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Page 8 Volume 9, No. 1 Winter 2016 Maus’ cinematic-like life is reminiscent of Zelig, a earthquake. Talking with Maus must have been like 1983 mock documentary written and directed by reading a primer of late 19th- and early 20th-century Woody Allen. The title character has an uncanny American history. How fortunate for the guests of knack for meeting historic personalities of the 1920s, New Windsor’s Dielman Inn to sit down and dine from Charles Lindbergh to Charlie Chaplin. Marion with such a living legend. Perry Maus was a Zelig-like character who came to know Geronimo, Chief Joseph, Black Jack Pershing, and Buffalo Bill and to participate in a litany of epic Sources: events from Wounded Knee and the Spanish “Aged Officer Dies at New Windsor Inn,” Union Bridge (Md.) American War to the 1906 San Francisco The Pilot, February 14, 1930. Fifer, Barbara, Montana Battlefields 1806-1877: Native AN INDIAN FIGHTER IN NEW WINDSOR? INTRODUCING MARION PERRY MAUS Americans and the U.S. Army at War (Helena, Montana: BY FRANK J. BATAVICK Faircountry Press, 2005) Greene, Jerome A. and Josephy, Alvin M., Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis (Helena: he long, brutal Civil War was The U.S. government soon realized Montana Historical Society Press, 2000) over, and a fractured nation that something had to be done to http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/nepe/greene/ T notes11.htm for “Nez Perce, National Historic Park, Big mourned its president’s death. The guarantee the safety of the tens of Hole National Battlefield Chapter 11, No. 53” year was 1865, and as roughly thousands of settlers pursuing Interviews with Julia Roop Cairns, March 4, 1998 and Charles 800,000 men mustered out of the America’s Manifest Destiny. Enter Lovell, November 15, 2011, New Windsor, Md. (New Union and Confederate armies, the Indian fighter and the storied Windsor Heritage) many of them sought a fresh start. soldier Marion Perry Maus Keenan, Jerry, The Life of Yellowstone Kelly (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006) Throughout his life, Horace (pronounced “Moss”). He enjoyed a Miles, Nelson A., Personal Recollections and Observations of Greeley (1811-1872), editor of the career worthy of the Hollywood General Nelson A. Miles, (Chicago, New York: The New-York Tribune, advised “all screen, and when he retired from the Werner Company, 1896) (Lincoln: University of Nebraska who are in want of work, Go Army, he boxed up his medals and Press, 1992.) West!” And that is exactly what memories and moved to the Rockville News, Section 3, p. 10, Washington Times, June 4, 1905 countless veterans did. The golden tranquility of New Windsor, where Settlers & Native Americans in the West 1865-1900, U.S. states of California, Nevada, and he spent his twilight years. Though History II, people.sunyulster.edu/VoughtH/Western% Oregon beckoned in each sunset, the Maus name can be found among 20Settlers%20&%20Indians.ppt but there were ten untamed Carroll County’s earliest inhabitants territories standing in the way, and Captain Maus, Indian Fighter, as and is part of the Reifsnider family About the author: Frank Batavick is a veteran of more they were far from uninhabited. illustrated by Frederic Remington. tree, research shows no certain local than 40 years in the television industry as a writer, (Public Domain-United States) genealogical connection to our producer, and director, including 16 years with Maryland A quarter of a million Native famous subject. Brigadier General Marion P. Maus, c.1912. Note Public TV. Frank is vice-chairman of the HSCC board of Americans lived in the Great Plains. Some, like the Congressional Medal of Honor suspended from collar. trustees and a co-founder of the New Windsor Heritage Pawnee and Omaha, were farmers and dwelled along Regardless, Maus was a Maryland product through (George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress) group. He and his wife, Dori, reside in Westminster. the Missouri River. Others, like the Cheyenne, and through. Born in Burnt Mills, now a section of Comanche, and Sioux, were nomadic warriors who Silver Spring, on August 25, 1849, he was the son of hunted buffalo on horseback in the High Plains, and Mary and Isaac R. Maus. Isaac was a superintendent PUBLICATION COMMITTEE MEMBERS: © 2016 these tribes had no intention of surrendering their on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and a descendant The Historical Society of Carroll County, Maryland, Inc. native lands without a fight. Once the pioneers of a soldier in the Colonial and Revolutionary Wars. Frank J. Batavick, editor 210 East Main Street managed to get through the Great Plains and head Marion was one of nine children, and a younger Mary Ann Ashcraft Westminster, Maryland 21157 Southwest, they then had to confront the fierce brother, Louis Mervin Maus, followed him into the Samuel T. Brainerd Phone: 410-848-6494 Fax: 410-848-3596 Eleanor S. Darcy Apaches who dwelled in parts of Texas and the military and rose to the rank of colonel and assistant Email: [email protected] Website: www.HSCCmd.org James E. Lightner territories of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and in surgeon general. Sharon B. Schuster northern Mexico. If the pioneers steered their wagons toward the great Northwest instead, they As a boy, Marion Maus anxiously followed the Catherine E. Baty, Curator of Collections would meet the challenges of tribes like the Nez outbreak of hostilities between North and South and Perce who inhabited parts of the state of Oregon and became consumed by soldiers and warfare. His Gainor B. Davis, Executive Director James E. Lightner, Chair, Board of Trustees the territories of Washington, Montana, and Idaho. parents sent him to Charlotte Hall Military Academy Page 2 Page 7 in St. Mary’s County for his Grant. But, settlers continued to Viewing hostile Indian camp (left to right) Buffalo Bill Cody, General Nelson A. Miles, Captain Frank Baldwin, and Captain education. Now the Charlotte Hall move into the area and clash with Marion P. Maus, 1891. (John C. H. Grabill Collection, Library Veterans Home, the school dates them, and Grant rescinded the of Congress) (Wikimedia Commons, PD-US) to 1774 when it was founded “to order in 1874, leaving the tribe provide for the liberal and pious without a land to call its own. education of the youth of this Maryland food. Their comings and goings were providence—the better to fit them When three Nez Perce were regularly reported in the society columns of for the discharge of their duties.” murdered by whites who went local papers. The inn closed to the general Maus must have excelled there unpunished, tensions increased, public in 1927, but one of the surviving Dielman because his next stop was the U.S. and the Secretary of the Interior sisters, Carolina, continued to offer Military Academy at West Point, appointed a five-man commission accommodations to friends and special visitors New York, as a member of the in 1876 to resolve the conflict. It like the Mauses long after this date. Class of 1874. arranged a meeting with the powerful Chief Joseph at Fort Old-time New Windsor residents remembered Upon graduation from West Lapwai, but the sides failed to the retired general taking walks around town and Point, Maus was commissioned as come to an agreement. In attending services at St. Paul United Methodist a second lieutenant, assigned to response, the commission ruled in Church across from the inn. Maus also rode st the 1 Infantry on the Western May 1877 that the Nez Perce were Around 1917 Maus and his wife came for a stay at about in a fancy, blue Jordan roadster with a canvas West Point yearbook photograph of Cadet frontier, and attached to the Marion P. Maus. (Special Collections, to resettle onto a reservation in the the genteel 43-room Dielman Inn in New Windsor. top, running boards, and a large spotlight. command of Colonel Nelson United States Military Academy Library) west-central Idaho Territory They must have enjoyed their time there because Frequently, local resident Sam Hill dressed in livery Appleton Miles. Miles was a within 30 days or be forced by the they returned every summer until 1930. Their and took the wheel as he chauffeured the Mauses ferocious fighter who had Army to do so. To fight back, quarters were two rooms on the second floor of a throughout the county, often with the top down. distinguished himself in the Civil War at numerous warriors killed nine settlers in two separate incidents. brick section of the inn fronting High Street, only battles, including Antietam and Fredericksburg. His On June 14, ninety soldiers left Fort Lapwai to drive accessible by outside steps leading to a balcony door. Maus apparently began to have health problems by assignment was to subdue the Northern Cheyenne the Indians onto the reservation, and the Nez Perce 1924. The Frederick Post reported on August 6 that and Sitting Bull’s Sioux in the Black Hills of South War of 1877 had begun. Operated by the Louis W. Dielman family, the inn he had been driving his roadster down the city’s Dakota. This mission became paramount after the attracted visitors from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Market Street “in a reckless and mysterious manner 1876 massacre of General George A. Custer and the At first, the Indians had the upper hand, beating the Washington seeking to escape the summer heat. and crashed into an obstacle at the Baltimore and 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn. Army convincingly at White Bird Guests staged plays, played games, sang songs, went Ohio Station.” Police initially thought he had been Canyon in Idaho on June 17.