behind AotW

An announcement in the Sacramento Daily Union of 3 January 1893.

And here’s a reproduction wanted poster seen recently in the American Hotel in Cerro Gordo, California.

This 2017 photo of the poster is from Dave’n’Kathy on their Vagabond Blog. Sadly, a fire destroyed the hotel, Billy Crapo’s cabin next door, and presumably that poster in June 2020.

Illinois-born William Crapo was an 18 year old farmer in Saratoga County, NY at the start of the Civil War and he enlisted as a Private in Company G of the 21st New York Infantry in October 1861. He was wounded in the thigh at Antietam in September 1862, spent 3 months in hospitals, and mustered out with the regiment in May 1863.

He was in California by 1867 and in the business of silver mining at Cerra Gordo soon after. 25 years later he shot two men in town, killing one of them, and disappeared, never heard from again.