Archive for November, 2020

Who Is Hazlet?

November 29, 2020
William Hazlett is #3.

Halfback spots opened up on the 1898 Carlisle Indian School football team. A number of young men vied for these positions, including one newspapers referred to as Hazlet. He made long runs and scored two touchdowns against Bloomsburg Normal. He got another against Susquehanna University. He had another one against Dickinson College. After that, his name disappeared from game write-ups. He wasn’t on the team photo. No one with that name was found in the student files but several named Hazlett were. Newspapers often misspelled players’ names, so his name was probably Hazlett. But which Hazlett? George and Stuart Hazlett, both Piegan, graduated in March 1899. Willie Hazlett was mentioned in an article about a debate in the January 29, 1892 edition of The Indian Helper.

Searches of the Student Files located information on all three Hazletts but nothing in any of the files referred to athletics of any sort.  William Hazlett graduated in 1895. That students sometimes remained after graduation doesn’t eliminate him completely but does make it more likely that he isn’t the one. Since the Student Files save in the National Archives are incomplete, other Hazlett boys may have attended Carlisle. 

Perhaps families or other Piegans know of a Hazlett who played football at Carlisle. I would appreciate hearing about him.

 

Delos Lone Wolf, the model

November 15, 2020

While researching the early Carlisle Indian School football teams, I came across a piece about Delos Lone Wolf, Kiowa name Gooě-pah-gah, that had nothing to do with football. He arrived at Carlisle on July 4, 1892 for a 5-year enrollment. That October, he went out on an unusual outing to Newburgh, New York but not to a farm or ordinary business. He was to be a model for Henry Kirke Bush-Brown, a sculptor known for historically accurate realist sculptures illustrating American history. He is perhaps best known for his bronze equestrian statues of George Meade, John F. Reynolds, and John Sedgwick. The latter statue incorporated fine details such as dents in the General’s scabbard and tiny stitching on the horse blanket. Also at Gettysburg is his bust of Abraham Lincoln commemorating Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

In 1892, Bush-Brown was working on a statue to exhibit at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition to be held in Chicago. The subject he had in mind was an Indian bison hunt. To make his statue as realistic as possible, he brought a bison and an Indian pony east to study. How he came to know Lone Wolf is unknown. At 22, Delos was a perfect physical specimen, exactly what Bush-Brown wanted for his scene. He left Carlisle for Newburgh on October 10 and returned on November 24, his work presumably done. A year later, Capt. Pratt rescinded his order against playing interscholastic football, giving Lone Wolf the opportunity to excel at that sport.

More on Joe LittleTwig

November 2, 2020

When I last wrote about Joe Little Twig, in 2016, I could say nothing about his life before playing professional football in Ohio with any certainty. He reputedly went to Carlisle Indian School but I could find no documentation of his having ever been there. This is not that unusual because the records of a large number of students were lost when the school closed unexpectedly and Carlisle Barracks was transitioned back to the army in a rushed fashion.

Today that changed when I found a photo of him in a football uniform. The photo is in the Winnishiek collection held by Cumberland County Historical Society. William Winnishiek and Joe Little Twig both played for the Oorang Indians and may have been friends at Carlisle. Little Twig is wearing a Carlisle Indian School uniform in the photo, so he must have played football on some level at Carlisle.

His obituary and Ohio Soldier Grave Registration give conflicting dates of birth: 1893 and 1897 and dates of service in the U.S. Army: 1916 to 1922 and 1917 to 1921. His obituary lists Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Little Twig of Hogansburg, New York as his parents. Since he would have been no more than 46 years old when he died in 1939, it was quite possible for his parents to still be alive. The obit also said that he first played football at Cattaraugus Indian School near Buffalo before attending Carlisle.

We now have a couple more pieces to the Joe Little Twig puzzle.