MAJOR LONG.
[Sidenote: 1819]
Fourteen years have passed since Lieutenant Pike sold his two little
sail boats to the Osage Indians as he left the Missouri River and
started on his overland journey. Within this brief period a great
invention has marked the progress of the century. After years of
experiments, failures and disappointments; after sinking one vessel
and abandoning others; Robert Fulton has returned from his trip to
France, bringing with him his steam engine with which he had perfected
water navigation, and by his genius linked together all the nations of
the earth, increased the wealth and commerce of the world, and won for
himself enduring fame.
The next exploring party was to start in a steamship owned by the
Government of the United States, and under the leadership of Stephen
Harriman Long. Born at Hopkington, New Hampshire, December 30, 1784,
Long had graduated at Dartmouth College, and entered the corps of
Engineers of the U.S. Army, in 1814; had been a professor of
mathematics at the Military Academy at West Point, and had been
transferred to the Topographical Engineers in 1815, with the
brevet-rank of Major.
James Monroe was President, and John C. Calhoun Secretary of War, and
they gave Major Long elaborate instructions as to his duty. We had
owned the vast Louisiana Territory for sixteen years, and knew but
little more about it than when it came into our possession. So, Long
was to explore it and make a very thorough investigation of the
"country between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, the
Missouri and its tributaries, the Red River, the Arkansas River, and
the Mississippi above the mouth of the Missouri."
On May 3, 1819, the party of nine started from the arsenal on the
Allegheny River just above Pittsburgh, at which point they entered the
Ohio River. Their steamer carried them down the Ohio to its junction
with the Mississippi, a distance of about nine hundred miles, where
they arrived May 30th. Here they turned north up the Mississippi
River, about one hundred and seventy-five miles to St. Louis, which
they reached June 9th. Then they steamed West up the Missouri, over
the course that Pike had sailed fourteen years before, to the same
point where the Osage River enters the Missouri, near the present
location of Jefferson City and one hundred and thirty-three miles from
the Mississippi River. The party divided; part of the number
disembarked and proceeded with horses through Missouri, Kansas and
Nebraska, meeting those of the party who remained on the boat at
Council Bluffs on September 19th. There they established their winter
quarters on the banks of the Missouri, about five miles below the
present City of Council Bluffs, and so named because of a Council held
with the Indians by the Government at that point. In the log houses,
built by Pike and his party, and with the supplies they had brought on
the ship, the party passed a comfortable and leisurely winter. On June
6, 1820, they started from Council Bluffs, the party then consisting
of twenty men and twenty-eight horses. It is interesting to know what
their pack ponies carried. Here is an invoice:
150 lbs. pork
500 lbs. biscuit
10 cannisters
300 flints
25 lbs. coffee
30 lbs. sugar
5 lbs. vermilion
2 lbs. beads
30 lbs. tobacco
2 doz. moccasin awls
1 doz. scissors
6 doz. looking glasses
1 doz. gun worms
1 doz. fire-steels
2 gross hawks bells
2 gross knives
1 gross combs
2 bu. parched corn
5 gal. whiskey
Bullet pouches
Powder horns
Skin canoes
Packing skins
Canteens
Forage bags
Several hatchets
A little salt
A few trinkets
Pack cards
Small packing boxes for insects.
They followed along the Platte River, and stopped for a time at the
junction of the North Fork of that River with the South Fork, where
North Platte is now situated. Here they tell of watching the beavers
cut down a cottonwood tree. They observed that when it was nearly
ready to fall, one of the beavers swam out into the river and posted
itself as a sentinel. As soon as it saw the tops of the branches begin
to move, it gave the signal by giving the water a resounding slap with
its flat tail, when every beaver scampered out of reach of the falling
tree. It must have been a moonlight night when they were there,
otherwise they would not have seen the beavers at work, for they
reverse nature's order and sleep in the daytime, working at night.
They sleep in their houses, with their bodies in the water, and their
heads resting out of the water on a stick. At twilight, a wise old
mother beaver comes out and swims all around the pond or river,
looking and smelling. Their sense of smell is very keen, and those who
wish to observe them do so from treetops near the water. If after a
careful investigation, the sentinel decides there are no man people,
or wild animals around, one slap of the tail on the water is given,
and out pops the nose of every beaver of the band, and all proceed
with their work, exactly where it ended at sunrise. If the one on
picket duty sees or hears anything that seems suspicious, three sharp
resounding strokes of the tail sends every beaver in a flash to his
hiding place, and nothing will tempt them out again that night. They
have an instinct for making a tree fall in exactly the place where
they want it, and it is used as a foundation for the numerous dams
they build in the streams.
On June 30th, Long's party got their first glimpse of the Rocky
Mountains. Later on, when they were camped near Ft. Lupton, opposite
the Peak, they gave it the name of Long, its altitude being fourteen
thousand two hundred and seventy feet.
None of the party were ever near the Peak. Two of them, more
courageous than the others, rode out one memorable morning, under a
cloudless sky, with their faces towards the snowy range--rode away to
defeat and oblivion. As morning turned to noon and they seemed no
nearer to the pinnacle than when they started, they retraced their
steps across the silent plain. Thus they lost an opportunity of
forever linking their names to undying fame. Had they proceeded, they
could have electrified a nation by writing into their report a page
that would have remained undimmed to the end of time. It was theirs,
had they embraced it, to have discovered Estes Park, the gorgeous
setting that crowns the approach to the King of Peaks. But they turned
back; back from the snow-white mountains beckoning them onward; from
the purple tints that veiled the mystic summits in a mellow haze; from
the lights and shadows playing over hill and dale, under a canopy of
fleecy clouds.
Beautiful Estes Park! Rarest gem of all the sparkling jewels that
adorn the bosom of this fair world! In you the Divine Hand has created
the masterpiece of all earthly beauty! You are so freighted down with
scenic blessings that the mould was broken in your formation and there
can be no duplication! Glorious is your resting place under the
cloudless sky, as you lie in the embraces of the soft and balmy air
that envelops you! Beautiful are your grassy slopes and velvet
meadows, asleep beneath the gleaming stars, awake under the mellow
skies, reaching away in a panoramic view of exquisite colorings!
Faultless are Nature's highways as they wind in and out among your fir
and spruce, your pine and aspen, through silvery glades and leafy
dells, by rocky gorges and towering cliffs! Lovely are the azure lakes
that rest against your mountain sides, reflecting in their limpid
depths your rocks and trees, your lights and shades, your fleecy
clouds and snow-clad peaks! How gentle is the flow of your sounding
streams; how they eddy and fall; how they tumble and roar, as they
hurry along to their far-away home in the sea! How grand and terrible
are the awe-inspiring storms that gather in the mountains high above
you, as cloud rolls upon cloud, black, dense, lowering; how the
terrific peals of thunder crash from peak to peak, like the duel of
artillery meeting on the field of carnage in the mighty shock of
battle!
As light follows darkness, as sunshine comes after the rain, as peace
succeeds strife, the clouds unveil, the tempest is calmed, the glory
of the sun dispels the gloom, and the storm lashed pinnacles robed in
eternal snow, light up under the glow of the lingering twilight. The
tiny throated songsters warble their simple evening notes, ever old
and forever new, rivaling the music of the streams, as they flood this
paradise of parks with an ecstasy of melody. The eagle mounts skyward,
rising higher and higher, in ever widening circles, standing out
against the sky, then soaring away beyond the vision to his eyrie in
the gaping gorge of the lofty crest.
The opalescent hues envelop the mountain rims. The fiery red, flames
into a glow, melts to the softest purple, blends to the rarest gray,
and in a delirium of rich colors the sun goes down in a cloud of
glory. The sublimity of the scene clings like a halo around the
sky-piercing summits. The day darkens, and the rosy tints of sunset
fade into a flood of moonlight that mirrors the shining stars in the
rivers, flowing far below under the mysterious shadows of the mighty
cliffs.
Long and his party followed along the Platte River by the place where
Denver is located, and on to Colorado Springs, at which point some of
them attempted to climb Pike's Peak, but did not succeed. Greatly to
their discredit, they named that Peak for "James," one of their
number, instead of for "Pike," its discoverer. The people saw to it,
however, that the name thus given it, should not be permanent. The
people are nearly always right. The party proceeded on to Canon City
and Pueblo, and then this exploring party made a discovery; they
discovered that their biscuits were running short, so they immediately
started home. They had left Council Bluffs, June 6th; they knew how
long five hundred pounds of biscuits would last twenty men; so they
knew they were on a pleasure trip and would have to start back July
19th, just one month and thirteen days after they set out, and ten
days after they reached Colorado. When we think of the faithful Pike
and his loyal men, freezing, starving, persisting; think of them with
worn-out cotton clothing in winter, instead of warm flannel; of making
shoes out of raw buffalo hides; of persevering in the face of every
obstruction, and then read Long's report of starting back in
midsummer, for the want of biscuits, our admiration grows for
Lieutenant Pike and his devoted party of courageous men.
[Illustration: The Buffalo Runner.]
Major Long's report to the Government was of such a discouraging
nature that it retarded the settlement of the country for nearly half
a century, and it should never have been written. He was quoted in the
newspapers, and people everywhere read of a "desert inhabited by
savages," a sentiment that became so firmly fixed in the minds of many
in the Eastern States that the prejudices of the people have only in
recent years been wholly removed. He often refers in his report to the
enormous herds of fat buffalo that "darken the plains." How this
queer-shaped animal with its powerful front and slender hind parts
originated, or where it came from, will forever remain an unsolved
mystery like the beginning of the race of Indians. They were here in
immense droves. Ernest Seton Thompson thinks that there were seventy
millions within the compass of their range, which was from the
Allegheny Mountains on the East, to Nevada on the West; and that fifty
millions of them were west of the Mississippi River. He bases his
estimate on the amount of acreage they grazed over, and the number of
animals the pasturage would sustain. I think he is far too low in his
estimate. If we assign forty feet of space to each buffalo they would
occupy an area, if bunched together, of but sixty-four thousand two
hundred and eighty acres, or only one hundred square miles, which
would be equal to a herd twenty-five miles long and four miles wide.
The Government reports give an estimate of two hundred and fifty
millions killed, from 1850 to 1883.
All the reports of explorers, scouts and emigrants dwell on the
magnitude of these immense herds, which were so numerous that "the
earth as far as the eye can reach, seems to be alive and to move."
Coronado was never out of sight of them in traveling the seven hundred
miles from New Mexico to Kansas, according to his letter to the King.
Along every pioneer trail the prairies were covered in every direction
with them, and away up in the Wind River Country, in the land of the
Wyoming, Longfellow sings of the
"Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine,
Bright and luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas,
Over them wander the buffalo herds, and the elk and the roebuck."
These peaceful herds, as they roamed over the plains, had their
Nemesis at their heels, in the vast number of Indians trailing behind
them and living upon them; while on all sides were thousands of hungry
grey wolves devouring the calves or attacking the old, at will. In
spite of these decimating influences, and their companion, the
blizzard, the buffalo herds multiplied, and the Great Plains
themselves seemed to be "alive and to move," as the countless numbers
slowly grazed over them. Buffalo steak was good eating, and so
adaptable that J. M. Bagley of Colorado, the veteran wood engraver, in
relating early experiences tells how he started a restaurant on one
buffalo ham, from which he served veal, beef, mutton, bear, venison,
and all other wild game!
The first telegraph line reaching out over the plains, was a very
primitive one. The posts were short and light, and they carried but
one wire. A great deal of trouble arose from the cattle rubbing
against the poles and wrecking the line. This was remedied by driving
long heavy spikes into the poles at the point where the cattle would
do the rubbing. But the workman got out of the cattle plague, only to
get into worse trouble from the buffalo. They liked the spikes, and
used the sharp points to scratch their rough hides. There seemed to be
a buffalo language, for those shaggy and amiable animals flocked to
the spikes from all sections. They reveled in the luxury of having
their backs scratched, and to show their appreciation rubbed so hard
that they completely demolished the line. Telegraph wire entangled in
the horns of a buffalo was found as far away as Canada when it was
killed. Only the rebuilding of the line with heavy poles and leaving
off the scratching comforts, enabled business to proceed.
It seems strange that everyone lost sight of the productiveness that
must lie in land that would sustain such quantities of grass-devouring
animals; and that in the instructions given by Congress, the
Presidents of the United States, and the Secretaries of War, to the
leaders of these various exploring parties, the important question of
irrigation should have never been considered, nor mentioned by the
explorers themselves. It is true, irrigation was wholly unknown in our
country at the time, but Egypt and China had been artificially watered
for centuries, and it is strange that no Congressman or Government
official, or enterprising newspaper editor called attention to this
vital question.
The Long party divided as it started East. Captain Bell with eleven
men went down the Arkansas River, while Major Long with nine, went
farther south in search of the Red River. They all met at Ft. Smith,
in western Arkansas, the middle of September; thence the united party
crossed through Arkansas to the Mississippi River, where their trip
ended.
Major Long looked like a college professor. He wore glasses over very
black eyes; had thin, firm lips; high cheek bones; long wavy hair, and
was close shaven, except for a little tuft of side whiskers back close
to his ears. He later explored the source of the Mississippi River for
the Government, and then became Engineer in Chief for the Western and
Atlantic Railroad in Georgia.
When Major Long in 1805 turned the prow of his steamer into the mouth
of the Missouri River, the first that ever ploughed its waters, he
little thought that just above the junction of those two rivers would
some day, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, be built a City
that would be named Alton; and little did he think that, fifty-nine
years later, at the age of eighty, his grave would there be dug, and
there would he be buried.