The Wilderness Breaker—Lisa Closes his Account—General Ashley
Takes a Hand—The Religious Jedediah—Green River Valley—What
a White Bear could Do—Ashley Navigates Red Canyon of Green
River—Discovery of Salt Lake—Ashley Retires Rich—The Rocky Mountain
Fur Company—Sylvester and James O. Pattie—Pattie's Journey in the
Valley of the Colorado—The Great Circuit of Jedediah Smith.
As the third decade of the nineteenth century came in, the trappers
and traders began more than ever to long for the conquest of the
great mountain Wilderness, whose solemn front, ending the wide rolling
plain, reared its craggy barriers with soothing outlines tantalisingly
suggestive of wealth and wonder easily accessible behind. The hardships
of the explorers to the mouth of the Columbia passed unheeded, for
the men who now came to match nerve and muscle against the entrenched
mystery were in their natural element when battling with danger and
difficulty in the uplifting air, and, like the eagle sailing high,
were never more at home than when pushing their daring tread into
some virgin valley, where falling waters broke the calm and fostered
multitudes of beaver, where game bounded from every nook and glade, and
the rich bunch-grass fattened their patient horses. Here with traps, a
good rifle, and plenty of ammunition, notwithstanding encounters with
the native striving to preserve his happy hunting-grounds, their lives
were full of pleasure and that resolute and healthy vigour which comes
to the intelligent man alert to protect life and limb. They appeared
to have been born for this particular operation of breaking the final
strongholds of the Wilderness.
[Illustration: In the Mountain Wilderness—Vulture Peak.
Photograph by R. H. Chapman, U. S. Geol. Survey.]
The whole western region, being at a greater elevation than two thousand
feet, the air is extremely invigorating. This desirable quality, with
the absence of continuous rains from the larger part, renders it an
ideal country for living in the open. Even in dead of winter the dry
air causes the cold to be more easily borne than the same degree in
moister regions. Those who have never tried it can hardly appreciate
the pleasure of winter living out-of-doors; nor can they realise the
alluring interest of unknown country, where now and then from some
splendid height the wide encircling problem is viewed for leagues,
or till merged in the haze of distant sky. Perchance a film of smoke
steals up from some blue, deep glen to mark the presence of dwellers in
the wilds. Toward evening the night mists draw earth and sky together,
and the mountain billows seem interminable and impossible. Another sun
lights the mystery, and the stranger gropes on expecting surprises at
every step.
[Illustration: Before Sunrise.
From _Wonderland _, 1904, Northern Pacific Railway.]
The extreme hardship that sometimes was endured was frequently due to
wrong decisions or inadequate outfit; or from going ahead too fast.
The born mountaineer and explorer, however, meets with few setbacks
because he does not know a setback when he sees it. He fits into the
Wilderness without effort, and drifts across it as summer clouds cleave
a tranquil sky. Many of the American trappers of this period had been
reared to life in the woods of the East; the rifle was their childhood's
toy. Through sheer love of adventure they were impelled to the wider
Wilderness, and quickly adjusted themselves to new conditions. They
could have been anywhere readily distinguished. With compact muscles
and solid frame, partners of fresh air, exercise, and simple fare, they
had a clear, wide gaze, flinching before neither man nor beast; and
unfailing nerve that often whipped prospective disaster to success.
The routine of the frontier and especially of the deeper Wilderness
precluded any great lapse from physical excellence. When a man was
alive he was generally well. Indeed, the average American trapper
had a constitution that seemed invincible. Besides this his moral
fibre was usually excellent. His word was good, his dealings with his
fellows honourable. Money he cared less for than freedom. Cheerfully
he risked his life for another. The code of law was unwritten, but it
was well understood; punishment for serious offences was swift and
certain. Crimes against white men were proportionately less than in
a modern city; but when it came to dealings and intercourse with the
Amerind conscience was paralysed. They also rated his blood at about
the price of water, and out of this, for them and for the nation, came
deep and lasting trouble. But, on the whole, they were a class to be
much admired; some of their names, like Bridger and Kit Carson, are
imperishably woven into history and literature; others, like Jedediah
Smith, are to the general reader unknown.
[Illustration: Green River Valley.
Photograph by C. R. Savage.]
This period opens with the death of the dominant figure of the Missouri
River trade from the beginning of the century, especially from the date
of the Louisiana Purchase, Manuel Lisa, who made his last voyage in
1820 and then closed the epoch, and his own earthly account, forever.
He may have had all the faults charged against him, but nevertheless
he seems not to have committed any grave offence, and he possessed
commanding ability, so that his life appears to balance well. In a
letter to General Clark, Superintendent of the Western Tribes, resigning
the position of sub agent, which he had held for three years—1814 to
1817,—he explains his influence over the natives by his fair dealing and
by his kindness to them. He gave them pumpkin, potato, and other seed;
his blacksmiths worked for them without charge; he lent them traps,
and his forts were the refuge of the old and feeble. He was the most
active man of his period. But the beginning of this decade saw another
active man come to the top, the man who started the actual breaking
of the Rocky Mountain Wilderness, and who, with his employees and the
"free" trappers and freebooters who followed their lead, soon penetrated
the secret places of Mexican territory. This was William H. Ashley, a
brigadier-general of militia in Missouri, the first lieutenant-governor,
and later twice a member of Congress from the newly created State.
He was a Virginian who came to St. Louis in 1802, the year before the
transfer of Louisiana. He was then twenty-four, a man of education, of
great executive ability, and of unfaltering courage. He was forty-eight
when the third decade of the century opened, with which his name is so
closely associated that it might almost be called the Ashley decade.
Not that he was the first to cross the mountain barrier into Mexican
territory, for Etienne Provost (Provo) had gone to Salt Lake in the
very first year, and there were others, of whom little or no record is
preserved. Samuel Adams Ruddock, in 1821, went from Council Bluffs to
Santa Fé and thence north, apparently about on the line of Escalante's
old trail, to Salt Lake valley, performing a memorable journey, but
Ashley was the master organiser who dealt the obstinate Wilderness its
death-blow, battering a permanent breach that was quickly widened. In
1822 he built a fort on the Yellowstone. With twenty-eight men, the
following year, he started to make his first attack on the frontal
mountains. The Arikaras by this time had more than ever determined to
obstruct the entrance of the whites into their territory and sharply
repelled the company, killing fourteen of the party and wounding ten.
Such an overwhelming defeat would have completely vanquished many
leaders, but Ashley, who had a large investment in this venture, did
not falter, and next year, 1824, when the time came to move on he was
ready, and they marched to success.
With him were a number of men soon to become celebrated in Wilderness
breaking, among them Andrew Henry, who had crossed the Continental
Divide to Snake River as early as 1809; Fitzpatrick, William Sublette,
Green, after whom Green River is supposed to have been named; Jim
Bridger, then a youth of nineteen; and the extremely religious as well
as unflinching trapper, Jedediah Smith, one of the boldest, strongest,
most skilful, and altogether admirable characters of the time, a
veritable knight in buckskin, whose career was a continual romance.
Andrew Henry, who, as mentioned, had long before explored and trapped
in the country, in connection with Lisa and the Missouri Fur Company, at
the time when he established the fort on the head of Snake River, which
Wilson Price Hunt visited and temporarily occupied, had then discovered
South Pass, a discovery which has been erroneously awarded to others of
a later time. Of course, even he only followed an Amerind trail. Ashley
led his band up the North Platte, about on the track of Robert Stuart's
eastward journey from Astoria of 1812-13, named the Sweetwater Branch,
and passed over to Green River Valley, an inviting basin surrounded by
high mountains, the Wind River range on the north, and on the south the
point where the Green, then commonly called the Colorado, Spanish River,
or the Seedskedee, enters the Uinta range by Flaming Gorge, the first
of the thousand miles of canyons now celebrated, which enclose the river
and, together with the rush of descending waters, make travelling by it
hazardous. This Green River Valley was adopted as the rendezvous—that
is, the point where all the trapping parties, separating to pursue the
hunt for rich beaver streams, should again meet the following year to
deliver pelts for shipment to St. Louis. The locality for a long time
afterward was the central meeting-place for mountain men and was known
far and wide.
Many of the trappers and traders of the early days wrote or dictated
books, and there is consequently a large amount of literature bearing
on the subject, but others, like Ashley, whose story would to-day be
invaluable, apparently recorded little. Yet some journals may still come
to light, for it was not long ago that Coues discovered and printed that
of Jacob Fowler, who, in 1821-22, went across to Santa Fé in company
with Hugh Glenn.[84] Fowler and Glenn built the first real house on or
near the site of Pueblo, Colorado, and occupied it for about a month.
Then they went on to Taos and Santa Fé. Glenn had a permit from the
Mexican authorities to trap and trade in their territory. The route was
over the Sangre de Cristo Pass by the regular trail, for many years
travelled by Spaniards, who inherited it from the natives. It passed
down to Trinchera Valley, in San Luis Park, where the sketch was made
which forms the frontispiece to this volume.
Fowler and his companions met with difficulties from Spaniards, from
lack of food, from Amerinds, and from bears. The "white bear," or
grizzly, at that time was numerous everywhere, and the guns of the
hunters being small-bore, muzzle-loading flint-locks, they were of
small service in a battle with one of these impervious monsters. The
cry of "white bear" was almost as alarming as that of "Indians." On
one occasion a bear ran for shelter into a dense thicket of ten or
twenty acres near camp, where Glenn and four others pursued him. As is
usual with them, the bear kept quiet till the men were directly upon
him, when he rose and attacked Lewis Dawson. Glenn's gun missed fire,
but a dog worrying the animal Dawson was able to get away, though only
momentarily, for the ponderous beast was again quickly upon him. Glenn's
gun missed a second time. Dawson ran up a tree, but the bear caught
him by the leg and pulled him down. Meanwhile Glenn, in another tree,
sharpened his gun flint, reprimed his piece, and put a ball into the
enemy. Several others now coming up also shot and the bear was killed.
But Dawson was badly hurt. He was helped to camp, where, in Fowler's
own words and spelling,
"His wounds Ware Examined—it appears His Head Was In the Bares
mouth at least twice—and that when the monster give the Crush that
Was to mash the mans Head it being two large for the Span of His
Mouth the Head Sliped out only the teeth Cutting the Skin to the
bone Where Ever the touched it—so that the skin of the Head Was
Cut from about the Ears to the top in Several derections—all of
Which Wounds Ware Sewed up as Well as Cold be don by men In our
Situation."
[Illustration: Arrow Weed in the Yuma Country.
Photograph by Delancy Gill.]
Dawson declared he had heard his skull break, but as he was cheerful
this was supposed to be imagination, yet on the second day he grew
delirious, and then a hole, supposed before to be slight, was found to
be so deep that the brain was oozing out. The man died on the third
day and was buried, of course, on the spot. They were all sorry, but
there was no time for lamentations, nor necessity for them. The bear
was skinned, the oil tried out, Dawson's effects sold to his companions,
and the party proceeded, having painted another picture of the risk of
breaking the Wilderness with a flint-lock gun. The disaster, however,
like many another, was the result of rashness,—in this case the plunging
into a thicket where a grizzly lay concealed.
A noted trapper and scout, belonging to what may be termed the
freebooter class, of which Edward Rose was another but worse example,
was James P. Beckwourth, who years afterward, 1854-55, dictated a
somewhat bombastic but highly interesting story of his adventures,
from which we learn something about Ashley, in whose employ he was for
several years.[85] Beckwourth was a mulatto, part French, and Parkman
describes him,[86] from hearsay, as "a ruffian of the worst stamp,
bloody and treacherous, without honour or honesty," a rather extreme
and apparently unjust description. He performed valuable services at
times, and, while wild and reckless, seems to have possessed a fair
amount of honour and honesty. He knew the Amerinds well, particularly
the Crows, in which nation he became a chief, and he declares the
natives knew that the whites cheated them; an important point in judging
the course of the various tribes. He was young when he first went with
Ashley—twenty-six,—but was one of the most active men in the party—at
least from his own story. At this time Ashley's main camp was placed at
or near the lower end of Green River Valley, and the General determined,
1825, to descend the river through the canyon to search for fresh beaver
ground. It has been stated that he intended returning to St. Louis by
this route, thinking the Colorado (Green) discharged into the Gulf of
Mexico, but this is disproved by the fact that he did not take his fur
packs along. He was merely searching for more beaver. The boats were
rude affairs made of buffalo hides and were not at all adequate to
the demands of the fierce current, which carries one along with great
impetuosity. Just below the camp was some rapid water called "Green
River Suck," and this was probably at the mouth of Henry's Fork, where
the river first breaks into the rocks of the Uinta Mountains, extending
across its path, forming Flaming Gorge and other canyons. For several
miles below this the canyons are short and not difficult to get in or
out of, then Red Canyon suddenly closes in and for twenty-five miles
the bounding rocks are high, steep, red sandstone, reaching at the
highest twenty-five hundred feet for a long distance, while the water is
torrential. Ashley's was the first attempt to navigate the upper waters
of the Colorado, a reckless procedure with such boats, for they had no
idea what might be encountered. The stream falls about 450 feet before
emerging into Brown's Park, or "Hole," as it was originally named, after
Brown, a trapper who once lived there. From the term "Hole" some writers
have been misled into supposing that this is a very dangerous part of
the river, and that it was there that Ashley met his great danger; but,
on the contrary, the Hole is one of the few openings, or wide valleys,
on the Colorado, and the river meanders through it quite tamely, with
level banks and cottonwood groves. Therefore it was between the foot
of Green River Valley and this Hole, now Brown's Park, that Ashley lost
two of his boats, risked his life in the rapids, and nearly starved to
death. Some have laid his trail through the Canyon of Lodore, but this
follows Brown's Park, where escape is easy.
[Illustration: Red Canyon of Green River.
Length 25 miles. Walls 1800 to 2500 feet high. Average width of water
250 feet. Ashley was the first white man to pass through this gorge.]
The men grew weak and disheartened, and after six days without food they
reached the limit of endurance. They proposed drawing lots, according to
Beckwourth, to see which one should die to create food for the others.
But Ashley implored them to postpone this hideous alternative at least
another twenty-four hours, and meanwhile led them rapidly forward in the
hope of coming to the end of the gorge. This fortunately they did, and
came out into Brown's Hole to find Provost camped there with abundant
provisions and horses. With him they went across the mountains to Salt
Lake, and thence back to the rendezvous.
[Illustration: Ashley, 1825]
Owing to frequent battles between the Hudson Bay Company and the
North-west Company, both of which operated mainly north of the 42d
parallel west of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the 49th east of
them, these companies in 1821 were merged under the Hudson Bay title.
Astoria had been abandoned and their chief fort in the Columbia region
was Vancouver, just above the mouth of the Willamet. Their trappers
ranged the whole northern country, and at Salt Lake Ashley met one of
their chief men, Peter Skeen Ogden, with a large quantity of furs which
he succeeded in buying at rates that much pleased him, especially as
he was now heavily in debt. With these he returned to the rendezvous,
where soon the trappers came in with splendid packs of furs, which,
could they be safely delivered in St. Louis, would immediately retrieve
the General's fortune and enlarge it.
[Illustration: Ashley Fall, Red Canyon, Green River.
Ashley's name was found on right on the picture on one of the huge
fallen rocks, about at the top of the old dead tree.]
The fact of his entrance into Red Canyon and the date are recorded,
apparently by Ashley's own hand, "Ashley, 1825," on a large rock on
the left bank of the river, over a sharp drop in the water, in the
upper portion of the canyon. Of this I made a copy in 1871 and append
a reproduction. The rapid, or fall, at this point is named after the
bold General, Ashley Fall. The account of the canyon trip is from
Beckwourth, to whom the General told it. I have never seen any other. I
cannot understand why they did not climb out, which could have been done
in many places; and the heights abounded in game. Perhaps the reason
was that, constantly expecting the end of the gorge, they went on till
hunger caused the high walls to seem unscalable; or perhaps they were
not in such desperate straits for food as Beckwourth declares.
His rich cargo of pelts Ashley took to St. Louis by way of the
Yellowstone and the Missouri, building boats for the purpose. On the
way he met General Atkinson, an old friend, who had been sent by the
Government up the Missouri for the purpose of driving out Hudson Bay
trappers. These did not then much intrude into that region, so his task
was a light one. Ashley reached St. Louis at last with the furs and
from being in debt became rich. He treated his men handsomely, putting
them up at the best hotel with _carte blanche_ as to orders, paid wages
in full, and for faithful service gave each a present of three hundred
dollars and a suit of clothes. Ashley thus was more successful with his
enterprise than Lord Selkirk was with one he embarked in to settle the
Red River country in what is now Manitoba. He obtained in 1811 a large
grant there, but the North-west Company opposed him, not desiring to
see the country civilised, and finally after battles and bloodshed the
colony collapsed.
The year following his very successful return, Ashley, 1826, went
again to the mountains, taking a six-pounder with him all the way to
Utah Lake, then called Ashley's Lake, where he built a fort. His men
had ramified in every direction, busily trapping during his absence.
It was in the winter of 1824-25 that Bridger, to decide a bet between
two comrades as to where Bear River emptied, was selected to trace the
stream from their camp in Cache Valley, to find out. Thus he came to
Salt Lake and tasted its waters. The report he took back to the camp
caused the men to believe that this salt water was an arm of the sea, an
idea which was not dispelled till the spring of 1826, when four of the
men circumnavigated it in a skin canoe, searching for beaver streams.
Robert Campbell, who was in Cache Valley when the party came back, is
firm in awarding the honour of discovering Salt Lake to Bridger, but
as Provost had been in that neighbourhood as early as 1820 he may have
seen the lake before Bridger, and it has been asserted that he did.
The treatment of the natives was often abominable, and each year the
breach between whites and Amerinds widened. Clarke, of the Astoria
enterprise, had hung a Nez Perce in full view of his comrades because
he stole a silver mug, and it was such treatment as this, and the
shooting of them for "fun," that convinced them they must eternally
fight the white man's advance. They therefore adopted various methods.
One favourite exploit was to run away with horses, to accomplish which
they would sometimes pretend friendship. These incidents were sudden and
startling. Beckwourth relates this one: "We encamped that night, keeping
a strong guard, and saw all round us, as far as the eye could extend,
numerous signal fires." At daylight operations began. The cry went up:
"The ropes are cut! Shoot them down! Rifles began to crack, and
six of the Indians fell, five of whom were instantly scalped (for
scalps are taken off with greater ease while the bodies are warm),
and the remaining Indian having crawled into the river after
receiving his wound, his scalp was lost. One of their chiefs was
among the slain. He was shot in our camp before he had time to make
his retreat."
The Blackfeet were always hostile to everybody, white or red, and the
Arapahos and Sioux were apt to be. Some tribes were friendly most of
the time; others were friendly all the time.
Beckwourth describes numerous bloody engagements, especially when he was
a chief among the Crows, but doubtless these accounts must be somewhat
discounted. Once he and Sublette dragged a wounded Amerind away from the
enemy's lines, although the desperate fellow clung to the grass and made
it a difficult task. They placed him for execution before one of their
own men, who had been wounded, in order that this man might have the
satisfaction of killing one of the hated race. "But," says Beckwourth,
"the poor fellow had not strength sufficient to perforate the Indian's
skin with his knife, and we were obliged to perform the job ourselves."
Ashley finally sold out his interest to Sublette, Fitzpatrick, and
others, who made up the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and himself
returned to St. Louis to settle down and enjoy the large income now
his from the success of his energy and judgment. He never went to
the mountains again. He had "handsome grounds" about his house, and
enclosed within them one or two of the ancient mounds which then were
common on the site of St. Louis. At this time in St. Louis there was a
variety of architecture. There were broad, steep-roofed stone houses
of the French; tall stuccoed dwellings with tiers "of open corridors
above them, like a once showy but half-defaced galleon in a fleet of
battered frigates,"—the houses of the Spaniards; and the "clipper-built
brick houses of the Americans—light as a Baltimore schooner and pert
as a Connecticut smack." The population was seven or eight thousand,
extremely varied with plenty of trappers and frontiersmen, who "think
as much of an Indian encounter as a New York blood does of a spree with
a watchman."
Ashley was a popular man in every way and was twice elected to Congress
from his State. Beckwourth relates the parting incidents when Ashley
left his men in the mountains: "We were all sorry to part with the
General.... There was always something encouraging in his manner; no
difficulty dejected him; kind and generous in his disposition, he was
loved equally by all.... He left the camp amid deafening cheers from the
whole crowd." The Rocky Mountain Fur Company prospered under Sublette
and Fitzpatrick, though the enormous returns of the first years could
not again be secured. As every company had from forty or fifty to
several hundred men constantly at work, the beaver ranks were rapidly
thinned, and profits correspondingly diminished.
[Illustration: Lower Falls of the Yellowstone.
From _Wonderland _, 1901, Northern Pacific Railway.]
The Blackfeet were the greatest scourge to the region, occupying toward
the country around the headwaters of the Missouri something the same
relation that the Iroquois did to the Ohio valley, and the Apaches
to the New Mexican territory. Sometimes they were met in the most
unexpected way, as in the case of a trapper named Clyburn, who with one
companion was on his way to the rendezvous of his company with the furs
of a whole season. As they turned through some timber to cross a stream
they rode squarely into a Blackfoot camp. Escape was impossible. Clyburn
did not waver for a second, but rode calmly to the head chief's tipi,
where he proclaimed himself a friend who wished to pass the night under
his protection. The chief received them coldly, ordered his women to
unpack the horses, and demanded from the men an account of themselves,
also how they dare intrude on his hunting-ground. These questions were
evaded and the men tried to swallow some of the food placed before
them, though they felt little like eating. Clyburn overheard the chief
say they must be killed. He told his mate and instructed him to watch
closely and follow every move he made. When it grew nearly dark and the
warriors were somewhat off their guard, Clyburn suddenly broke for the
river, a hundred yards off, with his companion beside him. There were
wild yells, shots, confusion. Clyburn swam the stream, hid beneath a
shelving bank, and when the search was abandoned looked about for the
other man. He was nowhere to be found and was never heard of again.
Clyburn succeeded in reaching the rendezvous, where he refitted and once
more went to the beaver grounds. He had engaged for five years, and when
his time was up he started for the East. Going to hunt where the river
made a large bend, he missed the boat, and as they never waited for
any one he was alone on the plains and struck out on foot for Council
Bluffs, a thousand miles away, where he finally arrived with barely
strength enough to creep on all fours. These men never gave up. Never
did their nerve give way, never did they admit defeat; it might crush
them, but as long as a heart throb remained they fought against it.
Death alone could check their efforts to retrieve a desperate situation.
Two fine examples of the highest type of the Wilderness breaker were
a father and son by the name of Pattie. Sylvester, the father, was
about forty-four, who had moved to Missouri from that State famous for
great hunters,—Kentucky. He was familiar with frontier warfare, having
served as lieutenant in the army against Amerind foes. Courageous and
intelligent beyond the average, he was held in high esteem. The death of
his wife induced a species of melancholia, and on the advice of friends
he sold his property and fitted out, in 1824, a trapping expedition to
divert his mind. Distributing his children among relatives, he yielded
to the pleadings of his son, James O., then about twenty, and added him
to his party. His goal was the upper Missouri, the region then most
talked about, but on arriving at Council Bluffs with his men and ten
horses loaded with materials for a trapping and trading campaign, the
commanding officer of the post refused him permission to proceed as he
had no license, not having known that one would be required.
He was not to be easily thwarted. The Santa Fé trade was growing and
he decided to turn his course in that direction. Selling his extra
arms he bought more goods for this trade, and then joined one Pratte,
whom they had met on the way to Council Bluffs, and who was preparing
for the Santa Fé journey. Sylvester Pattie was elected to command the
combined parties, many of the men having served as rangers under him.
There were 116 all told, with several hundred horses and mules. Pattie
conducted the affairs of the caravan methodically and skilfully and
they went up the Platte without any drawbacks. The Pawnees welcomed
them cordially, even affectionately, and their intercourse would have
been altogether agreeable had not a war party come in at a village
of Pawnee Loups having with it a child captive, whose mother had been
killed and scalped. This harrowing spectacle of the unfortunate little
redskin probably brought Pattie's own children more vividly before him,
and he offered to buy the boy, but the Pawnees prepared to burn him as
a part of their victory celebration. The chief was unreasonably greedy
in negotiating to spare the child, so the Pattie outfit decided to take
the little prisoner away by force. The thongs binding him, over which
the flesh had swelled till they were not visible, were removed, and he
was sent to their camp. With arms in readiness, Pattie told the chief
they meant to keep the boy. He asked if they thought they could do it,
to which Pattie replied that they would or every man would die in the
attempt. "Save your powder and lead to kill buffaloes and your enemies,"
the chief said, and accepted the offer of goods. The incident is worth
relating as it shows the temper of the Patties, and many other trappers,
who would lightly risk their lives and all their possessions to save an
unfortunate little Amerind child.
One day farther on they met with some other natives. The little boy was
playing about the camp as usual when the attention of the white men was
suddenly attracted by loud screams and cries.
"Looking up we saw our little boy in the arms of an Indian whose
neck he was closely clasping, as the Indian pressed him to his
bosom, kissing him and crying at the same time. As we moved towards
the spot, the Indian approached us still holding the child in
his arms; and falling on his knees made us a long speech which we
understood only through his signs."
This was the father of the boy.
White bears were met and one of their men was "literally torn to pieces"
by one and died five days after. Pattie counted in one day 220 of these
grizzlies. A few days farther on they witnessed a great battle between
Comanches and Iotans. "The discharge of their firearms and the clashing
of their different weapons, together with their war yell and the shrieks
of the wounded and dying, were fit accompaniments to the savage actors
and scene. The contest lasted about fifteen minutes,"—the Comanches
being vanquished.
At last they arrived at San Fernandez de Taos and then at Santa Fé,
which had a population of about five thousand.
[Illustration: On the Gila River, Arizona.
This is the place chosen for the San Carlos Irrigation Dam.
Photograph by J. B. Lippincott.]
With some trouble they obtained permission to trap on the Gila, "a
river," says Pattie, "never before explored by white people." They soon
came into the country of the Apaches, and one of the men was killed
in an advance party. When the Patties came to the point they saw the
remains. "They had cut him in quarters after the fashion of butchers.
His head with the hat on was stuck on a stake." It was full of arrows.
After considerable manœuvring around New Mexico, James O. Pattie again
went trapping down the Gila and its branches to the Colorado River in
1826. Up the Colorado he went to the Grand Canyon, the first American
apparently to see it, then across country not far from the great gorge,
probably on the north, till they came to Grand River, Colorado, and
in April, 1827, they crossed the Continental Divide to the head of
the Platte near Long's Peak, whence they proceeded to the Yellowstone,
terminating there a remarkable traverse of this part of the Wilderness.
Pattie then went back to Santa Fé, where his father had remained, and
once more started out, going to the Colorado, where they trapped beaver
down to the mouth, intending to go this way to the Spanish settlements,
which they thought existed there. Encountering the great tidal bore they
were nearly wrecked.[87] They finally struck across for the California
missions, suffering greatly for water, and reached St. Catherine's
in 1828. Here they were arrested and Pattie the elder at length died
in prison. James O., with great difficulty after long captivity,
succeeded in freeing himself and returned to his home by way of Mexico,
arriving far poorer than when he started with such rosy hopes and his
father's strong support. The book which he published is one of the most
interesting in the whole range of this literature.[88] Had he chosen to
remain in the Wilderness there is no doubt that he would have become
one of the most famous of trappers, but the death of his father took
the romance out of the life and he cared no longer for adventure.
William Becknell, in 1824, went far west of Santa Fé, and in August
of the same year William Huddart, with fourteen men, went from Taos to
Green River, and in so calling the stream used the term for the first
time on record. Green seems to have been a denizen of Green River
Valley before 1820. They probably followed the old Escalante trail
approximately. A battle with Arapahos finally compelled Huddart to
return to Taos with a part of the company, the others having previously
gone north along Green River.
The afterwards celebrated Christopher (Kit) Carson now appears on the
scene in New Mexico, 1826, only seventeen years old, but full of that
courage, energy, and good judgment which finally placed his name at
the top of the list of Wilderness breakers. 1826 was a fruitful year in
exploration. Lieutenant Hardy of the British navy came up the Gulf of
California in a schooner and entered the Colorado for some distance.
Pattie, the first American to see the Grand Canyon, so far as I can
ascertain, had in a general way explored the Colorado from its mouth to
the head of its Grand River branch. He had not been able to enter the
deep canyons, but he had seen them from above, and had ascertained the
character of the great river which for the distance from at least White
River to the mouth of the Rio Virgin remained unbroken wilderness for
more than forty years longer, the last portion to be vanquished.[89]
Pattie's name has been little known in this connection, and his
extraordinary journey has not received the recognition it deserves, for
it actually holds a place alongside the achievements of great explorers.
The same year, 1826, that Pattie made the successful traverse from the
mouth of the Gila to the Yellowstone by way of the Colorado and Grand
rivers, Jedediah Smith started from Salt Lake with fifteen men and,
proceeding south to Utah Lake, thence went southwesterly about on the
same trail apparently that Escalante had followed in 1776, till he came
to the Virgin River, which he called Adams in honour of the President.
He followed it down to its junction with the Seedskedee or Colorado.
The Seedskedee or Green River was also known as the Colorado, hence when
Smith speaks of the Seedskedee in this region his meaning is perfectly
clear.[90]
[Illustration: Headwaters of Virgin River.
Named Adams River by Jedediah Smith in 1826.
Photograph by F. S. Dellenbaugh.]
The Mohaves were kind to him and provided food and horses with which he
went on to the Mission of San Gabriel in California, the first American
on record to go there. He spent the winter trapping, and early in May,
1827, tried to cross the range, probably near the head of the Merced,
without success. Another attempt on the 20th of the same month, with
two men, seven horses, and two mules, occupied eight days and, with
the loss of one mule and two horses, they came down on the eastern
flank. In twenty days they were again at Salt Lake. Chittenden thinks
they crossed near Sonora Pass. On July 13th of the same year Smith
returned to California by his former route down the Virgin. This time
the Mojaves, prompted by Spaniards it is said, set upon his party as
they were crossing the Colorado, killing ten of his men and capturing
everything. Smith at last reached the Spanish settlements where he was
thrown into prison. In November he was allowed to go on condition that
he would leave Mexican territory. He had left the bulk of his party
behind in California, and now brought them together again. He led his
men to San Francisco and thence up to the Columbia, meeting with success
in trapping all the way. Finally he had accumulated furs worth about
twenty thousand dollars and prepared to take them back to Salt Lake. He
camped in the Shasta country one night on the south bank of the Umpqua.
The Shastas seemed to be entirely friendly and Smith was apparently
thrown off his guard. They hung about camp, and in the morning when
Smith was on a raft searching for a fording-place for the pack animals,
having with him a little Englishman and one of the natives, the latter
suddenly seized Smith's gun and jumped into the water. At this moment
a wild commotion at the camp indicated an attack there. Smith quickly
shot the Shasta with the Englishman's gun, and knowing it would be death
to return now to the camp made for the opposite shore and at length
succeeded in reaching Fort Vancouver, the North-west-Hudson Bay post on
the Columbia at the mouth of the Willamette,—the fort which had taken
the place of Astoria, or, more correctly, of Fort George. Besides the
Englishman who was with him, only two of his men escaped, Black and
Turner, the latter having killed four Shastas with a half-burnt stick
which he snatched from the camp-fire at the moment of attack. They were
well received at the British fort, and everything was done that was
possible to relieve their unfortunate situation. A party was sent to
punish the Shastas according to the Hudson Bay Company policy, and the
furs and goods were recovered. Sir George Simpson, in charge, offered to
send Smith with his furs to London the next summer in the supply ship,
but Smith preferred to sell out to Simpson on the spot and in March,
1829, made his way across by way of Snake River toward the rendezvous.
Sublette about this time sent out a party to look for him, and they came
together in Pierre's Hole. The journey back to Salt Lake from here was
easy after what Smith had accomplished. He had executed two circuits
around the remaining Unknown; journeys that must ever stand in the front
rank with those of Lewis and Clark, Wilson Price Hunt, Robert Stuart,
and James O. Pattie, in the breaking of the Wilderness.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] _The Journal of Jacob Fowler_, edited by Elliott Coues, with
notes.
[85] _The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth_, written
from his own dictation by T. D. Bonner. Chittenden says he became
Beck_wourth_ only when this book was written—before that being
plain Beck_with_, but men are often called for years by wrong
names, and Beckwourth is no more distinguished than Beckwith.
[86] Inman, _The Santa Fé Trail_, says the Bents, Carson, and
Maxwell, whom he knew, spoke well of Beckwourth. He also says his
honesty was unquestioned, and that he was a born leader.
[87] For further details of this part of Pattie's journey see _The
Romance of the Colorado River_, by F. S. Dellenbaugh.
[88] _The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie of Kentucky_,
edited by Timothy Flint.
[89] Ashley went through Red Canyon and another party later through
the Canyon of Lodore. Below this there is no record of successful
passage till 1869.
[90] Chittenden thinks Smith later changed the name Adams to Virgin
after Thomas Virgin of his party. It may, however, be a corruption
of Le Verkin, a name which survives in one of the branches.
[Illustration]