Lanman Crosby
Lusk Pioneer and Justice of Peace Dies in New York
Lanman Crosby, a former pioneer resident of Lusk and one of New York's leading attorneys died July 3 at his home in White Plains, N.Y., after a long illness. He was 86.
Mr. Crosby was born in New York City, attended Trinity Preparatory School, and was in his second year at Williams College when he decided to go west. The railroad had recently extended its rails to Lusk when Crosby landed here in 1890, the day before Wyoming declared its statehood.
Lusk had an early growth but it was hardly out of its swaddling clothes when Crosby arrived in the little frontier town. He was only 21 years old and was referred to as "the kid tenderfoot from the east" by loafers around the Collins House.
Crosby spent his first summer in Wyoming riding for the Converse Cattle Company, of which Ad Spaugh was the foreman. After the fall roundup he returned to Lusk, and was elected a Justice of the Peace.
The following winter he was employed as a school teacher in Whelan Canyon and boarded with the Charles Frederick family.
Mr. Crosby visited Lusk in 1940 after fifty years and was amazed by the growth not only of Lusk but all of eastern Wyoming. He numbered among his friends in the early days: Ad Spaugh, Russell Thorp, Luke Voorhees, George Lathrop, Johnny Owens, Billy Glass, the Fredericks family, Bishop Talbot, Charley Guernsey, the famous "Sixball" and many other old-timers.
After Mr. Crosby returned from the west in 1894, he attended Columbia Law School and was later admitted to the bar. He was one of New York's leading lawyers.
A cultured gentlemen always, Mr. Crosby was a nephew of Charles Lanman, author of "Adventures in the Wild of North America" and secretary of Daniel Webster. He was an amateur poet and book collector. One of his poems "The Cardinal's Chair" (inspired by the famous butte near Lusk) has often been reprinted in western newspapers.
Mr. Crosby's surviving relatives state that he often spoke of the the scare in Lusk after the Wounded Knee fight and recalled some of the events that followed the Johnson County War.