| Moughmer Point Editor’s Note: Shirley Gehring shared this article which was originally written by Alice Sprute, who taught school at Maughmer Point and later at Keuterville. Maughmer Point is a somewhat flat region on the upper edge of the Salmon River breaks. It is about nine miles southeast of Keuterville, Idaho and about twelve miles south of Cottonwood, Idaho in Section 14, Township30 and Range West, Teicher Creek runs on the west side, Graves Creek on the east side and Salmon River breaks and Salmon River on the south side. This territory received its name from four Pennsylvania Dutch brothers, Tom, Bill, George and Charley Maughmer who homesteaded this point region. They did not homestead any of the breaks land because they had hopes, with reasonable assurance, no one would ever move to this breaks region between Maughmer Point and Salmon River. Thus the aggressive brothers had access to free winter pasture which their homesteads did not supply for their near 1,000 head of cattle. The future looked promising to the Maughmers until, much to their distress, three brothers by the name of Clifford, Sam and Henry Riggs with their flock of approximately 1,600 sheep moved to this government owned breaks land. This took the free winter pasture from the Maughmer brothers. This naturally led to another of the many quarrels between cattlemen and sheepmen of the West. The Riggs ordered their sheepherders to graze the sheep up the hill near the Maughmer land. The feud brewed for some time with arguments and threats. The Riggs brothers were in the process of fencing the land when they and the Maughmers met on the dividing line. It was here on November 17, 1899 after a heated quarrel that Clifford shot Charley Maughmer with a shot gun at about a 20 foot range. Bill Maughmer rode to Cottonwood and phoned to Grangeville for the sheriff over the 1899 Cottonwood-Grangeville telephone. The Riggs rode 2 miles west of Keuterville to get Dr. Blake. Bill Eller, a well known Salmon River rancher, held a wake alone throughout the long cold night for the shot gun victim. Riggs turned himself in as guilty in self defense, but soon left the country to the extent that he was afraid of the fence posts and even his own shadow. Charley Maughmer was buried in the Cottonwood Cemetery where he is now resting with his family in the Maughmer family plot. George Maughmer died a few years later of rabies during the rabies outbreak at about 1910. Bill and Tom Maughmer remained on their ranches until age forced them to sell their property to Gehring brothers and Clarence Lightfield who became the new owners. The ranches since have been handed down to the next generation. Rabies outbreak about 1910 Editor’s Note: Shirley Gehring also shared this article which was originally written by Alice Sprute, who taught school at Maughmer Point and later at Keuterville. About the year 1910 there was a serious outbreak of rabies along the Salmon River and Maughmer Point. This involved a vast region because coyotes carried the disease. Coyotes visited farms at night biting the farmer's animals. The bite usually transferred the dread disease to any animal or human bitten. When infected with the disease there was a change of disposition to angry and manic. Blindness developed with a strange urge to bite any object in the sufferer's path. In last stages the victim frothed at the mouth and became paralyzed until death came as a relief. This characteristic of the disease led the early settlers to call it "Mad Dog Disease." You can't imagine what anguish parents suffered seeing their child in torment to his death. There was no cure or prevention of the disease nor were there any hospitals. A member of the family was tied to prevent him from biting others. George Maughmer, one of the Maughmer brothers after which the Maughmer Point was named, was bitten by a mad dog. Before long the neighbors were forced to take him to jail. A few days later his fierce and strange actions were brought to light when he died of rabies. Besides Maughmer there was a Troutman boy and an Ahlers boy victims of the horrible disease. Numerous dogs, cattle, hogs, horses and sheep were lost from the rabies outbreak. A mad steer was known to have treed a couple of boys and kept them there until the steer heard a man coming on a saddle horse. He promptly left the boys and chased the man home. Rabies was feared and watched for years.
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