I’ve always struggled to decide if one man really can make a difference.

Maybe President Obama can fix the economy. Maybe Joe the Plumber attracted politicians’ attention to the situation of the average American. Maybe I’ll find the cure for cancer.

But among all of the maybes, I do know that during a period when Tooele settlers were suffering the most from American Indian depredations there was one settler whose reputation as a peacemaker made him renown all across the western frontier.

The accounts of the adventures of Jacob Hamblin are difficult to arrange in chronological order because hardly any of them are dated.

One of Hamblin’s most exciting adventures, during the three years he resided in Tooele, was when he led a posse in surprising and surrounding an Indian encampment suspected of cattle rustling.

Seeing no chance for escape, the leader of the band approached Hamblin and said, “I never hurt you, and I don’t want to. If you shoot, I will; if you do not, I will not.”

Hamblin could not speak the man’s language, but understood what was said. Building on the peace offer, Hamblin invited some of the Indians to accompany him back to Tooele and pledged he would be responsible for their safety during their visit to the settlement.

Hamblin’s superiors did not feel the same way as he did about inviting the Indians, who had caused them so much trouble, to be their guests. They ordered the band’s leaders be shot.

At this point, Hamblin stepped in front of his charges and stated he did not care to live if the Indians, whose safety he had pledged, should be killed. And if anyone were to be shot, he would be the first.

Hamblin’s firm stand preserved his friend’s lives and the Tooele settlers allowed their captives to return unharmed to their encampment.

Tooele’s presiding elder reprimanded Jacob for what he had considered to be a rash action in bringing the Indians back to the settlement with him, and instructed him to take his men into the field once more to shoot all the Indians he might find.

Obeying orders, Jacob and his men once more went looking for the hostile group. Hamblin’s men found another group of Indians and surprised the encampment in the eastern foothills of the Stansbury Mountains. The group divided in an effort to keep the Indians from reaching the mountains.

Hamblin concealed himself behind a large rock, next to which he expected the Indians would come to as they tried to escape. He hadn’t been there long before an Indian came within a few paces of where he lay hidden.

Hamblin raised his musket and took careful aim, but when he pulled the trigger nothing happened. This was one out of many similar experiences convincing Hamblin that he was not to kill the Indians.

It was on this occasion that Hamblin, upon seeing helpless women and children running barefoot over the rocks and through the snow, decided that if he ever was to have anything more to do with the Indians it would be in a different way.

In later years, Hamblin would become so well acquainted with the local tribes that he would live among them, acting as a mediator between the white men and the Indians, improving relations wherever he went.

Natalie Tripp: ntripp@tooeletranscript.com