THOMAS J. FARNHAM
II
They were now in the country of the Utes, or rather, in the debatable
land visited for hunting purposes by Utes, Cheyennes, Arapahoes,
Shoshoni, Blackfeet, and Crows. They therefore travelled with some
care, put out their fires at night, looked to their arms, and prepared
to meet the foe. No Indians were seen, however; but another misfortune
visited them in the loss of one of the guide’s horses, poisoned by some
food that it had eaten.
As they journeyed on, food again became scarce, and the travel was so
difficult that they had no time to hunt, and suffered from hunger. On
the Little Bear River they met a party of four French Canadians, who
a few days before had been attacked by a Sioux war party on Little
Snake River [of Colorado]. Here again attention is called to the
difference in character of the French and the American trappers. The
former are mercurial, volatile, and always merry, cheering themselves
on their journeys with song; while the American trapper is watchfulness
personified, and his concentration in this direction destroys all
frivolity. “They seldom smile; the expression of their countenances
is watchful, solemn and determined. They ride and walk like men whose
breasts have so long been exposed to the bullet and arrow, that fear
finds within them no resting place. If a horseman is descried in the
distance, they put spurs to their animals and are at his side at once,
as the result may be for death or life. No delay, no second thought,
no cringing in their stirrups; but erect, firm, and with a strong arm,
they seize and overcome every danger ‘or perish,’ say they, ‘as white
men should,’ fighting promptly and bravely.”
On parting next day--August 5--with the French and American trappers,
two of Farnham’s party left him. Farnham notes the kindness and
free-handedness of the trappers. He had given them a little ammunition,
and they sought to repay the kindness by presenting him and his party
with moccasins, dressed deer and elk skins, and other articles.
“Everything, even their hunting shirts upon their backs, were at our
service; always kindly remarking when they made an offer of such
things, that ‘the country was filled with skins, and they could get
a supply when they should need them,’” It was this same day that a
man, pursuing some bears, found among the brush a prize--an excellent
pack-mule, feeding quietly, and so tame as to permit him to approach
within ten yards of it without even raising its head. The man prepared
to catch it, when suddenly the mule “most wonderfully, most cruelly,
metamorphosed itself into an elk!--fat as marrow itself, and sufficient
in weight to have fed our company for twelve days--and fled away,”
the man who had prepared to catch it being too astonished to shoot at
it. This was unlucky, for now they had no food. Game was seen several
times, but none was killed. The next day, however, a family of bears
was seen, and two cubs secured. They weighed about twelve pounds
apiece, and made for the party, as the author expresses it, “a filthy
supper.” They were trying to reach Brown’s Hole, but progress was slow.
For forty-eight hours after the finishing of the cubs they had no food;
and then, with great regret, they killed their dog, singed and ate it.
At last, after more days of hunger, they found themselves in Brown’s
Hole, and at Fort David Crockett.
Here there was food and to spare, and white men, traders, especially
one Robinson, who traded chiefly with the Snakes. This was very likely
“Uncle Jack Robinson,” who died, a very old man, at Fort Bridger about
1894. He was one of the party of trappers who found the Arapahoe baby
whom they named Friday.
In this “Happy Valley,” which, however, was not free from incursions by
the wandering enemy, the travellers spent much time, and here Farnham
puts down some things that he learned concerning the Snake, Crow,
Blackfeet, and Arapahoe Indians. He describes especially the pestilence
which visited the Blackfeet in 1828, at which time they numbered about
two thousand five hundred lodges, or families, which would perhaps mean
twelve thousand five hundred people. This enumeration may perhaps refer
to the Piegan Blackfeet alone, or to all three of the tribes of that
nation.
At that time, as in later visits of this dread disease, the Blackfeet
treatment was by the sweat lodge, followed by a plunge into icy water,
from which often the weakened victim was unable to struggle again to
the shore. At this time the Blackfoot camp, it is said, was on the
banks of the Yellowstone.
A glimpse of the estimation in which the Blackfeet were held in those
days is afforded by the reflection with which the author concludes his
description of this scourge; for he says: “But this infliction has in
no wise humanized their blood-thirsty nature. As ever before, they
wage exterminating war upon the traders and trappers, and the Oregon
Indians.”
At Brown’s Hole, Farnham met an old Snake Indian who had seen Lewis
and Clark on the headwaters of the Missouri in 1805. This man was the
first of his people who saw the exploring white man. “He appears to
have been galloping from place to place in the office of sentinel to
the Shoshoni camp, when he suddenly found himself in the very presence
of the whites. Astonishment fixed him to the spot. Men with faces pale
as ashes had never been seen by himself or his nation. ‘The head rose
high and round, the top flat; it jutted over the eyes in a thin rim;
their skin was loose and flowing, and of various colors.’ His fears at
length overcoming his curiosity, he fled in the direction of the Indian
encampment. But being seen by the whites they pursued and brought him
to their camp; exhibited to him the effects of their firearms, loaded
him with presents, and let him go. Having arrived among his own people,
he told them he had seen men with faces pale as ashes, who were makers
of thunder, lightning, etc. This information astounded the whole tribe.
They had lived many years, and their ancestors had lived many more, and
there were many legends which spoke of many wonderful things; but a
tale like this they had never heard. A council was therefore assembled
to consider the matter. The man of strange words was summoned before
it; and he rehearsed, in substance, what he had before told to others,
but was not believed. ‘All men were red, and therefore he could not
have seen men as pale as ashes. The Great Spirit made the thunder and
lightning; he therefore could not have seen men of any color that could
produce them. He had seen nothing; he had lied to his chief, and should
die.’ At this stage of the proceedings, the culprit produced some of
the presents which he had received from the pale men. These being quite
as new to them as pale faces were, it was determined ‘that he should
have the privilege of leading his judges to the place where he declared
he had seen these strange people; and if such were found there, he
should be exculpated; if not, these presents were to be considered as
conclusive evidence against him, that he dealt with evil spirits, and
that he was worthy of death by the arrows of his kinfolks.’ The pale
men--the thunder makers--were found, and were witnesses of the poor
fellow’s story. He was released, and has ever since been much honored
and loved by his tribe, and every white man in the mountains. He is
now about eighty years old, and poor. But as he is always about Fort
David Crockett, he is never permitted to want.”
At Brown’s Hole arrived Paul Richardson, who was returning from the
borders of Oregon to St. Louis. He had guided some missionaries and
others, from the Western States to that unknown region, and among them
a man whose purpose it was to conquer the territory of California. The
missionaries were Messrs. Munger and Griffith, and their wives were
with them. Influenced by Richardson’s story, which was very unfavorable
to Oregon as a place of residence, two of Farnham’s men determined to
return to the Mississippi Valley. This left him only Blair, an old
man, and the useless person whose life he had saved, as companions for
the long journey before him. The event was disheartening. Farnham,
however, was a man of determination, and was not to be turned from
his purpose of striving, at least, to reach the mouth of the Colorado
River that season. He therefore engaged a Snake Indian to pilot him to
Fort Hall, about two hundred miles distant; the compensation offered
for the service being fifty loads of ammunition, and three bunches
of beads. One of the melancholy things of continuing the journey was
the necessity of parting with Kelly, the trapper who had bravely and
effectively guided them from Fort William to Brown’s Hole. When the
last farewells were said, they started off, following the Green River,
which here is called Sheetskadee; and on a tributary of this stream,
a day or two later, Farnham lost his Pueblo mare--a prairie, and not
a mountain, horse--which, after escaping many dangers in climbing the
rough mountains to the eastward, at last fell over a cliff about six
hundred feet high and was killed.
When starting out from Fort David Crockett, they had been ill supplied
with food, of which a considerable part was dog meat, but Jim, the
Indian guide, occasionally killed an antelope, which kept the party
from suffering. While still travelling up the river, they met a free
trapper, named Madison Gordon, who told them the usual story of few
beaver, and little game; and he declared that he purposed to move West,
and to begin farming in the valley of the Willamette, which he averred
was the purpose also of a large number of his fellow trappers. One
morning, as they were packing, the guide detected in the distance, down
the river, people coming. Who these might be they did not know. They
had visions of war parties of Crows, Sioux, and Blackfeet, and prepared
for the attack; put new caps on their rifles, mounted, and took up a
favorable position. But before long their guide rode out from behind
their brush-wood camp and hurried his horse toward the stranger. This
man proved to be the celebrated bear killer, Meek--perhaps the man
whose story is told in a book entitled, _The River of the West_, which
gives much of the history of the early settlements on the Columbia
River. A day or two after this, food must have again become scarce
with them, for the author says, quite incidentally, “at sunset our
camp kettle was bubbling over the bones of a pelican at the ‘Steamboat
Spring.’” Think of the joy of eating boiled pelican! What more nauseous
dish can be imagined. Crossing over into the valley of Bear River, they
hurried on their way, frequently made uneasy by finding the tracks of
people, and even by seeing camp fires at night, and at length reached
Fort Hall, and full meals, in which fresh buffalo tongue figured
largely.
After a short stay at Fort Hall, Farnham and his people, under the
guidance of an Indian, set out to cross the burnt plains of Snake
River. Two or three days out the party was joined by a Swiss trapper
who had been eight years in the mountains. He had been a student in a
seminary, but had deserted that training-ground for the priesthood and
had come to America and taken to the mountains.
The wormwood deserts of the Snake River were hard enough on the
travellers, but harder still on their animals, which had little to eat.
Digger Indians were sometimes met; and when they reached the Boisais
River they found Indians in considerable numbers engaged in taking
salmon for their winter provisions. They were pleasant, hospitable, and
ready to trade provisions, or even horses; and here the party renewed
their stock. It was here too that their guide left them, explaining
that now that he had come to the country of another people, it would
not be good manners to act as guide through their land. Left without
guidance in a country cut up with trails, they were obliged to depend
on themselves, but at length succeeded in hiring a number of Bonak
[Bannock] Indians to guide them to the fort, which they were now
approaching.
The fort at Boisais was as hospitable as all the others had been. This
post was built in 1832 by the Hudson’s Bay Company to counteract the
influence of Wyeth’s Fort Hall, the building of which is described
in J. K. Townsend’s sketches. At this time it was commanded by Mr.
Payette. The stay at Boisais was not long, and the travellers moved on
over a country sometimes easy to traverse, again extremely difficult.
In some places all the party walked, except the worthless Smith, who
insisted on making his unfortunate beast carry him over the roughest
ground. A few days later they reached the Columbia River, and crossing
over found themselves before the mission, in the presence of Dr.
Whitman. Mr. Munger and Mr. Hall were also there. A pretty picture is
painted of the life and work of this mission among the Skyuse Indians,
whom they were endeavoring to teach the ordinary occupations of
civilized life.
At the Dalles Farnham saw some Chinooks, and declared that they
flattened their heads more and are more stupid than any other tribe on
the Columbia.
He tells us that these Indians subsist on the acorns of the white oak
and on fish. For winter the fish is dried, and then pounded to powder
and mixed with the oil of the leaf fat of the fish, and packed away
in flag sacks; thus making a sort of fish pemmican. Although no salt
is used in this preparation, it remains good through the winter. The
acorns, gathered as soon as they fall to the ground, are buried in
sand, which is kept constantly saturated with water, where they remain
till spring. This soaking is said to remove their bitter flavor.
Passing on down the Columbia, Farnham passed various settlements and
farms, one of which belonged to Thomas McKay, son of the McKay who
figured with John Jacob Astor in the doings of the Pacific Fur Company.
McKay was building a grist mill, and it was well advanced toward
completion. The mother of McKay was a Cree or Chippewa Indian. This is
the McKay spoken of by Townsend.
It was just at this time that the British, as well as the Americans,
were beginning to take possession of Oregon, and what is now
Washington. It had long been occupied by the Hudson’s Bay Company; but,
on the other hand, many Americans had traded and settled there; and the
American settlers were urgent that they should be protected, declaring
this to be a portion of their country’s domain. The settlers held a
meeting while Farnham was there, and handed him a petition, signed by
sixty-seven citizens of the United States, and persons desirous of
becoming such, the substance of which was a description of the country,
their unprotected situation, and a prayer that the Federal Government
would extend over them the protection and institutions of the Republic.
Farnham’s original intention was to explore Oregon during the winter
then beginning, and during the following summer to return to the States
with the American fur traders. Already the rainy season had begun,
however, and it was uncertain whether the traders would return to the
States next year. That plan had to be given up. Finally he determined
to take ship from the mouth of the Columbia River either for New York
or California, as the opportunity might offer.
At Fort Vancouver he found a number of Hudson’s Bay people, with whom
the time passed very pleasantly. Then, again taking to his canoe, he
passed down to the mouth of the river, where he found the good ship
“Vancouver,” Captain Duncan; and shortly after, passing out to sea,
Farnham’s travels in the great Anahuac were ended.