed Anderson was another frontiersman. He was there, bunked and trapped with Johnston for a time and is now buried in California at Forest Lawn.

Robert Bunker was the actual writer; fleshing out the information that Thorp gave him. (I was fortunate to speak to and write him about this book over the years. Both have joined Johnston in eternal rest.) Together the authors have created a moving piece of folklore laced with truth about the frontier and this one man who was known to many in his time. Not mentioned is Johnston's considerable time as a whiskey peddler in Canada out of Fort Benton and his time with an 1884 wild west show along with Crow Indians, Calamity Jane, Curley, Hardwick, LeForge and many others.

He did not have a beef with the Crow. Oh, but he enjoyed beef livers with them at least once by some accounts....during the agency slaughter. It was the Sioux that was stirring the warpath soup. Johnston earned his moniker against them, shot them, poisoned them and generally distrusted them. He got along with the Crow. So here is the subplot of Crow Killer and the movie Jeremiah Johnson that was made in 1972. The Crow were after him.

The book was supposed to be a history. It is, but it is one of tall tales. In that, I would explain that after a day's work one would be laying or sitting by a good fire, full of buffalo rib and berries and perhaps a jigger of whiskey, enjoying a smoke or chew while each good-natured comrade is telling how it was and how it had been...Perhaps the best new book on this subject would be Dr. Dennis John McLelland's The Avenging Fury of the Plains John "Liver Eating" Johnston in that he debunks (sorry Robert) Crow Killer and explains the real man and times.

Johnston has been my research subject since I saw his cabin at Red lodge, Montana in 1969. (See www.johnlivereatingjohnston.com) I have heard all the tales of men in their cups, men on the range, men of boast, men of action and quite a few gals therein while traipsing the historical trails in search of Crow Killer. One such tale in the book has to do with the frozen leg escape, which is a good grisly one, but was actually done by one Boone Helm. Imagine my surprise to get a call from one of his direct descendants to add to my knowledge of the rowdy Helm brothers!

What I would direct readers to enjoy is the fable, the boast, the roar and chest-thumping of men who in reality had not much to do but survive and hold on to memories as they got feeble and needed an outlet for that mental energy pent up inside from those long ago hair raising exploits. It was not an easy life, conquering the west. And many did not get to rest out in pleasant climes like California, having an arrow, bullet, blizzard, bear, fallen boulder or lack of food make their day end--sometimes not very quickly.

Crow Killer is a good book to flavor that time, feel the hone of a blade, duck from a loud crack or wang of a bow string, smell the campfire, enjoy a good buffalo rib (online, if you want) and get some knowledge of survival and how those folks got along with their neighbors. Crow Killer must be on it’s twenty-ninth printing by now—if not it will be.

P.O. Box 33842
Granada Hills, CA 91394
dormannelson@JohnLiverEatingJohnston.com