![]() Then came word of a new gold strike in Colorado, and a group of would-be gold hunters – strangers to one another – gathered in Bingham Canyon, Utah, eager to get first crack at the untapped riches of the San Juans. He wandered to Utah in 1873, making a poor living at the mines there. He worked as a miner in Georgetown, where he lost part of his left pinky and index finger to an errant sledgehammer blow. He spent the decade after the war drifting from job to job – hunter, hard-rock miner, trapper, teamster, guide – but despite his various explanations for his seizures, his employment invariably ended when his ailment manifested itself. He enlisted with two different Union regiments during the Civil War, but he served with each for less than a year before getting discharged due to seizures, which occurred every two days, if not more frequently. The spelling was Alfred in all official documents and contemporary newspapers, but he repeatedly signed his name “Alferd.” He left his parents, brother and two sisters at a young age, and by his late teens, he was living as a shoemaker in Minnesota.Īll his life, Packer suffered from epilepsy, a disorder then thought to be linked to insanity. There are two stories for even the most basic details, including his name. This ambiguity is hallmark of Packer’s life. 21, 1842, though he claimed his birthday was Jan. But there is one detail that was the same in each confession: He survived more than a month in the frozen wilderness by eating human flesh. To this day, no one knows if Packer was the blameless victim of blizzards and starvation, or a calculating murderer who led five men to their doom. He would recount his story a number of times over the next three decades, with the details changing in each telling. It was to be the first of many confessions. Perhaps feeling cornered by Adams’ interrogation, Packer finally broke his silence with a cryptic, disturbing observation: “It would not be the first time that people had been obliged to eat each other when they were hungry.”Īnd so, through tears, Packer began to confess. Though he claimed the rest of his party left him behind after his feet got too frozen to keep up, rumors soon spread that he had murdered his comrades for their money. They were headed for the Indian agency south of present-day Gunnison, but Packer was the only one who arrived. Three months earlier, in February 1874, the lanky, blue-eyed 31-year-old was one of six gold prospectors to venture into southwest Colorado’s San Juan Mountains during one of the worst winters in memory. If the matter is as I suspect, you are more to be pitied than blamed.” “I believe these men are dead and you know something about it,” Adams said. Packer to his office on the Los Pinos Indian agency, determined to find out what really happened to Packer’s five traveling companions. Government official Charles Adams summoned Alfred G. March/April 2013 CL issue of Colorado Life Magazine)
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