AUNT SALLY—FIRST WOMAN IN THE BLACK HILLS. That’s all it says on her simple, rough wood headboard that now hangs in the Adams Museum in Deadwood. A new marker was erected in 1934 at her grave in the old Vinegar Hill Cemetery, high on the wooded hill above the once bustling mining town of Galena. It says:
“Aunt Sally, Sarah Campbell, colored, died 1887. As a Member of the Custer Expedition to the Black Hills in 1874 She Ventured with the Vanguard of Civilization. 1874. - Erected by Her Fri

True West May/June 2025
In This Issue:
Features
- Historic Hotels of the American West
- A Journey Through Wyoming’s Outlaw History
- A Journey Through Washington’s Wild Frontier
- Blazing The Oregon Trail
- Journey Through Time
- Did Brigham Young Order a Massacre?
- Mountain Meadows Scapegoat John D. Lee VS. A Firing Squad
- Mormons in the Movies
- An Indigenous Consultant Ensures Accuracy
- The Battle Axe And A Raw Deal
- Showdown: Bridger VS. Brigham
- The Mountain Man and the Mormon Moses
- The Ghosts of Mountain Meadows
- The War Before the War
- Mountain Meadows