Jim Bridger
Guide Information
Monday, May 28, 2012
The information presented below, through our sponsor, is used
to help identify where James (Jim) Bridger was during the periods he traversed
the western areas of the Indian Lands. This is developed to assist in locating
the critical wagon roads in the Yellowstone
Regions that he made or helped create and those that were identified at later
dates. As an adventurer, Bridger moved about the countryside, cutting through a
wide swath of terrain during his tenure as mountain man and guide. The
information presented below is compiled mainly from original manuscripts and
diaries of those who were with him at the time. Most of the extracts are
presented without change, but some have been adjusted to create normal sentence
structures for ease of reading and comprehension. Many of the local landmarks
discovered by he or his companions are discussed in depth so as to provide as
much insight into their discoveries as practical, and assign rightful
ownerships when possible. As with most discoveries, there is no single sole
ownership of such; but rather the claims belong to many, each with their own
tale of excitement. In piecing this listing together Stanley Vestals book “Jim Bridger” was used
as a timeline reference, and the source materials added to it for a more
complete understanding of the events. Of special interest are the Ashley
Expeditions, through which Bridger got his start as a mountain man in 1822.
Virtually all source materials and historical extracts relating to these
expeditions were created with the interest of the events that occurred, and not
the specific relation of the events to the hiring of men for support of the
trapping activities. These historical overlaps in history have been untangled
and presented as separate events to present a timeline for the significant
activities that Bridger undertook. The early years begin with mountain men
looking to make a fortune in furs. To help understand the major companies that
sought the fur trade claim in the local areas, these fur companies dominated
the region:
·
In 1670 when King Charles II of England granted a group of investors a charter
and a trading monopoly covering a vast region of northern North
America. The territory granted to "The Governor and Company
of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson's
Bay" covered much of present-day Western Canada and parts of the Northern United States. Henry Kelsey, who was the first
European to see herds of buffalo on the plains of Western Canada, and Company
explorers such as Samuel Hearne and Anthony Henday opened large uncharted areas
of the North and West to commerce, trade and subsequent settlement. Canadian
cities such as Winnipeg, Edmonton
and Victoria
began as outposts of the Hudson's Bay Company's
fur trade and many small communities across the Canadian North grew up around a
Company post. As settlement increased in the West, the Hudson's
Bay Company became increasingly involved in the retail trade, and by the early
years of the twentieth century sales shops and stores existed in major centers
across Western Canada and in the North. The
first Hudson's Bay Company "department
store" opened in Winnipeg
in 1881, and for years was a major hub of the fur trade. The Hudson's Bay Company and the North West
Company merged in 1821 bringing an end to the fierce competition and strife
that had racked the fur trade in Canada for more than two decades. The merger
secured the Hudson's Bay Company monopoly from Hudson Bay to Lake Athabaska in
Canada, however, the company still faced competition along the international
boundary with the United States. Alexander Ross was the leader of the
Hudson's Bay Company's 1824 trapping expedition into Snake Country. They
traveled from Flathead House, to the mouth of Hell's Gate Canyon, thence south
up the Bitter Root River to a prairie where they were snowbound for a month;
now know as Ross' Hole. From there, they crossed Gibbon Pass into Big Hole,
over to Lemhi valley and then spent the summer trapping streams of central
Idaho.
In 1821 the [North] American Fur Company merged with the Hudson Bay Company.
Their territory in Washington and Oregon was then established.
·
Louis XIII, in Acadia, Nova Scotia, chartered
the Northwest Fur Company in 1630. The
British Government under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1714 recognized its existence
and legality to trap for furs. In 1812 the company discovered that Americans
had “encroached” on land near the British-American border in the west; with the
border not yet clearly established. Under the Canadian auspices, they sent
David Thompson as their agent to the Columbia River. He arrived there on 15
July 1813, and established a trading post at Astoria in an attempt to take
control of the area. On 16 October 1813, the business partners of Hunt &
Astor, who managed the Pacific Fur Company in Astoria, sold out to the
Northwest Fur Company, with all personnel joining them. At this time the name
of Astoria was changed to Fort George. This soon figured prominently in the War
of 1812.
·
The American Fur Company was
chartered by John Jacob Astor in 1808 to compete with the Northwest Fur Company
and the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada.
Additionally he created other companies within this main body to specialize in
certain areas. In 1823 Astor ended this new threat by summoning David Stone and
Oliver Bostwick to New York and buying up their goods and contracts. Then he
hired them, putting Bostwick in charge of his St. Louis operation and Stone in
charge of Detroit. Astor then established the Western
Department of the American Fur Company, his second American Fur Company, at
St. Louis and put Ramsay Crooks in charge. Crooks was a Scot and a fur trader
out of Montreal who had joined the overland Astorians and stayed on with Astor.
In 1824 he established a trading post at Salt Lake. In July 1825, through
Jedediah Smith, established another post near Folsom. In 1825 Crooks married
Bernard Pratte's daughter, Emilie. After Astor retired from the fur trade in
1834, Crooks became president of the company on June 1st, and moved
his family permanently to New York City. Eight years later the American Fur
Company filed for bankruptcy in 1842, it sold its interest in the old Western
Department to Pierre Chouteau, Jr., and Company
of St. Louis. Chouteau's partners were Hercules L. Dousman and Henry H. Sibley,
and the new organization was called the Upper
Mississippi Outfit. The line of demarcation between this outfit and
the American Fur Company's Northern or Fond du Lac Department followed tribal
territory; the former trading with the Sioux and Winnebago, the latter with the
Ojibwe. This operation quickly broke down after the American Fur Company went bankrupt.
·
Articles of incorporation of the Pacific Fur Company were signed in June of 1810,
and were established by John Jacob Astor & Wilson P. Hunt, of New Jersey,
and others, to gain trade from the Columbia River area on the west coast. He
held it until 1834, at which time he sold his interests to some St. Louis
partners. When Astor withdrew in 1834, the company split and the name became
the property of the former northern branch under Ramsey Crooks. Stuart and
Hunt, employed by him from the beginning, established trade routes in 1810-1811
throughout the region and discovered South Pass. The Columbia River location
slightly ahead of their British counterparts. Under Crooks, the company
immediately began to diversify its operations. He maintained two Lake Superior
outfits, one at LaPoint, the other at Sault Ste. Marie under Franchere. At this
time he also moved the inland headquarters of the company form Michilimackinac
to LaPoint on Lake Superior.
The American Fur Company operated under a different system than either the
Hudson's Bay Company or the North West Company. Astor acted as importing and
selling agent for the American Fur Company, which in turn served as liaison to
the traders in the field. Each trader was assigned a department, or
"outfit." The trader normally assumed all risk of profit or loss,
although sometimes the American Fur Company shared in profit or loss on a
fifty-fifty basis.
·
Another operation was centered on the Great
Lakes, and was called the South West Company.
Canadian merchants had a part. The War of 1812 destroyed the firm. In 1817 an
act of Congress excluded foreign traders from U.S. territory, and the American
Fur Company took over the trade in the Lakes region previously held by the
South West Company.
·
Astor made an alliance in 1821 with the Chouteau
interests of St. Louis Missouri Fur Company giving his company a monopoly of
the trade in the Missouri River region and later in the Rocky Mountain regions.
·
Drips and Vanderburgh, operating with the American
Fur Company, followed Bridger and others very closely after 1832, and attempted
to capture all their trade. This severely cut into any profits the firm might
make and led to the eventual dissolution of the American company.
·
“Articles of Association and Co-partnership of
the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company were
made on 7 March 1809, and entered into by and between Benjamin Wilkinson,
Pierre Chouteau senior, Manuel Lisa, Augustin Chouteau junior, Reuben Lewis,
William Clark and Sylvestre Labbadie all of the town of St. Louis and Territory
of Louisiana, and Pierre Menard and William Morrison of the town of Kaskaskia
in the Territory of Indiana, and also Andrew Henry of Louisiana, and also Dennis Fitzhugh of Louisville, Kentucky
for the purposes of trading and hunting up the river Missouri and to the head
waters thereof or at such other place or places as a majority of the
subscribing co-partners may elect.
[In the original manuscript Andrew Henry wasn’t listed, in a revised version he
was.] Jones & Immel were agents for this firm, and later massacred [near
Indian Rock, in Billings.]. John Coulter & Potts were hired to befriend the
Blackfoot, but failed in their endeavor. Potts was killed, Coulter barely
escaped. The War of 1812 essentially stopped all interests in the fur trade,
and it wasn’t until 1818 when Joshua Pilcher took over the management. By 1821
they were re-established on the Yellowstone. There in 1821 they constructed a
trading post called Fort Benton downstream of where Fort Manuel Lisa was
previously established, on the Big Horn River.
·
Article 5th [Article of Association]
And whereas the above named Manuel Lisa, Pierre Menard and William Morrison
were lately associated in a trading expedition up the said River Missouri and
have now a fort established on the waters of the Yellow Stone river, a branch
of the Missouri, at which said fort they have as is alleged by them a quantity
of Merchandise and also a number of horses. Fort Lisa was located at the mouth
of the Big Horn River, and was in operation for only one season. A fort at
Three Forks was established in 1810, but was abandoned.
·
Now therefore it is agreed that this Company is
to accept from them the said Manuel Lisa, Pierre Menard & William Morrison
all the merchandise they may have on hand at the time the first expedition to
be sent up by this Company shall arrive at said fort. Provided however that the
same is not then damaged, and if the same or any part thereof should be damaged
then the company shall only be bound to receive such parts and parcels thereof
as may be fit for trading or such parts as may not be damaged, and for the
whole or such parts thereof as may be received by a majority of the other
members of this company then present this company is to allow and pay them the said
Manuel Lisa, Pierre Menard & William Morrison one hundred per centum of the
first cost. “
·
William Henry Ashley started the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in 1822, and initiated
a series of advertisements for trappers. This is the firm where most of the mountain
men were employed under contracts ranging from one to three years duration.
o
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth was interested in the
fur-trade possibilities of the Pacific Northwest and in 1832 he attended the
annual get-together of trappers, traders, and Indians known as the Rendezvous,
established earlier in 1826 by Andrew Henry. While attending he made an
agreement with representatives of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to bring
$3,000 worth of trade goods for them at the 1834 Rendezvous. This he did, but
the company, being in financial difficulties, refused to accept the goods.
Wyeth, not seeing any other way open to him, moved on westward with the men and
the goods until he reached "The Bottoms" of the Snake River on July
15, 1834. There on the 18th of July he started the construction of a trading
post, which he named Fort Hall in honor of the oldest member of the New England
Company financing his enterprise. On August 4th he finished the log structure.
The next morning, August 5, he raised a homemade United States flag, saluted it
with a salvo of guns, and thus, as the result of a broken agreement, Fort Hall
came into existence, an event whose historical significance can not be
overrated.
·
In an effort to undermine the new competition,
the Hudson Bay Company built Fort Boise near the junction of Boise River and
the Snake. The effort succeeded and Hudson Bay bought out Wyeth in 1837. The
HBC remained in control of the post until it was abandoned in 1855 because of
declining profits and increased Indian hostility.
o
On 18 July 1826 William H. Ashley decided to
separate himself from the fur business, and accordingly agreed to set this
transaction up as a separate operation for three of his former employees commanded
by Jedediah S. Smith, David E. Jackson and Wm. L. Sublette. The partnership was
called “Smith Jackson & Sublett.” The
firm was initially chartered for one year, with options [this charter was
obviously extended, but no written record has yet been located.] All supplies
had to be purchased from the Rocky Mountain Fur Company at pre-agreed upon
prices. All furs obtained were to be sold back to the Ashley’s fur company in
St. Louis.
o
After the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company had extended its business by the purchase of Mr. Ashley's
interest, the partners determined to push their enterprise to the Pacific
coast, regardless of the opposition they were likely to encounter from the
Hudson's Bay traders. Accordingly, in
the spring of 1827, the Company was divided up into three parts, to be led
separately, by different routes, into the Indian Territory, nearer the ocean.
§
One of the routes, commanded by Smith was from the
Platte River, southwards to Santa Fe, then to the bay of San Francisco, and
then north and along the Columbia River.
His party was successful, and had arrived in the autumn of the following
year [1828] at the Umpqua River, about two hundred miles South of the Columbia,
in safety. His party at this time
consisted of thirteen men, with their horses, and a collection of furs valued
at twenty thousand dollars. Here they
were attacked.
§
In August 1830, while at their annual
rendezvous, Bridger, Fitzpatrick, William Sublette, Freaeb and Gervais bought
out Smith’s interests in his partnership, and then they purchased the full
company from Ashley and Henry, retaining the name.
§
A Comanche killed Smith
in 1831; the Rocky Mountain Fur Company continued its operations under the
command of Bridger, Fitzpatrick, and Milton Sublette, brother of William
Sublette. In the spring of 1830, before
Smith sold his interests in the company, they received about two hundred
recruits from the St. Louis area, and with little variation kept up their
number of three or four hundred men for a period of eight or ten years longer,
or until the beaver were hunted out of every nook and corner of the Rocky
Mountains.
o Ashley
initiated a series of Rendezvous, where the furs were collected and then
transported to St. Louis.
This saved both time and money. The sites were located at:
§
1825 - Confluence of Burnt Fork, Henry's Fork,
and Birch Creek, near present-day Burnt Fork, WY.
§
1826 – Mouth of Blacksmith's Fork Canyon, near
present-day Hyrum, Utah
§
1827 – South end of Bear Lake, Utah.
§
1828 – South end of Bear Lake, Utah - Same
location as 1827.
§
1829 – Popo Agie, near Lander, WY
§
1830 – Confluence of Popo-Agie River and Wind
River, near present-day Riverton, Wyoming.
§
1831
– Cache Valley, Utah.
§
1832 – Pierre’s Hole, near Driggs, Idaho.
§
1833 – Green River, confluence of Horse Creek
near Pinedale, Wyoming.
§
1834 – Ham's Fork, SE of present day Kemmerer,
WY; Actually was held at four different sites within ten miles of each other
§
1835 – Green River, confluence of Horse Creek
near Pinedale, Wyoming.
§
1836 – Green River, confluence of Horse Creek
near Pinedale, Wyoming.
§
1837 – Green river, confluence of Horse Creek
near Pinedale, Wyoming.
§
1838 – Confluence of Popo-Agie River and Wind
River, near present-day Riverton, Wyoming.
§
1839 – Green River, confluence of Horse Creek
near Pinedale, Wyoming.
§
1840 – Green River, confluence of Horse Creek
near Pinedale, Wyoming.
Major
Henry’s Expedition – 1823 to 1824 (Yellowstone & Continental Divide)
This was Jim Bridger’s initiation
into the wilderness areas. On August 20th, near the Grand River
north and south fork junctions, the Rees Indians attacked, killing two members
of the train, Anderson and Neil. This was Jim’s first fight. After the fight
the group headed quickly for the Yellowstone River. A large bear attacked and
severely wounded their guide, Hugh Glass, and it certainly appeared that he
would soon die. Jim volunteered to stay with the wounded man; no one else would
do so, but later Thomas Fitzpatrick, a trapper, agreed to stay with him. After
three days, Hugh appeared to be on the verge of death. Fitzgerald saw Indian
signs, became frightened, and convinced Bridger to leave Hugh and escape. They
took Hugh’s personal belongings, leaving the unconscious man without any
protection. The two rushed towards the Yellowstone and met up with the Henry
Train. There they were under almost constant attack from the Assiniboine,
Blackfoot and Gros Ventres. Henry’s train made a dash for the mouth of the Big
Horn River. On the way, they met some friendly Crow Indians, and traded them
out of 47 horses. At the Big Horn the group split, with Bridger and Etienne
Provost heading up to the Powder River, and then to the Sweetwater and finally
across the Continental Divide to trap beaver. When winter arrived they traveled
back to the Big Horn, in January 1824. While at this trapper camp, Hugh Glass
appeared, grabbed Bridger and said, “Speak up, young-un, quick – afore I kill
you.” Fortunately for Jim, at that very moment other trappers appeared and took
Hugh’s mind off of Jim. Major Henry appeared, demanding to know what the fuss
was about, and learning of the shame had Glass and Bridger brought into his
cabin. Fitzgerald had departed some time earlier. Hugh blamed Fitzgerald, and
not Jim; but Jim would always carry his shame. After this encounter, Jim always
looked out for his fellow men, so much so that he was given the name “Old
Gabe.”
“For more than two years Bridger had been a freeman working for Sublette’s firm
with increasing leadership responsibilities, in effect acting as a lieutenant
for the Captain, and participating in the planning, recommending places to hunt
and trap and relaying orders to the men. Apparently Jedediah Smith's
familiarity with the Bible and its references to the Angel Gabriel's duty to
reveal Jehovah's caused him to see in Bridger some similarity to "Old
Gabriel". He began referring to Bridger in this manner and soon he became
"Old Gabe" to most of those in camp and to many others as time went
on although only twenty-six years old. The Flatheads and Crows also knew him as
“Blanket Chief” after his Flathead wife made a beautiful and unusual
multicolored blanket that he wore and had for special occasions. The name meant
little at first but as he became known for the qualities the Indians admired,
the name became greatly respected and honored.”
Details of the expeditions and
when each event occurred are explained in the Discovery of South Pass, below
and in Part 2 of this glossary.
Discovery of South Pass – Trail to Continental Divide 1824 - 1825
"Most emigrants have a very erroneous idea of South Pass, and their
inquiries about it are amusing enough. They suppose it to be a narrow defile in
the Rocky Mountains walled by perpendicular rocks hundreds of feet high. The
fact is the pass is a valley some 20 miles wide."
In 1812 Robert
Stuart and six companions correctly located the mountain pass when they
returned east to solicit help from their sponsor, Jacob Astor.
Stuart wasn't sure where he
had been and ten more years would pass before another party of explorers would
re-discover the pass he had found. This pass would be critical to emigrants who
went to the Oregon Territory.
The South Pass is
located at the south end of the Wind River Mountain range and river, at the
junction of Wyoming and Oregon. In 1848 the southwestern portion of the U. S.
[Utah, California, Nevada, and portions of Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico and
Colorado, which belonged to Mexico], were ceded to the United Sates. Various
persons have been given credit for discovery of the pass. Oregon belonged to
the British until 1846.
“Mr. David Stuart sailed
from this port on September 10, 1810 for
the Columbia River on board the ship 'Tonquin' with a number of Mr. Astor's
associates in the 'Pacific Fur Company,' arriving on the Columbia River 24
March, 1811.
After the breaking up of the company in 1814, he returned through the Northwest
Company's territories to Montreal, far to the north of the 'South Pass,' which
he never saw.
In
1811, the overland party of Mr. Astor's expedition, under the command of Mr.
Wilson P. Hunt, of Trenton, New Jersey, although numbering sixty well armed
men, found the Indians so very troublesome in the country of the Yellowstone
River, that the party of seven persons who left Astoria toward the end of June,
1812, considering it dangerous to pass again by the route of 1811, turned
toward the southeast as soon as they had crossed the main chain of the Rocky
Mountains, and, after several days' journey, came through the celebrated 'South
Pass' in the month of November, 1812.
·
Pursuing from thence an easterly course, they
fell upon the River Platte of the Missouri, where they passed the winter and
reached St. Louis in April 1813.
·
The seven persons forming the party were
Robert McClelland of Hagerstown, who, with the celebrated Captain Wells, was
captain of spies under General Wayne in his famous Indian campaign, Joseph
Miller of Baltimore, for several years an officer of the U. S. army, Robert
Stuart, a citizen of Detroit, Benjamin Jones, of Missouri, who acted as
huntsman of the party, Francois LeClaire, a half-breed, and Adré Valée, a
Canadian voyageur, and Ramsay Crooks, who is the only survivor of this small
band of adventurers.”
·
ON the eighth of September 1810, the Tonquin
put to sea, where the frigate Constitution soon joined her. The wind was fresh
and fair from the southwest, and the ship was soon out of sight of land and
free from the apprehended danger of interruption. The frigate, therefore, gave her
"God speed," and left her to her course.
·
William Price Hunt used the information supplied by the Lewis
and Clark expedition to lead the overland trappers to Fort Astoria. They
reached the mouth of the Columbia River in February of 1812 where the seafaring
group that had arrived months earlier, in 1811 had already erected the fort
“Astoria”. After the fort was lost in 1812, an overland expedition headed by
Robert Stuart was established. This group established the major portions of the
Oregon Trail by finding the South Pass through the Rocky Mountains, a
route that had earlier eluded both the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Hunt
exploration.
·
In 1812 a secret agent at the fort
treacherously sold it to the North West Company, and shortly after, the English,
then at war with the United States, took military possession. In 1818 the fort
was formally surrendered to the United States, but the North West Company
remained in the actual occupation of the country. Its only rival now was the
Hudson's Bay Company. For a time these two companies maintained a bloody feud,
till finally, in 1821, they amalgamated into one trading company under the
valuable franchises of the Hudson's Bay Company. The new company has now drawn
to itself all the trade on the Columbia and has actually expelled the United
States from this part of its territory.
Ashley’s 1st
Expedition
This
advertisement appeared in the Missouri Republican starting on 20 March 1822,
“The subscriber wishes to engage one hundred young men to ascend the Missouri
River to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years. For
particulars inquire of Major Andrew Henry, near the lead mines of Washington,
who will ascend with, and command of, the party; or of the subscriber near St.
Louis. William H. Ashley.” In February of 1822, Ashley placed a
similar advertisement in the St Louis Missouri Gazette & Public Advertiser
which stated: “TO Enterprising Young Men
The subscriber wishes to engage ONE HUNDRED MEN, to ascend the river Missouri
to its source, there to be employed for one, two or three years. — For
particulars enquire of Major Andrew Henry, near the Lead Mines, in the County
of Washington, (who will ascend with, and command the party) or to the
subscriber at St. Louis. Wm. H. Ashley”
Other ads appeared in various papers, but the wording was
about the same.
Ashley sent fur-trading expeditions up the Missouri River to
the Yellowstone in 1822(1st) and 1823(2nd). A detachment
of the 2nd commanded by Thomas Fitzpatrick went through South Pass
to the Green River valley. In 1824(3rd) Ashley accompanied another
expedition that crossed from the upper Platte to Green River and began its
exploration. Another followed this in 1824 and again in 1825. In the Green
River valley he held the first rendezvous of the mountain fur traders and
trappers. In 1826 he led his final expedition that reached the vicinity of
Great Salt Lake. Having acquired an ample fortune, he retired from the fur
trade.
Ashley loaded $20,000 worth of
supplies into two keelboats belonging to the American Fur Company, and a small
detachment of men would man these. A few others were assigned to ride horses
and guide 60 packhorses that would be needed later. They were to accompany the
river travelers on the journey as near to the riverbanks as practical. There
were 150 men to start with. Jim Bridger was in the lead boat with Major Henry
and Mike Fink. Fink was considered to be “King of the Keelboat Men.” Col Ashley
commanded the second boat. The boats were manned by six-oarsmen, and twenty
pole-men. They departed St. Louis in April 1822. After reaching a point on the
Missouri River near Fort Osage, the 2nd boat capsized, it and the
cargo was lost; but his men were
rescued. Ashley
immediately returned to St. Louis and started building a supply expedition for
the men now stationed on the Yellowstone at Fort Henry. For this action
Jedediah Smith and a few others accompanied Ashley downriver to St. Louis. A
third boat carrying supplies, and commanded by Col. Ashley, made it to the
stranded men on the Yellowstone where Fort Henry was founded. Ashley and Smith
returned to St. Louis by the same boat before winter set in. John Weber,
age 43, soon after arriving at the Yellowstone in 1822, was placed in charge of
a party to explore and trap the Yellowstone and the Powder Rivers. In this his
first journey up river, Weber had to learn to deal carefully with the Sioux,
the Arikara, the Blackfeet, and the Mandans, and would soon encounter the
Crows, the Snakes, and the Gros Ventres. Weber then spent much of 1823 with his
party on the Yellowstone, and by that fall, Ashley had outfitted Weber’s party
with horses for a winter of trapping and trading. They trapped the Big Horn
Basin and probably spent the winter of 1823-24 in the Wind River Valley (near
present-day Dubois)
with Jedediah Smith’s party and Crow Indians.
NOTE: Refer to “Atkinson-O-Fallon
Expedition of 1825” for another view about the Arikara Indians and their
Activities, trading
& battles with the Missouri Fur Company.
Daniel
Potts Letter: “I
took my departure [from Illinois] for Missouri, from thence immediately entered
on an expedition of Henry and Ashly, bound for the Rocky Mountain and Columbia
River. In this enterprize I consider it unnecessary to give you all the
particulars appertaining to my travell I left St. Louis on April 3d, 1822,
under command of Andrew Henry with a boat and one hundred men and arrived at
Council Bluffs on May 1st; from thence we ascended the river to Cedar Fort,
about five hundred miles. Here our provisions being exhausted, and no prospect
of game near at hand, I concluded to make the best of my way back in company
with eight others, and unfortunately was separated from them. By being too
accessary in this misfortune, I was left in the Prarie without arms or any
means of making fire, and half starved to death. Now taking into consideration
my situation, about three hundred and fifty miles from my frontier Post, this
would make the most cruel heart sympathise for me. The same day I met with
three Indians, whom I hailed, and on my advancing they prepared for action by
presenting their arms, though I approached them without hesitation, and gave
them my hand. They conducted me to their village, where I was treated with the
greatest humanity imaginable. There I remained four days, during which time
they had many religious ceremonies too tedious to insert, after which I met
with some traders who conducted me as far down as the ? Village - this being
two hundred miles from the Post. I departed alone as before, with only about
1/4 lb. suet, and in six days reached the Post where I met with Gen. Ashley, on
a second expedition, with whom I entered for the second time, and arrived at
the mouth of Yellow Stone about the middle of October. This is one of the most
beautiful situations I ever saw; from this I immediately embarked for the mouth
of Muscle Shell, in company with twenty one others and shortly after our
arrival, eight men returned to the former place. Here the game being very
scarce, the prospect was very discouraging, though after a short time the
Buffaloes flocked in in great abundance; likewise the Mountain Goats; the like
I have never seen since.”
The Arikara Indians took the cargo from Ashley’s fourth
boat, initiating an immediate dislike between the two groups. This meant that
half of the team would be marching overland to the Great Falls of the Missouri
[headwaters.] Col Ashley now took command of the horses and ground party.
Assiniboines attacked the ground party after reaching the Grand River [above
the Cheyenne] and the Indians stole all of the loose horses, which were to
carry their packs to the headwaters. The group continued on to the junction
with the Yellowstone River, and then made a change in plans. Here they would
spend the winter, then start out west for the Three-Forks area near the Great
Falls. [At this river junction these is no evidence of any mountains, and the
new-young trappers felt cheated.] In the spring of 1823, the group split up and
headed for the headwaters, some by boat, others afoot. After the Henry group
reached Great Falls they were attacked by Blackfeet and had to retreat. At this
same time, reports of the Blackfeet
massacre of Jones and Immel, on the Yellowstone
reached them by messenger. Immediately afterward two men arrived from Col Ashley’s
command of his 2nd Expedition, located some 200 miles south at the Arikara
village. One was a
French-Canadian the other Jedediah Smith. They reported that 800 Indians near
the Ree villages attacked them, thirteen were killed, and a dozen more wounded,
and all stock was stolen.
Henry’s men were asked to get downriver to them as quickly as possible. Major
Henry split up his command, leaving only a few to look after their supplies.
Jim Bridger was among the eighty selected to go. They met up with Col Ashley’s
men the following month in the first week of July.
Various listings of personnel who started out on the 1st
Expedition have been developed over the years, and none of them seem to agree on
the participants; due in part to the mixing-up of the members who traveled on
the 2nd and 3rd Expeditions, and the confusion with the
travel dates and apparent errors on when the 1st Expedition started.
Mainly the various diary extracts and the significant events have been
inter-mixed without regard to the specific expedition journey. Most all of
these persons remained with Ashley & Henry during the first three
Expeditions. In the listing for the 1st Expedition were:
Col. Ashley, Major Henry, Sublette, Tom Fitzpatrick, Hugh
Glass, Edward Rose, Jim Beckwourth, Talbot, Carpenter, David Jackson, Robert
Campbell, Etienne Provost, James Bridger,
John H. Weber, Jedediah
Smith, David E. Jackson and Mike Fink.
Note: James P. Beckwourth was born a slave
on a Virginia plantation, and rose in fame to become one of the most successful
man in the history of the west, as well as one of the most successful trader
for the Rocky mountain Fur Company. He established a Trading Post in Colorado,
which later became Pueblo. He had a large ranch, and married more women than
most any other man, many at the same time. He led many military expeditions and
rose to become “Black Chief” of the Crow Tribe. He was employed as a slave to
the McGinn Blacksmith shop in St. Joseph, Missouri when Ashley recruited men
for his first trip. McGinn lent him $300 to buy his freedom, so that he might
join the group. Soon as he could the money was repaid, and he went on to become
a man of great fame.
Ashley’s plan for his 2nd
Expedition was to reach the beaver-rich land west of the Rockies in the valley
of the Spanish River, or Rio Colorado [Green River in the southwestern part of
Wyoming.] Problems with Indian tribes forced Ashley to change his 1st
Expedition plan of reaching this area via the Missouri, Yellowstone and Bighorn
Rivers. He elected instead to send a party of men overland, directly west to
Crow Country, across the continental divide and on to Spanish River. [Edward
Rose was previously employed by Manuel Lisa, and had lived with the Crow
Indians, had knowledge of the region and had previously made this same trip.]
Ashley for his 3rd Expedition wanted his
men to locate an easy pass to the hunting grounds over the Continental Divide. Ashley
chose from eleven to sixteen or seventeen men. Jedediah Smith captained this
group, and among the followers were Thomas Fitzpatrick [second in command],
William Sublette, James Clyman, Thomas Eddie, Edward Rose, Stone and Branch. Names of the others weren’t recorded. In the fall of 1823, Smith led his small
company of men in search of new beaver territory. In September 1823, they left
the Missouri River at Fort Kiowa and pushed west across South Dakota heading
for the Yellowstone River.
Ashley’s 2nd Expedition – 1823
William Ashley ran a repeat
advertisement in the St. Louis Gazette and Public Advertiser in the
winter of 1822: "Enterprising Young Men...to ascend the Missouri to its
source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years."
This trip was to continue with his plan to reach the headwaters of the
Missouri, and join up with his partner. Joining him at this time was Henry
Clyman.
When
winter was over and the river cleared, Ashley left in April 1823. After almost
two months journey they arrived at an Arikara Indian village, located on
the Missouri about 200 miles south of where Henry’s group of trappers were
located, he stopped and met with the chiefs and traded goods, including guns
and whiskey. Things were fine until one of his men decided
to visit the village in the middle of the night and was killed. On June 2,
after that episode, the group was attacked by Arikara Indians, their supplies
stolen, and they were forced to retreat.
Ashley lost fifteen men before withdrawing back down the river. He sent
Jedediah Smith and a guide upriver to Henry’s location with a request for help
and another group of men downstream to Fort Atkinson for military help.
Comment: According to
the Diary of Clyman, that the event took place in 1824, and that more than one
member of the Ashley Expedition snuck into the village. “In the night of the
third day Several of our men without permition went and remained in the village
amongst them our Interpreter Mr. Rose about midnight he came running into
camp & informed us that one of our men was killed in the village and war
was declared in earnest We had no Military organization diciplin or
Subordination Several advised to cross over the river at once but
thought best to wait untill day light But Gnl. Ashley our imployer Thought best
to wait till morning and go into the village and demand the body of our comrade
and his Murderer Ashley being the most interested his advice
prevailed We laid on our arms epecting an attact as their was
a continual Hubbub in the village“
“The
military responded as well as fifty
men in canoes from Fort Henry; plus a large group of Sioux Indians, enemies of
the Arikaras came along. Gen. Leavenworth was in charge of the forces and the
Indian Agent, Pilcher, accompanied him. This incident suddenly had the
attention of the whole eastern U.S., as this was the first military action
taken against the Indians of west of the Mississippi. Ashley only wanted the
merchandise that had been stolen from his party and a promise that the Arikaras
would not attack again. After an initial attack by the Sioux, the Arikaras were
willing to talk about peace. Leavenworth and Ashley met with the Indian chiefs,
made peace, gained the return of Ashley's goods and horses and a promise by the
Arikaras not to attack again. Pilcher refused to smoke the peace pipe and did
not want to be part of the deal. Later, as the agreement was being effected,
Pilcher and his men burned the villages. Pilcher and his men were given
dishonorable discharges from the group while Ashley and his men received
honorable discharges.”
“After
Major Henry joined them and the troops from Council Bluffs, under command of
Col Levengworth, they gave them battle; the loss of our enemy was from sixty to
seventy. The number of the wounded not known, as they evacuated their village
in the night. On our part there was only two wounded, but on his return he was
fired upon by night by a party of Mannans wherein two was killed and as many
wounded. Only two of our guns were fired which dispatched an Indian and they
retreated. Shortly after his arrival we embarked for the big Horn on the Yellow
Stone in the Crow Indian country, here I made a small hunt for Beaver. From
this place we crossed the first range of Rocky Mountain into a large and
beautiful valley adorned with many flowers and interspersed with many useful
herbs. At the upper end of this valley on the Horn is the most beautiful scene
of nature I have ever seen. It is a large boiling spring at the foot of a small
burnt mountain about two rods in diameter and depth not ascertained,
discharging sufficient water for an overshot mill, and spreading itself to a
considerable width forming a great number of basons of various shapes and
sizes, of incrustation of sediment, running in this, manner for the space of
200 feet, there falling over a precipice of about 30 feet perpendicular into
the head of the horn or confluence of Wind River. From thence across the 2d
range of mountains to Wind River Valley. In crossing this mountain I
unfortunately froze my feet and was unable to travel from the loss of two toes.
Here I am obliged to remark the humanity of the natives (the Indians) towards
me, who conducted me to their village, into the lodge of their Chief, who
regularly twice a day divested himself of all his clothing except his breech
clout, and dressed my wounds, until I left them. Wind River is a beautiful
transparent stream, with hard gravel bottom about 70 or 80 yards wide, rising
in the main range of Rocky Mountains, running E.N.E, finally north through a
picteresque small mountain bearing the name of the stream: after it discharges
through this mountain it loses its name. The valleys near the head of this
river and its tributary streams are tolerably timbered with cotton wood,
willow, &c. The grass and herbage are good and plenty, of all the varieties
common to this country. In this valley the snow rarely falls more than three to
four inches deep and never remains more than three or four days, although it is
surrounded by stupendous mountains. Those on S. W. and N. are covered with
eternal snow. The mildness of the winter in this valley may readily be imputed
to the immense number of Hot Springs which rise near the head of the river. I
visited but one of those which rise to the south of the river in a level plain
of prairie, and occupies about two acres; this is not so hot as many others but
I suppose to be boiling as the outer verge was nearly scalding hot. There is
also an Oil Spring in this valley, which discharges 60 or 70 gallons of pure
oil per day. The oil has very much the appearance, taste and smell of British
Oil. From this valley we proceeded by S. W. direction over a tolerable route to
the heads of Sweet Water, a small stream which takes an eastern course and
falls into the north fork of the Great Platt, 70 or 80 miles below. This stream
rises and runs on the highest ground in all this country. The winters are
extremely, and even the summers are disagreeably cold”
In addition, after joining up at the battle site, the two
partners, Ashley and Henry, went to the Teton River where they purchased Indian
ponies from the Sioux. They now had means of transportation that wasn’t limited
to a fixed location and abandoned the use of rivers as their main method of
travel. After arriving at the battle site, Henry’s group learned that the
military under the command of Colonel Henry Leavenworth sent three keelboats of
supplies, artillery, and six companies of soldiers from the Sixth Infantry,
accounting for about 800 men. Joining this force were all available resources
of the Missouri Fur Company, commanded by Joshua Pilcher plus about 500 Sioux
warriors under Chief Fireheart. Along the way one boat was sunk with its
supplies and 70 muskets. The fur company replaced their muskets with their
rifles. This action prompted Leavenworth to organize the fur company’s forces
as the “Missouri Legion.” He then commissioned several of the mountain men as
members of this command:
·
Jed Smith – Captain Edward
Rose – Ensign Thomas
Fitzpatrick – Quartermaster
·
William Sublette – Sergeant Major Henry Vanderburgh – Captain Angus
McDonald – Captain
·
Moss B. Carson – 1st Lt William Gordon – 2nd Lt Jim Bridger – Buck Private
·
Unknown – Buck Private
Major Henry conceived an idea the following year of
having their trappers get pelts and meet at some selected rendezvous once each
year, much like Manuel Lisa had, to collect their bounties, and then return the
furs to St. Louis. The group led by Col Ashley followed the Platte as far as
the Green River. Here they established a
trading post [Fort Henry] in Wyoming near to its mouth on the Missouri.
Trappers made trips through the country on this side of the Rocky Mountains to
the Green River. Beaver trapping promised most profit. From this post arose
leaders for subsequent enterprises, such as Smith, Fitzpatrick, Bridger, Robert
Campbell, and William Sublette, names well known to every mountaineer.
Jim Bridger remained with the firm, learning all he could about trapping and
the land, until spring of 1825 [probably about April, 1825.]
Area map from Stanley Vestal I
Ashley’s 3rd
Expedition - 1824
“In 1824, Mr.
Ashley repeated his earlier expedition, extending it this time beyond Green River
as far as Great Salt Lake. South of there he discovered a smaller lake, which
he named Lake Ashley, after himself. On the shores of this lake he built a fort
for trading with the Indians, and leaving in it about one hundred men, returned
to St. Louis the second time with a large amount of furs. During the time the
fort was occupied by Mr. Ashley's men, a period of three years, more than one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars worth of furs were collected and sent to
St. Louis. In 1827, the fort, and all
Mr. Ashley's interest in the business, was sold to the Rocky Mountain Fur
Company, owned by Jedediah Smith, William Sublette, and David Jackson; Sublette
being the leader of the Company. . Following up the Platte River, Mr. Ashley
proceeded at the head of a large party with horses and merchandise, as far as
the northern branch of the Platte, called the Sweetwater. This he explored to its source, situated in
that remarkable depression in the Rocky Mountains, known as the South Pass .”
According to the original diary
of James Clyman he states that the Ashley Expedition left in March 1824.
His remarks are somewhat rambling, but the following excerpts identify where
the Ashley Expedition traveled. After the 15th of June 1824 portions of the expedition got
separated, and carrying their beaver pelts, the separated groups, including
Fitzpatrick, made their way to Fort Leavenworth.
Born in Virginia, Clyman
stated in his published book that he, along with many others had first joined William
H. Ashley’s 2nd Expedition to the West in 1823,
and was reported to be one of the first to cross over South Pass. He explored
the region around the Great Salt Lake (Lake Bonneville) with William Sublette.
In 1844 he went to Oregon, then down into California the following year,
returned east with Caleb Greenwood via the Hastings Cutoff (warning westbound
travelers, including the Donner Party, not to take that trail.) Catching gold
fever he returned again to California in 1848.
"On the 8th of March 1824 all things ready we shoved off from the
shore [St. Louis] fired a swivel which was answered by a Shout from the shore
which we returned with a will and porceed up stream under sail
"A discription of our crew I cannt give
but Fallstafs Battallion was genteel in comparison I think we
had about (70) seventy all told Two Keel Boats with crews of
French some St Louis gumboes as they were called
"We proceeded slowly up the Misouri
River under sail wen winds ware favourable and towline when not
Towing or what was then calld cordell is a slow and tedious method
of assending swift waters It is done by the men walking on the shore
and hawling the Boat by a long cord Nothing of importance came under
view for some months except loosing men who left us from time to time &
engaging a few new men of a much better appearance than those we
lost The Missourie is a monotinous crooked stream with large
cottonwood forest trees on one side and small young groth on the other with a
bare Sand Barr intervening I will state one circumstance only which
will show something of the character of Missourie Boats men
"We having to hunt for our living we
soon fell behind the Col. and his corps droping down to a place called fort
Keawa a trading establishment blonging to Missourie furr Company
"Here a small company of I think (13)
men ware furnished a few horses onley enough to pack their baggage they going
back to the mouth of the yellow Stone on their way up they ware actacted
in the night by a small party of Rees killing two of thier men and they killing
one Ree amongst this party was a Mr Hugh Glass who could not
be rstrand and kept under Subordination he went off of the
line of march one afternoon and met with a large grissly Bear which he shot at
and wounded the bear as is usual attacted Glass
he attemptd to climb a tree but the bear caught him and hauled to
the ground tearing and lacerating his body in feareful rate
by this time several men ware in close gun shot but could not shoot for fear of
hitting Glass at length the beare appeaed to be satisfied
and turned to leave when 2 or 3 men fired the bear turned
immediately on glass and give him a second mutilation on
turning again several more men shot him when for the third time he pouncd on
Glass and fell dead over his body this I have from
information not being present here I leave Glass for the
presen we having bought a few horses and borrowed a few more
left about the last of September and proceded westward over a dry roling
highland a Elleven in number I must now mention honorable
exceptions to the character of the men engaged at St Louis being now thined
down to onley nine of those who left in March and first Jededdiah Smith who was
our Captain Thomas Fitzpatrick William L. Sublett and Thomas Eddie all of which
will figure more or less in the future
Comment: The bear attack
upon Hugh Glass is reported to have taken place at Shadehill, South Dakota
in 1823, not 1824. All reports, other than Clyman’s diary provide this 1823
date. In Clyman’s Autobiography he states the date was 1823. The difference
hasn’t been explained. His legendary 200-mile trip to Fort Kiowa, near
present-day Chamberlain, is related on a historic marker near the site of his
attack
Jim Bridger and Thomas Fitzpatrick agreed to stay behind and watch Hugh until
he died. “Several
days passed, and with Hugh stll clinging to life, Fitzgerald and Bridger, no
doubt in fear of being found by roving bands of hostile Indians who had battled
the trappers all season, packed up Hugh’s rifle, knife, and other equipment and
hurried on after Henry’s men. They reported that Glass was dead and buried,
showing his possessions as proof. Hugh didn’t die but crawled to safety. Weeks
later he found Jim Bridger at Andrew Henry’s recently established fur trading
post on the Yellowstone River near the mouth of the Big Horn. He did not kill
Bridger, as he must have sworn to do during his long crawl, but instead
reportedly excused Bridger because of his youth, and left him to answer to his
own conscience and to his own God. Hugh did not find Fitzgerald until some time
later, discovering that he had enlisted in the army at Fort Atkinson, near
present Omaha, Nebraska. Hugh likewise did not kill Fitzgerald, perhaps mainly
because the killing of a U.S. soldier carried severe consequences. At any rate,
he also left Fitzgerald to answer to a higher authority, at last recovered his
stolen weapons, and resumed his career as a free trapper and hunter.”
This means that Bridger stayed with the 1st Ashley Expedition on the
Yellowstone through the following year before heading south and joining up with
the 2nd Expedition that went to Green River.
According to Hiram Chittenden in the ‘American Fur Trade of
the Far West’ (pg 953) he states that Fort Kiowa is on the right bank of the
Missouri, about ten miles from where Chamberlain, SD is now located. Earlier,
on page 701 he states that Glass was abandoned about 100 miles from Fort Kiowa.
However, the mouth of the Grand River is 200 miles from the fort, and it is
reported that Glass was wounded near the forks of the Grand River, five day’s
march above the mouth. If Glass crawled in a straight line he would meet the
Missouri River at the mouth of the Cheyenne River.
"Country nearly the same short grass
and plenty of cactus untill we crossed the Chienne River a few miles below
whare it leaves the Black Hill range of Mountains here some
aluvial lands look like they might bear cultivation we did
not keep near enough to the hills for a rout to travel on and again fell into a
tract of county whare no vegetation of any kind existed beeing worn into knobs
and gullies and extremely uneven a loose grayish
coloured soil verry soluble in water running thick as it could move of a pale
whitish coular and remarkably adhesive there on a misty rain
while we were in this pile of ashes and it loded down our horses feet (feet) in
great lumps it looked a little remarkable that not a foot of
level land could be found the narrow revines going in all manner of directions
and the cobble mound of a regular taper from top to bottom
all of them of the percise same angle and the tops share the
whole of this region is moveing to the Misourie River as fast as rain and thawing
of Snow can carry it by enclining a little to the west in a
few hours we got on to smoothe ground and soon cleared ourselves of mud
at length we arived at the foot of the black Hills which rises in
verry slight elevation about the common plain we entered a
pleasant undulating pine Region cool and refreshing so different from the hot
dusty planes we have been so long passing over and here we found hazlenuts and
ripe plumbs a luxury not expected
“The Crow Indians being our place of
destination a half Breed by the name of Rose who spoke the crow tongue was
dispached ahead to find the Crows and try to induce some of them to come to our
assistance we to travel directly west as near as circumstances would
permit supposing we ware on the waters of Powder River we
ought to be within the bounds of the Crow country
continueing five days travel since leaveing our given out horses and likewise
Since Rose left us late in the afternoon while passing through a Brushy bottom
a large Grssely came down the vally we being in single file men on foot leding
pack horses he struck us about the center then turning ran
paralel to our line Capt. Smith being in the advanc he ran
to the open ground and as he immerged from the thicket he and the bear met face
to face Grissly did not hesitate a moment but sprung on the
capt taking him by the head first pitcing sprawling on the
earth he gave him a grab by the middle fortunately cathing by the ball pouch
and Butcher Kife which he broke but breaking several of his ribs and cutting
his head badly none of us having any sugical Knowledge what
was to be done one Said come take hold and he wuld say why not you so it went
around I asked Capt what was best he said
one or 2 for water and if you have a needle and thread git it out and sew up my
wounds around my head which was bleeding freely I got a pair
of scissors and cut off his hair and then began my first Job of dessing
wounds upon examination I the bear had taken nearly all his
head in his capcious mouth close to his left eye on one side and clos to his
right ear on the other and laid the skull bare to near the crown of the head
leaving a white streak whare his teeth passed one of his
ears was torn from his head out to the outer rim after
stitching all the other wounds in the best way I was capabl and according to
the captains directions the ear being the last I told him I could do nothing
for his Eare 0 you must try to stich up some way or other
said he then I put in my needle stiching it through and
through and over and over laying the lacerated parts togather as nice as I
could with my hands water was found in about ame mille when
we all moved down and encamped the captain being able to mount his horse and
ride to camp whare we pitched a tent the onley one we had and made him as
comfortable as circumtances would permit this gave us a
lisson on the charcter of the grissly Baare which we did not forget
I now a found time to ride around
and explore the immediate surroundings of our camp and assertained that we ware
still on the waters of shiann river which heads almost in the eastern part of
the Black hill range taking a western course for a long distance into an uneven
vally whare a large portion of (of) the waters are sunk or absorbd then turning
short to the east it enters the Black hill rang though a narrow Kenyon in
appeareantly the highest and most abrupt part of the mountain enclosed in
immence cliffs of the most pure and Beautifull black smooth and shining and
perhaps five hunded to one thousand feet high
“A mountaneer named Harris being St Louis
some yers after undertook to describe some of the strange things seen in the
mountains saying a petrified forest was lately dicovered
whare the trees branches leaves and all were perfect and the small birds
sitting on them with their mouths open singing at the time of their
transformation to stone
"And landed under the side of an Isle
and two men ware sent up to the mouth of the yellowstone and one boat containing
the wounded and discouraged was sent down to Council bluffs with orders to
continue to St Louis This being the fore part of June
here we lay for Six weeks or two months living on scant and
frquentle no rations allthough game was plenty on the main Shore
perhaps it was my fault in greate measure for several of us being
allowed to go on Shore we ware luckey enough to get Several
Elk each one packing meat to his utmost capacity there came on
a brisk shower of rain Just before we reached the main shore and a brisk wind
arising the men on the (men on the) boat would not bring the skiff and take us
on board the bank being bear and no timber neare we ware
suffering with wet and cold I went off to the nearest timber
made a fire dried and warmed myself laid down and went to sleep
in the morning looking around I saw a fine Buck in easy gun shot
and I suceeded in Killing him then I was in town
plenty of wood plenty of water and plenty of nice fat venison
nothing to do but cook and eat here I remained
untill next morning then taking a good back load to the landing whare I met
several men who had Just landed for the purpose of hunting for me
after this I was scarcely ever allowed to go ashore for I might
never return
"In proceess of time news came that
Col. Livenworth with Seven or eight hundred Sioux Indians ware on the rout to
Punnish the Arrickarees and (18) or (20) men came down from the Yellow Stone
who had gone up the year prevous these men came in Canoes
(came in canoes) and passed the Arrickarees in the night we
ware now landed on the main Shore and allowed more liberty than hertofore
(at) Col. Levenworth about (150) men the remnant of the (6)
Regiment came and Shortly after Major Pilcher with the Sioux Indians (Indians)
amounting to 5 or 600 warriers and (18) or 20 engagies of the Missourie furr
Company and a grand feast was held and speeches made by whites and Indians
"After 2 days talk a feast and an
Indian dance we proceded up stream Some time toward the last
of August we came near the arrickaree villages again a halt
was made arms examined amunition distributed and badges given to our friends
the Sioux which consisted of a strip of white muslin bound around the head to
distinguish friends from foes
”as winter was rapidly approaching we
began to make easy travel west ward and Struck the trail of Shian
Indians the next day we came to their village traded and swaped a
few horses with them and continued our march across a Ridge mountains not steep
& rocky (in general) but smooth and grassy in general with numerous springs
and brook of pure water and well stocked with game dsending
this ridge we came to the waters of Powder River Running West and north
country mountainous and some what rockey
“we ware there through the month of
November [1824] the nights war frosty but the days ware
generally warm and pleasant on Tongue river we struck the
trail of the (of the) Crow Indians Passed over another ridge
of mountains we came on to Wind River which is merely
another name for the Big horn above the Big horn Mountain
the most of this Region is barren and worthless if my recollection is
right from the heads of the Shian untill we came on to Wind
river we ware Bountifully supplied with game but here we found none at
all
“in February we made an effort to cross
the mountains north of the wind River nge but found the snow too deep and had
to return and take a Southern course east of the wind river range which is here
the main Rockey mountans and the main dividing ridge betwen the Atlantic and
Pacific
“in February [1825] we made an effort to
cross the mountains north of the wind River nge but found the snow too deep and
had to return and take a Southern course east of the wind river range which is
here the main Rockey mountans and the main dividing ridge betwen the Atlantic
and Pacific
"In traveling up the Popo Azia a
tributary of Wind River we came to an oil springe neare the main Stream whose
surface was completely covered over with oil resembling Brittish oil and not
far from the same place ware stacks Petrolium of considerable bulk
Buffaloe being scarce our supply of food was Quite scanty
Mr Sublett and my self mounted our horses one morning and put in
quest of game we rode on utill near sundown when we came in sight of three male
bufalo in a verry open and exposed place
“15th of June no sight of Smith or his
party remaining here a few days Fitzpatrick & myself
mounted & fowling down stream some 15 miles we concluded the stream was
unnagable it beeing generally broad & Shallow and all our baggae would have
to be packed to some navigable point below where I would be found waiting my
comrades who would not be more than three or four days in the rear
I moved slowly down stream three days to the mouth where it enters
the North Platt Sweetwater is generafly bare of all kind of
timber but here near the mouth grew a small thick clump of willoes
In
the spring of 1824, some Crow Indians met with Fitzpatrick
and stated “if the white men wanted beaver, they only had to follow a plain
Indian trail to South Pass. Beyond that pass you can throw your traps away and
kill all the beaver you want with clubs.”
According to the Sweetwater
County Joint Travel & Tourism Board, it was actually Captain Smith, who was
commanding the fur trappers who were camped at that time (1824), near
the present town of Dubois, Wyoming, who received this information. Fitzpatrick
was a member of the group. The fur party wintered in 1823 with Crow Indians,
then crossed over the pass the Indians had suggested in the spring. At the
winter camp, a Crow Indian chief told them of the pass through the Wind River
Mountains. Charles Keemle,
a member of Smith’s party, later described what they had been told, "that
a pass existed in the Wind River Mountains, through which he could easily take
his whole band upon streams on the other side. He [the Chief] also represented
beaver so abundant upon these rivers that traps were unnecessary to catch them-they
could club as many as they desired."
“After
two costly failures to gain an foothold on the upper Missouri, Ashley [in 1823]
sent Jedediah Smith and a party of trappers to explore the Crow country and the
region along the Continental Divide. Almost a year passed before several of
Smith's party, led by Thomas Fitzpatrick, stumbled into Ft. Atkinson after an
exhausting journey through South Pass and down the Platte. They brought word
that the mountains were rich with beaver. Responding quickly, Ashley outfitted
a company of trappers and, in November 1824, struck out from Ft. Atkinson via
the Platte Valley for the Rocky Mountains.”
That route, Union Pass, had too much snow to permit
travel across the range. Later, according to Clyman, in another attempt to
communicate with the Crows, sand was strewn on a buffalo robe and a map was
drawn in the sand showing the Wind River Mountains and the location of another
route around them. This was the way to the rich beaver country Smith was
searching for... the Green River and its tributaries.
In late March 1824, with winter's snow still deep on
the ground, Smith's band of men made their way across the windswept desolation
of South Pass and camped in the sage-brush, dining on a freshly killed buffalo.
The next night they camped on the Big Sandy - cold, tired, and hungry. Trying
to chop a hole in the ice so that the men and horses could get a drink was
taking too long, so Clyman took his gun and blasted a hole through with a
bullet. They had successfully crossed the Continental Divide where thousands of
wagons would follow in succeeding decades. A few days later, the party reached
the banks of the Green River
Bridger
left his employment from the Henry Train after three years service (April 1822
– April 1825) and started out on his own in the spring of 1825. Fitzpatrick,
his companion, had been with Smith and others when they had earlier met with
some Crow Indians, who said they should follow the Plain Indian trail to South
Pass, and there they would find many buffalo.
The date of departure disagrees with other diary statements
indicating that Bridger was still with the Ashley group at that time. See
below.
Discovery of the Great Salt Lake
- 1824
·
In the winter of 1824-1825, a group of American Fur
trappers, including Jim Bridger, met up with members of the Missouri Fur
Company comprised of Ashley, Henry & Others. Jim was their guide, and he
followed the course of the Bear River that eventually led to the lake. After
tasting the water Jim thought it might an inland arm of the Pacific Ocean.
Others in 1826, using
skin boats, explored the inland sea in pursuit of Beaver. None were found. Jim
has been given credit for the discovery.
·
Baron Horton [French Governor of Newfoundland],
in 1690 navigated the Mississippi and recorded the apparent first record of the
Great Salt Lake. There he met native tribes from the Mozeemlek Nation, who told
him of a great inland salt sea. “The sea measured 300 leagues in circumference,
and its mouth is two leagues wide.” The Spaniards made the next record in 1872,
in a document called “A Description of the Province of Carolana.” Jim Bridger’s
discovery was actually the third recorded sighting.
·
“The discovery of the Great Salt Lake has
generally been attributed to Jim Bridger, but his partner Louis Vasquez stated
in an October 1858 interview presented in The New York Times and the San
Francisco Bulletin, that he and several other
trappers had first seen the lake in 1822. However, Vasquez confused his
dates and could not have been in the region until years later in the winter of
1825-26. He was known to have been in St. Louis the previous season when
Ashley's party first reached the Great Salt Lake Valley, thus couldn’t possibly
have been there when he claimed.
·
In the fall of 1824, Jim Bridger was reported to
be at Cache Valley, Franklin (Idaho) where the Bear River starts. He made a
Bullboat and floated downstream to the lake. The following year, on May 2nd,
John Weber’s group of Rocky Mountain Fur Company trappers were located at
Franklin, and reported that this was where Bridger camped the previous winter.
The voyage apparently started as a bet as to where the Bear River actually
went. This event took place apparently just before Etienne Provost made his
sighting, and was independent from the Ashley Expeditions that took place
later. This is probably why Bridger was given the recent credit for the
discovery.
o
Ashley left Fort Atkinson on the 3rd November
1824.
“On the afternoon of the fifth, I overtook my party of mountaineers
(twenty-five in number), who had in charge fifty pack horses, a wagon and
teams, etc. On the 6th we had advanced within miles of the villages of the
Grand Pawney's, when it commenced snowing, and continued with but little
intermission until the morning of the 8th. During this time my men and horses
were suffering for the want of food, which, combined with the severity of the
weather, presented rather a gloomy prospect. I had left Fort Atkinson under a
belief that I could procure a sufficient supply of provisions at the Pawney
villages to subsist my men until we could reach a point affording a sufficiency
of game; but in this I was disappointed, as I learned by sending to the
villages, that they were entirely deserted, the Indians having, according to
their annual custom, departed some two or three weeks previous for their
wintering ground. As the vicinity of those villages afforded little or no game,
my only alternative was to subsist my men on horse meat, and my horses on
cottonwood bark, the ground being at this time covered with snow about two feet
deep.”
·
Etienne Provost, however, was trapping the Utah
Lake outlet (Jordan River) area in October 1824 when a Shoshoni war party
attacked and killed eight in his company of ten men. Provost's camp placed him
in sight of the Great Salt Lake several months before Bridger reached the
valley with Ashley's outfit. (Years later, mountain man William Marshall
Anderson added his voice when he wrote the National Intelligencer insisting
that to Provost belonged the credit for having first seen and made known the
existence and whereabouts of the inland sea. (And in July 1897, J.C. Hughey of
Bellevue, Iowa, wrote to The Salt Lake Tribune claiming that John H.
Weber, a onetime Danish sea captain, had been in the mountains in 1822 as a fur
trapper and had in later years often told Hughey he had discovered the lake in
1823. In addition, Hughey wrote, the captain also discovered Weber Canyon and
Weber River, both of which bear his name. (Weber described the lake as
"a great boon to them, as salt was plentiful around the border of the
lake, and for some time before they had used gunpowder on their meat, which was
principally buffalo…")
·
“In 1824, Mr. Ashley
repeated the 1823 expedition, extending it this time beyond Green River as far
as Great Salt Lake, near which to the South he discovered another smaller lake,
which he named Lake Ashley, after himself. On the shores of this lake he built
a fort for trading with the Indians, and leaving in it about one hundred men,
returned to St. Louis the second time with a large amount of furs. During the
time the fort was occupied by Mr. Ashley's men, a period of three years, more
than one hundred and eighty thousand dollars worth of furs were collected and
sent to St. Louis.”
From Col Ashley’s Letter to General Atkinson, December 1,
1825
·
“On the 1st day of july, all the men in my
employ or with whom I had any concern in the country, together with
twenty-nine, who had recently withdrawn from the Hudson Bay company, making in
all 120 men, were assembled in two camps near each other about 20 miles distant
from the place appointed by me as a general rendezvous, when it appeared that
we had been scattered over the territory west of the mountains in small
detachments from the 38th to the 44th degree of latitude, and the only injury
we had sustained by Indian depredations was the stealing of 17 horses by the
Crows on the night of the 2nd april, as before mentioned, and the loss of one
man killed on the headwaters of the Rio Colorado, by a party of Indians
unknown.
·
Mr. Jedediah Smith, a very intelligent and
confidential young man, who had charge of a small detachment, stated that he had,
in the fall of 1824, crossed from the headwaters of the Rio Colorado to Lewis
fork of the Columbia and down the same about one hundred miles, thence
northwardly to Clark's fork of the Columbia, where he found a trading
establishment of the Hudson Bay company, where he remained for some weeks. Mr.
Smith ascertained from the gentleman who had charge of that establishment, that
the Hudson Bay company had then in their employment, trading with the Indians
and trapping beaver on both sides of the Rocky mountains, about 80 men, 60 of
whom were generally employed as trappers and confined their operations to that
district called the Snake country, which Mr. Smith understood as being confined
to the district claimed by the Shoshone Indians. It appeared from the account
that they had taken in the last four years within that district eighty thousand
beaver, equal to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds of furs.
·
Comment: “Jedediah S. Smith and six companions had shadowed the Ogden camp
much of the time since December 29, 1824. The fact that the Americans headed
upstream [during this season] while Ogden and his party turned downstream is of
significance in view of the fact that it virtually excludes Smith from any
claim he may have (or numerous writers have claimed for him) to the honor of
having discovered Great Salt Lake. Several men saw it before he could have
arrived at its shores. Kittson's accurate description of the geographical
features [in his journals] helps materially in locating the actual campsites. This
crossing is just about two miles south of Alexander, Idaho. It is the only
place immediately below the great bend of Bear River where the stream could be
reached and forded because of the high precipitous banks of lava rock.”
‘You
can form some idea of the quantity of beaver that country once possessed, when
I tell you that some of our hunters had taken upwards of one hundred in the
last spring hunt out of streams which had been trapped, as I am informed, every
season for the last four years.
“It
appears from Mr. Smith's account that there is no scarcity of buffalo as he
penetrated the country. As Mr. Smith returned, he inclined’ west and fell on
the waters of the Grand lake or Beaunaventura. He describes the country in that
direction as admitting a free and easy passage and abounding in salt. At one
place particularly hundreds of bushels might have been collected from the
surface of the earth within a small space. He gave me some specimens, which
equal in appearance and quality the best Liverpool salt. Mr. S. also says the
buffaloe are very plenty as far as he penetrated the country over it in almost
any direction”
“On
the 2nd day of july, I set out on my way homewards with 50 men, 25 of whom were
to accompany me to a navigable point of the Big Horn river, thence to return
with the horses employed in the transportation of the furs. I had forty-five
packs of beaver cached a few miles east of our direct route. I took with me 20
men, passed by the place, raised the cache, and proceeded in a direction to
join the other party, but, previous to joining them, I was twice attacked by
Indians first by a party of Blackfeet about 60 in number. They made their
appearance at the break of day, yelling in the most hideous manner and using
every means in their power to alarm our horses, which they so effectually did
that the horses, although closely hobbled, broke by the guard and ran off. A
part of the Indians being mounted, they succeeded in getting all the horses
except two, and wounded one man. An attempt was also made to take our camp, but
in that they failed. The following night, I sent an express to secure horses
from the party of our men who had taken a direct route. In two days thereafter,
I received the desired aid and again proceeded on my way, made about ten miles,
and encamped upon an eligible situation. That night, about 12 o'clock, we were
again attacked by a war party of Crow Indians, which resulted in the loss of
one of the Indians killed and another shot through the body, without any injury
to us. The next day I joined my other party and proceeded direct to my place of
embarkation just below the Big Horn Mountain, where I arrived on the 7th day of
august.”
From the Weber County History Files:
“By the autumn of 1824, Weber and his men
(from 25 to 50 in his party) were trapping the Bear River and Bear Lake area.
For the Americans, Weber and his men discovered Bear Lake in the fall of 1824.
Bear Lake was called “Weaver’s Lake” by Jim Beckwourth suggesting Weber’s
discovery of the lake, even though others called it Bear Lake, Sweet Water
Lake, Little Snake Lake, and Trout Lake. As the winter of 1824-25 approached
Weber and his men wintered in Cache Valley (so named in 1826) or as it was
initially named Willow Valley. Daniel Potts and Jim Bridger were among the
Weber party, and it was during this winter, either late in 1824 or early in
1825, that Bridger made his famous bullboat journey down the Bear River from
Cache Valley to discover, at least for him and his party, the Great Salt Lake.
As the spring of 1825 approached, Weber and his men moved nearer to the Great
Salt Lake, probably following Bridger’s route down the Bear River. They trapped
the Wasatch front area including the lower Ogden and Weber Rivers and by early
May of 1825 had moved up the Weber River and camped near present Mountain
Green. From this time onward, the Weber River was named after its explorer even
though in writing it was sometimes spelled “Weaver’s River.”
From the Journals of William Kittson – Hudson Bay Company
(1825)
His journal identifies the Great Salt Lake and reports the
sighting of it from a mountain peak by Charles McKay on May 12. On May 17,
Kittson recorded that New River (called Ogden now) flowed out of Ogden Valley
into the lake. Five days later he reported that Weber River also discharged its
waters into the same lake. On May 22 Peter Skene Ogden, leader of the
expedition, recorded in his diary that two of his men reported having seen a
large lake the size of Lake Winnipeg into which Bear and Weber Rivers flowed. The Ogden expedition had left Flathead Post
December 20, 1824, had trapped the upper waters of some of the tributaries of
the Missouri River, some tributaries of Salmon River and eventually on April 6,
reached Snake River in the vicinity of Blackfoot, Idaho. After trapping
up Blackfoot River some distance, the brigade turned south to the upper waters
of Portneuf River in the northwest corner of Caribou County; thence in a
southeasterly direction toward the big bend of Bear River where they arrived in
the vicinity of Alexander, Idaho, April 21, 1825.
Kittson
prepared the first map to show Bear, Ogden, and Weber Rivers (with major
tributaries of the Bear and Ogden Rivers), and Cache and Ogden valleys with
surrounding mountains. It shows both the Bear River and Weber River (after
their junction with Ogden River) flowing into Great Salt Lake (the lake is
labeled "Large Bear Lake.")
Kittson's journal also contained information
concerning the activities of Jedediah S. Smith and his six American companions known
to have been with the Ogden party when the British company reached Bear River.
This is discussed in the Ashley Expeditions.
From the Daniel Potts
Letters written in 1824 to his brother, Robert Montgomery Potts (Trapping with the
Rocky Mountain Fur Co.)
“The river passes through a small range of
mountains, and enters the valley that borders on the Great Salt Lake. The G. S.
Lake lies in a circular form from N. E. to N. W. the larger circle being to S.
it is about 400 miles in circumference, and has no discharge or outlet, it is
generally shallow near the beach, and has several islands, which rise like
pyramyds from its surface. The western part of the lake is so saturated with
salt, as not to dissolve any more when thrown into it. The country on S. W. and
N. W. is very barren, bearing but little more than wild sage, and short grass.
The S. E. and E are fertile, especially near the outlet of the Utaw Lake and
Weber's river. The former is about 30 yards wide at its mouth, the later from
50 to 60, and very deep. This river rises to the E. in the Utaw Mountains, and
in its course passes through three mountains, to where it enters the lake. We
expect to start in a short time to explore the country lying S. W. of the Great
Lake, where we shall probably winter. This country has never yet been visited
by any white person - from thence to what place I cannot say, but expect the
next letter will be dated at the mouth of Columbia.”
Fitzpatrick
worked for the Ashley interests until Ashley withdrew (1826) from the trade;
then he was a trader for Smith, Jackson, and Sublette until 1830, when the
Rocky Mountain Fur Company was reorganized with Fitzpatrick as senior partner.
After that the company was dissolved (1834), and Fitzpatrick became a guide.
In 1826 Smith quit working for Ashley and formed
his own fur company. Articles of agreement were made on 18 July 1826 between
William H. Ashley and Jedediah S. Smith, David E. Jackson, and William L.
Sublette, who were to be trading under the firm name ‘Smith Jackson &
Sublette.’ This agreement was initially for one year. During their first
trip:
The half-breed Rose was with the
Hunt Party in 1811, and from his diary: “We stopped
on the 20th beside a branch of the Little Missouri, thought to be the largest
tributary. The weather was cold and
disagreeable. It froze during the night
and the ice was as thick as a dollar.
The countryside was high and irregular.
This is the spot that separates the waters that flow east into the Missouri
and west into the Yellowstone. (34 miles west)
On the 22nd we ran into what we
thought to be the usual route of the Absaroka [usually called the Crow] Indians
coming from the Mandan villages. The
little river beside which we camped and which flowed north was doubtless a
tributary of the Powder River. On the
23rd we found another branch; but before we got there we passed through some
mountains and some dry gullies. The great
heat, the treacherous trail, and the lack of water caused much suffering. Several people were at the point of losing
their courage. Mr. McKenzie's dog died
from exhaustion. While trudging through
these barren, arid mountains we could no longer kill buffalo, for they usually
keep near water. However, on the 25th we
found a few in this area. The hunters
stalked them and killed five. The day
before, some of the company had eaten a wolf, which they found quite good. We made camp near a third tributary of the
Powder River. (58 miles southwest)
We left the river on the 30th, and
camped near Mt. Big Horn [probably Cloud Peak] that had been ahead of us for so
long. The day before, our hunters had
seen signs of Indians. For several days
we had been on the lookout for them, but they discovered us first. On the evening of the 30th, two Crow Indians
came to our camp and the next morning many more appeared. They were all on horseback. Not even the children were on foot. These Indians are such excellent horsemen
that they ride up and down the mountains and craggy heights as if they were
galloping in a riding school. We
followed them to their settlement that was beside a clear brook on the slope of
a mountain.
The chief came to meet us. He received us amicably, led us to his tent,
and pointed to a spot convenient for our camp.
I gave him presents of tobacco, knives, and some trifles to distribute
among his people. To him personally I gave a piece of scarlet cloth, some
powder, bullets, and other items.
We spent the first day of
September buying some robes and pelts and trading our tired, maimed horses for
fresh ones. A few of our company bought
some, thereby augmenting the number of our horses to about 121, most of which
were well-trained and able to cross the mountains.
On the 2nd we resumed our journey
along the foot of the mountains and stopped near a small river that is said to
be a tributary of the Powder River. We
tried for half a day on the 3rd to get away from the precipices and the bare
mountain heights; but we were forced to retrace our steps and return to the
banks of a small stream. We killed
several very large elk. (21 miles)
Rose, was a very unpleasant,
insolent man. We had been warned that he
planned to desert us when we came across the Crow Indians, to persuade as many
of our men as he could to abandon us, and to steal our horses. For that reason we kept close watch at
night. Moreover, we were afraid that if,
despite our vigilance, he succeeded in carrying out his traitorous design, he
would greatly damage our expedition.
Thus, with the thought in mind that his plan might be more extensive
than we suspected, we resolved to frustrate it.
On September 2 we had received a visit from some Crow Indians of a tribe
different from the one which we had just left and which was camped on the
mountainside. At that point I suggested
to Rose that he remain with [the] Crow Indians; and I offered him half a year's
wages, a horse, three beaver traps, and some other commodities. He accepted my conditions; and he immediately
abandoned his fellow conspirators who, without a leader, remained with our
expedition.
So Rose joined the first Crow
Indians whom we encountered. Their chief
realized that we had followed a wrong course and on the 4th sent Rose to tell
us and to put us on the right trail that crossed the mountains and that was
both shorter and better. We soon met
Crows who were taking the same route as we, a meeting that gave me an
opportunity to admire the horsemanship of these Indians. It was truly unbelievable. There, among others, was a child tied to a
two-year-old colt. He held the reins in
one hand and frequently used his whip. I asked about his age and was told that
he had seen two winters. He did not yet
talk!”
General William H. Ashley, a Virginian by birth, was
elected lieutenant governor of Missouri in 1820, but for a time fortune seemed
to forsake him. He was the elected head of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, but
in his first expedition he lost a keel boat and cargo of furs valued at ten
thousand dollars. He planned and led expeditions into the interior.
·
1828
Kenneth Mackenzie builds an American Fur Company trading post, Fort
Floyd, at the mouth of the Yellowstone near the site of Fort Henry. Fort Floyd
later became known as Fort Union.
“Jedediah
Smith returned to California in 1828 with a company of 18 men by the same
southern route he crossed in 1826. This time Mojave Indians attacked him. They
had been friendly two years earlier, but in the meantime outrages by white men
traveling through the desert put them on the warpath. Smith lost 10 men in the
assault, which represented more than half of his company of men. He also lost
most of his supplies and equipment; but he and the other survivors continued
on, and once again Smith and a group of trappers arrived at Mission San Gabriel
in a ragged and half-starved condition. This time the good fathers of the
mission clapped Smith and his men in the calabozo and then sent them in chains
to Echeandia in San Diego.
Echeandia was, needless to say, unhappy to receive Smith and his men again; and
to show his displeasure he incarcerated them in appalling conditions. Finally,
cajoling by Don Juan Bautista Rogers Cooper, a former English sea captain who
owned a huge Big Sur rancho, and threats by the American consul induced
Echeandia to free the men and give them another exit visa from the province.
Smith and his men returned to the Sacramento Valley to rendezvous with his
hunters and trappers left there the year before.
Smith was not disrespectful of Echeandia's orders; he merely interpreted them
in his own way. After rejoining his original party, Smith moved the company
north and again camped along the American River, where the men spent 10 days
trapping and hunting. Smith's expedition then headed north for the Oregon
Territory. They followed the Sacramento River to about where Red Bluff is
located; then they passed through a gap in the hills to the northwest, soon
striking the South Fork of the Trinity River. Passing through Humboldt and Del
Norte counties, they entered Oregon and struck the Umpqua River, where they
were set upon by hostile Indians.
All but Smith and three of his men perished in the fighting, and the survivors
made their way arduously to the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver on the
Columbia River. The men arrived at Fort Vancouver on Aug. 10, 1828. A 40-man
punitive expedition was immediately launched against the Indians, and by
December Smith had recovered much of his lost supplies and equipment, including
his journal and the diary of the dead Harrison Rogers. Smith left Fort
Vancouver on March 10, 1829 to rendezvous with his partner David Jackson and a
brigade of beaver hunters in the Rocky Mountains.”
1829
Bridger
returned to Bear Lake for the annual Rocky Mountain fur trade rendezvous in the
summer of 1827, but otherwise his trapping expeditions kept him away from Idaho
until he turned up in Pierre's Hole, August 20, 1829. Following a late rendezvous there, he went up
Henry's Fork and Fall River to upper Snake River in Wyoming.
The following years describing trapping
adventures are based on direct excerpts from “The River of the West”, by Mrs. Frances Fuller
Victor, published 1870.
·
1830
In an agreement made
earlier with the American Fur Company by Smith, representing the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company, Smith’s camp [comprised of both William Sublette’s
and Jedediah Smith’s groups] commenced moving away from the Columbia Basin
area, to the east side of the Rocky Mountains in October. [This left the
Columbia Basin area free for the American Fur Company to trap. Their course was
up Henry's fork of the Snake River, through the North Pass to Missouri Lake, in
which rises the Madison fork of the Missouri River. Before the camp moved from the
forks of the Snake River, the Blackfeet made their appearance openly. As the camp moved eastward, or
rather in a northeasterly direction, through the pine forests between Pierre's
Hole and the headwaters of the Missouri, BlackFeet continually harassed them.
It was here that Meek had his first battle with the Blackfeet. They attacked
the camp early in the morning. Fitzpatrick was mounted, and
commanding the men to follow, he galloped at headlong speed round and round the
camp, to drive back the horses that were straying or had been frightened from
their pickets. In this gallop, two horses were shot from under him; but he
escaped and the camp-horses were saved. The country they were in was
traversed by William Sublette in the fall of 1829, and was unknown to the other
trappers in 1830. The fur companies normally kept either farther to the south
or to the north. Few, if any, white men had passed through the area since Lewis
and Clarke discovered the headwaters of the Missouri and the Snake Rivers,
which flow from the opposite sides of the same mountain peaks. In November the camp left
Missouri Lake on the east side of the mountains, and crossed over, in a
northeasterly direction, to the Gallatin fork of the Missouri River, passing
over a very rough and broken country. [They were, in fact, still in the midst
of the great Rocky range, and equally high and rugged. A particularly high
mountain lay between them and the Yellowstone River that were trying to reach
before winter. The camp finally crossed the
mountains without loss of life, except to the animals, onto the plains of the
Bighorn River, and arrived at the waters of the Stinking Fork. This branch of
the Big Horn River derives its name from the fact that the water flows through
a volcanic tract similar to the one discovered by Meek on a separate trip on
the Yellowstone plains.] As this volcanic district had previously been seen by
one of Lewis and Clarke's men, John Colter, while on a solitary hunt, and
described by him as "hell." This hot and sulphurous country offered
no hospitality. The fumes, which pervaded the air, rendered it exceedingly
noxious to every living thing, and the camp wanted to push on to the main
stream of the Bighorn River. Here signs of other trappers became apparent, and
they sent out and soon spies discovered another camp of about forty men,
commanded by Captain William Sublette’s brother, the same
that had been detached the previous summer to hunt in that country. Smith and
William Sublette cached their furs, and moved up the river joined the camp of
Milton Sublette. As soon as the camp was
sufficiently rested for traveling, the united companies set out, moving toward
the south, and crossed the [Big] Horn Mountains, then once more into the Wind
River Valley. It was about Christmas when they arrived on the Wind River.
William Sublette left the camp and traveled to St. Louis with one man, Harris,
[called among mountain-men Black Harris] in attendance.
o Smith
learned that his mother had died, and decided he had had enough of mountain
life. He purchased a farm and townhouse, complete with servants, in St. Louis.
Accordingly he sold his interests in the fur company. However, he agreed as part of sale, to make
one more trip the following year to deliver supplies to the camp.
·
1831 - Smith and
Jackson, left the Wind River Basin on the first of January with the whole camp,
and headed for the buffalo country, on the Powder River, a distance of about
one hundred and fifty miles. The whole company was allowed to remain camped in
the [Powder River] area without interruption, until the first of April, when
the camp was divided, and once more started on the march. Jackson, or "
Davey," as the men called him, taking about half the company, left for the
Snake country. The remainder, including Meek, started north, with Smith as
commander, and James Bridger as pilot. Crossing the mountains ranges that
divide the tributary streams of the Yellowstone from each other, the first halt
was made on Tongue River. From there the camp proceeded west to the Bighorn
River. It was Smith’s plan to take
his command into the Blackfoot country. He had proceeded in a westerly
direction as far the Bighorn, when the camp was overtaken by a heavy snowfall,
which made traveling extremely difficult, and when melted, caused a sudden
great rise in the mountain streams. In attempting to cross Bovey's Fork
[Beauvais Creek] during
the high water, he had thirty horses swept away, along with three hundred
traps: a serious loss in the business of hunting beaver. Pushing west through
an unknown country, hunting and trapping as they moved, the company proceeded,
passing another low chain of mountains, through a pass called Pryor's Gap, to
Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone, then to Rosebud Creek, and finally to the main
Yellowstone River, where it makes a great bend to the east, enclosing a large
plain covered with grass, and having also extensive cotton-wood bottoms, which
subsequently became a favorite wintering ground of the fur companies. The camp was now in the
excellent but inhospitable country of the Blackfeet, and the commander [Smith]
redoubled his precautions, moving on all the while to the Mussel Shell, and
then to the Judith River. Beaver were plenty and game abundant; but the
vicinity of the large village of the Blackfeet made trapping impracticable.
Their war upon the trappers was ceaseless; their thefts of traps and horses
ever recurring: and Smith, finding that to remain was to be involved in
incessant warfare, without hope of victory or gain, at length gave the command
to turn back, which was cheerfully obeyed: for the trappers had been very
successful on the spring hunt, and thinking discretion some part at least of
valor, were glad to get safe out of the Blackfoot country with their rich
harvest of beaver skins.
The
return march was by the way of Pryor's Gap, and up the Bighorn, to Wind River,
where the cache was made in the previous December. The furs were now taken out
and pressed, ready for transportation across the plains. A party was also
dispatched, under Mr. Tullock, to raise the cache on the Bighorn River. Among
this party was Meek, and a Frenchman named Ponto. While digging to come at the
fur, the bank above caved in, falling upon Meek and Ponto, killing the latter
almost instantly. Meek, though severely hurt, was taken out alive: while poor
Ponto was "ret, and pitched into the river." So rude were the burial
services of the trapper of the Rocky Mountains. Meek was packed back to camp,
along with the furs, where he soon recovered. [William] Sublette
arrived from St. Louis with fourteen wagons loaded with merchandise, and two
hundred additional men for the service. An important change took place
in the affairs of the Rocky Mountain Company at this rendezvous. The three
partners, Smith, Sublette, and Jackson, sold out to a new firm, consisting of
Milton Sublette, James Bridger, Fitzpatrick, Frapp, and Jervais; the new
company retaining the same name and style as the old.
Note:
This trek was repeated in the late summer of 1837.
o The
old partners left for St. Louis, with a company of seventy men, to convoy the
furs. Two of them never returned to the Rocky Mountains; one of them, Smith,
being killed the following year; with Jackson remaining in St. Louis, where,
like a true mountain-man, he dissipated his large and hard-earned fortune in a
few years. Captain William Sublette, however, continued to make
annual trips to and from the mountains for a number of years; until the
consolidation with another company was made with the Rocky Mountain Fur
Company.
o A
Blackfeet, who shot at him, hitting his horse in several places, waylaid
Bridger. The wounds caused the animal to rear and pitch, by reason of which
violent movements Bridger dropped his gun, and the Indians snatched it up;
after which there was nothing to do except to run, which Bridger did. Not long
after this, as was customary, the leader [Bridger] was making a circuit of the
camp examining the camp-keeper's guns, to see if they were in order, and found
that of one Maloney, an Irishman, to be in a very dirty condition.
§
" What would you do," asked Bridger,
"with a gun like that, if the Indians were to charge on the camp? "
§
" Be Jasus, I would throw it to them, and
run the way ye did," answered Maloney, quickly. It was sometime after this
incident before Bridger again examined Maloney's gun.
o The change in management which
occurred at the rendezvous this year, three of the new partners, Fitzpatrick,
Sublette, and Bridger, conducted a large party, numbering over two hundred,
from the Wind River to the Yellowstone; crossing to Smith's River, at the Falls
of the Missouri, three forks of the Missouri, and to the Big Blackfoot River. From the Blackfoot River the
company proceeded down the west side of the mountains to the forks of the Snake
River, and after trapping for a short time in this locality, continued their
march southward as far as Ogden's Hole, a small valley in the Bear River
Mountains.
o At
this place they met a trading and trapping party, commanded by Peter Skeen
Ogden, of the Hudson's Bay Company. As the season advanced,
Fitzpatrick, with his other partners, returned to the east side of the
mountains, and went into winter quarters on Powder River. In this trapper's
"land of Canaan" they remained between two and three months. The
other two partners, Frapp and Jervais, who were trapping far to the south, did
not return until the following year. While wintering it became
necessary to send a dispatch to St. Louis on the company's business. Meek and a
Frenchman named Legarde, were chosen for this service which was one of trust
and peril also. They proceeded without accident, however, until the Pawnee villages
were reached, when Legarde was taken prisoner. Meek, more cautious, escaped,
and proceeded alone a few days' travel beyond, when he fell in with an express
on its way to St. Louis, to whom he delivered his dispatches, and returned
later to his camp, accompanied only by a Frenchman named Cabeneau.
o Sometime
in March, the whole company started north for the Blackfoot country. On the
night of the third day out, they fell unawares into the neighborhood of a party
of Crow Indians, who succeeded in driving off about three hundred head. One hundred trappers were
ordered to track them down, among who were Meek, Newell, and Antoine Godin, a
half-breed, who lead the party. Following their trail for two hundred miles,
traveling day and night, on the third day they came up on the Crows camped on a
branch of the Bighorn River. Robert Newell, and Antoine
Godin, stole the horses back, and returned to camp.
§
The Indians were awakened by the noise of the
trampling horses, and sprang to arms. But Meek and his fellow trappers on the
bluff fired into the fort with such effect that the Crows were appalled. The trappers found the return
journey more toilsome than the outward; for what with sleeplessness and fatigue,
and bad traveling in melted snow, they were pretty well exhausted when they
reached camp. Fearing, however, another raid from the thieving Crows, the camp
got in motion again with as little delay as possible. They had not traveled
far, when Fitzpatrick turned back, with only one man, to go to St. Louis for
supplies.
§
After the departure of
Fitzpatrick, Bridger and Sublette completed their spring and summer campaign
without any material loss in men or animals, and with considerable gain in
beaver skins. Having once more visited the Yellowstone, they turned to the
south again, crossing the mountains into Pierre's Hole, on to Snake river;
thence to Salt river; thence to Bear river; and thence to Green River to
rendezvous.
§
It was expected that Fitzpatrick would have
arrived from St. Louis with the usual annual recruits and supplies of
merchandise, in time for the summer rendezvous; but after waiting for some time
in vain, Bridger and Sublette determined to send out a small party to look for
him. The large number of men now employed, had exhausted the stock of goods on
hand. Thus encouraged, Frapp
determined to take a party, and go in search of him. Accordingly Meek, Reese,
Ebarts, and Nelson, volunteered to accompany him. This party set out, first in
the direction of Wind River; but not discovering any signs of the lost Booshway
in that quarter, crossed over to the Sweetwater, and kept along down to the
North Fork of the Platte, and thence to the Black Hills, where they found a
beautiful country full of game; but not the hoped-for train, with supplies.
After waiting for a short time at the Black Hills, Frapp's party returned to
the North Fork of the Platte, and were rejoiced to meet at last, the long
absent partner, with his pack train. Urged by Frapp, Fitzpatrick hastened
forward, and came into camp on Powder River after winter had set in.
§
Fitzpatrick had a tale to tell the other
partners, in explanation of his unexpected delay. When he had started for St.
Louis in the month of March previous, he had hoped to meet the old partners,
Capt. Sublette and Jedediah Smith, and to obtain the necessary supplies from
them, to furnish the summer rendezvous with plenty. However, these gentlemen,
when he fell in with them, used certain arguments, which induced him to turn
back, and accompany them to Santa Fe, where they promised to furnish him goods,
as he desired, and to procure for him an escort at that place. The journey had
proven tedious, and unfortunate. Indians had several times attacked them, and
Smith had been killed.
While they were camped on a small tributary of the Simmaron River, Smith had
gone a short distance from camp to procure water, and while at the stream was
surprised by an ambush, and murdered on the spot, his murderers escaping unpunished. Sublette, now left
alone in the business, finally furnished him; and he had at last made his way
back to his Rocky Mountain camp.
§
But Fitzpatrick's content at being once more
with his company was poisoned by the disagreeable proximity of a rival company.
If he had annoyed Mr. Ogden of the Hudson's Bay Company, in the previous
autumn, Major Vanderburg and Mr. Dripps, of the American Company, in their turn
annoyed him. This company had been on their heels, from the Platte River, and
now was camped in the same neighborhood, using the Rocky Mountain Company as
pilots to show them the country. As this was just what it was not for their
interest to do, the Rocky Mountain Company raised camp, and fairly ran away
from them; crossing the mountains to the Forks of the Snake River, where they
wintered among the Nez Perce’s and Flathead Indians.
1832.
In the following spring, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company
resumed its march, first up Lewis' Fork, then on to Salt River, then to Gray's
River, and on to Bear River. Here they joined with the North American Fur
Company on the latter river, who carrying a large lot of goods, but no beaver.
The American Company's resident partners were ignorant of the country, and were
greatly at a loss where to look for good trapping grounds. Vanderburg and
Dripps, were assigned to keep an eye on the movements of the Rocky Mountain
Company, whose leaders were acquainted with the whole region lying along the
mountains, from the head-waters of the Colorado to the northern branches of the
Missouri. Finding their rivals in
possession of the ground, Bridger and Milton Sublette resolved to spend but a
few days in that country. However, so far as Sublette was concerned,
circumstances ordered differently. A Rockway Chief, named Gray, and seven of
his people, had accompanied the camp from Ogden's Hole, with the trappers.
During the sojourn on Bear River, there was a quarrel in camp over some
indignity, real or fancied, which had been said to the chief's daughter, and in
the fray Chief Gray stabbed Sublette so severely that it was thought he must
die.
“Sublette had to be left behind; and Meek who was his
favorite, was left to take care of him while he lived, and bury him if he died.
However, Sublette saved him. The two had forty lonesome days to themselves
after the camps had moved off, one on the heels of the other, to the great
vexation of Bridger. On the 23d of July, Milton Sublette's brigade and the company
of Mr. Wyeth again set out for the southwest, and met no more serious
interruptions while they traveled in company. On the headwaters of the Humboldt
River they separated, Wyeth proceeding north to the Columbia, and Sublette
continuing on into a country previously unknown by the American trappers. But Vanderburg, with the
fool-hardiness of one not "up to Blackfeet," determined to ascertain
for himself what there was to fear; and taking with him half a score of his
followers, put himself upon their trail, galloping hard after them, until, in
his rashness, he found himself being led through a dark and deep defile,
rendered darker and gloomier by overhanging trees. In the midst of this dismal
place, just where an ambush might have been expected, he was attacked by a
horde of savages, who rushed upon his little party with whoops and frantic
gestures, intended not only to appal the riders, but to frighten their horses,
and thus make surer their bloody butchery. It was but the work of a few minutes
to consummate their demoniac purpose. Vanderburg's horse was shot down at once,
falling on his rider, whom the Indians quickly dispatched. One or two of the
men were instantly tomahawked, and the others wounded while making their escape
to camp. The remainder of Vanderburg's company, on learning the fate of their
leader, whose place there was no one to fill, immediately raised camp and fled
with all haste to the encampment of the Pends Oreille Indians for assistance.
Here they waited, while those Indians, a friendly tribe, made an effort to
recover the body of their unfortunate leader; but the remains were never
recovered probably having first been fiendishly mutilated, and then left to the
wolves.
Fitzpatrick and Bridger, finding they were no longer pursued
by their rivals, as the season advanced began to retrace their steps toward the
good trapping grounds. The lateness of the season compelled a return to
winter-quarters, and by Christmas all the wanderers were gathered into camp at
the forks of the Snake River.
“When all had arrived at Lexington,
we {John Ball and company] went on to Independence, near which Mr. Sublette and
his party were in camp. And on meeting him he readily consented that we might
join them on this condition: that we should travel fully under his command and
directions, and under the most strict military discipline; take our due part
with his people in guarding camp and defense in case of attack by the Indians,
which he rather expected, from a personal dislike they had to him. They charged
him with leaving the year before a horse in the country packed with infected
clothing, to give them the smallpox. I hardly think he could have been guilty
of it. We then traversed the country and purchased horses and mules for our
journey over the plains and mountains. Rigged them with saddles for riding and
packing, made up those packs by sorting out the goods, for Wyeth's party had
brought on much more than they could pack. But for myself I had brought but
little so had nothing to throw away. But Wyeth would start with so much, that
he had to drop some things by the way. Among them a small anvil and
blacksmith's tools. A Mr. Campbell of St. Louis also with some men joined Mr.
Sublette's party, making in all some eighty men and three hundred horses. For
with the traders, each man had the care in camp and charge in marching of three
horses, one to ride and two with packs. And besides they took an extra number
to supply the place of any that might fail in strength or be stolen. And thus
rigged and ready we started on our march from Independence, on what was then in
much use, the Santa Fe road or trail, leading off in a southwest direction,
crossing the west line of the state some twelve miles south of the Missouri.
Our order of march was always double file, the horses led, the first attached
to the rider's and the third to him. So when under way our band was more than a
hundred horses long--Mr. Sublette always giving all orders and leading the
band, and Mr. Campbell as lieutenant bringing up the rear and seeing that all
kept their places and the loose animals did not stray away. Our last
encampment, before crossing the west line of the state, was at a Morman
settlement. They had come and settled here the previous fall, on this extreme
border of the settled world. We procured from them some milk and they otherwise
treated us very kindly. They thought then that they had found a permanent home.
But no, like all new religionists, they were doomed to much persecution. I
remember when the Methodists were slighted. It was the 12th of May that we left
this last settlement and continued our march on said Santa Fe road over a
beautiful prairie country, some two or three days, then left it and turned to
the northwest and in a few days more came to the Kansas river, at a point I
think near where is now Topeka. Here we found means to cross the river and swam
our horses. For here was one white man, acting I think as a gunsmith for the
Indians. He was the last white man we saw except of our own party.”
1833.
In the latter part of January it became necessary to move
[from the Snake] to the junction of the Portneuf to subsist the animals. The
main body of the camp had gone on in advance, while some few, with packhorses, or
women with children, were scattered along the trail. Meek, with five others had
been left behind to gather up some horses that had strayed. When about a
half-day's journey from camp, he overtook Umentucken, the Mountain Lamb, now
the wife of Milton Sublette, with her child, on horseback. In the spring the camp was
visited by a party of twenty Blackfeet, who drove off most of the horses; and
among the stolen ones, Bridger's favorite race-horse, Grohean, a Camanche steed
of great speed and endurance. To retake the horses, and if possible punish the
thieves, a company of trappers, thirty in number, including Meek, and Kit
Carson, who not long before had joined the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, was
dispatched on their trail. Kit Carson was severely
wounded. The firing ceased with nightfall; and when morning came the Blackfeet
were gone. The trappers returned to camp without their horses. The annual rendezvous was
appointed this summer to meet on Green River. Here were the Rocky Mountain and
American Companies; the St. Louis Company, under Capt. William Sublette and his
friend Campbell; the usual camp of Indian allies; and, a few miles distant,
that of Captain Bonneville.
In addition to all these, was a small company belonging to
Capt. Stuart, an Englishman of noble family, who was traveling in the far west
only to gratify his own love of wild adventure, and admiration of all that is
grand and magnificent in nature. With him was an artist named Miller. Walker's company continued on
down to the main or Humboldt River, trapping as they went, both for the furs,
and for something to eat; and expecting to find that the river whose course
they were following through these barren plains, would lead them to some more
important river, or to some large lake or inland sea. This was a country
entirely unknown, even to the adventurous traders and trappers of the fur
companies, who avoided it because it was out of the buffalo range; and because
the borders of it, along which they sometimes skirted, were found to be wanting
in water-courses in which beaver might be looked for. Walker's company
therefore, now determined to prosecute their explorations until they came to
some new and profitable beaver grounds. But after a long march through an
inhospitable country they came at last to where the Humboldt sinks itself in a
great swampy lake, in the midst of deserts of sage-brush. Here was the end of
their great expectations. To the west of them, however, and not far off, rose
the lofty summits of the Sierra Nevada range, some of whose peaks were covered
with eternal snows. Since they had already made an unprofitable business of
their expedition, and failed in its principal aim, that of exploring Salt Lake,
they resolved upon crossing the mountains into California, and seeking new
fields of adventure on the western side of the Nevada Mountains. [In 1826
Jedediah Smith was the first white man to
enter into California.]
Accordingly, although it was already late in the autumn, the
party pushed on toward the west, until they came to Pyramid Lake, another of
those swampy lakes, which are frequently met with near the eastern base of
these Sierras. Into this flowed a stream similar to the Humboldt, which came
from the south, and, they believed, had its rise in the mountains. As it was
important to find a good pass, they took their course along this stream, which
they named Trucker's River, and continued along it to its headwaters in the
Sierras. Now began the arduous labor of crossing an unknown range of lofty
mountains. They found it a difficult undertaking, and one attended with
considerable peril. For a period of more than three weeks they were struggling
with these dangers; hunting paths for their mules and horses, traveling around
canyons thousands of feet deep; sometimes sinking in new fallen snow; always
hungry, and often in peril from starvation. Sometimes they scrambled up almost
smooth declivities of granite, that offered no foothold save the occasional
seams in the rock; at others they traveled through pine forests made nearly
impassable by snow; and at other times on a ridge which wind and sun made bare
for them. All around rose rocky peaks and pinnacles fretted by ages of
denudation to very spears and needles of a burnt looking, red colored rock.
Below, were spread out immense fields, or rather oceans, of granite that seemed
once to have been a molten sea, whose waves were suddenly congealed. From the
fissures between these billows grew stunted pines, which had found a scanty
soil far down in the crevices of the rock for their hardy roots. Following the
course of any stream flowing in the right direction for their purpose, they
came not infrequently to some small fertile valley, set in amidst the rocks
like a cup, and often containing in its depth a bright little lake. These are
the oases in the mountain deserts. The lateness of the season made it necessary
to avoid the high valleys on account of the snow, which in winter accumulates
to a depth of twenty feet. They emerged from their journey, safe into the
bright and sunny plains of California. [They having explored almost the
identical route established for the Union Pacific Railroad.]
They proceeded down the Sacramento valley, toward the coast,
after recruiting their horses on the ripe wild oats, and the freshly springing
grass. In the San Jose valley they encountered a party of one hundred soldiers,
which the Spanish government at Monterey had sent out to take a party of
Indians accused of stealing cattle. The soldiers were native Californians,
descendants of the mixed blood of Spain and Mexico, a wild, jaunty looking set
of fellows, who at first were inclined to take Walker's party for a band of
cattle thieves, and to march them off to Monterey. After astonishing them with
a series of whoops and yells, and trying to astonish them with feats of
horsemanship, they began to discover that when it came to the latter
accomplishment, even mountain-men could learn something from a native
Californian. In this latter frame of mind they consented to be conducted to
Monterey as prisoners or not, just as the Spanish government should hereafter
be pleased to decree. Their fearless, free and easy style, united to their
complete furnishing of arms, their numbers, and their superior ability to stand
up under the demoralizing effect of the
favorite aguadiente, soon so far influenced the soldiery at least, that the
trappers were allowed perfect freedom under the very eyes of the jealous
Spanish government, and were treated with all hospitality for a month while
they rested.
The month that the trappers spent at Monterey was their
"red letter day " for a long time after. Horses were their necessity
in California, and to their delight; the plains swarmed with them, as also with
wild cattle descendants of those imported by the Jesuit Fathers in the early
days of the Missions. The horses and cattle were placed at the will and
pleasure of the trappers. They feasted on one, and bestrode the other as it
suited them. They attended bullfights, ran races, threw the lasso, and played
Monte, with a relish that delighted the inhabitants of Monterey. Captain
Benjamin Bonneville ordered Joseph Reddeford Walker (a mountain man) to travel
west from Great Salt Lake to the Humboldt River, and then to pass over the
Sierra Nevada Mountain range. This took them through the Yosemite National Park
area. They located several passes through the mountains that could be used by
future emigrants.
Walker's detachment consisted of 70 men, including Zenas Leonard, his
second-in-command, clerk, and journal keeper. Walker's orders were to find a
way to the Pacific through the "unknown country to the west." Walker
did not follow Jedediah Smith's route to California, however. Instead of
striking south from the Wasatch Mountains, Walker led his men on a westward arc
around the north shores of the Great Salt Lake to the headwaters of the
Humboldt River, then known as "Mary's River." Walker followed the
Humboldt River to its sink, where he was confronted by 800-900 Paiute Indians.
When warning shots failed to disperse the braves, Walker's men fired into them,
killing 39. The following year, having made a southerly exit from the Sierra
Nevada, Walker's group was again confronted by hostile Paiutes, and 14 more
braves were slain by Walker's muskets.
Note: At various times Walker rode with
Kit Carson, Jim Bridger and Sam Houston. He also warned the Donner Party NOT to
try and cross into California so late in the season, but he was dismissed as
being a bumpkin.
“William
Stewart had come into camp with Fitzpatrick. The evidence shows that he and
Bridger went together to the Spanish southwest for the winter of 1833-1834.
They traveled along the Rio Grande and the Gila to the Gulf and Bridger also
visited other areas in what would become Arizona and New Mexico.
When
Bridger returned for the rendezvous of 1834 he probably had already planned to
marry the daughter of Insala, Chief of the Flathead Nation and usually referred
to as the Little Chief. Mountaineers had begun arriving in early June but the
Little Chief was even earlier and had preempted the valley of Ham's Fork for
the Bridger's company. It was another lean year for beaver fur and the number
of trappers seemed to exceed that of beaver. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company was
dissolved and reconstituted with Bridger, Fitzpatrick and Milton Sublette as
the partners. Although Capt. Sublette left with about 60 packs of beaver from
the rendezvous, he was no longer to have the supply business from either the
new constituted firm nor the American Fur Company in the future.”
John Braseau, clerk of the American Fur
Company, established a trapper’s fort on the Yellowstone River called “Braseau’s
Houses.” It was located about 50 miles
upstream of the confluence with the Missouri River. These houses lasted until
about 1838. (Note: Some researchers state that they were founded about 1835.)
1834.
The Rocky Mountain Company now confined themselves to the
country lying east of the {Rocky}mountains, and upon the head-waters and
tributaries of the Missouri, a country very productive in furs, and furnishing
abundance of game. However, it was also the most dangerous of all the northern
fur-hunting territory, as it was the home of those two dangerous Indian
Nations; the Crows and Blackfeet. The Blackfeet attacked the
Gales camp, a small group of the main Bridger camp, and both sides fought with
desperation. The few whose guns were available, showed the game spirit, and the
fight became interesting as an exhibition of what mountain white men could do
in a contest of one to ten. It was, at any time, a game party, consisting of
Meek, Carson, Hawkins, Gale, Liggit, Rider, Robinson, Anderson, Russel,
Larison, Ward, Parmaley, Wade, Michael Head, and a few others whose names have
been forgotten. The trappers were driven out of a grove they were concealed in,
by a fire started by the Indians, were forced to take to the open ground. The
trappers used their horses as shields survived though several men were wounded.
At three in the afternoon, the Blackfoot chief ordered a
retreat, calling out to the trappers that they would fight no more. Though
their loss had been heavy, they still greatly out-numbered the whites; nor
would the condition of the arms and the small amount of ammunition left permit
the trappers to pursue them. The Indians were severely beaten, and no longer in
a condition to fight, all of which was highly satisfactory to the victors. The
only regret was, that Bridger's camp, which had become aware during the day
that a battle was going on in the neighborhood, did not arrive early enough to
exterminate the whole band. As it was, the big camp only came up in time to
assist in taking care of the wounded. The destruction of their horses put an
end to the independent existence of Gale's brigade, which joined itself and its
fortunes to Bridger's command for the remainder of the year.
“Not long after this battle with the Blackfeet, Meek and a
trapper named Crow, with two Shawnees, went over into the Crow Country to trap
on Pryor's River, a branch of the Yellowstone. On coming to the pass in the
mountains between the Gallatin Fork of the Missouri and the great bend in the
Yellowstone, called Pryor's Gap, Meek rode forward, with the mad-cap spirit
strong in him, to "have a little fun with the boys”, and advancing a short
distance into the pass, wheeled suddenly, and came racing back, whooping and
yelling, to make his comrades think he had discovered Indians. And lo! as if
his yells had invoked them from the rocks and trees, a war party suddenly
emerged from the pass, on the heels of the jester, and what had been sport
speedily became earnest, as the trappers turned their horses' heads and made
off in the direction of camp. They had a fine race of it, and heard other yells
and war-whoops besides their own; but they contrived to elude their pursuers,
returning safe to camp. This prank of Meeks was, after all, a fortunate
inspiration, for had the four trappers entered the pass and come upon the war
party of Crows, they would never have escaped alive.
A few days after, the same party set out again, and succeeded
in reaching Pryor's River unmolested, and setting their traps. They remained
some time in this neighborhood trapping, but the season had become pretty well
advanced, and they were thinking of returning to camp for the winter. The
Shawnees set out in one direction to take up their traps, Meek and Crow in another. Thickets of willow,
wild cherry, bordered the stream where their traps were set and plum trees, and
the bank was about ten feet above the water at this season of the year. Meek
had his traps set in the stream about midway between two thickets. As he
approached the river he observed with the quick eye of an experienced
mountain-man, certain signs which gave him little satisfaction. The buffalo
were moving off as if disturbed; a bear ran suddenly out of its covert among
the willows. "I told Crow," said Meek, " that I didn't like to
go in there. He laughed at me, and called me a coward. 'All the same,' I said;
I had no fancy for the place just then —I didn’t like the indications. But he
kept jeering me, and at last I got mad and started in. Just as I got to my
traps, I discovered that two red devils war a watching me from the shelter of
the thicket to my left, about two rods off. When they saw that they war
discovered they raised their guns and fired. I turned my horse's head at the
same instant, and one ball passed through his neck, under the neck bone, and
the other through his withers, just forward of my saddle.
"Seeing that they had not hit me, one of them ran up with
a spear to spear me. My horse war rearing and pitching from the pain of his
wounds, so that I could with difficulty govern him; but I had my gun laid
across my arm, and when I fired I killed the rascal with the spear. Up to that
moment I had supposed that them two war all I had to deal with. But as I got my
horse turned round, with my arm raised to fire at the other red devil, I
encountered the main party, forty-nine of them, who war in the bed of the
stream, and had been covered by the bank. They fired a volley at me. Eleven
balls passed through my blanket, under my arm, which war raised. I thought it
time to run, and run I did. Crow war about two hundred yards off. So quick had
all this happened, that he had not stirred from the spot whar I left him. When
I came up to him I called out that I must get on behind him, for my horse war
sick and staggering. It is only necessary to add
that Meek and Crow arrived safely at camp; and that the Shawnees came in after
a day or two all right. Soon after the whole command under Bridger moved on to
the Yellowstone, and went into winter camp in the great bend of that river,
where buffalo were plenty, and cottonwood was in abundance.
John Astor, having been accused of selling whiskey
to the Indians through his agent, Kenneth McKenzie, promptly abandoned the furn
business to avoid further public scandal. On June 1st he sold the
American Fur Company.
At the Ham’s Fork Rendezvous on June 20th, William
Sublette dissolved the Rocky Mountain Fur Company partnership and Fitzpatrick
established a new firm of owners; Fitzpatrick, Milton Sublette, and Bridger.
The new firm carried the name “Fitzpatrick, Sublette and Bridger.” At the time this occurred, both Bridger and
Sublette were absent. Bridger arrived on the 25th, and Milton was in
St. Louis. Bridger
returned to Idaho in the fall of 1834 as a member of the new fur trade firm of
Fitzpatrick, Sublette, and Bridger, formed at rendezvous, June 10, 1834, to
succeed the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.
While spending the winter in Idaho on or near Henry's Fork with some Nez
Perce and Flathead Indians, he and his trappers (including Joe Meek, Kit
Carson, and Robert Newell) had another misadventure with some Blackfeet horse
thieves who crossed the continental divide to raid their camp. After a reasonably successful Idaho hunt, he
left the next spring going up Snake River, crossing into Wyoming toward Star
Valley on his way to the 1835 rendezvous.
1835.
Towards spring, however, the game had nearly all disappeared
from the neighborhood of the camp; and the hunters were forced to follow the
buffalo in their migration eastward. On one of these expeditions a party of six
trappers, including Meek, and a man named Rose, made their camp on Clarke's
fork of the Yellowstone. The first night in camp Rose had a dream with which he
was very much impressed. He dreamed of shaking hands with a large white bear,
which insisted on taking his right hand for that friendly ceremony. He had not
given it very willingly, for he knew too much about bears in general to desire
to be on very intimate terms with them. Seeing that the dream troubled Rose,
who was superstitiously inclined, Meek resorted to that "certain medicine
for minds diseased" which was in use in the mountains, and added to the distress
of Rose his interpretation, in the spirit of ridicule, telling him that he was
an adept in the matter of dreams, and that unless he, Rose, was very mindful of
himself that day, he would shake hands with Beelzebub before he slept again.
With this comforting assurance, Rose set out with the
remainder of the party to hunt buffalo. They had proceeded about three miles
from camp, Rose riding in advance, when they suddenly encountered a company of
Blackfeet, nine in number, spies from a war party of one hundred and fifty,
that was prowling and marauding through the country on the lookout for small
parties from the camp of Bridger. The Blackfeet fired on the party as it came
up, from their place of concealment, a ball striking Rose's right arm, and
breaking it at the elbow. This caused his gun to fall, and an Indian sprang
forward and raised it up quickly, aiming it at Meek. The ball passed through
his cap without doing any other harm. By this time the trappers were made aware
of the ambush; but how numerous the enemy was they could not determine.
However, as the rest, who were well mounted, turned to flee, Meek, who was
riding an old mule that hover the head to make it go, seeing that he was going
to be left behind, called out lustily, " hold on, boys! There's not many of
them. Let's stop and fight 'em;" at the same time pounding the mule over
the head, but without effect.
The Indians saw the predicament, and ran up to seize the
mule by the bridle, but the moment the mule got wind of the savages, away he
went, racing like a thoroughbred, jumping impediments, and running right over a
ravine, which was fortunately filled with snow. This movement brought Meek out
ahead. The other men then began to call out to Meek to stop and fight. "
Run for your lives, boys," roared Meek back at them, " there's ten
thousand of them; they'll kill every one of you! " The mule had got his
head, and there was no more stopping him than there had been starting him. On
he went in the direction of the Yellowstone, while the others made for Clarke's
Fork. On arriving at the former river, Meek found that some of the pack horses
had followed him, and others the rest of the party. This had divided the
Indians, three or four of whom were on his trail. Springing off his mule, he
threw his blankets down on the ice, and by moving them alternately soon crossed
the mule over to the opposite side, just in time to avoid a bullet that came
whistling after him. As the Indians could not follow, he pursued his way to
camp in safety, arriving late that evening. The main party were already in and
expecting him. Soon after, the buffalo hunters returned to the big camp, minus
some pack horses, but with a good story to tell, at the expense of Meek, and
which he enjoys telling of himself to this day. In December, Bridger's command
went into winter quarters in the bend of the Yellowstone.
Buffalo, elk and bear were in great abundance, all that fall and winter Before
they went to camp, Meek, Kit Carson, Hawkins; and Doughty were trapping
together on the Yellowstone, about sixty miles below. They had made their
temporary camp in the ruins of an old fort, the walls of which were about six
feet high. The Rocky Mountain Company
passed the first part of the winter in peace and plenty in the Yellowstone
camp, unannoyed either by enemies or rivals. Hunting buffalo, feeding their
horses, playing games, and telling stories, occupied the entire leisure of
these months of repose.
1836
In January, however, this
repose was broken in upon by a visit from the Blackfeet. As their visitations
were never of a friendly character, so then they were not bent upon pacific
rites and ceremonies, such as all the rest of the world find pleasure in, but
came in full battle array to try their fortunes in war against the big camp of
the whites. They had evidently made great preparation. Their warriors numbered
eleven hundred, got up in the top of the Blackfoot fashions, and armed with all
manner of savage and some civilized weapons. But Bridger was prepared for them,
although their numbers were so overwhelming. He built a fort, had the animals
corraled, and put himself on the defensive in a prompt and thorough manner.
This made the Blackfeet cautious; they too built forts of cotton-wood in the
shape of lodges, ten men to each fort, and carried on a skirmishing fight for
two days, when finding there was nothing to be gained, they departed, neither
side having sustained much loss; the whites losing only two men by this grand
Blackfoot army.
Soon after this attack Bridger broke camp, and traveled up
the Yellowstone, through the Crow country. It was while on this march that
Umentucken was struck by a Crow, and Meek put the whole camp in peril, by
shooting him. They passed on to the Big Horn and Little Horn rivers, down
through the Wind River valley and through the South Pass to Green River.
While in that country, there occurred the fight with the
Bannacks in which Umentucken was killed. A small party of Nez Perces had lost
their horses by the thieving of the Bannacks. They came into camp and
complained to the whites, who promised them their protection, should they be
able to recover their horses. Accordingly the Nez Perces started after the
thieves, and by dogging their camp, succeeded in re-capturing their horses and
getting back to Bridger's camp with them. In order to divert the vengeance of
the Bannacks from themselves, they presented their horses to the whites, and a
very fine one to Bridger.
All went well for a time. The Bannacks went on their way to
hunt buffalo; but they treasured up their wrath against the supposed white
thieves who had stolen the horses which they had come by so honestly. On their
return from the hunt, having learned by spies that the horses were in the camp
of the whites, they prepared for war. Early one morning they made their
appearance mounted and armed, and making a dash at the camp, rode through it
with the usual yells and frantic gestures. The attack was entirely unexpected.
Bridger stood in front of his lodge, holding his horse by a lasso, and the head
chief rode over it, jerking it out of his hand. At this unprecedented insult to
his master, a negro named Jim, cook to the Booshways, seized a rifle and shot
the chief dead. At the same time, an arrow shot at random struck Umentucken in
the breast, and the joys and sorrows of the Mountain Lamb were over
forevermore.
The killing of a head chief always throws an Indian war
party into confusion, and negro Jim was greatly elated at this signal feat of
his. The trappers, who were as much surprised at the suddenness of the assault
as it is in the mountain-man's nature to be, quickly recovered themselves. In a
few moments the men were mounted and in motion, and the disordered Bannacks
were obliged to fly towards their village, Bridger's company pursuing them.
All the rest of that day the trappers fought the Bannacks,
driving them out of their village and plundering it, and forcing them to take
refuge on an island in the river. Even there they were not safe, the guns of the
mountain-men picking them off, from their stations on the river banks.
Umentucken was well avenged that day.
The Indians are lordly and
tyrannical in their treatment of women, thinking it no shame to beat them
cruelly; even taking the liberty of striking other women than those belonging
to their own families. While the camp was traveling through the Crow country in
the spring, a party of them paid a visit to Bridger, bringing skins to trade
for blankets and ammunition. The bargaining went on quite pleasantly for some
time; but one of the braves who was promenading about camp inspecting whatever
came in his way, chanced to strike Umentucken [Meeks wife] with a whip he
carried in his hand, by way of displaying his superiority to squaws in general,
and trappers' wives in particular. It was an unlucky blow for the brave, for in
another instant he rolled on the ground, shot dead by a bullet from Meeks gun. At this rash act the camp was
in confusion. Yells from the Crows, who took the act as a signal for war; hasty
questions, and cries of command; arming and shooting. It was some time before
the case could be explained or understood. The Crows had two or three of their
party shot; the whites also lost a man. After the unpremeditated fight was
over, and the Crows departed not thoroughly satisfied with the explanation,
Bridger went round to Meek's lodge.
"Well, you raised a hell of a
row in camp; " said the commander, rolling out his deep bass voice in the
slow monotonous tones which mountain men very quickly acquire from the Indians.
“Very sorry, Bridger; but couldn't help it. No devil of an Indian shall strike
Meek's wife." "But you got a man killed." "Sorry for the
man; couldn't help it, though, Bridger."
Fearing, however, that the Crows would attempt to avenge
themselves for the losses they had sustained, Bridger hurried his camp forward,
and got out of their neighborhood as quickly as possible. In the following
summer Meek’s wife met her death by a Bannack arrow; dying like a warrior,
although living she was only a woman.
While awaiting, in the Green
River valley, the arrival of the St. Louis Company, the Rocky Mountain and
North American companies united; after which Captain Sublette and his brother
returned no more to the mountains. The new firm was known only as the American
Fur Company, the other having dropped its title altogether. The object of
their consolidation was by combining their capital and experience to strengthen
their hands against the Hudson's Bay Company, which now had an establishment at
Fort Hall, on the Snake River. By this new arrangement, Bridger and
Fontenelle commanded; and Dripps was to be the traveling partner who was to
go to St. Louis for goods.
After the conclusion of this agreement, Dripps, with the
restlessness of the true mountain-man, decided to set out, with a small party
of equally restless trappers, always eager to volunteer for any undertaking
promising either danger or diversion, to look for the St. Louis Company which
was presumed to be somewhere between the Black Hills and Green River. According
to this determination Dripps, Meek, Carson, Newell, a Flathead chief named
Victor, and one or two others, set out on the search for the expected company.
It happened, however, that a war party of a hundred Crows
were out on the trail before them, looking perhaps for the same party, and the
trappers had not made more than one or two camps before they discovered signs
which satisfied them of the neighborhood of an enemy. At their next camp on the
Sandy, Meek and Carson, with the caution and vigilance peculiar to them, kept
their saddles on their horses, and the horses tied to themselves by a long
rope, so that on the least unusual motion of the animals they should be readily
informed of the disturbance. Their precaution was not lost. Just after midnight
had given place to the first faint kindling of dawn, their ears were stunned by
the simultaneous discharge of a hundred guns, and the usual furious din of the
war-whoop and yell. A stampede immediately took place of all the horses
excepting those of Meek and Carson. " Every man for himself and God for us
all," is the motto of the mountain-man in case of an Indian attack; nor
did our trappers forget it on this occasion. Quickly mounting, they put their
horses to their speed, which was not checked until they had left the Sandy far
behind them. Continuing on in the direction of the proposed meeting with the
St. Louis Company, they made their first camp on the Sweetwater, where they
fell in with Victor, the Flathead chief, who had made his way on foot to this
place. One or two others came into camp that night, and the following day this
portion of the party traveled on in company until within about five miles of
Independence Rock, when they were once more charged on by the Indians, who
surrounded them in such a manner that they were obliged to turn back to escape.
The company of men who went
north this year under Bridger and Fontenelle, numbered nearly three hundred.
Rendezvous with all its varied excitements being over, this important brigade
commenced its march. According to custom, the trappers commenced business on
the head-waters of various rivers, following them down as the early frosts of
the mountains forced them to do until finally they wintered in the plains, at
the most favored spots they could find in which to subsist themselves and
animals. From Green River, Meek proceeded with Bridger's command to Lewis
River, Salt River, and other tributaries of the Snake, and camped with them in
Pierre's Hole, that favorite mountain valley which every year was visited by
the different fur companies. About the last of October
Bridger's company moved down on to the Yellowstone by a circuitous route
through the North Pass, now known as Hell Gate Pass, to Judith River, Mussel
Shell River, Cross Creeks of the Yellowstone, Three Forks of Missouri, Missouri
Lake, Beaver Head country, Big Horn River, and thence east again, and north
again to the wintering ground in the great bend of the Yellowstone. The company
had not proceeded far in the Blackfeet country, between Hell Gate Pass and the
Yellowstone, before they were attacked by the Blackfeet. On arriving at the
Yellowstone they discovered a considerable encampment of the enemy on an island
or bar in the river, and proceeded to open hostilities before the Indians
should have discovered them. Making little forts of sticks or bushes, each man
advanced cautiously to the bank overlooking the island, pushing his leafy fort
before him as he crept silently nearer, until a position was reached whence
firing could commence with effect. The first intimation the luckless savages
had of the neighborhood of the whites was a volley of shots discharged into their
camp, killing several of their number. But as this was their own mode of
attack, no reflections were likely to be wasted upon the unfairness of the
assault; quickly springing to their arms the firing was returned, and for
several hours was kept up on both sides. At night the having lost nearly thirty
killed; nor did the trappers escape quite unhurt, three being killed and a few
others wounded.
In November Bridger's camp
arrived at the Bighorn River, expecting to winter; but finding the buffalo all
gone, were obliged to cross the mountains lying between the Bighorn and Powder
rivers to reach the buffalo country on the latter stream. The snow having
already fallen quite deep on these mountains the crossing was attended with
great difficulty; and many horses and mules were lost by sinking in the snow,
or falling down precipices made slippery by the melting. and freezing of the
snow on the narrow ridges and rocky benches along which they were forced to
travel. About Christmas all the
company went into winter-quarters on Powder River, in the neighborhood of a
company of Bonneville's men, left under the command of Antoine Montero, who had
established a trading-post and fort at this place, hoping, no doubt, that here
they should be comparatively safe from the injurious competition of the older
companies. The appearance of three hundred men, who had the winter before them
in which to do mischief, was therefore as unpleasant as it was unexpected; and
the result proved that even Montero, who was Bonneville's experienced trader,
could not hold his own against so numerous and expert a band of marauders as
Bridger's men, assisted by the Crows, proved themselves to be; for by the
return of spring Montero had very little remaining of the property belonging to
the fort, nor anything to show for it. This mischievous war upon Bonneville was
prompted partly by the usual desire to cripple a rival trader, which the
leaders encouraged in their men; but in some individual instances far more by
the desire for revenge upon Bonneville personally, on account of his censures
passed upon the members of the Monterey expedition, and on the ways of
mountain-men generally.
About the first of January,
Fontenelle, with four men, and Captain Stuart's party, left camp to go to St.
Louis for supplies. At Fort Laramie Fontenelle committed suicide, in a fit of
mania a potu, and his men returned to camp with the news. In the fall and
winter with about 240 men under his leadership Bridger covered a large area
from Yellowstone Lake, Gardner, north to the Musselshell, Yellowstone River,
south to Clark's Fork, Stinking Water, and the Big Horn, trapping and trading
with friendly Indians when they could find them. One notable encounter was with
a large band of Blackfeet in late evening that planned to attack the next day.
That night there was an unusually brilliant display of northern lights. The
Indians were so frightened that the next morning they signaled to Bridger that
they were resuming to Three Forks as fast as possible. However, the trappers
were harassed and lost horses and a few men on several occasions. [Even at the
1837 rendezvous the Chief of the Bannocks claimed a horse belonging to Little
Chief of the Flatheads, Bridger's father-in-law. This was quickly settled by a
volley of shots killing more than a dozen Bannocks before they could raise a
weapon] However a stray arrow struck the Indian wife of Joseph Meek, a close
advisor of Bridger, in the breast coincidental with the announcement in the St.
Louis paper of the death of her first husband Milton Sublette.
1837 The Crows, who had for two
years been on terms of a sort of semi-amity with the whites, found it to their
interest to conciliate so powerful an enemy as the American Fur Company was now
become, and made frequent visits to the camp, on which occasion they usually
succeeded in obtaining a taste of the fire-water of which they were
inordinately fond. Occasionally a trader was permitted to sell liquor to the
whole village, when a scene took place whose peculiar horrors were wholly
indescribable, from the inability of language to convey an adequate idea of its
hellish degradation. After re-crossing the
mountains, passing the Bighorn, Clarke's, and Rosebud rivers, they came upon a
Blackfoot village on the Yellowstone, which as usual they attacked, and a
battle ensued, in which Manhead, captain of the Delawares was killed, another
Delaware named Tom Hill succeeding him in command. The fight did not result in
any great loss or gain to either party. The camp of Bridger fought its way past
the village, which was what they must do, in order to proceed on their course.
“Meek, however, was not quite
satisfied with the punishment the Blackfeet had received for the killing of
Manhead, who had been in the fight with him when the Camanches attacked them on
the plains”.
Desirous of doing something on his own account, he induced a comrade named
LeBlas, to accompany him to the village, after night had closed over the scene
of the late contest. Stealing into the village with a noiselessness equal to
that of one of Fennimore Cooper's Indian scouts, these two daring trappers
crept so near that they could look into the lodges, and see the Indians at their
favorite game of Hand. Inferring from this that the savages did not feel their
losses very severely, they determined to leave some sign of their visit, and
wound their enemy in his most sensitive part, the horse. Accordingly they cut
the halters of a number of the animals, fastened in the customary manner to a
stake, and succeeded in getting off with nine of them, which property they
proceeded to appropriate to their own use.
As the spring and summer advanced, Bridger's brigade
advanced into the mountains, passing the Cross Creek of the Yellowstone,
Twenty-five-Yard River, Cherry River, and coming on to the head-waters of the
Missouri spent the early part of the summer in that locality. Between Gallatin
and Madison forks the camp struck the great trail of the Blackfeet. Meek and
Mark Head had fallen four or five days behind camp, and being on this trail
felt a good deal of uneasiness. This feeling was not lessened by seeing, on
coming to Madison Fork, the skeletons of two men tied to or suspended from trees,
the flesh eaten off their bones. Concluding discretion to be the safest part of
valor in this country, they concealed themselves by day and traveled by night,
until camp was finally reached near Henry's Lake. On this march they forded a
flooded river, on the back of the same mule, their traps placed on the other,
and escaped from pursuit of a dozen yelling savages, who gazed after them in
astonishment; "taking their mule," said Mark Head," to be a
beaver, and themselves great medicine men. " That," said Meek,
"is what I call 'cooning' a river."
“The Blackfeet found the camp of Bridger too
strong for them. They were severely beaten and compelled to retire to their
village, leaving Bridger free to move on. The following day the camp reached
the village of Little Robe, a chief of the Peagans, who held a talk with
Bridger, complaining that his nation were all perishing from the small-pox
which had been given to them by the whites. Bridger was able to explain to
Little-Robe his error; inasmuch as although the disease might have originated
among the whites, it was communicated to the Blackfeet by Jim Beckwith, a
negro, and principal chief of their enemies the Crows. Bridger's brigade of trappers
met with no other serious interruptions on their summer's march. They proceeded
to Henry's Lake, and crossing the Rocky Mountains, traveled through the Pine
Woods, always a favorite region, to Lewis' Lake on Lewis' Fork of the Snake
River; and finally up the Grovant Fork, re-crossing the mountains to Wind
River, where the rendezvous for this year was appointed. At the rendezvous some
Crows successfully stole horses, and Newell, who had long been a
sub-trader and was wise in Indian arts and wiles, was sent to hold a talk with
the thieves. The talk was held, according to custom, in the Medicine lodge, and
the usual amount of smoking, of long silences, and grave looks, had to be
participated in, before the subject on hand could be considered. Then the
chiefs complained as usual of wrongs at the hands of the white men; of their
fear of small-pox, from which some of their tribe had suffered; of friends
killed in battle with the whites, and all the list of ills that Crow flesh is
heir to at the will of their white enemies. The women too had their complaints
to proffer, and the number of widows and orphans in the tribe was pathetically
set forth. The chiefs also made a strong point of this latter complaint; and on
it the wily Newell hung his hopes of recovering the stolen property.
"It is true," said he to the chiefs, " that
you have sustained heavy losses. But that is not
the fault of the Blanket Chief (Bridger.) If your young men have
been killed, they were killed when attempting to rob or kill our Captain's men.
If you have lost horses, your young men have stolen five to our one. If you are
poor in skins and other property, it is because you sold it all for drink which
did you no good. Neither is Bridger to blame that
you have had the smallpox. Your own chief, in trying to kill your enemies the
Blackfeet, brought that disease into the country”.
At
the 1837 Rendezvous, Capt. Sir William Drummond Stewart presented Bridger with
a replica suit of armor brought from Britain. Bridger, drunk, proceeded on horseback
to clank around the rendezvous grounds in the armor.
The decline of the business of hunting furs began to be
quite obvious about this time. Besides the American and St. Louis Companies,
and the Hudson's Bay Company, there were numerous lone traders with whom the
ground was divided. The American Company spent the autumn of this year as
formerly, in trapping beaver on the streams issuing from the eastern side of
the Rocky Mountains. When the cold weather finally drove the Fur Company to the
plains, they went into winter quarters once more in the neighborhood of the
Crows on Powder River. Here were re-enacted the wild scenes of the previous
winter, both trappers and Indians being given up to excesses.
“The
winter of 1837-38, one of the coldest experienced, also was remembered for an
outbreak of smallpox that moved upriver on the Missouri with settlers and was
then transmitted to some Blackfeet and other Indians when they crowded around a
boat at the Mandan's village. News of the disease caused panic among all the
tribes who then scattered to isolated areas to avoid contamination. The severe
weather was a great hardship to the buffalo herds. They sought the trapper's
camps and then competed with the horses for the cottonwood bark and branches
the trappers fed to their animals. Camps were moved frequently south and west
to their planned rendezvous location of the Wind River - Big Horn junction.
When the rendezvous of '38 ended, in addition to the packs of furs carried by
the caravan, there were several letters from Bridger providing information on
his earnings and possible future plans. These read in part: To Wm.
Sublette,
" herewith you will find a power of attorney giving authority to collect
from Pratte Chouteau & Co., the full amount due for services rendered use
every to obtain it for me, and deposit it in some safe keeping, subject to my
future disposal, in the meantime using it for your benefit if you think proper.
Accompanying this power is an acknowledgment from Mr. Drips of the amt. due me
by the Company hope you may be able to collect the money.
Again
to Wm. Sublette: "I, James Bridger, .now in the Rocky Mountains, .do
hereby constitute and appoint William L. Sublette .my true and lawful attorney
to do and perform all my business transactions to receive all monies due me and
in my name to give receipts for the securing and paying of all debts due me.
"And, especially, whereas Pratte Chouteau & Co. of St. Louis,
Missouri, are due me a sum of money of which the accompanying instrument of
writing is their acknowledgement and which reads as follows viz: Chouteau &
Co There will be due James Bridger on his arrival in St. Louis three thousand
and thirteen dollars and thirteen cents for services rendered the R. M Outfit
for the two last years services, Andrew Drips, agent. For Prate, Chouteau &
Co., Rocky Mountains." Rumors were spreading at the end of the rendezvous
that all was not well with the Company.”
On the return of spring, Bridger again led his brigade all
through the Yellowstone country, to the streams on the north side of the
Missouri, to the head-waters of that river; and finally rendezvoused on the
north fork of the Yellowstone, near Yellowstone Lake. Though the amount of furs
taken on the spring hunt was considerable, it was by no means equal to former
years. The fact was becoming apparent that the beaver was being rapidly
exterminated.
1838. From
Missouri Lake, Meek started alone for the Gallatin Fork of the Missouri,
trapping in a mountain basin called Gardiner's Hole. Beaver were plenty here,
but it was getting late in the season, and the weather was cold in the
mountains. On his return, in another basin called the Burnt Hole, he found a
buffalo skull; and knowing that Bridger's camp would soon pass that way, wrote
on it the number of beaver he had taken, and also his intention to go to Fort
Hall to sell them.
In a few days the camp passing found the skull, which
grinned its threat at the angry Booshways, as the chuckling trapper had
calculated that it would. To prevent its execution runners were sent after him,
who, however, failed to find him, and nothing was known of the supposed
renegade for some time. But as Bridger passed through Pierre's Hole, on his way
to Green River to winter, he was surprised at Meek's appearance in camp. He was
soon invited to the lodge of the Booshways, and called to account for his
supposed apostacy. Meek, for a time confesses, but put on his free trapper
airs, and laughed in the face of the Booshways. Bridger, who half suspected
some trick, took the matter lightly, but Dripps was very much annoyed, and made
some threats, at which Meek only laughed the more. Finally the certificate from
their own trader, Jo Walker, was produced, the new pack of furs surrendered,
and Dripps' wrath turned into smiles of approval.
Here again Meek parted company with the main camp, and went
on an expedition with seven other trappers, under John Larison, to the Salmon
River: but found the cold very severe on this journey, and the grass scarce and
poor, so that the company lost most of their horses. The rendezvous of this year
was at Bonneville's old fort on Green River, and was
the last one held in the mountains by the American Fur Company.
Beaver was growing scarce, and competition was strong. Bridger was the lead
trapper in the field for both companies and neither could now be considered as
flourishing. Bridger and Drips did take 80 or 90 trappers and a following of
Indians north to fall trapping on the Gallatin and Madison then to Missouri
Lake (Hebgen now) for a buffalo hunt while Bridger's family went with her
people to winter at the Flathead village on the Salmon River. The record is not
clear on Bridger's whereabouts for the next few months but he may have had
contact with Louis Vasquez and spoken with other traders about trading posts.
Also at the same time he wanted to go home to check on his finances and to see
the City of St. Louis for as he expressed it to a friend sometime later,
"he hadn't tasted bread for seventeen years." On the trip to St.
Louis Bridger met the Catholic priest Father De Smet who was returning from a
three months trip to Fort Union to determine the feasibility of establishing a
mission among the Indians. Bridger's adopted tribe by marriage, the Flatheads,
had been the first to visit Captain Clark many years before to inquire about
the white man's "Book of Heaven".
On the disbanding
of the company, some went to Santa Fe, some to California, others to the Lower
Columbia, and a few remained in the mountains trapping, and selling their furs
to the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Hall. As to the leaders, some of them
continued for a few years longer to trade with the Indians, and others returned
to the States, to lose their fortunes more easily far than they made them. Of
the men who remained in the mountains trapping, that year, Meek was one.
Leaving his wife at Fort Hall, he set out in company with a Shawnee, named Big
Jim, to take beaver on Salt River, a tributary of the Snake. Later in 1840 he
immigrated to Oregon.
Continued
in Part II – Jim Bridger’s Trails
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