FREMONT
III
Fremont’s second trip was on a scale somewhat more extensive than his
first. His party consisted of thirty-two regular engagees, besides a
negro, and two Delaware Indians, who were hired to act as hunters.
The route was up the Kansas valley, across the divide, to the head of
the Arkansas, and then through passes in the mountains--if any could
be found--at the source of this river. The party left “the little
town of Kansas”--now Kansas City--the last of May, and proceeded
without special adventure until the afternoon of June 6, when a little
confusion was caused by the sudden arrival of Maxwell--one of the
hunters of the expedition of 1842--just in advance of a party of Osage
Indians. Maxwell had gone back to look for a lost horse, and the Osages
had promptly chased him into camp, a distance of nine miles. The Osages
drove off a number of the best horses, but a hard chase of seven or
eight miles recovered them all.
At this season of the year the streams were up, and some difficulty was
met with in crossing them. Game was scarce, for they were travelling
through a region frequently traversed by trapping and hunting parties
of Indians, and much pursuit had made the game watchful and wild.
Travel was so hard and slow, largely owing to rain and mud, that when
he reached Big Timber, Fremont determined to divide his party, leaving
Fitzpatrick--he of the Broken Hand--with twenty-five men in charge of
the provisions and heavier baggage of the camp; while Fremont, more
lightly loaded, but taking a wagon and the howitzer which had been
furnished by the United States arsenal at St. Louis, should proceed
ahead of the main party.
On June 19 they crossed the Pawnee road to the Arkansas, and suddenly
came upon the first buffalo, half a dozen bulls, which formed the
vanguard of immense herds, among which they journeyed for many days
afterward. The 4th of July found them at St. Vrain’s fort, on the South
Platte.
Their live stock was now much run down, and their stock of provisions
fairly exhausted; but they found the fort little better off than
themselves, and quite without surplus animals. Fremont, therefore,
authorized Maxwell, who was now about to separate from them and to
go on to Taos, to purchase there ten or twelve mules, pack them with
provisions, and meet him at the mouth of the Fontaine qui bouit, on the
Arkansas River.
On the 6th of July, ten miles above St. Vrain’s fort, the party
passed Fort Lancaster, the trading-post of Mr. Lupton. He had already
established a farm on the prairie, certainly one of the very earliest
in the Trans-Missouri country. Horses, cattle, and hogs ranged on the
prairie; and there was poultry, and what was left of a flourishing
garden, which had just been ruined by high water.
The next day a large camp--one hundred and sixty lodges--of Arapahoes
was passed. They had many horses and seemed prosperous.
They were now about seven thousand five hundred feet above the
sea-level and travelling along prairies from which the waters drained
into the Arkansas, Platte, and Kansas rivers. Pike’s Peak was in sight,
and farther to the south the Spanish Peaks.
The next day they came upon the wagon-road to the settlements on the
Arkansas River, and in the afternoon camped on the Fontaine qui bouit,
which they followed down, passing the camp of a hunter named Maurice,
who had been catching buffalo calves, a number of which were seen among
the cattle near his lodge. Here, too, were a party of mountaineers,
among whom were several Connecticut men belonging to Wyeth’s party.
On the afternoon of July 14 they camped near a pueblo, or town, where
were settled a number of mountaineers who had married Spanish women,
and had formed a farming settlement here. Fremont hoped that he might
have obtained some provisions from these people, but as trade with the
Spanish settlements was forbidden he got nothing except milk, of which
they had an abundance. Fremont learned here that the Spanish Utes were
on the war-path and that there had been a popular tumult among the
civilized Indians near Taos, and so felt some natural anxiety about
the safety of Maxwell. By great good luck, however, he met here Carson,
whom he engaged once more, and sent him off to Charles Bent, down the
Arkansas River, to buy mules at Bent’s fort--Fort William. Usually
there was a large stock of animals here, for the Indians, returning
from their raids into Mexico, often traded a part of their plunder for
goods.
The party now returned to St. Vrain’s fort, which they reached on the
23d. Here Fitzpatrick and his party were found safe and well, and also
Carson, who had brought with him ten good mules with the necessary
pack animals. The provisions which Fitzpatrick had brought and over
which he had watched with great care, were very welcome to the hungry
explorers. At this post the Delaware Indians determined to return to
their home. Fremont made up his mind that he would try the pass through
which the Câche-à-la-Poudre flowed, and he again divided the party,
sending Fitzpatrick across the plains to the mouth of the Laramie
River, to follow the usual emigrant trail and to meet him at Fort Hall.
Fremont with thirteen men was to take the longer road about. He started
up the Câche-à-la-Poudre, marched westward through the Medicine Bow
Mountains to the North Platte River, which he crossed. The way was not
exceptionally difficult except for the fact that it ran through large
and tough bushes of sage brush, which made the hauling hard. Buffalo
were abundant and food was plenty. Indeed, so many were killed that
they spent a day or two in camp drying meat as provision for the
future. While they were occupied at this, they were charged by about
seventy mounted Indians, but these were seen by the horse guard, the
horses driven into camp and the party took up a defensive position
in a grove of timber, so that the Indians, just before the howitzer
was fired at them, halted and explained that they had taken the camp
for one of hostile Indians. This war-party was one of Arapahoes and
Cheyennes, returning unsuccessful from a journey against their enemies,
the Shoshoni. They had lost several men and were not in a very pleasant
frame of mind.
From here, turning south, the party struck across to the Sweetwater
River and at length reached the trail to the Oregon, being thus on the
same ground that they had traversed the previous year. Green River,
then called Prairie-Hen River, was reached August 16, and something is
said of the impressions among the residents in the country about the
lower course of the Colorado. Says Fremont: “From many descriptions
of trappers it is probable that in its foaming course among its lofty
precipices it presents many scenes of wild grandeur; and though
offering many temptations, and often discussed, no trappers have been
found bold enough to undertake a voyage which has so certain a prospect
of a fatal termination. The Indians have strange stories of beautiful
valleys abounding with beaver shut up among inaccessible walls of rock
in the lower course of the river, and to which the neighboring Indians,
in their occasional wars with the Spaniards and among themselves,
drive their herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, leaving them to
pasture in perfect security.” Fremont was ignorant that nearly eighteen
years before Ashley had descended the Green River in a boat, and had
inscribed his name and a date on the rock which was seen there by Major
J. W. Powell more than forty years later. But Ashley’s expedition did
not get much farther than the mouth of Ashley River, where it was
wrecked and the trip abandoned.
Not long after crossing Green River they passed quite near Bridger’s
fort, and then sent Carson on to Fort Hall to secure provisions, while
Fremont with his party went on to Bear River. Following down this
stream they met a party of emigrants, saw more or less game in the way
of antelope and elk, and, on approaching the Shoshoni village, were
charged by the Indians, who supposed the white men a party of Sioux,
because they carried a flag regarded by these people as an emblem of
hostility, being usually carried by the Sioux, and the neighboring
mountain Indians when they came against the Shoshoni to war. The true
character of Fremont’s party was recognized by the Indians before
they got near them and they were kindly received in the village and
obtained provisions there. Further down the stream the celebrated
Beer Springs, “which, on account of the effervescing gas and acid
taste, have received their name from the voyageurs and trappers of the
country, who, in the midst of their rude and hard lives, are fond of
finding some fancied resemblance to the luxuries they rarely have the
fortune to enjoy.” The water of some of these springs is hot, and has
a pungent and disagreeable metallic taste leaving a burning effect on
the tongue. The Beer, or Soda Springs, are of the same character as the
boiling springs at the foot of Pike’s Peak, but those are not hot.
It was in the neighborhood of Bear River that Fremont and his party
first came in contact with the Indians which he calls Root Diggers, and
which in those old times were spoken of as Digger Indians. They are
various tribes and bands of Pah-utes, occupying the desert country of
the Rocky Mountains, whose subsistence is derived chiefly from roots
and seeds, and from such small animals as they capture.
The country which Fremont was crossing had formerly abounded in game,
but the buffalo had all disappeared. Even as early as this (1843),
attention had been called to the disappearance of the buffalo, and
Fremont says: “The extraordinary rapidity with which the buffalo is
disappearing from our territories will not appear surprising when we
remember the great scale on which their destruction is yearly carried
on. With inconsiderable exceptions, the business of the American
trading-posts is carried on in their skins; every year the Indian
villages make new lodges for which the skin of the buffalo furnishes
the material; and in that portion of the country where they are still
found, the Indians derive their entire support from them and slaughter
them with a thoughtless and abominable extravagance. Like the Indians
themselves, they have been a characteristic of the Great West; and as,
like them, they are visibly diminishing, it will be interesting to
throw a glance backward through the last twenty years and give some
account of their former distribution through the country and the limit
of their western range.
“The information is derived principally from Mr. Fitzpatrick, supported
by my own personal knowledge and acquaintance with the country. Our
knowledge does not go farther back than the spring of 1824, at which
time the buffalo were spread in immense numbers over the Green River
and Bear River valleys, and through all the country lying between the
Colorado, or Green River, of the Gulf of California, and Lewis’ fork of
the Columbia River; the meridian of Fort Hall then forming the western
limit of their range. The buffalo then remained for many years in that
country and frequently moved down the valley of the Columbia on both
sides of the river as far as the _Fishing Falls_. Below this point they
never descended in any numbers. About the year 1834 or 1835 they began
to diminish very rapidly and continued to decrease until 1838 or 1840,
when, with the country we have just described, they entirely abandoned
all the waters of the Pacific north of Lewis’ fork of the Columbia.
At that time the Flathead Indians were in the habit of finding their
buffalo on the heads of Salmon River, and other streams of the
Columbia; but now they never meet with them farther west than the three
forks of the Missouri or the plains of the Yellowstone River.
“In the course of our journey it will be remembered that the buffalo
have not so entirely abandoned the waters of the Pacific, in the Rocky
Mountain region South of the Sweetwater, as in the country North of
the Great Pass. This partial distribution can only be accounted for in
the great pastoral beauty of that country, which bears marks of having
long been one of their favorite haunts, and by the fact that the white
hunters have more frequented the Northern than the Southern region--it
being North of the South Pass that the hunters, trappers and traders
have had their rendezvous for many years past; and from that section
also the greater portion of the beaver and rich furs were taken,
although always the most dangerous as well as the most profitable
hunting ground.
“In that region lying between the Green or Colorado River and the head
waters of the Rio del Norte, over the _Yampah_, _Kooyah_, _White_,
and _Grand_ rivers--all of which are the waters of the Colorado--the
buffalo never extended so far to the westward as they did on the waters
of the Columbia; and only in one or two instances have they been known
to descend as far west as the mouth of the White River. In travelling
through the country west of the Rocky Mountains, observations readily
led me to the impression that the buffalo had, for the first time,
crossed that range to the waters of the Pacific only a few years prior
to the period we are considering and in this opinion I am sustained by
Mr. Fitzpatrick and the older trappers in that country. In the region
West of the Rocky Mountains we never meet with any of the ancient
vestiges which throughout all the country lying upon their Eastern
waters are found in the _great highways_, continuous for hundreds of
miles, always several inches and sometimes several feet in depth which
the buffalo have made in crossing from one river to another or in
traversing the mountain ranges. The Snake Indians, more particularly
those low down upon Lewis’ fork, have always been very grateful to the
American trappers for the great kindness (as they frequently expressed
it) which they did to them in driving the buffalo so low down the
Columbia River.
“The extraordinary abundance of the buffalo on the east side of the
Rocky Mountains and their extraordinary diminution will be made clearly
evident from the following statement: At any time between the years
1824 and 1836 a traveller might start from any given point South or
North in the Rocky Mountain range, journeying by the most direct route
to the Missouri River, and, during the whole distance, his road would
be always among large bands of buffalo, which would never be out of his
view until he arrived almost within sight of the abodes of civilization.
“At this time the buffalo occupy but a very limited space, principally
along the Eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, sometimes extending at
their Southern extremity to a considerable distance into the plains
between the Platte and Arkansas Rivers and along the Eastern frontier
of New Mexico as far South as Texas.
“The following statement, which I owe to the kindness of Mr. Sanford,
a partner in the American Fur Company, will further illustrate this
subject by extensive knowledge acquired during several years of travel
through the region inhabited by the buffalo:
“‘The total amount of robes annually traded by ourselves and others
will not be found to differ much from the following statement:
ROBES.
American Fur Company 70,000
Hudson Bay Company 10,000
All other companies, probably 10,000
------
Making a total of 90,000
as an average annual return for the last eight or ten years.
“‘In the Northwest, the Hudson’s Bay Company purchased from the Indians
but a very small number--their only market being Canada, to which the
cost of transportation nearly equals the produce of the furs; and it
is only within a very recent period that they have received buffalo
robes in trade; and out of the great number of buffalo annually killed
throughout the extensive regions inhabited by the Camanches and other
kindred tribes, no robes whatever are furnished for trade. During only
four months of the year (from November until March) the skins are
good for dressing; those obtained in the remaining eight months being
valueless to traders, and the hides of bulls are never taken off or
dressed as robes at any season. Probably not more than one-third of the
skins are taken from the animals killed, even when they are in good
season, the labor of preparing and dressing the robes being very great,
and it is seldom that a lodge trades more than twenty skins in a year.
It is during the summer months, and in the early part of autumn that
the greatest number of buffalo are killed, and yet at this time a skin
is never taken for the purpose of trade.’...”
Fremont’s party at this time was on short allowance of food. Word had
been sent to Carson to bring from Fort Hall a pack animal loaded with
provisions, for there was no game in the country and it was hard to
purchase food of any kind from the Indians.
On September 3 Carson rode into camp with provisions sufficient for a
few days. The party kept on down Bear River, and on the 6th from the
top of a hill saw the Great Salt Lake.
Up to this time this lake had been seen by comparatively few white
people; in fact, only by trappers who were wintering through the
country in search of beaver and who cared for geography only so far
as it helped them on their way. No white man’s boat had ever floated
on its dense waters, its islands had never been visited, and no one
had made a survey of its shores or even passed all around it. Among
trappers it was generally believed that while the lake had no visible
outlet there was somewhere in it a tremendous whirlpool through which
its waters flowed out by a subterranean channel to the ocean.
All these facts and beliefs made Fremont very anxious to visit the lake
and survey it; and having with him a rubber boat he had high hopes
of what he might accomplish. However, since the party was on short
allowance, the provisions which Carson had brought with him being now
exhausted, he sent back to Fort Hall seven of his extra men under the
charge of François Lajeunesse. The party was now reduced to eight,
five of whom were to make the first voyage of discovery on the Great
Salt Lake, while three should remain on the shore as camp keepers. It
was only now discovered that the boat was badly put together, and when
put in the water and loaded it leaked air in rather a serious way, so
that the constant use of the bellows was needed to keep it afloat.
Fortunately they had good weather at starting, for the day was very
calm; and they reached one of the islands to find the rocks along the
water’s edge encrusted with salt, and a windrow from ten to twenty
feet in breadth, consisting of the larvae of some small insect which
inhabited the water, and had been washed up on the shore. These worms,
so called, are the common food of certain tribes of Indians living in
the neighborhood of these salt or alkaline lakes. There was little on
the island to attract explorers, and in view of the frail nature of
their craft, and the danger of storms, they did not stay long, but
re-embarking reached the shore at a point quite distant from their
camp. Food continued scarce and a day or two later they killed a horse
for food.
At Fort Hall a few horses and oxen were purchased, the latter for
food, and here Fremont sent back eleven of his men, among them Basil
Lajeunesse, a good man whom Fremont was sorry to lose. Leaving Fort
Hall September 22 the journey was continued down Snake River.