FORT BENTON.
Few, if any, towns in the Far West country possess so unique and varied
a history as Fort Benton. With the exception of some of the old Spanish
villages in the southwest it is the oldest settlement in the mountain
country, for the traders made their first establishment there in 1831.
The true historic career of Fort Benton did not embrace more than half
a century, yet in that brief space it saw more of romance, tragedy,
and vigorous life than many a city of a hundred times its size and ten
times its age.
[Sidenote: OPENING TRADE WITH THE BLACKFEET.]
The commercial importance of Fort Benton arose, of course, from its
situation at the head of navigation on the Missouri River; but this was
not the cause of its first location there. The surrounding country was
the home of the Blackfeet Indians--great fur producers, but in early
times inveterate enemies of the whites. From the time when the traders
began to penetrate those distant regions it was their ambition to open
up trade relations with this fierce and refractory tribe. Attempts were
made in the years 1807–10 and again in 1822–23, but wholly without
success. The Indians always evinced a deadly hostility, attacked the
trappers, killed a great many, drove them out of the country, and gave
them no opportunity to explain their pacific purposes.
In 1831 Kenneth McKenzie, ablest of the American Fur Company traders
on the upper Missouri, resolved to make another attempt. He had
already securely established himself at Fort Union, near the mouth of
the Yellowstone. Fortune threw into his hands at this time the very
instrument required for his purposes--an old trapper who had long
served under the Hudson Bay Company in the Blackfoot country north of
the boundary. His name was Jacob Berger. He understood perfectly the
language of these Indians and knew many of them personally. McKenzie
prevailed upon him to go to their country with overtures of peace and
the promise of a trading post. The real origin of the enmity of the
Blackfeet had been the apparent favoritism of the whites, in years
gone by, toward their hereditary enemies, the Crows; and McKenzie felt
confident that, if he could once get their ear and explain the true
purpose of the traders toward them, he would secure their friendship
and custom.
Berger set out with a small party in the fall of 1830, carrying
unfurled an American flag, and traveled upward of four weeks before he
saw an Indian. Finally he came upon a large village in the valley of
the Marias River. The sight so terrified the little band that they were
for instant flight before they should be discovered. Berger, however,
persisted in his mission, and the party moved forward, scarcely
expecting to be alive another hour. They were quickly discovered,
whereupon a number of mounted warriors started at full gallop to meet
them. The whites halted and Berger advanced with his flag. The Indians
paused and Berger made signs of peace, and called out his own name.
As he was well known to the tribe, they recognized him at once. There
was a rush to shake hands and Berger and his party were taken to the
village, where, to their infinite relief, they were received with every
demonstration of good will.
[Sidenote: A FAIR PROPOSITION.]
Berger remained at the village for some time, and made the Indians
fully acquainted with the purpose of his mission. He finally induced
about forty of the leading men to return with him to Fort Union, where
they could confer with McKenzie direct. The journey was long, and
the fickle nature of the Indians showed signs of weakening before it
was nearly completed. They began to fear treachery, and it took all
of Berger’s ingenuity to keep them from turning back. Finally, as a
last resort, when almost at their journey’s end, he pledged them his
scalp and his horses if they did not reach the fort in one day more.
They agreed to this eminently fair proposition, and before the day
had passed they saw, from the top of a hill, in the plain below them,
the imposing palisades and bastions of Fort Union. This was about the
beginning of the year 1831.
[Sidenote: SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATIONS.]
McKenzie did all in his power to impress the delegation favorably. He
made them liberal presents, and sent a trader with an outfit of goods
to remain in their village during the winter. Finally he promised them
a permanent trading post the following year. Before the year had passed
he induced the Blackfeet and Assiniboines to make a treaty with each
other, and he thus established peace all along the northern border.
In the fall of 1831 he sent a complete outfit under James Kipp to the
Blackfoot country for the purpose of establishing the promised post.
After a long and tedious voyage Kipp reached the mouth of the Marias
River and selected the point of land between the two streams for the
proposed establishment. It was begun about the middle of October.
The Indians appeared soon after his arrival, but Kipp requested them
to withdraw for seventy-five days, until he could finish the work.
They went away and returned punctually on the day fixed. To their
astonishment they found the fort entirely finished and everything ready
for the trade. This post was very properly named, from the sub-tribe
of the Blackfeet in whose country it was located, Fort Piegan.[37]
[Sidenote: THE BLACKFEET NATION.]
Thus was the white man’s first foothold established in the land of the
Blackfeet, near where the great post of Fort Benton stood in later
years. Kipp drove a thriving trade during the winter, and in the spring
went down to Union with the returns and with all his men, for they
refused to remain if he went. It is said that the Indians burned the
post after Kipp withdrew. Whether from this cause or from some other,
it was not rebuilt upon the original site. D. D. Mitchell, one of the
Company’s most capable servants, was sent up in 1832 to reopen trade
with the Blackfeet. On his way up he lost his boat in a storm, with all
the property, worth some thirty thousand dollars, and two men, one of
them a Piegan Indian. The Indians who were with him suspected foul play
and Mitchell had all he could do to maintain himself while sending back
to Union for another outfit. He succeeded, however, and in due time
reached the mouth of the Marias.
[Sidenote: FOUNDING OF FORT MCKENZIE.]
Not liking the situation selected by Kipp, he went up the river some
seven miles farther, and chose a spot on the left bank in a fine bottom
with abundant growths of timber near by. The erection of the new post
was one of the dramatic incidents of the early fur trade. There were
several thousand Indians present, suspicious of the whites and ready
for trouble upon any pretext. The men worked like beavers in getting up
the pickets, and during this time slept on the keelboat. It required
the utmost tact and firmness on the part of Mitchell to prevent an
outbreak, and several times it seemed as if all were lost. The work was
finally completed, and once within the fort the little party felt safe.
The new post was named Fort McKenzie, a merited tribute to the man
who had accomplished a feat which the traders had hitherto considered
impossible.
In the summer of 1833 Alexander Culbertson, next to McKenzie the
greatest of the American Fur Company traders, went up with Mitchell
from Fort Union, and began his long and eventful career on the upper
river. Prince Maximilian was a guest of the party, and remained at Fort
McKenzie nearly all summer. While there he was treated to a genuine
Indian battle. The Assiniboines, becoming weary of peace, broke the
treaty of two years before, and fell upon a band of Piegans who were
encamped around the fort. They killed several Indians in the first
onset, but were quickly repulsed by aid of the inmates of the post, and
were finally driven back beyond the Marias. Mitchell and Culbertson
took part in the fight, and the venerable Prince became its historian.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER CULBERTSON]
[Sidenote: BLACKFEET AND CROWS.]
The history of Fort McKenzie had more of excitement and incident about
it than any of the other early trading posts. The Blackfeet and the
Crows were deadly enemies of each other, and many were the bloody
encounters between them. The Crows often came to seek their enemy in
his own country, and the Blackfeet went to the Crow country on the
Yellowstone, where the inmates of Fort Cass witnessed the counterpart
of scenes which fell under the eyes of the traders at Fort McKenzie.
It is said, but upon uncertain authority, that the Crows once actually
laid siege to Fort McKenzie, but as they were a friendly tribe to the
whites, this may be taken with some allowance. It is certain, however,
that for many years the warfare between these two tribes raged with
great fury, though not with much loss to the traders, for the booty
captured from one party found its way directly to the trading post in
the country of the other.
[Sidenote: SMALLPOX AMONG THE BLACKFEET.]
The thrilling incidents with which the annals of Fort McKenzie abounded
in these early years would fill a volume; but we can note only the
more important. The year 1837 was the year of the terrible smallpox
scourge among the tribes of the Missouri Valley. Great care was taken
at Fort Union to dispatch the annual outfit for Fort McKenzie without
carrying the smallpox along with it. The expedition was in charge of
Alexander Harvey, one of the most noted and desperate characters which
the fur trade produced. Harvey took every possible precaution, but in
spite of his efforts the disease broke out in his party. He therefore
thought it prudent to stop before he reached Fort McKenzie and send
word to Culbertson, who had been in charge of the fort since 1834, when
Mitchell left. Culbertson wisely decided to leave the cargo at the
mouth of the Judith until the disease had run its course. There were
large numbers of Indians encamped near the fort awaiting the arrival
of the boat, and when they learned of the proposed delay they became
suspicious and insisted that the boat should be brought up. Culbertson
expostulated with them, but all in vain, and to avoid the capture and
destruction of the boat and its crew, he yielded to their demands.
[Sidenote: TERRIBLE MORTALITY.]
The result was exactly what had been foreseen. The disease was
communicated to the inmates of the post and to the Indians as well.
The latter completed their trade and left the fort before the pest
actually broke out among them, and the garrison remained for some time
in ignorance of what their fate had been. For upwards of two months
not an Indian was seen, and Culbertson, fearing the dreadful truth,
resolved to go in search of them. With a single companion he set out
for the Three Forks of the Missouri, where the Piegans usually spent
their autumns hunting beaver. They finally came upon a village of about
sixty lodges, only to find it absolutely deserted, with dead bodies
strewn in every direction, and carrion birds of prey the only sign of
life anywhere around. The smallpox had done its work well, and the
few survivors of the village had fled in scattered groups among the
surrounding mountains. The mortality among the Bloods and Blackfeet had
been as great as among the Piegans, and Culbertson estimated the total
loss among the three bands at six thousand souls. The Grosventres, for
some cause, escaped with small loss.
The annals of Fort McKenzie during the next six years find their chief
sensational interest in the exploits of Alexander Harvey. Many were the
desperate deeds committed by him, and it required all the steadying
authority of Culbertson to offset his sinister influence among the
Indians. Harvey was, however, an excellent trader, and rendered the
company good service. He was left in charge of the post during the
occasional temporary absences of Culbertson at Fort Union, and in spite
of his many outrages upon the Indians, and even upon the whites, was
considered too valuable a man to lose.
[Sidenote: CULBERTSON TRANSFERRED.]
Under Culbertson’s prudent management Fort McKenzie had become, next to
Union, the most paying establishment on the river. The Company were so
pleased with his record that they decided to send him to Fort John, on
the Laramie River, to build up the trade of that post, which was doing
a losing business on account of bad management. Culbertson protested
that it would be a mistake to take him away from McKenzie, but the
Company overruled him, and Francis A. Chardon, one of their most
experienced clerks, was sent to relieve him.
[Sidenote: REVOLTING CRIME.]
Chardon was the same manner of man as was Alexander Harvey, and it
goes without saying that such a pair traveled rapidly the highway
to commercial ruin. Chardon, being new to his duties and new to the
post, relied a great deal upon Harvey, who became the real head of the
establishment. The natural consequences of this arrangement quickly
followed. Some little offenses committed by the Indians, which a
prudent trader would have passed by without trouble, were made the
excuse for one of the most atrocious crimes ever committed by either
white man or Indian upon the other. The plan was to fall upon the
unsuspecting Indians the next time they should come in to trade, and
to kill all they could and confiscate their property. It only partly
succeeded, owing to the failure of the actors to co-operate exactly;
but it went far enough to arouse the hatred of the Indians to the
highest pitch. They began a war of vengeance, and soon rendered the
situation at Fort McKenzie untenable. Chardon accordingly moved down
to the Judith River, and erected a new post on the left bank of the
Missouri, opposite the mouth of the smaller stream. He named the post
Fort Chardon. Fort McKenzie was burned, some say by Chardon himself
and some by the Indians. The fort lost its old name and became known
as Fort Brulé, or burned fort, a name which still survives in Brulé
bottom, where Fort McKenzie stood. The massacre took place early in the
winter of 1842–43.[38]
[Sidenote: RETURN OF CULBERTSON.]
As a result of their reckless management, Chardon and Harvey had by
this time ruined the trade with the Blackfeet tribes. In this emergency
the Company turned to Culbertson, acknowledged their error in removing
him from Fort McKenzie, and besought him to return and restore things
to their old-time condition. Culbertson went back in the summer of
1844, abandoned and burned Fort Chardon, and established a new post
twelve miles above the modern Fort Benton. The fort was built on the
right bank of the Missouri, and was named Fort Lewis, in honor of the
great explorer, Captain Meriwether Lewis.
On his way up from Fort Union this season Culbertson was accompanied
by Jacob Berger, James Lee, and Malcolm Clark. Clark had served at
Fort McKenzie five years before. He was a noted frontier character of
good family connections, an unsuccessful student at the West Point
Military Academy, a man of fine physical presence, and possessed of
a bold and desperate character, which brought to his name the stigma
of more than one crime.[39] Clark and his companions seem to have
plotted the murder or severe punishment of Alexander Harvey; for when
Harvey came down from Fort Chardon to meet the boat, he was attacked by
Clark and Lee and barely escaped with his life. He fled to the post,
barricaded himself, induced the inmates to stand by him, and would not
admit even Culbertson without a guarantee of personal safety. He then
closed up his affairs at the post, left the Company’s service, went
down the river, and soon after became senior member in the opposition
firm of Harvey, Primeau & Co. He returned to the upper river, built a
small post near the mouth of Shonkin Creek, and did a fair business for
several years, when he sold out to his old employers.
[Sidenote: BLACKFEET TRADE RESTORED.]
With Chardon and Harvey away, Culbertson soon won back the trade of
the Blackfeet. The site of Fort Lewis, however, proved unsatisfactory.
The valley of the Teton River, a tributary of the Marias, which flowed
parallel with the Missouri for many miles, was a favorite camping
ground of the Indians. Fort Lewis was a long way off, and across the
Missouri from this valley. Accordingly, in the spring of 1846 the
post was dismantled, moved down the river, and set up in the fine open
bottom where the village of Fort Benton now stands.
[Sidenote: FORT BENTON FOUNDED.]
The post was thus finally settled in its future permanent location,
although the name, Fort Lewis, was still retained for several years.
Business flourished under Culbertson’s management, and he at one
time had three outlying posts in the country round about. In 1850 he
determined to rebuild the post of adobe, after the manner of Fort John,
on the Laramie. The soil was well adapted to the purpose, and although
the work was begun late in the season, it was completed, thanks to
an open fall, before winter set in. On Christmas night, 1850, it was
dedicated with a grand ball, and was rechristened Fort Benton, in honor
of Senator Thomas H. Benton, who had so often rescued the Company from
the peril of its own malefactions. The name Fort Benton, as applied
to the post of the Blackfeet, and to the head of navigation on the
Missouri River, thus dates from the year 1850, nineteen years after the
first trading post was established in that vicinity.
[Sidenote: THE STEVENS EXPLORATION.]
No events of other than a routine nature transpired at Fort Benton
until the year 1853, when the extensive exploring expedition of
Governor I. I. Stevens took the field to find a northern railroad
route to the Pacific Ocean. These explorations brought a great deal
of business to Fort Benton, and added a new feature to the life of
that hitherto almost unknown post. Growing out of this work came the
effort to negotiate treaties with the Blackfeet similar to those which
had been formed at Fort Laramie three years before with most of the
plains tribes. Congress made a large appropriation to cover the expense
of the negotiations, and Governor Stevens and Alfred Cummings were
appointed treaty commissioners. The necessary gifts for the Indians
were purchased, the American Fur Company was awarded the contract for
their transportation, and in due time Commissioner Cummings and party
left St. Louis on the Company’s steamboat _St. Mary_.
There were on board, besides Commissioner Cummings, Major Culbertson,
Indian agents Vaughn and Hatch, and a friend of Captain La Barge, an
army officer, who later became paymaster in the army. At Fort Union
the goods were transshipped in keelboats for Fort Benton, while
the passengers took wagons for the same destination. Arrived at
Milk River crossing, the party met Governor Stevens just returning
from the Pacific Coast, and here the details of organization of the
Commission were decided upon. There was much dispute over the question
of precedence, and although Governor Stevens finally yielded to his
colleague, the relations of the two men were so embittered that their
subsequent work lacked harmony and effectiveness.
[Sidenote: CHANGE OF CONDITIONS.]
From Milk River the party went on to Fort Benton, but the boats were
not able to get up that far except with very great delay, and it
was decided to hold the expected council at the mouth of the Judith
River. The goods were stopped at that point and hither repaired the
Commissioners and the various Blackfeet bands to the number of about
two thousand. The work was completed and in about ten days the Indians
departed with their lavish presents. The era of the fur trader had
ended and that of the Indian agent had come. In this case, as in all
that had preceded it, the change, so far as the Indians were concerned,
was a change for the worse.
[Sidenote: GREATNESS OF FORT BENTON.]
These events bring our sketch of the history of Fort Benton down to
the point already reached in our regular narrative. The arrival of the
first steamboat in 1859 was an epoch in her history. Followed, as it
was, almost immediately by the discovery of gold in Montana, and the
consequent rush of emigration, it changed the whole order of things
at the post. Stores and other buildings began to appear, and in 1865
a town site was laid off.[40] The young city grew with astonishing
rapidity and became a place of very great importance. Strange
indeed must it have seemed to the Indians and to the old trappers to
behold upon this spot, where for so many years there had been only
a single palisade--sole habitation of white men within five hundred
miles--buildings of metropolitan style and quality, trains of wagons
coming and going, and lines of noble steamboats lying at the bank along
the entire front of the town.[41] It was a wonderful metamorphosis,
scarcely paralleled in any other city of the country. Mushroom towns
have sprung up all over the West, but no permanent city from causes
like those which built up Fort Benton. Her rise and greatness were due
solely to her position as a strategic point in the commerce of the far
Northwest, not from any great mineral discovery in her neighborhood.
Her supremacy she maintained until other commercial routes had rendered
useless the great natural highway which found its terminus at her
door.[42]
[Illustration: FORT BENTON LEVEE]
[Sidenote: AMERICAN FUR CO. LEAVES THE RIVER.]
The American Fur Company, founders of Fort Benton, continued to do
business on the upper river until 1864, when they sold out to the firm
of Hawley, Hubbell & Co., under the style of the Northwestern Fur
Company. The negotiations were concluded in the winter of 1864–65, and
the actual transfer accomplished in the following season. In 1869 the
Northwestern Fur Company sold out all its interests below Fort Union to
Durfee & Peck, and in 1870 abandoned all the trade above Fort Union.