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Last updated 04/28/2010

Soldier of Fortune

When he was 17 years old, he "sailed" into Honduras with two Indians in a canoe. Before he was 18, he had become a brigadier general in the Honduras revolutionary army.

In the ensuing years, he served with Garcia as an officer in the Cuban revolution, later rising from private to captain in the American forces in the Spanish-American War. He fought in the Philippines and in the Boxer uprising in China.

He explored and hunted in the dark corners of Korea, China, Africa, India, Java, Sumatra--"The Sportsman's Paradise," and other far-off places. He was armed not only with all kinds of hunting rifles, including a.550 heavy gun, several .400 Mannlichers and an eight millimeter light rifle, but with a movie camera with which he filmed wild animals and native Africans.

During one six-month hunting trip he brought home trophies from "every game country on the western shores of the Pacific, north of Australia." Kangaroos, wallabys, wild buffalo, panthers, tigers, elephants, wild boar, emu, and pheasants were in his collection - a few wild animals shot in response to pleas to eliminate man-killers or destroyers of acres and acres of young rubber trees.

He was the inspiration for the adventuresome character of "Captain Macklin" in a novel by Richard Harding Davis, who reportedly stated that in writing the book he "stepped on the soft pedal, because if I told the truth (about his life) the world wouldn't believe it in a novel."

He owned three plantations in Cuba, including a 3,500 acre cattle ranch, and an apartment in Havana, enjoying the winters in Cuba when he wasn't on yet another expedition. Years later, the sugar plantation at Camaguey was destroyed, and horses and cattle were taken from the ranches by rebels who were eventually captured by government troops.

He bought a $10,000 hunting lodge in the Belgian Congo and negotiated with King Albert of Belgium for several thousand acres in that area.

He was the friend of a cannibal king, and he wore a Panama hat given to him by the president of Ecuador. One time he went into the Pyrenees to hunt alone and found another solitary hunter. The two had "a huge time" together, and some shooting luck, but he never learned the name of his companion. In Paris some time later, he saw his hunting companion again-and friends informed him that stranger was King Alfonso of Spain.

He was as comfortable with longshoremen as with royalty, with generals as with beachcombers, with sultans as with natives of the countries he visited. After one African expedition, he wrote:

"I found the natives were more moral in inverse proportion to the amount of clothes they wore. One tribe that wore no clothes at all were the most civilized people I have ever found. The women, instead of wearing wedding rings, wore a string around their waist after they were married. The string and a smile completed their costume. But divorces were unknown and the bucks were perfect gentlemen."

He enlisted as a private in World War I and in four months had risen to the rank of major in the air corps. He was the first American to command an aviation squadron-American pilots with the British Expeditionary Forces, flying American planes in France.

He was wounded twice and gassed, spending more than five months in hospitals, trying to recover.

He was Cushman A. Rice, one of Willmar's and Minnesota's most adventurous sons. The only child of A. E. Rice, pioneer citizen (co-builder of the first store south of the new railroad tracks in 1869), statesman (legislator and lieutenant- governor), university regent (24 years), banker, and of Sophia Brattlund Rice, educator, Cushman came by his courage naturally. His father came alone to this country at the age of 13 from Vinje, Telemarken, Norway, and soon joined the Union Army, serving as a messenger boy until he was old enough to be mustered in formally. At the age of 10, Sophia came with her parents from Brattfors, Varmland, Sweden, took teacher's training and taught in schools near Lake Andrew before coming to teach in the village of Willmar at the age of 20, becoming superintendent in three years.

After the Armistice, Colonel Rice was with the army of occupation and later went to Russia, Warsaw, and Odessa. He supervised 250,000 Russians in Constantinople. There he met Count Anatole Patapoff, a counter-revolutionist, and enabled him to come to Willmar, where he worked for several months in the Bank of Willmar, of which A. E. Rice was president.

When he was not traveling, Colonel Rice divided his time between Cuba, in his Havana apartment or on his cattle ranch, and New York, at the Army and Navy Club. He frequently visited his father in Willmar-his mother died in 1914-and in the 1920's, built himself a summer estate on the northwest shore of Green Lake, where he spent more and more of his time. Trading the "jungle jazz of two overly friendly lions, some jackals, and hyenas" for the serenade of loons, orioles, and wrens must have been a welcome change for the weary hunter.

Not all his time at Green Lake, however, was spent listening to the serenade of loons. One of his favorite pastimes was racing his speedboat, powered by an airplane engine, across the lake in preparation for races elsewhere. Although one of his speedboats reportedly sank the first time he used it, he was undaunted and enthusiastically continued racing.

He also thoroughly enjoyed entertaining guests at his estate. He installed electric lights between the house and the boathouse, piped in music, and guests could dance the night away, under the moon and stars, on the roof of the boathouse. For those who tired early, each bedroom was wired for a radio, bringing in two or three stations with music of the listener's choice.

During this time, too, after his father's death in 1921, Cushman managed several hundred acres of farm land in the Willmar area and in the Red River Valley, was a university regent as his father had been, owned several buildings in Willmar, and, as president of the Bank of Willmar for a short time, was credited with saving Willmar banks from a financial crisis in 1929 by bringing about their reorganization and introducing Otto Bremer of St. Paul to the banking community.

Colonel Rice never completely recovered from his war injuries and the gassing in World War I that permanently damaged his lungs. His faithful Chinese servant of thirty years, Lin Foy, accompanied him on his travels and was responsible for all the duties of the Green Lake summer home. Here it was on September 4, 1932, that Col. Rice died at the age of 54.

Thus the Spicer area shared in the life of Cushman Albert Rice-globe trotter, big game hunter, soldier of fortune.

*Reprinted from the "Kandi Express" of June 1987, by permission of the Kandiyohi County Historical Society, Willmar, Minnesota.

 

 

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