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Remember the days? by Jim Leiner
Nyack's Old Indian Fighter
He used to sit on the concrete steps outside the Up-to-Date Laundry on the corner of Washington and Burd Streets watching kids play stickball against the front of the large, gray wooden building. To a young lad he was old, with disheveled clothes, shaggy white hair and missing his right leg. We would see him as my Dad and I walked down Washington for the evening paper or a pint of hand packed ice cream. "How are them Indians?" pop would ask, as we walked past and "Boomer" Barnes would smile, teeth missing, "Better circle the wagons Fred," he would answer, "they're comin' for a raid on the village!" Pop explained to me that "Boomer" was a real Calvary soldier who fought against Sitting Bull and Indians out west, and to a little guy whose favorite play was cowboys and Indians, this was truly an exciting story. Most folks around Nyack might remember "Boomer" as an old guy who lived above the laundry and earned his keep doing odd jobs around town, a guy missing a leg, who could spin a yarn with the best, but as I was to find out many years later, his tall tales were quite true.
I found a story written by Virginia Parkhurst shortly after his death that detailed many of his exploits. She wrote that John Barnes enlisted in the Eighth Calvary at age twenty-four and was a bugler for Casey's Indian Scouts. Among their duties was to protect the settlers arriving to make their homes in the Dakotas. The settlers were called "Boomers" and John Barnes liked that handle; the nickname reminded him of those days. In 1892 he saw action against Sitting Bull in the Black Hills and Indian Badlands. From the Dakotas, the Eighth Cav went on to patrol in Arizona, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana. At the close of the Indian wars he became friendly with the Sioux. He taught them how to blow a bugle and they taught him how to hunt and fish and gave him a pair of Indian moccasins. They said as long as he wore them he would never lose a race. While serving near Deadwood, South Dakota, he spent a few months seeking Calamity Jane and found her living a peaceful life after helping Wild Bill Hickok tame the town. His military career didn't end there and during the Spanish-American War, "Boomer" and the Eighth Calvary traveled to the Philippines and Cuba.
Out of the army "Boomer" heard about land grants in Alaska, obtained a job constructing Alaska's railroad and went on to become an engineer. He became a member of the Brotherhood of Railroad Engineers and held a card that entitled him to free transportation on any railroad in the country. He came East and worked on several railroads. It was while working for the railroad that he lost his leg, but that didn't slow down John Barnes. He obtained a job with the Merchant Marine and sailed from New York to China, the East Indies and South America. During World War 1 he sailed a transport between New York and France delivering US Dough Boys.
His adventures ending, "Boomer" came to Nyack where his three sisters, Lillian Post, Amelia Fluhr and Mabel Mulholland, lived. It was Mrs. Mulholland's family who owned the laundry and gave her brother the little room where he lived for years. It was while living above the laundry that the world traveler finally lost his race. He died, tragically in a smoky early morning fire on December 4, 1950. Hampered by the missing leg, he was unable to escape from the building and was overcome by smoke. This fiercely patriotic man who fought the Sioux, later became their friend, shook hands with Calamity Jane, helped build the first railroad in Alaska and sailed the seven seas to almost every country in the world, finally came to rest. John "Boomer" Barnes was buried with full military honors in Oak Hill Cemetery. A squad from West Point participated, capping off the career of Nyack's only Indian Fighter and, to his fellow veterans at Nyack's Tappan Zee Post Veteran's of Foreign Wars, a man who symbolized the most colorful years in American history.
The Nyack Villager thanks Jim Leiner for helping us all 'Remember the Days .
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The
Nyack Villager thanks Jim Leiner for helping us all 'Remember
the Days .'
Jim Leiner can be reached for questions and comments via e-mail
at
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