By 1832 only fragments of the Yellowstone Park area had apparently been
explored, notably the Lake region. According to Warren A. Ferris, one of
the great geyser basins was visited in the spring hunt of 1833 by a
party of forty men under a Spaniard named Alvaris (or Alvarez). They
reached the area by going up Henry’s Fork, later returning to Green
River for the rendezvous. This is the first concrete evidence of white
men in the Firehole Basin. The discoverer may have been Manuel Alvarez,
United States consul at Santa Fe from 1839 to 1846, who figures
prominently in Josiah Gregg’s journal.
The rendezvous of 1833 was held at Bonneville’s fort on Horse Creek,
tributary of Green River, near Daniel, Wyoming. The St. Louis supply
caravan of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, led by Robert Campbell,
included young Charles Larpenteur, who wrote in his journal of a side
trip through Jackson’s Hole:
The day after we reached the rendezvous Mr. Campbell, with ten men,
started to raise a beaver cache at a place called by the French Trou a
Pierre, which means Peter’s Hole. As I was sick Mr. Campbell left me
in camp, and placed Mr. Fitzpatrick in charge during his absence,
telling the latter to take good care of me ... after seven or eight
days Mr. Campbell returned with ten packs of beaver.
An epidemic of hydrophobia brought on by “mad wolves” seems to have
contributed to the early break-up of the 1833 meeting. Campbell, Wyeth,
and the partners of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company with fifty-five packs
of beaver and a strong guard circled down through South Pass and up to
the junction of the Shoshone and the Bighorn rivers, where they embarked
on bullboats for the mouth of the Yellowstone. Here Wyeth was
entertained at the palatial Fort Union by the famous Kenneth McKenzie,
and observed a powder flask which had belonged to the unfortunate More,
and which had found its way here from Jackson’s Hole by the devious
channels of the fur trade.
While Bonneville outfitted an expedition under Joseph R. Walker to
explore California (and discover Yosemite Valley), the American Fur
Company brigades headed for the Snake River country. On July 20 Warren
A. Ferris and Robert Newell departed at the head of an outfit destined
for the Flathead trade. The little party consisted of six “engages” with
pack horses, and five armed Indians, amounting in all to thirteen armed
men. Their route was the usual one via Hoback Canyon and Teton Pass. The
ecstatic description of Jackson’s Hole from the summit of the pass,
given by Ferris on this occasion, is one which can be appreciated by the
modern tourist:
... Gazing down in the direction of Jackson’s Hole, from our elevated
position, one of the most beautiful scenes imaginable, was presented
to our view. It seemed quite filled with large bright clouds,
resembling immense banks of snow, piled on each other in massy
numbers, of the purest white; wreathing their ample folds in various
forms and devious convolutions, and mingling in one vast embrace their
shadowy substance.—Sublime creations! emblems apt of the first
glittering imaginings of human life!...
Turning with reluctance to things of a more terrestrial nature we
pursued our way down to Pierre’s Hole, where we fortunately discovered
and killed a solitary bull....
The rendezvous of 1834 was scheduled for June on Ham’s Fork of the Green
near present Granger, Wyoming; and here converged all the scattered
trapper bands, with the exception of those in the pay of Bonneville, who
had his own private rendezvous on Bear River. Drips hunted up the Snake
River to Jackson’s Hole, and apparently crossed into the valley of the
Green from there. Behind him came Ferris. On his southward journey from
Montana country, Ferris decided to make a side trip from Henry’s Fork to
investigate strange rumors concerning the upper Madison, a trip which
resulted in the second known published description of the Yellowstone
Park wonders.
[Illustration: Fort Hall.]
Ferris, a native of New York who later resided in Texas, made his first
western journey with the American Fur Company in 1830. Hardly a typical
mountain man, he kept a journal of his travels entitled “Life in the
Rocky Mountains,” which appeared serially in 1842 and 1843 in the
Western Literary Messenger, an obscure weekly published in Buffalo, New
York. The piece containing an account of his visit to the geyser region
in 1834 appeared on July 13, 1842, attracted no special attention at the
time except that of the editors of the Nauvoo, Illinois, Wasp, who ran
it without credit in their edition of August 13, 1842. Olin D. Wheeler
discovered it and republished it in 1901. Its historical importance as
the first adequate description of the geysers by an eyewitness (and the
second published description of any portion of Yellowstone Park) was
appreciated by Chittenden, but his identity and the magnificent scope of
his journal was not fully understood until its republication with
extensive editorial notes by Dr. Paul C. Phillips in 1940. It was in May
1834, while his brigade was traveling through Idaho country en route to
the rendezvous on Ham’s Fork of the Green, that Ferris and two Indian
companions made a hurried side trip, going almost due east forty miles.
His object was to verify the rumors concerning “remarkable boiling
spring on the sources of the Madison” which he had heard at the
rendezvous of 1833. He soon realized that “the half was not told me.” A
fragment of his vivid description follows:
From the surface of a rocky plain or table, burst forth columns of
water, of various dimensions, projected high in the air, accompanied
by loud explosions, and sulphurous vapors, which were highly
disagreeable to the smell. The rock from which these springs burst
forth, was calcareous, and probably extends some distance from them,
beneath the soil. The largest of these wonderful fountains, projects a
column of boiling water several feet in diameter, to the height of
more than one hundred and fifty feet—in my opinion; but the party of
Alvarez, who discovered it, persist in declaring that it could not be
less than four times that distance in height—accompanied with a
tremendous noise. These explosions and discharges occur at intervals
of about two hours.
[Illustration: Baling beaver hides inside stockade.]
[Illustration: Section of “Map of the Northwest Fur Country,” 1836, by
Warren A. Ferris. From _Life in the Rocky Mountains_, Old West
Publishing Company, Denver, 1940.]
After this adventure, he returned to Henry’s Fork and thence to Pierre’s
Hole, crossing Teton Pass on May 24. In the Hoback Canyon he found
evidence that a party under Drips had preceded him.
Less well known than the vivid description by Ferris but even more
remarkable is his “Map of the Northwest Fur Country,” drawn in 1836.
Lying in the family trunk for over a century, unknown to geographers and
historians, it was made available in 1940 for publication with the
journals. This is, to quote Dr. Phillips, “the most detailed and
accurate of all the early maps of the region,” far superior in accuracy
to the famous maps by Bonneville, Parker, John C. Fremont, and others
which were published contemporaneously. In addition to mountain chains,
valleys, and trails, it locates such fascinating details as “Yellow
stone L.,” “Boiling water,” and “Volcanoes” near the south shore of the
lake and “spouting fountains” within the “Burnt Hole” at the head of
Madison River, indicating the present West Thumb thermal area and the
Upper Geyser Basin on Firehole River, respectively. The context of the
journal, together with the evidence of the map, suggests that Ferris
beheld and described Old Faithful, the geyser which has become the
symbol of Yellowstone National Park.
In August of 1834 a party of fifty-five men in Bonneville’s employ led
by Joseph H. Walker ascended Pacific Creek from Jackson’s Hole and after
some debate “agreed to move down onto Wind River,” instead of descending
the Yellowstone. Thus Walker, who had previously discovered Yosemite
Valley, and Zenas Leonard, the journalist of the expedition, missed the
big exploring opportunity which Ferris had grasped.
The quaint nomenclature bestowed on certain locales and landmarks by the
mountain trappers offer more than one clue to their shadowy passage. The
Gardner River Valley at Swan Lake Flats, between Mammoth Hot Springs and
Obsidian Cliff, seems to be the most likely locale of the beaver-rich
“Gardner’s Hole” frequented by the mountain men, probably named for
Johnson Gardner, a freelance trapper who must have frequented those
parts at least as early as 1834, possibly as early as 1830 as Chittenden
suggests. His name appears in the Fort Union account books of 1832,
which include an agreement to purchase his stock of beaver skins then
cached on Yellowstone River. In 1834 he fell in with Prince Maximilian
of Wied on the Lower Missouri, revealing to that distinguished traveler
that “he was on his return from hunting beavers on the Upper
Yelowstone.”
Three significant events occurred in connection with the rendezvous of
1834. (1) En route from St. Louis, Sublette and Campbell began the
building of Fort Laramie (originally Fort William) on the North Platte.
(2) Nathaniel Wyeth, embarking on a second venture, brought in trade
goods which were not accepted, and so resorted to the establishment of
Fort Hall near the junction of the Snake and Portneuf. The advent of
these two fixed trading posts prophesied an end to the traditional
rendezvous system. Also (3), at the rendezvous the partnership of the
Rocky Mountain Fur Company was dissolved, Fraeb and Gervais selling out
their interests. The remaining partners—Fitzpatrick, Bridger, and Milton
Sublette—formed a new firm, but they made an agreement with Fontenelle
which gave the American Fur Company a virtual monopoly of the Rocky
Mountain fur trade.
Among those whom Nathaniel Wyeth had left at Fort Hall in 1834 was a
young man named Osborne Russell, whose subsequent career as a trapper
was hardly typical, for among his trapping accessories were copies of
Shakespeare and the Bible! Although later a prominent pioneer of Oregon
and California, his claim to fame rests on his Journal of a Trapper,
which “as a precise and intimate firsthand account of the daily life of
the trapper explorer ... has no equal,” except that of Warren A. Ferris,
who left the mountain scene just as Russell arrived. On the 15th of June
1835 a party of fourteen trappers and ten camp keepers was made up.
Writes Russell:
Here we again fell on to Lewis’ Fork, which runs in a southerly
direction through a valley about eighty miles long, there turning to
the mountains through a narrow cut in the mountain to the mouth of
Salt River, about thirty miles. This valley was called ‘Jackson Hole.’
It is generally from five to fifteen miles wide. The southern part
where the river enters the mountains is hilly and uneven, but the
northern portion is wide, smooth and comparatively even, the whole
being covered with wild sage and surrounded by high and rugged
mountains upon whose summit the snow remains during the hottest months
in summer. The alluvial bottoms along the river and streams
intersecting it through the valley produced a luxuriant growth of
vegetation, among which wild flax and a species of onion were
abundant. The great altitude of this place, however, connected with
the cold descending from the mountains at night, I think would be a
serious obstruction to the growth of most kinds of cultivated grains.
This valley, like all other parts of the country, abounded with game.
After a nearly disastrous attempt to cross “Lewis Fork” by bullboat and
raft, the party discovered a ford, and then ascended Gros Ventre Fork.
The party became lost in the mountains for several weeks, missing out on
the Green River rendezvous. After extricating themselves from the craggy
wilderness of the Absarokas, the party reached the Lamar River or East
Fork of the Yellowstone, where they encountered some woebegone
Sheepeater Indians, and lost a hunter. They apparently forded the
Yellowstone at the lower end of the Grand Canyon near the mouth of
Antelope Creek, at a point just above the spectacular Tower Falls and
the Basaltic Cliffs where the river “rushes down a chasm with a dreadful
roar echoing among the mountains.” From “Gardner’s Hole” the party then
crossed the mountains to Gallatin and Madison forks, where they fell in
with a trapping brigade under Bridger. Just below the Madison Canyon the
combined forces were attacked by eighty Blackfeet and narrowly escaped
massacre.
The supply caravan under Fitzpatrick arrived at the Green River
rendezvous on August 12, 1835. Accompanying him were two famous
missionaries—Marcus Whitman, who distinguished himself among the
trappers by extracting an Indian arrow from the back of Captain Bridger,
and Reverend Samuel Parker, who alienated them by his overzealous
moralizing. However, Parker made quite a hit with the assembled
Flatheads and was so enthusiastic over their eagerness for Christian
knowledge that it was decided that he would accompany them to their
homes, while Whitman would return to the states to recruit help for a
permanent mission in Oregon. Parker tells of his journey westward:
August 21st, commenced our journey in company with Capt. Bridger, who
goes with about fifty men, six or eight days’ journey on our route.
Instead of going down on the southwest side of Lewis’ river, we
concluded to take our course northerly for the Trois Tetons, which are
three very high mountains, covered with perpetual snow, separated from
the main chain of the Rocky Mountains, and are seen at a very great
distance; and from thence to Salmon river....
On the 22d ... we ... arrived at what is called Jackson’s Hole
[Jackson’s Little Hole]....
Sabbath, 23d. Had an opportunity for rest and devotional exercises. In
the afternoon we had public worship with those of the company who
understood English. The men conducted with great propriety, and
listened with attention....
Arose very early on the 24th, and commenced our way through the narrow
defile, frequently crossing and recrossing a large stream of water
[Hoback] which flows into the Snake river....
... on the 25th, [we] encamped in a large pleasant valley, commonly
called Jackson’s large hole. It is fertile and well watered with a
branch of Lewis’ river coming from the southeast [Hoback], and another
of some magnitude coming from the northeast [Snake River itself],
which is the outlet of Jackson’s lake, a body of water situated just
south of the Trois Tetons....
We continued in this encampment three days, to give our animals an
opportunity to recruit, and for Captain Bridger to fit and send out
several of his men into the mountains to hunt and trap....
On the 28th, we pursued our journey and passed over a mountain [Teton
Pass] so high, that banks of snow were but a short distance from our
trail. When we had ascended two-thirds of the way, a number of
buffalo, which were pursued by our Indians, came rushing down the side
of the mountain through the midst of our company....
In [Pierre’s Hole] ... I parted with Captain Bridger and his party,
who went northeast into the mountains to their hunting ground, which
the Blackfeet claim, and for which they will contend.
According to the impious Joseph L. Meek, the sermon on Sunday the 23rd
in Jackson’s Little Hole (the site of which has been memorialized by the
State of Wyoming as that of “the first Protestant sermon in the Rocky
Mountains”) was not such a great success as Parker makes out, for, “in
the midst of the discourse, a band of buffalo appeared in the valley,
when the congregation broke up, without staying for a benediction,” and
every man excitedly joined in the hunt.
[Illustration: Marcus Whitman removing arrow from Jim Bridger.]
Another who accompanied this expedition was Kit Carson. Parker gave
Carson his initial shove into immortality by relating the story of his
victory at the rendezvous over a “great bully” named Shunar:
[Illustration: Trappers at Old Faithful.]
... I will relate an occurrence which took place near evening, as a
specimen of mountain life. A hunter, who goes technically by the name
of the great bully of the mountains, mounted his horse with a loaded
rifle, and challenged any Frenchman, American, Spaniard, or Dutchman,
to fight him in single combat. Kit Carson, an American, told him if he
wished to die, he would accept the challenge. Shunar defied him. C.
mounted his horse, and with a loaded pistol, rushed into close
contact, and both almost at the same instant fired. C’s ball entered
S’s hand, came out at the wrist, and passed through the arm above the
elbow. Shunar’s ball passed over the head of Carson; and while he went
for another pistol, Shunar begged that his life might be spared. Such
scenes, sometimes from passion, and sometimes for amusement, make the
pastime of their wild and wandering life.
Another rendezvous was held for the summer of 1836, again on Horse Creek
tributary of Green River. Fitzpatrick and Fontenelle arrived with the
supply caravan on July 3. With them were the missionaries Marcus Whitman
and H. H. Spalding, accompanied by their wives, the first white women
ever to attend a rendezvous of the mountain men and doubtless the first
to come within 100 miles of the future Grand Teton and Yellowstone
Parks. At this meeting Major Joshua Pilcher, as agent for the American
Fur Company, formally and legally took over the interests of Bridger,
Fitzpatrick, and Fontenelle, thus consolidating the monopoly. The
missionaries, accompanied by Hudson’s Bay Company agents, followed the
Bear River route westward. The fur trappers were left in the mountains
with Drips, Fontenelle, and Bridger. Says Osborne Russell:
Mr. Bridger’s party, as usual, was destined for the Blackfoot country.
It contained most of the American trappers and amounted to sixty men.
I started with a party of fifteen trappers and two camp keepers,
ordered by Mr. Bridger to proceed to the Yellowstone Lake and there
await his arrival with the rest of the party.
Russell entered Jackson’s Hole by way of the upper Green and Gros Ventre
rivers, followed the Snake River north to Jackson Lake, and on August 7
started up Buffalo Fork, to reach Two Ocean Pass. On August 13, he
camped at the inlet of Yellowstone Lake, and on the 16th “Mr. Bridger
came up with the remainder of the party.” They followed along the
eastern shore of the lake to its outlet at present Fishing Bridge, and
camped again “in a beautiful plain which extended along the northern
extremity of the lake.” Russell describes the lake as “about 100 miles
in circumference ... lying in an oblong form south to north, or rather
in the shape of a crescent.” His further description of the boiling
springs, hot steam vents, and the hollow limestone crustation “of
dazzling whiteness,” apparently in Hayden Valley, ranks him with Potts
and Ferris as a pioneer journalist of the Park phenomena.
[Illustration: Section of Father De Smet “map of the Indian country” of
1851, reflecting data given by Jim Bridger. From the Cartographic
Section, National Archives.]
In 1837 Thomas Fitzpatrick again led the supply train across the plains,
picking up Fontenelle at Fort Laramie, and arriving at the rendezvous on
July 18. After the business of that year was transacted, Drips returned
east with Fitzpatrick’s caravan, and Fontenelle and Bridger made up a
strong company of 110 men to invade the hostile Blackfoot country.
Osborne Russell and five others started off separately “to hunt the
headwaters of the Yellowstone, Missouri and Bighorn Rivers.” Going due
north up Green River, they were attacked by “sixty or seventy”
Blackfeet, but managed to escape to the rendezvous. Here they wisely
decided to throw in with Fontenelle’s party, as Russell explains,
“intending to keep in their company five or six days and then branch off
to our first intended route.” After descending the Hoback, Russell and
three others left the main party at the ford of “Lewis Fork” in
“Jackson’s Big Hole” and took the same route to Yellowstone Lake used
the preceding year, then went northeast over the mountains to gain the
“Stinking Water.”
In the spring of 1838 the company moved westward from Powder River,
trapping the Bighorn and other tributaries of the Yellowstone. Russell
and Meek report another fight with the Blackfeet on the Madison,
followed by a gathering of the brigade on the north fork of the
Yellowstone, near the lake. Afterward, Meek reports:
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
[Jackson Lake]; and finally up the Grovant Fork, recrossing the
mountains to Wind River, where the rendezvous was appointed.
Osborne Russell describes this rendezvous of 1838:
... [July] 4th—We encamped at the Oil Spring on Popo-azia, and the
next day we arrived at the camp. There we found Mr. Dripps from St.
Louis, with twenty horse carts loaded with supplies, and again met
Captain Stewart, likewise several missionaries with their families on
their way to the Columbia River. On the 8th Mr. F. Ermatinger arrived
with a small party from the Columbia, accompanied by the Rev. John
Lee, who was on his way to the United States. On the 20th of July the
meeting broke up and the parties again dispersed for the fall hunt.
The Captain Stewart referred to by Russell was an English veteran of
Waterloo, Sir William Drummond Stewart, ostensibly a wealthy sportsman,
who became a perennial visitor to the annual conclaves of the “mountain
men,” beginning in 1833. He probably entered Jackson’s Hole on more than
one occasion, in company with the trapper bands, but of this there is no
proof, except the following passage to be found in Altowan, a romantic
novel based on his experiences:
On the banks of a small stream, which ultimately finds its way into
the upper waters of Snake River, a rugged path, made by the bison
descending from a pass above, winds its way through the dwarf willows
and quaking asp that line its side ... on a sudden turn of the road
round a projecting cliff, Altowan stopped to contemplate the scene
below, which, though not new to him, is one of undying wonder and
magnificence. Far over an extensive vale rise ‘the three Tetons,’ high
above surrounding mountains; their peaked heads shine white against
the azure sky, while other ranges succeed each other like waves beyond
and beyond, until they merge into the purple haze of the Western
Horizon.
By 1838, competition for beaver pelts was beginning to exhaust the
streams, and the law of diminishing returns was making itself felt in
the Rocky Mountain fur trade. Nevertheless, after the rendezvous of that
year, the field commanders of the company assembled their trappers for
another invasion of the Jackson’s Hole country. Again Osborne Russell
illuminates the scene:
I started, with about thirty trappers, up Wind River, expecting the
camp to follow in a few days. During our stay at the rendezvous it was
rumored among the men that the company intended to bring no more
supplies to the Rocky Mountains, and discontinue all further
operations. This caused a great deal of discontent among the trappers
and numbers left the party. 21st—We traveled up Wind River about
thirty miles and encamped. 22nd—Continued up the river till noon, then
left it to our right, traveled over a high ridge covered with pines,
in a westerly direction about fifteen miles, and fell on to the
Grosvent Fork. Next day we traveled about twenty miles down Grosvent
Fork. 24th—Myself and another crossed the mountain in a northwest
direction, fell on to a stream running into Lewis Fork, about ten
miles below Jackson’s Lake. Here we staid and trapped until the 29th.
Then we started back to the Grosvent Fork, where we found the camp,
consisting of about sixty men, under the direction of Mr. Dripps, with
James Bridger pilot.
The next day the camp followed down the Grosvent Fork to Jackson’s
Hole. In the meantime myself and comrade returned to our traps, which
we raised, and took over the mountain in a southwest direction and
overtook the camp on Lewis Fork. The whole company was starving.
Fortunately I had killed a deer in crossing the mountain, which made
supper for the whole camp. Aug. 1st—We crossed Lewis Fork and encamped
and staid the next day. 3d.—Camp crossed the mountain to Pierre’s Hole
and the day following I started with my former comrade to hunt beaver
on the streams which ran from the Yellowstone....
[Illustration: Trapper train in Teton Pass.]
Russell’s side trip appears to have been made cross country from near
the Cottonwood Creek tributary of the Gros Ventre over the foothills of
Mt. Leidy to Spread Creek, where he set traps, then back along this same
route to Bridger’s camp on the Gros Ventre, then back to Spread Creek,
and later down the Snake River, rejoining the main camp near the mouth
of the Gros Ventre. Russell’s account of the main expedition fits in
very well with the brief entry in Newell’s diary—“up Wind River into
Jackson’s Hole, on to Pier’s Hole.” Another trapper present was young
Jim Baker, famous Wyoming pioneer, who was making his first visit to the
mountains.
An entry in Russell’s journal indicates that a party of trappers from
Fort Hall reached Yellowstone Lake in 1838. Meek alleges that he went
alone to Gardner’s Hole after the rendezvous and later to Burnt Hole,
the neighborhood of Hebgen Lake. Here he left a joking message on a
buffalo skull.
Some evidence of wintering in Jackson’s Hole is given by Robert Newell:
Capt. Drips left in December for Wind River with his camp. Capt.
Walker remained on Green River with a small party, where we are now.
Snow about one foot. January 26, 1839, buffalow scarce. I spent last
Christmas in Jackson’s Hole. We spent the balance of the winter down
on Green River, over on Ham’s Fork, the spring commencing to open the
first of March, 1839.
Kit Carson writes:
On the return of Spring we commenced our hunt, trapped the tributaries
of the Missouri to the head of Lewis Fork, and then started for the
rendezvous on Green River, near the mouth of Horse Creek....
In March, Meek, after wintering among the Nez Perces on the Salmon
River, and acquiring an Indian wife (apparently his third), set out
trapping again with a comrade named Allen to whom he was much attached.
They traveled along up and down the Salmon, to Godin’s River, Henry’s
Fork of the Snake, to Pierre’s Fork, and Lewis’ Fork, and the Muddy,
and finally set their traps on a little stream that runs out of the
pass which leads to Pierre’s Hole.
Correlated with other data, the “pass which leads to Pierre’s Hole”
sounds very much like Teton Pass. Here, according to Victor, a horrible
event occurred. Ambushed by Blackfeet, Meek managed to escape in a
thicket, but the hapless Allen was caught, shot, and then gleefully
dismembered within sight and sound of his companion. Meek is supposed to
have wriggled away during the night and, “after twenty-six days of
solitary and cautious travel,” escaped to the place of rendezvous.
[Illustration: Free trapper under attack by Indians.]
Information on the rendezvous of 1839 has survived through the account
of F. A. Wislizenus, a German doctor and political refugee, who
accompanied the St. Louis supply train in the interests of curiosity and
recreation. In addition to offering a vivid picture of proceedings at
the rendezvous, he also comments on the decline of the fur trade in the
Rocky Mountains. Wislizenus, Ermatinger of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the
Munger-Griffin missionary party, and several hundred Indians left the
rendezvous for Fort Hall, going by the Bear River route, which was soon
to become a part of the Oregon Trail. As for the trappers, it appears
that some of them, yielding to fate, disbanded, but Meek and Newell were
among those who went to Fort Hall and later trapped around Brown’s Hole
(a valley made by the Green River along the northern base of the Uinta
Range). Others were still attracted to Jackson’s Hole, the heart of the
prime beaver country. An eminent pioneer of Montana, W. T. Hamilton, got
it from “old-timers” that:
In the year 1839 a party of forty men started on an expedition up the
Snake River. In the party were Ducharme, Louis Anderson, Jim and John
Baker, Joe Power, L’Humphrie, and others. They passed Jackson’s Lake,
catching many beaver, and crossed the Continental Divide, following
down the Upper Yellowstone—Elk—River to the Yellowstone Lake.
[Illustration: Skinning beaver in Jackson’s Hole.]
This party was attacked by the Blackfeet near the outlet of Yellowstone
Lake, suffering a loss of five men. The survivors, while trapping the
Park, witnessed “Sulphur Mountain,” the Mud Volcano, Yellowstone Falls
at the head of the Canyon, and the pyrotechnic displays of “Fire Hole
Basin.”
Early in 1839, Russell hunted mountain sheep and trapped beaver along
the Snake River below Jackson’s Hole, returning to Fort Hall in June.
Making up a party of four for the purpose of trapping in the Yellowstone
and Wind River Mountains, he spent the Fourth of July at the outlet of
Jackson Lake, near present Moran, then followed the Snake River
northward to Lewis Lake and Shoshone Lake. The Shoshone Geyser Basin is
described by Russell in meticulous detail, including the rhythmic “Hour
Spring” which resembles present Union Geyser. From here they crossed
over to Hayden Valley via the Midway Geyser Basin, there noting a
“boiling lake” of deep indigo blue, about three hundred feet in
diameter, probably the present Grand Prismatic Spring. After an extended
camp at the outlet of Yellowstone Lake they went east to the head of
Clark’s Fork, thence back to the Yellowstone at the ford near Tower
Falls, thence to Gardner’s Hole and back to the lake outlet. En route
they saw disturbing evidence of “a village of 300 or 400 lodges of
Blackfeet” that had only recently been evacuated. In their camp on
Pelican Creek, just east of the present Fishing Bridge campground, they
were suddenly assailed by a horde of “70 or 80” Blackfeet “who rent the
air with their horrid yells” and inflicted severe arrow wounds on
Russell and one other. They fought off the Indians with their rifles,
but suffered great pain and hardship in making their way back to Fort
Hall via West Thumb, Snake River, Berry Creek and Conant Pass at the
north end of the Teton Range. This was Russell’s final sorrowful exit
from Wonderland.
Two slim and shaky clues to other Yellowstone expeditions in the late
1830’s are available. In his journal of 1839, while sojourning in the
Utah country, apprentice trapper E. Willard Smith reports: “The country
around the headwaters of the Yellowstone, a tributary of the Missouri,
abounds in natural curiosities. There are volcanoes, volcanic
productions and carbonated springs. Mr. Vasquez told me that he went to
the top of one of these volcanoes, the crater of which was filled with
pure water, forming quite a large lake.” In his Life in the Far West
(1849), a fictionalized account of the mountain men, with whom he had
personally consorted in 1846, Lieutenant Ruxton tells how, on one
occasion, Old Bill Williams, “tough as the parfleche soles of his
moccasins,” led seven of his hardy associates into a little-known
region, beckoned thence by “a lofty peak” which fits the description of
the Grand Tetons, entering “the valley lying about the lakes now called
Eustis and Biddle, in which are many thermal and mineral springs, well
known to the trappers by the name of Soda, Beer, and Brimstone Springs,
and regarded by them with no little awe and curiosity, as being the
breathing places of his Satanic majesty.”
The year 1840 can be said to mark the formal demise of the Rocky
Mountain fur trade, for in that year was held the fifteenth and last of
these great conclaves of the wilderness, the trapper’s rendezvous on
Horse Creek of the Green River. It also marks the end of an epoch in the
history of Jackson’s Hole. The main chronicler of this fateful year was
the Belgian, Pierre-Jean De Smet, a Jesuit priest who accompanied the
American Fur Company’s last expedition to the mountains so that he might
survey the prospects for a Catholic mission among the Flathead Indians.
This was the beginning of a series of epic pilgrimages to the Far West
which were to make him one of the dominant figures in American frontier
history. Andrew Drips headed the supply train. Also present were several
Protestant missionaries and “the first avowed Oregon emigrant,” Joel P.
Walker, and his wife and five children. On April 30, the caravan left
Westport, Missouri, and, after two months of traveling over the Great
Plains in the midst of vast buffalo herds, it reached its destination.
Writes Father De Smet:
On the 30th [June] I came to the rendezvous, where a band of
Flatheads, who had been notified of my coming, were already waiting
for me.... On the 4th of July, I resumed my travels, with my
Flatheads; ten brave Canadians also chose to accompany me....
Three days we ascended Green river, and on the 8th we crossed it,
heading for an elevated plain which separates the waters of the
Colorado from those of the Columbia.... On leaving this plain, we
descended several thousand feet by a trail and arrived in Jackson’s
Hole [Jackson’s Little Hole].... Thence we passed into a narrow and
extremely dangerous defile, which was at the same time picturesque and
sublime....
On the 10th, after crossing the lofty mountain, we arrived upon the
banks of Henry’s Fork [Snake River], one of the principal tributaries
of Snake [Columbia] river. The mass of snow melted during the July
heat had swollen this torrent to a prodigious height. Its roaring
waters rushed furiously down and whitened with their foam the great
blocks of granite which vainly disputed the passage with them. The
sight intimidated neither our Indians nor our Canadians; accustomed to
perils of this sort, they rushed into the torrent on horseback and
swam it. I dared not venture to do likewise. To get me over, they made
a kind of sack of my skin tent; then they put all my things in and set
me on top of it. The three Flatheads who had jumped in to guide my
frail bark by swimming, told me, laughing, not to be afraid, that I
was on an excellent boat. And in fact this machine floated on the
water like a majestic swan; and in less than ten minutes I found
myself on the other bank, where we encamped for the night.
The next day we had another high mountain to climb [Teton Pass]
through a thick pine forest, and at the top we found snow, which had
fallen in the night to the depth of two feet.
Joe Meek relates that,
about the last of June ... he started for the old rendezvous places of
the American Companies, hoping to find some divisions of them at
least, on the familiar camping ground. But his journey was in vain.
Neither on Green River or Wind River, where for ten years he had been
accustomed to meet the leaders and their men, his old comrades in
danger, did he find a wandering brigade even. The glory of the
American companies was departed, and he found himself solitary among
his long familiar haunts.
However, this sad story does not fit in with De Smet’s account nor with
the testimony of Meek’s own good friend, Robert Newell, who in June 1840
also left Fort Hall for the rendezvous:
Mr. Ermatinger arrived 13th of June. I went to the American
rendezvous, Mr. Drips, Freab and Bridger from St. Louis with goods,
but times were certainly hard, no beaver, and everything dull. Some
missionaries came along with them for the Columbia, Messrs. Clark,
Smith, Littlejohn. I engaged to pilot them over the mountains, with
their wagons and such used in crossing, to Fort Hall. There I bought
their wagons....
Unless Meek’s memory was at fault, the discrepancy can only be explained
on the assumption that Meek, approaching Green River by way of Jackson’s
Hole, simply did not look hard enough. Be that as it may, Meek avers
that after his disappointed return to Fort Hall,
he set out on what proved to be his last trapping expedition, with a
Frenchman, named Mattileau. They visited the old trapping grounds on
Pierre’s Fork, Lewis’ Lake, Jackson’s [Hoback] River, Jackson’s Hole,
Lewis River and Salt River: but beaver were scarce; and it was with a
feeling of relief that, on returning by way of Bear River, Meek heard
from a Frenchman whom he met there, that he was wanted at Fort Hall,
by his friend Newell, who had something to propose to him.
What Newell had to propose to Meek was something revolutionary. On one
of Newell’s wagons Meek loaded his traps and his Indian family, and
together they performed the historic feat of taking the first wagons
through to the Columbia River. Their departure best symbolizes the death
of the Rocky Mountain fur trade and the birth of the Oregon Trail. After
Meek’s visit in 1840, Jackson’s Hole relapsed into virgin solitude. For
twenty years thereafter there is little positive evidence of white men
in this valley. It was forty-five years before the arrival of the first
permanent settler. For over a hundred years the historic importance of
Jackson’s Hole as the continental crossroads of the Western fur trade
has been all but forgotten.
[Illustration: Rocky Mountain men setting traps.]
[Illustration: Section of Map accompanying _Report on the Exploration
of the Yellowstone River_, by Bvt. Brig. Gen. W. F. Raynolds,
Washington, 1868. Errors and omissions reflect failure of the Raynolds
expedition to reach the Yellowstone Park area in 1860.]
[Illustration: ]