[Illustration: RED RIVER CARTS FROM PEMBINA.]
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THE WAY TO THE WEST
AND THE LIVES
OF THREE EARLY AMERICANS
BOONE—CROCKETT—CARSON
BY
EMERSON HOUGH
AUTHOR OF
THE COVERED WAGON, Etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
FREDERIC REMINGTON
[Illustration]
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS—NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
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Copyright, 1903
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
October
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TO
J. B. H.
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CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE WAY ACROSS THE ALLEGHANIES
I. THE AMERICAN AX 7
II. THE AMERICAN RIFLE 11
III. THE AMERICAN BOAT 19
IV. THE AMERICAN HORSE 25
V. THE PATHWAY OF THE WATERS 32
VI. THE MISSISSIPPI, AND
INDEPENDENCE 58
VII. ORIGIN OF THE PIONEER 73
VIII. DANIEL BOONE 87
IX. A FRONTIER REPUBLIC 122
BOOK II
THE WAY TO THE ROCKIES
I. DAVY CROCKETT 143
II. AGAINST THE WATERS 185
BOOK III
THE WAY TO THE PACIFIC
I. KIT CARSON 223
II. THE SANTA FÉ TRAIL 260
III. THE OREGON TRAIL 287
IV. EARLY EXPLORERS OF THE
TRANS-MISSOURI 311
V. ACROSS THE WATERS 343
BOOK IV
THE WAY ACROSS THE PACIFIC
I. THE IRON TRAILS 381
II. THE PATHWAYS OF THE FUTURE 413
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1834
IN THE YEAR 1834 IT BECAME NO LONGER
PROFITABLE TO TRAP THE BEAVER
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PREFACE
The customary method in writing history is to rely on chronological
sequence as the only connecting thread in the narrative. For this reason
many books of history are but little more than loosely bound masses of
dates and events that bear no philosophical connection with one another,
and therefore are not easily retained in the grasp of the average mind.
History, to be of service, must be remembered.
A merely circumstantial mind may grasp and retain for a time a series of
disconnected dates and events, but such facts do not appeal to that more
common yet not less able type of intellect that asks not only when, but
why, such and such a thing happened; that instinctively relates a given
event to some other event, and thus goes on to a certain solidity and
permanency in conclusions. Perhaps to this latter type of mind there may
be appeal in a series of loosely connected yet really interlocking
monographs upon certain phases of the splendid and stirring history of
the settlement of the American West.
Not concerned so much with a sequence of dates, or with a story of
martial or political triumphs, so called, the writer has sought to show
somewhat of the genesis of the Western man; that is to say, the American
man; for the history of America is but a history of the West.
Whence came this Western man, why came he, in what fashion, under what
limitations? What are the reasons for the American or Western type? Is
that type permanent? Have we actual cause for self-congratulation at the
present stage of our national development? These are some of the
questions that present themselves in this series of studies of the
manner in which the settlement of the West was brought about.
The history of the occupation of the West is the story of a great
pilgrimage. It is the record of a people always outstripping its leaders
in wisdom, in energy and in foresight. A slave of politics, the American
citizen has none the less always proved himself greater than politics or
politicians. The American, the Westerner, if you please, has been a
splendid individual. We shall have no hope as a nation when the day of
the individual shall be no more. Then ultimately we shall demand Magna
Charta over again; shall repeat in parallel the history of France in
’93; shall perhaps see the streets run red in our America. There are
those who believe that the day of the individual in America is passing
all too swiftly, that we are making history over-fast. There is scant
space for speculation when the facts come crowding down so rapidly on us
as is the case to-day. Yet there may perhaps be some interest attached
to conclusions herein, which appear logical as based upon a study of the
manner in which the American country was settled.
As to dates, we shall need but few. Indeed, it will suffice if the
reader shall remember but one date out of all given in this book—that
when it became no longer profitable to trap the beaver in the West. This
date, remembered and understood logically, may prove of considerable
service in the study of the movements of the American people.
As to the apparently disconnected nature of the studies here presented,
it is matter, as one may again indicate, not of accident. On the
contrary, the arrangement of the material is thought to constitute the
chief claim of the work for a tolerant consideration.
I shall ask my reader to consider the movements of the American
population as grouped under four great epochs. There was a time when the
west-bound men were crossing the Alleghanies; a time when they crossed
the Mississippi; a time when they crossed the Rocky Mountains. Now they
cross the Pacific Ocean. Roughly coincident with these great epochs we
may consider, first, the period of down-stream transportation; second,
of up-stream transportation; and lastly, of transportation not parallel
to the great watercourses, but directly across them on the way to the
West. These latter groupings were employed in a series of articles
printed in the Century Magazine in the year 1901-1902, the use of this
material herein being by courtesy of the Century Company.
I have not hesitated to employ the medium of biography where that seemed
the best vehicle for conveying the idea of a great and daring people led
by a few great and daring pilots, prophets of adventurings: hence the
sketches of the lives of the great frontiersmen, Boone, Crockett, and
Carson,—all great and significant lives, whose story is useful in
illustrative quality.
I am indebted for many facts obtained from special study by Mr. Horace
Kephart, an authority on early Western history, illustrating thoroughly
the part that the state of Pennsylvania played in the movement of the
early west-bound population. Mr. Warren S. Ely, a resident of historic
Bucks County, Pennsylvania, supplements Mr. Kephart’s material with
results of local investigations of his own. Mr. Alexander Hynds of
Tennessee assists in telling the story of that Frontier Republic whose
history blends itself so closely with Western affairs of a hundred years
ago. I have quoted freely from Mr. N. P. Langford, a man of the early
trans-Missouri, an Argonaut of the Rockies, who has placed at my
disposal much valuable material. Mr. Hiram M. Chittenden’s splendid work
on the history of the American fur trade has proved of great value.
I am indebted to many books and periodicals for data regarding the
modern American industrial development. I am indebted also to many early
authors who wrote of the old West, and am under obligations to very many
unknown friends, the unnamed but able writers of the daily press.
In regard to the classification of this material, varied and apparently
heterogeneous, yet really interdependent, under the four epochs or
volume-heads mentioned, I refer to the table given on another page.
As justification of what might be called presumption on the part of the
writer in undertaking a work of this nature, he has only to plead a
sincere interest in the West, which was his own native land; a love for
that free American life now all too rapidly fading away; and a deep
admiration for the accomplishments of that American civilization which
never was and never will be any better than the man that made it. It has
not been the intention herein to write a history of the American people,
but a history of the American man.
EMERSON HOUGH.
Chicago, Illinois, June, 1903.
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THE WAY TO THE WEST
CHAPTER I
THE AMERICAN AX
I ask you to look at this splendid tool, the American ax, not more an
implement of labor than an instrument of civilization. If you can not
use it, you are not American. If you do not understand it, you can not
understand America.
This tool is so simple and so perfect that it has scarcely seen change
in the course of a hundred years. It lacks decoration, as do the tools
and the weapons of all strong peoples. It has no fantastic lines, no
deviations from simplicity of outline, no ornamentations, no
irregularities. It is simple, severe, perfect. Its beauty is the beauty
of utility.
In the shaft of the ax there is a curve. This curve is there for a
reason, a reason of usefulness. The simple swelling head is made thus
not for motives of beauty, but for the purpose of effectiveness. The
shaft, an even yard in length, polished, curved, of a formation that
shall give the greatest strength to a downright blow in combination with
the greatest security to the hand-grasp, has been made thus for a
century of American life. This shaft is made of hickory, the sternest of
American woods, the one most capable of withstanding the hardest use. It
has always been made thus and of this material.
The metal head or blade of the American ax is to-day as it has always
been. The makers of axes will tell you that they scarcely know of any
other model. The face of the blade is of the most highly tempered steel
for a third or half of its extent. The blade or bitt is about eight
inches in length, the cutting edge four and seven-eighths to five inches
in width. The curve of this edge could not, by the highest science, be
made more perfect for the purpose of biting deepest at the least outlay
of human strength. The poll or back of the ax is about four inches in
width, square or roughly rounded into such form that it is capable of
delivering a pounding, crushing or directing blow. The weight of the
ax-head is about four pounds, that is to say from three and one-half to
five pounds.
With the ax one can do many things. With it the early American blazed
his way through the trackless forests. With it he felled the wood
whereby was fed the home fire, or the blaze by which he kept his distant
and solitary bivouac. With it he built his home, framing a fortress
capable of withstanding all the weaponry of his time. With it he not
only made the walls, but fabricated the floors and roof for his little
castle. He built chairs, tables, beds, therewith. By its means he hewed
out his homestead from the heart of the primeval forest, and fenced it
round about. Without it he had been lost.
At times it served him not only as tool, but as weapon; nor did more
terrible weapon ever fit the hand of man. Against its downright blow
wielded by a sinewy arm the steel casques of the Crusaders had proved
indeed poor fending. Even the early womankind of America had
acquaintance with this weapon. There is record of a woman of early
Kentucky who with an ax once despatched five Indians, who assailed the
cabin where for the time she had been left alone.
It was a tremendous thing, this ax of the early American. It cleared
away paths over hundreds of miles, or marked the portages between the
heads of the Western waterways, which the early government declared
should be held as public pathways forever. In time it became an agent of
desolation and destruction, as well as an agent of upbuilding and
construction. Misguided, it leveled all too soon and wastefully the
magnificent forests of this country, whose superior was never seen on
any portion of the earth. Stern, simple, severe, tremendous,
wasteful—truly this was the typical American implement.