[The earlier explorations of Frémont through the Rocky Mountains
and into California--those of 1842, 1843, and 1845--were made under
the direction and at the expense of the United States Government,
and of these we have full reports. Far less is known of the fourth
expedition, which he made in 1848-49, at private expense.
The following article is made up of the records and diary of a member
of the party, and left at his death.
As far as Pueblo, on the Arkansas River, at the entrance to the
Rocky Mountains, this party followed very nearly the same line taken
by the expedition of 1844, which in the main follows the present
route of railway travel on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé
line. The experiences of the party in their slow progress over the
plains--their encounters with Indians, buffaloes, elk, antelopes, and
wild horses--are not unique, and will, therefore, be omitted. We take
up the diary where the old trail is left and the party plunges into
the unknown mazes of the Rockies under the guidance of one of the
trappers, named Bill Williams,--of a type which has long passed out
of existence,--and who is thus described:]
Bill Williams was the most successful trapper in the mountains, and
the best acquainted with the ways and habits of the wild tribes among
and near whom he spent his adventurous life. He first came to the West
as a sort of missionary to the Osages. But "Old Bill" laid aside his
Christianity and took up his rifle and came to the mountains He was
full of oddities in appearance, manner, conversation, and actions. He
generally went out alone into the mountains, and would remain there
trapping by himself for several months together, his lonely camps being
often pitched in the vicinity of hostile savages. But he was as well
versed in stratagem as they, and though he bore the marks of balls and
arrows, he was a terror to them in single fight.
He was a dead shot with a rifle, though he always shot with a "double
wabble"; he never could hold his gun still, yet his ball went always to
the spot on a single shot. Though a most indefatigable walker, he never
could walk on a straight line, but went staggering along, first on one
side and then the other. He was an expert horseman; scarce a horse or
mule could unseat him. He rode leaning forward upon the pommel, with
his rifle before him, his stirrups ridiculously short, and his breeches
rubbed up to his knees, leaving his legs bare even in freezing cold
weather. He wore a loose monkey-jacket or a buckskin hunting-shirt,
and for his head-covering a blanket-cap, the two top corners drawn up
into two wolfish, satyr-like ears, giving him somewhat the appearance
of the representations we generally meet with of his Satanic Majesty,
at the same time rendering his _tout ensemble_ exceedingly ludicrous.
He was a perfect specimen of his kind, an embodiment of the reckless
and extravagant propensity of the mountaineers, and he pursued his
lucrative but perilous vocation from an innate love of its excitement
and dangers. For twenty-one years he had lived in the mountains without
returning to civilized life until he was taken back under guard, a year
or two previous, by Captain Cook, for the offense of manoeuvering and
acting the Indian in his buckskin suit on the plains, thereby deceiving
the captain into the belief that he was an Indian, and giving his
men a fruitless chase of several miles over the prairies before they
could overtake him on his pony, much to his diversion and the officer's
chagrin.
Such was old Bill Williams--he who was destined to be our guide at
this time. But it was not without some hesitation that he consented to
go, for most of the old trappers at the pueblo declared that it was
impossible to cross the mountains at that time; that the cold upon
the mountains was unprecedented, and the snow deeper than they had
ever known it so early in the year. However, Old Bill concluded to
go, for he thought we could manage to get through, though not without
considerable suffering.
On the 26th of November [1848] we entered the Rocky Mountains, which
had been for days looming up before us, presenting to view one
continuous sheet of snow. The snow already covered the mountains and
was rapidly deepening. I have frequently since called to mind the
expression of one of the men as we rode along before entering Hard
Scrabble. As we looked upon the stormy mountain so portentous of the
future, he said, "Friends, I don't want my bones to bleach upon those
mountains." Poor fellow, little did he dream of what the future would
be!
In the evening, from our first camp, eight miles in the mountains,
several of us climbed to a high point to take a last look at the
plains. The sight was beautiful; the snow-covered plain far beneath
us stretching eastward as far as the eye could reach, while on the
opposite side frowned the almost perpendicular wall of high mountains.
We entered the mountains on foot, packing our saddle-mules with corn
to sustain the animals. We traveled on, laboring through the deep snow
on the rugged mountain range, passing successively through what are
called White Mountain Valley and Wet Mountain Valley into Grand River
Valley. The cold was intense, and storms frequently compelled us to lie
in camp, from the impossibility of forcing the mules against them. A
number of the men were frozen; the animals became exhausted from the
inclemency of the weather and want of food, what little grass there was
being all buried in the snow. As we proceeded matters grew worse and
worse. The mules gave out one by one and dropped down in the trail, and
their packs were placed upon the saddle-mules. The cold became more and
more intense, so many degrees below zero that the mercury sank entirely
into the bulb. The breath would freeze upon the men's faces and their
lips become so stiff from the ice that it was almost impossible to
speak; the long beard and hair stood out white and stiff with the
frost. The aspect of the mules was as bad as that of the men; their
eyelashes and the long beard about their mouths were frozen stiff,
and their breath settled upon their breasts and sides until they were
perfectly white with frost. The snow, too, would clog under their hoofs
until it formed a ball six inches long, making them appear as though
they were walking on stilts. With the deep snow around us, and the
pendant frost upon the leafless trees, Nature and ourselves presented a
very harmonious picture. Two trappers, Old Bill informed us, had been
frozen to death here the year previous.
After coming through Robideaux's Pass, which was exceedingly difficult,
we descended into Grand River Valley. The snow lay deep, as elsewhere,
and there was no sign of vegetation. One broad, white, dreary-looking
plain lay before us, bounded by lofty white mountains. The Rio Grande
lay fifty miles ahead, so we determined to get through the snow-covered
plain as quickly as possible. We traveled late and camped in the
middle of it, without any shelter from the winds, and with no fuel but
some wild sage, a small shrub which grew sparsely around. At night
the thermometer stood at seventeen degrees below zero. During the day
Ducatel, a young fellow in the company, had come very near freezing
to death. By collecting a quantity of the sage we made sufficient
fire to cook, or rather half-cook, our supper of deer meat, five deer
having been killed that evening by two of the men. Bolting down the
half-cooked meat, we quickly turned into our blankets in order to keep
tolerably warm and to protect ourselves against the driving snow, for
since leaving the States we had scarcely stretched our tents. In the
night, as ill luck would have it, our mules, poor creatures, which
had stood shivering in the cold with bowed backs and drooping heads,
suffering from their exposed situation and half-starved, being now
reduced to a pint of corn twice a day, and having no other resource for
food, broke loose from their weak fastenings of sage bushes and started
off _en masse_ on the back trail. As soon as it was ascertained that
they were gone, in the middle of the night, we had to rise from our
beds, lifting half a foot of snow with our top blankets, and strike
out in pursuit of them. We overtook them several miles from camp, and,
taking them back, made them secure. But we rested little the remainder
of the night.
The next day we reached the Rio Grande del Norte. This we found frozen
over, and we camped on the river bottom, which is thickly timbered
with cottonwood and willow. Here my feet and those of several others
were frozen--the result in part of wearing boots, for which I quickly
substituted moccasins, with blanket wrappers, which are much warmer
than socks, and which, with leggings of the same material, afford the
best protection for the lower extremities against severe cold.
Continuing up the river two or three days, we again entered the
mountains, which soon assumed a very rugged character. Nature, in
the ascent towards the Sierra Madre, presents herself with all her
features prominent and strongly marked, her figures bold and colossal.
Our progress became slow and laborious. Our track lay through deep
mountain gorges, amid towering precipices and beetling crags, and
along steep declivities where at any other season it would have been
next to impossible to travel, but where now the deep snow afforded a
secure foothold. In making the ascent of some of these precipitous
mountain sides, now and then a mule would lose its footing and go
tumbling and rolling many feet down. My saddle mule took one of these
tumbles. Losing her foothold, she got her rope hitched upon a large
log which lay loosely balanced on the rocks, and, knocking me down and
jerking the log clear over my head, they went tumbling down together.
But fortunately no one was hurt. A great obstacle to our progress were
the rapid, rough-bottomed, but boggy streams which we had frequently
to encounter in the deep and narrow ravines, where the mules would get
balked, half a dozen at a time, with their packs on. Then we had to
wade in up to our middle among the floating ice in the freezing water
to help them out.
The farther we went the more obstacles we had to encounter;
difficulties beset us so thickly on every hand as we advanced that they
threatened to thwart our expedition. The snow became deeper daily, and
to advance was but adding dangers to difficulties. About one-third
of the men were already more or less frost-bitten; every night some
of the mules would freeze to death, and every day as many more would
give out from exhaustion and be left on the trail.... Finally, on the
17th of December, after frequent ineffectual attempts, we found that
we could force our way no farther. By our utmost endeavors with mauls
and spades we could make but half a mile or a mile per day. The cold
became more severe, and storms constant, so that nothing was visible at
times through the thick driving snow. For days in succession we would
labor to beat a trail a few hundred yards in length, but the next day
the storm would leave no trace of the previous day's work. We were
on the St. John Mountain, a section of the Sierra Madre and the main
range of the Rocky Mountains proper. At an elevation of 11,000 feet the
cold was so intense and the atmosphere so rare that respiration became
difficult; the least exertion became laborious and fatiguing, and would
sometimes cause the blood to start from lips and nose. The mercury
in the thermometer stood 20° below zero, and the snow was here from
four to thirty feet deep. When we built our camp-fires deep pits were
formed by the melting of the snow, completely concealing the different
messes from each other. Down in these holes we slept, spreading our
blankets upon the snow, every morning crawling out from under a deep
covering of snow which had fallen upon us during the night. The strong
pine smoke,--for here there was no timber but pine,--together with the
reflection from the snow, so affected our sight that at times we could
scarcely see. The snow drifted over us continually, driven about by the
violence of the chill blasts which swept over the mountains.
Besides ourselves and our mules, no vestige of animal life appeared
here in this lofty and dreary solitude; not even the ravens uttered
their hoarse cry, nor the wolves their hollow and dismal howl. Finally
nearly the entire band of our one hundred mules had frozen to death.
After remaining in this condition for five days without being able
to move camp, the colonel [Frémont] determined to return as quickly
as possible by a different course to the Rio Grande. There we had
left game upon which we could subsist until a party, to be previously
despatched, should return with relief. So on the 22d of December we
commenced our move, crossing over the bleak mountain strewn with the
frozen mules, and packing our baggage with us. We were more than a
week moving our camp and equipage over the top of this mountain, a
distance of two miles from our first camp. The day we began to move
(our provisions having been all consumed, except a small portion of
macaroni and sugar, reserved against hard times), we commenced to eat
the carcasses of the frozen mules. It was hoped we might save the few
that yet lived, but this proving impossible, we began to kill and eat
the surviving ones. On Christmas Day the colonel despatched a party
of four men, King, Croitzfeldt, Brackenridge, and Bill Williams, to
proceed down the Rio del Norte with all possible speed to Albuquerque,
where they were to procure provisions and mules to relieve us. He
allowed them sixteen days to go and return. We made our Christmas
and New Year's dinner on mule meat,--not the fattest, as may be
judged,--and continued to feed upon it while it was within reach....
At last we reached the river, but we found no game; the deer and elk
had been driven off by the deep snow. For days we had been anxiously
looking for the return of King's party with relief. The time allotted
him had already expired; day after day passed, but with no prospect of
relief. We concluded that the party had been attacked by Indians, or
that they had lost their way and had perished. The colonel, who had
moved down to the river before us, waited two days longer, and then,
taking just enough provision before it was all exhausted to last them
along the river, himself started off with Mr. Preuss, Godey, Theodore
(Godey's nephew), and Sanders, the colonel's servant-man, intending to
find out what had become of the party and hasten them back, or, if our
fears concerning them proved true, to push on himself to the nearest
settlement and send relief. He left an order, which we scarcely knew
how to interpret, to the effect that we must finish packing the baggage
to the river, and hasten on down as speedily as possible to the mouth
of Rabbit River where we would meet relief, and that if we wished to
see him again we must be in a hurry about it, as he was going on to
California.
Two days after the colonel left we had all assembled on the river. The
last of our provisions had been consumed, and we had been living for
several days upon parfleche. Our condition was perilous in the extreme.
Starvation stared us in the face; to remain there longer was certain
death. We held a consultation and determined to start down the river
the next day and try to make our way to some settlement where we could
get relief; in the mean time keeping as much together as possible, and
hunting along as we went as our only chance of safety.
Now commenced a train of horrors which it is painful to force the
mind to dwell upon, and which the memory shrinks from. Before we had
proceeded far Manuel, a California Indian of the Cosumne tribe, who
had his feet badly frozen, stopped and begged Mr. Vincent Haler to
shoot him, and failing to meet death in this way turned back to the
lodge at the camp we had left, there to await his fate. The same day
Wise lay down on the ice and died; and the Indian boys, Joaquin and
Gregorio, who came along afterward, having stopped back to get some
wood for Manuel, seeing his body, covered it over with brush and snow.
That night Carver, crazed by hunger, raved terribly all night, so that
some in the camp with him became alarmed for their safety. He told
them, if any would follow him back, he had a plan by which they might
live. The next day he wandered off and we never saw him again. The next
night Sorel, his system wrought upon by hunger, cold, and exhaustion,
took a violent fit which lasted for some time, and to which succeeded
an entire prostration of all his faculties. At the same time he was
almost totally snow-blind. Poor fellow, the next day he traveled as
long as his strength would allow, and then, telling us we would have
to leave him, that he could go no farther, blind with snow he lay down
on the river-bank to die. Moran soon joined him, and they never came
up again. Late at night, arriving one by one, we all came into a camp
together on the river-bank. Gloom and despondency were depicted on
every face. Our condition had become perfectly desperate. We knew not
what to do; the candles and parfleche had kept us alive thus far, but
these were gone. Our appearance was most desolate as we sat in silence
around the fires, in view of a fast approaching death by starvation,
while hunger gnawed upon our vitals. Then Vincent Haler, to whom the
colonel had left the charge of the camp, and whom for that reason we
had allowed to have the chief direction, spoke up and told us that he
then and there threw up all authority; that he could do nothing, and
knew not what to advise; that he looked upon our condition as hopeless,
but he would suggest, as the best advice he could give, that we break
up into small parties, and, hunting along, make the best of our way
down separately, each party making use of all the advantages that might
fall in its way, so that if any should chance to get through to a
settlement they could forward relief to the others.... It was curious
to hear different men tell of the workings of the mind when they were
starving. Some were constantly dreaming or imagining that they saw
before them a bountiful feast, and would make selections of different
dishes. Others engaged their minds with other thoughts. For my part,
I kept my mind amused by entering continually into all the minutiæ
of farming, or of some other systematic business which would keep up
a train of thought, or by working a mental solution of mathematical
problems, bringing in review the rudiments of some science, or by
laying out plans for the future, all having a connection with home
and after life. So in this way never allowing myself to think upon
the hopelessness of our condition, yet always keeping my eyes open
to every chance, I kept hope alive and never once suffered myself to
despond. And to this course I greatly attribute my support, for there
were stronger men who, by worrying themselves, doubtless hastened their
death. Ten out of our party of thirty-three that entered the mountains
had perished, and a few days more would have finished the others.
Late in the afternoon of February 9, cold, hungry, and weary, with no
little joy we all at once hailed the sight of the little Pueblo of
the Colorado. We raised a yell as we came in sight which made the
Pueblanos stand out and gaze. In a few minutes, with their assistance,
we struggled forward with them and sought the comfort which the place
afforded.
In sight of Taos, and several miles to the southeast, at the mouth
of a deep gorge or cañon by which the Taos River debouches from the
mountains, is a walled town or pueblo, one of a great many of the same
kind in this country, inhabited by the Pueblos or civilized Indians, a
remnant of the race of Montezuma. They live in houses built of stone
and earth, or of adobe, most of which at this place were three or four
stories high, and some of which even attained the height of eleven
stories, each story receding a few feet back from the front of the one
below it, and each one reached by a ladder placed against the wall,
communicating with the door on top, and capable of being let down or
drawn up at pleasure. A high mud wall incloses the buildings, which
front towards the center, and in the middle is a lofty church of the
same material as the other buildings, with walls six feet thick.
At Taos we first heard with certainty of the abundance of gold
in California, the first account of which had reached the States
immediately before our departure, but was scarcely believed.
On the 13th of February, having laid in a supply of provisions from the
quartermaster's department, being facilitated by the generous kindness
of the army officers, and having hired muleteers and a train of mules
to take us down to Albuquerque, we set out for Santa Fé.