Sold – President Harry Truman Relates His Own Grandfather’s Part in Bringing the Old West Into Being, and Saying He Knew Wild Bill Hickock and Gunslinger Jack Slade

Usher L. Burdick was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from North Dakota. He was fascinated by the West, and was also a rare book collector. Melding these two together, he wrote a number of books on the West, including one on the Sioux Nation, one on Old Time Cow Men, and one on the Marquis deMores, an Italian nobleman and frontier ranchman.

President Truman shared Burdick's fascination with the West, in part because he was deeply interested in history, and in part because his family had been prominent in the settlement of the West. Truman's paternal grandfather was Solomon Young, who from the 1840s to the 1860s led wagon trains to California and Utah. In those days, men who engaged in this fascinating and dangerous practice were called freighters. Fortunately for Truman, his grandfather lived long enough to get to know the future president, and often regaled his grandson with his exploits. In an interesting and revealing historical aside, when Truman was running for reelection in 1948, and stopped at Salt Lake City, he told the crowd "Oh, I wish my grandfather could see me now."

Typed Letter Signed, on White House letterhead, Washington, February 24, 1949, to Burdick. "I can't tell you how very much I appreciated your thoughtfulness in sending me an autographed copy of your booklet on the Marquis deMores at war in the Bad Lands. I started to read it and couldn't put it down until I finished it.

"I am very interested in all these old tales of the West. My grandfather was a great freighter from Westport to Denver, Salt Lake City and San Francisco in the '40s, '50s and '60s. He was acquainted with a great many of the famous Western characters. He knew Jules, Slade and Wild Bill Hickock. I have quite a collection of stories and articles on these and I also have an autobiography of Wyatt Earp, who was one of the famous Marshals of the West.

"I had never run across any stories about the Marquis. If there are any copies of your "The Last Battle of the Sioux Nation" available, I wish you would tell me where I can obtain that also. I enjoyed the visit with the North Dakota delegation the other morning very much." In an interesting clarification, he adds in holograph "Westport is Kansas City now." Truman refers to Jack Slade, stagecoach and Pony Express superintendent and archetypal Western gunslinger, and Jules Beni, whom Slade killed.

This is the only Truman letter we can recall seeing about his fascination with the Old West, and his own grandfather's part in bringing it into being. It is also the only reference to his being a collector.