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Characters that Came West

A

Anonymous

Guest
This came up because of a post on another thread- but I think every area had old characters- with supposed connections to wealth or royalty- that somehow ended up out in the west usually for reasons very vague or sometimes suspicious...Kind of where the code of the west came up of not asking where you were from or how you got there- taking everyone for the person they were today.....

Be interested in hearing about some of these folks....

I had an old neighbor (lived about 3 miles away)- Toulouis Santi (sp) (everyone called him The Old Spaniard- or The Spaniard)- that lived in a one room shack with attached chicken house/sheep barn-- that lived the life of a hermit...Farmed a little 1/2 section- ran some sheep- used to walk the about 6 miles to town and back round trip to buy a few groceries- and a sack of coal...Winter time he wore overshoes stuffed with straw...Most folks would pick him up and give him a ride whichever way he was going..

I never got to know him that well- but had heard he was connected to Spains royal family...I remember as kids we never went too near his place as we were scared of him- the only time I can remember being in his place was when Dad wanted to buy an old junker pickup he had for parts for our feed truck--and it was like 20 below in the house and he was dressed in several layers of clothes with his overshoes on- standing over the the old wood cookstove sticking paper in to burn so he could fry an egg...He told Dad coal was getting too expensive :roll: And two sheep followed us in when we went in, which he never chased out.. But my uncle farmed his place in his later years for him- and my cousins found him to actually be a quite sociable old fellow- altho difficult to understand his broken speech....

After he died it was found that all that was true- he actually had received a monthly payment from the royal family when they existed- and had a fantastic education- with some of the most fancy handwriting- was multilingual in several languages... Before he died he had given my cousin many of his heirlooms- fancy engraved swords, armor, helmets, toledo steel knives, etc....
These were all donated to the local museum that sat up an entire display of his things along with many of the Royal decrees, papers, and letters he had- including some of his fancy handwritten papers of his life....
 

andybob

Well-known member
Lord Angus Graham 7 th Duke of Montrose, spent some time during his youth working as a cowboy throughout the Southern states before moving to Africa. Nobody ever knew his identity during his cowboying days.
 
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