Transcript

Col. Babbitt.

SERIOUS apprehensions, says the Washington Union, are entertained that Colonel [Almon W.] Babbitt, the Secretary of the Territory of Utah, who was formerly the delegate in Congress from that Territory, has been murdered on the plains by the Cheyenne Indians. We learn from W. M. F. Magraw, just arrived in this city, who left the frontier eight days since, that Colonel Babbitt, whose train had been captured this side of Fort Kearney, had gone on to Fort Kearney after the capture of his train, and had there obtained four government mules, and left on the 2d of September with one man, in a light carriage, with dispatches for Fort Laramie, which point he had not reached on the 14th September, when Magraw's party, with the United States mail, left Fort Laramie for Independence. The party could hear or learn nothing relative to him. His friends in Missouri and on the plains are of the opinion that he and his companion have been murdered.

Colonel Babbitt should have got through to Fort Laramie in five or six days if not molested. One of the Sioux Indians, who had been pardoned by the President of the United States for the murder of Magraw's men two years ago, and was being escorted home to his tribe by Captain Stewart, of the army, got permission to go on in advance of the escort. This Indian knew that Colonel Babbitt had left Fort Kearney for Laramie, and followed the tracks of his mules up into the Bluffs, near Ash Hollow, until he found evidences that Babbitt's waggon had been destroyed; found a man's shirt and other marks going to satisfy him that Colonel Babbitt and his companion had been murdered. He turned, for his own safety, and crossed the north fork of Platte river and proceeded on that side to Laramie, where he reported what he had seen and his conclusion on the subject.