Breaking the Wilderness—Wanderings of the Trappers and Fur Traders—General Ashley in Green River Valley, 1824—Pattie along the Grand Canyon, 1826—Lieut. Hardy, R.N., in a Schooner on the Lower Colorado, 1826—Jedediah Smith, Salt Lake to San Gabriel, 1826—Pattie on the Lower Colorado in Canoes, 1827-28.
As the “sweet Afton” of old gently flowing among its green braes compares with the fierce Colorado, so do those earnest padres who so faithfully tried to plant their cross in the waste places, as sketched in the chapter just closed with the martyrdom of Garces, compare with the new set of actors that now appear, as the development of this drama of the wilderness continues. The former fitted well into the strange scenery; they became apart of it; they fraternised with the various tribes native to the land, and all things together went forward with pictorial harmony. They were like a few mellow figures blended skilfully into the deep tones of an ancient canvas. But now the turbulent spirit of the raging river itself pervades the new-comers who march imperiously upon the mighty stage with the heavy tread of the conqueror, out of tune with the soft old melody; temporising with nothing; with a heedless stroke, like the remorseless hand of Fate, obliterating all obstacles to their progress. Not theirs the desire to save natives from perdition; rather to annihilate them speedily as useless relics of a bygone time. They are savages among savages; quite as interesting and delightful in their way as the older occupants of the soil. It became in reality the conflict of the old and the new, and then was set the standard by which the native tribes have ever since been measured and dealt with.
The inevitable was simply coming to pass: one more act in the world-play of continental subjugation to the European. The United States, born in privation and blood, were growing into a nation eager for expansion, and by 1815 they had already ventured beyond the Mississippi, having purchased from France all territory north of Red River, the Arkansas, and the 42nd parallel, as far as the unsettled British boundary and the disputed region of Oregon. Naturally, then, Americans wanted to know what was to be found in this vast tract unknown to them, and when a few bold spirits pushed out to the great mountains it was discovered that fur-bearing animals existed in multitude. In the trapping of these and the trading in their pelts a huge industry sprang up. In this trade future millionaires laid their foundations.
See the
map which appeared opposite this page in the book.
The beaver were then the most profitable of all, and they were the most abundant. The pelts were estimated by “packs,” each of which consisted of about eighty skins, weighing one hundred pounds, and worth in the mountains from three hundred to five hundred dollars. The profits were thus speedy and very great. In the search for the richest rewards the trapper continually pushed farther and farther away from the “States,” encroaching at length on the territory claimed by Spain, a claim to be soon (1821) adopted by the new-born Mexican Republic. Trespassing on the tribal rights of Blackfoot, Sioux, Ute, or any other did not enter into any one’s mind as something to be considered. Thus, rough-shod the trapper broke the wilderness, fathomed its secret places, traversed its trails and passes, marking them with his own blood and more vividly with that of the natives. Incidentally, by right of their discoveries and occupation of the wilderness, much of it became by the law of nations a part of the lands of the United States, though still nominally claimed by Mexico. Two years after the return of the famous Lewis-and-Clark expedition, Andrew Henry “discovered” South Pass (1808), and led his party through it into the Green River1 Valley. His discovery consisted, like many others of the time, in following up the bison trails and the highways of the natives. The latter, of course, knew every foot of the whole country; each tribe its own special lands and more or less into and across those of its neighbours.
Flaming Gorge, Green River. Beginning of the Canyon.
Picture taken just inside the entrance. Walls 1300 feet.
Photograph by E. O. Beaman, U. S. Colo. Riv. Exp. |
By the time the third decade of the nineteenth century was fairly begun the trappers were crossing in considerable numbers from the headwaters of the Missouri and the Platte into the valley of the Colorado and the Columbia, and as early as 1824 one of the most brilliant figures of this epoch, General Ashley,2 having previously organised a fur-trading company in St. Louis, then the centre of all Western commerce, had established himself in Green River Valley with a large band of expert trappers which included now famous names like Henry, Bridger, Fitzpatrick, Green, Sublet, and Beckwourth. Provo (or Provost) was already encamped in Brown’s Hole. One of Ashley’s principal camps was what they called the “rendezvous” (there were a great many French-Canadians engaged in the fur business, and hence numerous French words were in common use among the trappers of the period), just above “The Suck,” on Green River. This Suck was at the entrance to Flaming Gorge, as it has since been named. Beckwourth says of this: “The current, at a small distance from our camp, became exceedingly rapid, and drew toward the centre from each shore.” The river here narrows suddenly and attacks a high ridge. Doubling around a point to the left and then as suddenly to the right, the swift water or “Suck” slackens up in the quieter reach of Flaming Gorge. In their journeys after beaver the Ashley party had been able to go into this gorge and the two following ones, Horseshoe and Kingfisher, and had doubtless trapped in them. Here were many beaver, and Ashley drew the inference that as many existed below in the deeper canyon. Though he had discovered the dangerous character of the river he decided to build boats and set forth on the current in order to trap the canyon, the length of which he did not know and underestimated. A purpose of reaching St. Louis by this route has been attributed to Ashley, but as Hunt and others some years before understood this to be a stream on whose lower waters Spaniards lived, Ashley doubtless had the same information, and from that he would have known that it was no practicable route to St. Louis. Beckwourth, who relates the story of the trip,3 makes no suggestion of
Red Canyon at Low Water.
Length 25 miles. Walls 1800 to 2500 feet high. Average width of river, 250 feet. |
any far-off destination, nor does he say they took their packs along, as they would have done if going to a commercial centre. It seems to have been purely a trapping expedition, and was probably the very first attempt to navigate Green River. They took along few provisions, expecting to find beaver plentiful to the end of the canyon, but after a few miles the beaver were absent, and, having preserved none of the meat, the party began to suffer for food. They were six days without eating, and, the high precipitous walls running ever on and on, they became disheartened, or, in Western phrase, “demoralised,” and proposed to cast lots to find which should make food for the others, a proposition which horrified Ashley, and he begged them to hold out longer, assuring them that the walls must soon break and enable them to escape. They had not expected so long a gorge. Red Canyon is twenty-five miles and, with the three above, the unbroken canyon is about thirty-five miles. Under the circumstances the canyon seemed interminable and the cliffs insurmountable. The latter grow more precipitous toward the lower end, and scaling would be a difficult feat for a man well fed and strong, though well-nigh hopeless for any weakened by lack of proper food. At last, however, an opening appeared. Here they discovered Provo encamped with an abundance of provisions, so their troubles were quickly over. The opening they had arrived at was probably Brown’s Hole. There is only one other place that might be called an opening, and this is a small park-like break on the right side of the river, not far above Brown’s Hole, formerly called Little Brown’s Hole and also Ashley Park. The Ashley men would have had a hard climb to get out of this place, and it is not probable that Provo would have climbed into it, as no beaver existed there. It seems positive, then, that Ashley came to Provo in Brown’s Hole. Thus he did not “make his perillous way through Brown’s Hole,” as one author says, because he ended his journey with the beginning of that peaceful park. They lost two of their boats and several guns in
 |
Red Canyon, and Ashley left there a mark to identify the time of his passage. He wrote his name and the date, 1825, on a large rock above a sharp fall, which was (later, 1869,) named in his honour. I saw this inscription in 1871 and made a careful copy of it, which is given here. See also the illustration of Ashley Falls on page 113. The location of it is just west of C in the words “Red Canon” on the map, page 109. In the canyon of Lodore, at the foot of Disaster Falls, we found some wreckage in the sand, a bake-oven, tin plates, knives, etc., which Powell first saw in 1869, but these could not have belonged to Ashley’s party, for plainly Ashley did not enter Lodore at all. It was evidently from some later expedition which probably started from Brown’s Park, in the days of Fort Davy Crockett.
Provo had plenty of horses, and Ashley and his men joined him going out to Salt Lake, where Provo had come from.
Ashley Falls, Red Canyon, Green River.General Ashley wrote his name on a rock about half way up the picture, on the right, in 1825.
Photograph by E. O. Beaman, U. S. Colo. Riv. Exp.The year following Ashley’s attempt to trap Green River was a most eventful one in the history of the Colorado. Time appeared to be ripe for great journeys. The Mexicans outside of California were more amiably inclined, and granted privileges to trappers in New Mexico. Two men who were among the first to push their way into New Mexico were James O. Pattie and his father, and the narrative of their experiences as told by the younger Pattie is one of the most thrilling and interesting books of Western adventure ever published.4 They had trapped on the Gila, or “Helay,” as they called it in 1825, and the next year they went back there with a party, trapping the Gila and its tributaries with gratifying success.5 Working their way down the Gila, they eventually reached its junction with what they called Red River, the Great Colorado. Following up the Colorado, probably the first white men to travel here since the time of Garces, they rode through a camp of Coco-Maricopas, who ran frightened away, and the Pattie party, passing them by as if they were mere chaff, camped four miles farther on, where they were visited by about one hundred, “all painted red in token of amity.” Farther up they entered the Mohave country. When they met some of the inhabitants they “marched directly through their village, the women and children screaming and hiding themselves in their huts.” Three miles above, the Patties camped, and a number of the Mohaves soon came to see them. They did not like the looks of the chief, who made signs that he wanted a horse as payment for the privilege of trapping in his domain. As the trappers recognised no rights on the part of the natives, they peremptorily refused, whereat the chief drew himself erect with a stern and fierce air and sent an arrow into a tree, at the same time “raising his hand to his mouth and making their peculiar yell.” The captain of the Pattie band replied by taking his gun and shooting the arrow in two. Driven out of the camp the following day, the chief shot a horse as he rode past it and was himself instantly pierced with four rifle balls.
The Grand Canyon from Bright Angel Trail looking East.Point of view 1000 feet above the water. Total depth between 5000 and 6000 feet.
Photograph by Ross.A band of his followers, armed, of course, with only bows and arrows, next day made a concerted attack, but were cut down by the rifles and fine marksmanship of the Americans. As these Mohaves had been good friends to Garces, and afterwards treated Americans well till they were instigated by the Spaniards to fight, it is probable that a somewhat more conciliatory approach might have avoided the trouble this party experienced.
Entrance to Black Canyon, first seen by James O. Pattie.
Photograph by Wheeler Exp. |
Farther up they reached the “Shuenas,” who had apparently never before heard the report of a gun, and on the 25th of March they arrived at what we now call Bill Williams Fork. A party was sent up this stream to trap. As they did not return next day according to the plan, scouts were dispatched, who found the bodies cut to pieces and spitted before a great fire.
On the 28th of March they came to a place on the river where “the mountains shut in so close upon its shores that we were compelled to climb a mountain and travel along the aclivity, the river still in sight, and at an immense depth beneath us.” This was probably Black Canyon; they are the first white men on record to reach it. They now took a remarkable journey of fourteen days, but unfortunately little detail is given, probably because Pattie’s editor considered a cut across the country of little importance. They travelled, they thought, one hundred leagues along these canyons, with the “river bluffs on the opposite shore never more than a mile” from them.6 Thus they evidently did not see the Grand Canyon at its widest part. By April l0th they arrived “where the river emerges from these horrid mountains, which so cage it up as to deprive all human beings of the ability to descend to its banks and make use of its waters. No mortal has the power of describing the pleasure I felt when I could once more reach the banks of the river.” They had suffered for food on this journey, but now they were again in a beaver country and also killed plenty of elk, the skins of which they dressed for clothing. They had made the first extended trip on record along the Grand Canyon and the other canyons of the Colorado, but whether they passed up by the north or the south I am unable to determine. My impression is that they passed by the north, as they would otherwise have met with the Havasupai in their Canyon, with the Little Colorado, and with the Moki. They would also have struck the San Juan, but the first stream mentioned as coming in is from the north, which they reached three days after arriving at the place where they could get to the water. Three days after leaving this they met a large body of Shoshones. They appear now to be somewhere on Grand River. They had a brush with the Shoshones, whom they defeated, and then compelled the women to exchange six scalps of Frenchmen whom the Shoshones had killed on the headwaters of the Platte, for scalps of members of their own party of whom the Patties had killed eight; They also took from them all the stolen beaver-skins, five mules, and their dried buffalo meat. After this interchange of civilities the trappers went on to where the river forked again, neither fork being more than twenty-five or thirty yards wide. The right-hand-fork pursued a north-east course, and following it four days brought them (probably in Middle Park) to a large village of the “Nabahoes.” Of these they inquired as to the pass over the mountains (Continental Divide) and were informed they must follow the left-hand fork, which they accordingly did, and on the thirty-first day of May, 1826, came to the gap, which they traversed, by following the buffalo trails through the snow, in six days. Then they descended to the Platte, and went on north to the Yellowstone, making in all a traverse of the whole Rocky Mountain region probably never since surpassed, and certainly never before approached.
The Navajo Type.
Photograph by J. K. Hillers, U. S. Geol. Survey. |
A few months later a lieutenant of the British Navy, R. W. H. Hardy, travelling in Mexico, chartered in the port of Guaymas a twenty-five-ton schooner, the Bruja or Sea Witch, and sailed up the Gulf of California. Encountering a good deal of trouble in high winds and shoals he finally reached a vein of reddish water which he surmised came from “Red River,” and at two o’clock of the same day he saw an opening ahead which he took to be the mouth of the river. An hour later all doubt was dispelled, and by half-past six he came to anchor for the night at the entrance, believing the tide to be at nearly low water. “In the middle of the night,” he says, “I was awakened by the dew and the noise of jackals. I took this opportunity of examining the lead which had been left hanging alongside, to see what water we had. What was my astonishment to find only a foot and a half. The crew was sound asleep. Not even the sentinel was able to keep his eyes open.” They got off without damage at the rise of the tide, but the next day misfortune awaited the schooner. The helmsman neglecting his duty for a moment as they were working up the stream, the vessel lost headway, and the fierce current immediately swept her, stern foremost, into the bank and broke the rudder. After much labour the Bruja was finally again placed in the stream, where they waited for slack water, expecting then to ship the rudder. “But in the Rio Colorado,” he declares with italics, "there is no such thing a slack water. Before the ebb has finished running the flood commences, boiling up full eighteen inches above the surface and roaring like the rapids of Canada.” Had he known what we now know he might have found a simile nearer his position at the moment. Finding he could make no further progress with the a schooner, he took a small boat and continued his voyage in it, though not for any great distance, as he returned to the vessel at night. Five or six thousand Yumas were seen, but they were entirely friendly. He thought the mouth of the Gila was below his stranded vessel, but he was mistaken in this, for it was in reality a great many miles farther up. What he took for the Gila was the main Colorado itself, and what he thought was the Colorado was only a bayou or flood-water channel. It being midsummer the river was at flood. The bayou is still called the False or Hardy’s Colorado.
After eight days of waiting they at last got their rudder shipped, the vessel on the tide, and went back down the stream, one of the Yuma women swimming after them till taken on board. She was landed at the first opportunity. The interpreter told Hardy his was the first vessel that had ever visited the river, and that they took it for a large bird. The lieutenant was evidently not posted on the history of the region, and the Yuma was excusable for not having a memory that went back eighty years.7 Hardy gave some of the names that still hold on that part of the river, like Howard’s Reach, where his Bruja was stranded, Montague and Gore Islands, etc.
Upper Valley of the Virgen.
Photograph by C. R. Savage. |
The same month that Hardy sailed away from the mouth of the Colorado, August, 1826, Jedediah Smith started from Salt Lake (the 22d), passed south by Ashley’s or Utah Lake, and, keeping down the west side of the Wasatch and the High Plateaus, reached the Virgen River near the south-western corner of Utah. This he called Adams River in honour of the President of the United States. Following it south-west through the Pai Ute country for twelve days he came to its junction with what he called the Seedskeedee, knowing it to be the same stream so called in the north. This was the Colorado. Proceeding down the Colorado to the Mohaves he was kindly received by them and remained some time recuperating his stock. It may seem strange that the Mohaves should be so perverse, killing one set of trappers and treating another like old friends, but the secret of the difference on this occasion, perhaps, lay in the difference of approach. Jedediah Smith was a sort of reincarnation of the old padres, and of all the trappers the only one apparently who allowed piety or humanitarianism to sway his will. His piety was universally known. It was not an affectation, but a genuine religion which he carried about with him into the fastnesses of the mountains. Leaving the Mohaves he crossed the desert to the Californian coast, where he afterwards had trouble with the authorities, who seemed to bear a grudge against all American trappers, and who seized every opportunity to maltreat and rob them. This, however, did not prevent Smith from returning again after a visit to the northern rendezvous. But while crossing the Colorado, the Mohaves, who had meanwhile been instigated to harass Americans by the Spaniards (so it is said), attacked the expedition, killing ten men and capturing everything. Smith escaped to be afterwards killed on the Cimarron by the Comanches.
Pattie and his father again entered the Gila country in the autumn of 1827, with permission from the governor of New Mexico to trap. After they had gone down the Gila a considerable distance the party split up, each band going in different directions, and after numerous adventures the Patties and their adherents arrived at the Colorado, where their horses were stampeded by the tribe living at the mouth of the Gila, the “Umeas.” They were left without a single animal, a most serious predicament in a wild country. The elder Pattie counselled pursuit on foot to recapture the horses or die in the attempt. But the effort was fruitless. They then made their way back to their camp, devoured their last morsel of meat, placed their guns on a raft, and swam the river to annihilate the village they saw on the opposite bank. The Yumas, however, had anticipated this move, and the trappers found there only one poor old man, whom they spared. Setting fire to every hut in the village, except that of the old man, they had the small satisfaction of watching them burn. There was now no hope either of regaining the horses or of fighting the Yumas, so they devoted their attention, to building canoes for the purpose of escaping by descending the Colorado. For this they possessed tools, trappers often having occasion to use a canoe in the prosecution of their work. They soon had finished eight, dugouts undoubtedly, though Pattie does not say so, and they already had one which Pattie had made on the Gila. Uniting these by platforms in pairs they embarked upon them with all their furs and traps, leaving their saddles hidden on the bank.
The ÒNavajo Church,Ó a Freak of Erosion near Ft. Wingate, N. M..
The Basin of the Colorado is full of such architectural forms. See Dellenbaugh Butte, p. 269, Gunnison Butte, p., 271, ÒHole in the Wall,Ó p. 41, etc.
Photograph by C. R. Savage. |
On the 9th of December (1827)8 they started, probably the first navigators of this part of the river since Alarçon, 287 years before. That night they set forty traps and were rewarded with thirty-six beaver. Such good luck decided them to travel slowly with the current, about four miles an hour, “and trap the river clear.” The stream was about two hundred to three hundred yards wide, with bottoms extending back from six to ten miles, giving good camp-grounds all along. With abundance of fat beaver meat and so many pelts added to their store they forgot their misfortunes and began to count on reaching the Spanish settlements they thought existed near the mouth of the river. Sometimes their traps yielded as many as sixty beaver in a night, and finally they were obliged to halt and make another canoe. So they went slowly down, occasionally killing a couple of hostile natives, or deer, panthers, foxes, or wild-cats. One animal is described as like an African leopard, the first they had ever seen. At length they came to a tribe much shorter of stature than the Yumas, and friendly. These were probably Cocopas. Not a patch of clothing existed in the whole band, and Pattie’s men gave the women some old shirts, intimating, as well as they could, that they ought to wear some covering. These people were well formed, and many of the women had exceptionally fine figures if the judgment of the trappers can be trusted in this respect. When a gun was fired they either fell prostrate or ran away, so little did they know about firearms. The chief had a feast of young dog prepared for his guests, who partook of it with reluctance. All communication was by signs, and when the chief imitated the beating of surf and drew a cow and a sheep in the sand, pointing west, they thought they were at last nearing the longed-for Spanish settlements, and went on their way joyfully. Little did they imagine that the settlements the chief described were far off on the Californian coast.
Cliffs of the Rio Virgen, about 2500 Feet High.
Photograph by J. K. Hillers, U. S. Geol. Survey. |
The new year, 1828, came in and still they were going down the river, taking many beaver. As a New Year’s greeting a shower of arrows from a new tribe, the Pipis, fell amongst them. The trappers killed six of them at one volley, and the rest ran away, leaving twenty-three beautiful longbows behind. The only clothing the dead men had on was snail-shells fastened to the ends of their long locks of hair. The trappers now began to seek more anxiously for the mythical settlements. “A great many times each day,” says Pattie, “we bring our crafts to the shore and go out to see if we cannot discover the tracks of horses and cattle.” On the 18th they thought some inundated river entering was the cause of a slackening of the current, and finally they began to rig oars, thinking they would now be obliged to work to get on down-stream, but presently, to their surprise, the current doubled its rate and they were going along at six miles an hour. None of them had ever had any experience with tides, and they therefore failed to fathom the real cause of these singular changes of speed. Suddenly, as they were descending, people of the same tribe they had fired on stood on the shore and shouted, making signs for them to land, that their boats would be capsized, but, thinking it a scheme for robbery and murder, they kept on, though they refrained from shooting. Late in the evening they landed, making their camp on a low point where the canoes with their rich cargoes were tied to some trees. Pattie’s father took the first watch, and in the night, hearing a roaring noise that he thought indicated a sudden storm, he roused his companions, and all was prepared for a heavy rain, when, instead, to their great consternation, the camp was inundated by “a high ridge of water over which came the sea current combing down like water over a mill-dam.” The canoes were almost capsized, but this catastrophe was averted by rapid and good management. Even in the darkness, in the face of a danger unexpected and unknown, the trappers never for an instant lost their coolness and quick judgment, which was so often their salvation. Paddling the canoes under the trees, they clung to the branches, but when the tide went out the boats were all high and dry. At last the day dawned bright and fair, enabling them to see what had happened, and when the tide once more returned, they got the canoes out of the trap. They now proceeded with the ebb tide, stopping with the beginning of the flood, constantly on the lookout for the Spanish settlements, and not till the 28th, when they saw before them such a commotion of waters that their small craft would be instantly engulfed, and wide sandy stretches, perfectly barren, all round, did they realise what a mistake they had made.
“The fierce billows,” says Pattie, “shut us in from below, the river current from above, and murderous savages on either hand on the shore. We had a rich cargo of furs, a little independence for each one of us could we have disposed of them among the Spanish people whom we expected to have found here. There were no such settlements. Every side on which we looked offered an array of danger, famine, or death. In this predicament what were furs to us.”
In order to escape they worked their way back up the river as far as they could by rowing, poling, and towing, but on February 10th they met a great rise which put a stop to progress. They now abandoned the canoes, buried the furs in deep pits, and headed for the coast settlements of
California. After many vicissitudes, which I am unable to relate here, they finally arrived, completely worn out, at the Spanish mission of St. Catherine.
The ÒColobÓ Country, Southern Utah.
Photograph by J. K. Hillers, U. S. Colo. Riv. Exp. |
Now they believed their troubles were over, and that after recuperating they could go back, bring in their furs, dispose of them handsomely, and reap the reward of all their privation and toil. Not so, however. Indeed, the worst of their trials was now to come. Before they comprehended the intention the Spanish official had seized their rifles and the men were locked up with only the commonest fare to relieve their suffering. Cruelty followed cruelty, but they believed it was the mistake of the minor officers, and appealed to the general in charge at San Diego, expecting an order from him for release. Instead of this they were marched under guard to San Diego, where each was confined in a separate room, frustrating their plan to recapture their arms and fight their way out. Pattie’s father presently became ill, and no amount of entreaty was sufficient to gain permission for the son to see him even for a moment. He died in his cell. After much argument and the intercession of some of the minor officers, Pattie was permitted liberty long enough to attend the funeral. At last the men were allowed to go back for the furs, which no doubt the wily general intended to confiscate, Pattie himself being retained as a hostage. But the furs had been ruined by a rise of the river. Smallpox then began to rage on the coast, and through this fact Pattie finally gained his freedom. Having with him a quantity of vaccine virus, he was able to barter skill in vaccinating the populace for liberty, though it was tardily and grudgingly granted. He was able, at length, to get away from California, and returned, broken in health and penniless, by way of the City of Mexico, to his old home near Cincinnati, after six years of extraordinary travel through the wildest portions of the Rocky Mountain region and the extreme Southwest.
In the year 1826, an afterwards famous personage appeared in the valley of the Colorado, on the Gila branch, being no less than Kit Carson,9 one of the greatest scouts and trappers of all. At this time he was but seventeen years old, though in sagacity, knowledge, and skill soon the equal of any trapper in the field. In 1827, Ewing Young, another noted trapper, having been driven away from the Gila by the natives, organised a company of forty men to go back and punish them, which meant to kill all they could see, innocent or guilty. Carson was one of this party. They succeeded in killing fifteen of the offenders, after which slight diversion they went on down the stream, trapping it as they went, but finally, running short of provisions, they had to eat horses. Arriving among the Mohaves, they obtained food from them, and proceeded across to San Gabriel Mission, to which place after trapping up the Sacramento Valley, they again returned, in season to assist the Spaniards to reduce the natives around the settlement to submission. This was accomplished by the simple method of killing one-third of them.
Limited space prohibits my recounting the exploits of even the smaller part of the trappers of this period, but with what follows I believe the reader will possess a sufficient picture of the life of the Rocky Mountain Trapper at this time.10 A trail from Santa FŽ to California was opened by way of what is now Gunnison Valley on Green River, and thence west by about the same route that Jedediah Smith followed, that is, down the Virgen River, by William Wolfskill who went out by this route to Los Angeles, in l830.11 There were trappers now in every part of the wilderness, excepting always the canyons of the Green and Colorado, which were given a wide berth as their forbidding character became better known; and as time went on the stories of those who had here and there looked into the angry depths, or had essayed a tilt with the furious rapids at one or two northern points, were enlarged upon, and, like all unknown things, the terrors became magnified.
In the Canyon of Lodore.
Walls about 2500 feet, width of river about 400 feet. |
It was in 1832 that Captain Bonneville entered Green River Valley, but as his exploits belong more properly to the valley of the Columbia, I shall not attempt to mention any of them here, referring the reader to the delightful account by Washington Irving.
In May, 1839, a traveller who was a careful observer, Thomas J. Farnham, went from New Mexico across the mountains to Brown’s Hole en route for Oregon, and a portion of his narrative12 is of deep interest in this connection, because his guide, Kelly, gave him some account of the Green and Colorado, which reflects the amount of real knowledge then possessed concerning the canyon-river.
“The Grand unites with the Seedskeedee or Green River to form the Colorado of the West. From the junction of these branches the Colorado has a general course from the north-east to the south-west of seven hundred miles to the head of the Gulf of California. Four hundred of this seven hundred miles is an almost unbroken chasm of kenyon, with perpendicular sides hundreds of feet in height, at the bottom of which the waters rush over continuous cascades. This kenyon terminates thirty [should be three hundred] miles above the gulf. To this point the river is navigable. The country on each side of its whole course is a rolling desert of loose brown earth, on which the rains and the dews never fall. A few years since, two Catholic missionaries and their servants on their way from the mountains to California, attempted to descend the Colorado. They have never been seen since the morning they commenced their fatal undertaking.
“A party of trappers and others made a strong boat and manned it well with the determination of floating down the river to take beaver that they supposed lived along its banks. But they found themselves in such danger after entering the kenyon that with might and main they thrust their trembling boat ashore and succeeded in leaping upon the crags and lightening it before it was swallowed in the dashing torrent.”
They had a difficult time in getting out of the canyon, but finally, by means of ropes and by digging steps with their rifle barrels, they reached the open country and made their way back to the starting-point. This was, possibly, the expedition which was wrecked in Lodore, after Ashley’s Red Canyon trip. I have not succeeded in finding any other account that would fit that place. Arriving at Fort Davy Crockett, in Brown’s Park, he describes it as
Uinta Utes, SaiarÕs Home.
Photograph by J. K. Hillers, U. S. Geol. Survey. |
“a hollow square of one-storey log cabins, with roofs and floor of mud. Around these we found the conical skin lodges of the squaws of the white trappers who were away on their fall hunt, and also the lodges of a few Snake Indians who had preceded their tribe to this their winter haunt. Here also were the lodges of Mr. Robinson, a trader, who usually stations himself here to traffic with the Indians and white trappers. His skin lodge was his warehouse, and buffalo robes spread on the ground his counter, on which he displayed his butcher knives, hatchets, powder, lead, fish-hooks, and whiskey. In exchange for these articles he received beaver skins from trappers, money from travellers, and horses from the Indians. Thus, as one would believe, Mr. Robinson drives a very snug little business. And, indeed, when all the independent trappers are driven by the appearance of winter into this delightful retreat, and the whole Snake village, two thousand or three thousand strong, impelled by the same necessity, pitch their lodges around the fort and the dances and merrymakings of a long winter are thoroughly commenced, there is no want of customers.”
With this happy picture of frontier luxury in the trapper period I will close the scene. Unwittingly, but no less thoroughly, the trappers had accomplished a mission: they had opened the gates of the wilderness. Two-thirds of these intrepid spirits had left their bones on the field, but theirs had been the privilege of seeing the priscan glory of the wilderness.
Note.—Near the emigrant crossing of Green River, in Wyoming, early in 1849, a party bound for California discovered an old scow ferry-boat, twelve feet long and about six feet wide, with two oars. Deciding to complete their journey by water they embarked. Later they built canoes. They were: William Lewis Manly (aged 29); M. S. McMahon; Charles and Joseph Hazelrig; Richard Field; Alfred Watson; and John Rogers. Manly’s account appears entirely truthful. He tells of canyons, rapids, etc., till near the mouth of Uinta River they met the Ute chief Walker (Wakar) who explained by signs that the fury of the river below was worse than above, and all but two gave up. These two, McMahon and Field, stopped with the Utes, intending to continue. The others went to Salt Lake. Wakar (whom McMahon calls “the generous old chief”) repeated his warnings. Field lost courage, and finally McMahon also abandoned the desire. Manly’s story (first published in the Santa Clara Valley Weekly) is given in his book Death Valley in '49. The volume was edited by the late Henry L. Brainard, head of the San Jose, California, company which, in 1894, published it. It was Mr. Brainard who secured the story from Manly for the Weekly. Mrs. Brainard says of Manly: “He was one of the dearest old men; kind, loving, gentle, as one seldom meets in this world. It was a pleasure to meet and know him. His character was unblemished.” At one place which I identify as lower Disaster Falls, Canyon of Lodore, they came to a deserted camp, “a skiff and some heavy cooking utensils, with a notice posted on an alder [box-elder] tree, saying that they had found the river route impracticable…and were about to start overland to Salt Lake.” Manly took down the signed names of this party but his diary was later lost by fire. Apparently the cooking utensils, etc., were the same we saw twenty-two years later at that place and thought were wreckage (see p. 255). Manly died February 5, 1903, and is buried at Merced, California.
1The name Green River was used as early as 1824, and was probably derived from the name of the early trapper. Till about 1835 it was usually called by the Crow name, Seedskeedee.
2Wm. Henry Ashley, born in Virginia, 1778; went to Missouri 1802 ; general of militia; elected first governor 1820; went into fur trade 1822 with Andrew Henry; elected to Congress 1831; twice re-elected; continued in office till March 4, 1837.—Chittenden.
3Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, edited by T. D. Bonner. Beckwourth was always called “Beckwith” in the mountains, but this was probably only a perversion of the original, though Chittenden seems to think he only assumed the former spelling on publishing his book.
4The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie, of Kentucky, etc., edited by Timothy Flint. Cincinnati, E. H. Flint, 1833. There is a copy in the Astor Library, New York.
5There were two classes of trappers, the free and those in the employ of some company. The Patties belonged to the former class.
6“It is perhaps this very long and formidable range of mountains,” says Pattie, “which has caused that this country of Red River has not been more explored,” p. 98.
7Fernando Consag entered the river, 1746, looking for mission sites, and two centuries before that was Alarçon.
8The reader may think I introduce too many year-dates but I have found most books so lacking in this regard that I prefer to err on the other side.
9Life of Kit Carson, by Charles Burdett. There are several Lives by other biographers.
10The reader is referred for exact details to the admirable work by H. M. Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West.
11H. H. Bancroft says 1831-2.
12Travels in the Great Western Prairies, the Anahuac and Rocky Mountains, and in the Oregon Territory, by Thomas J. Farnham. There is a copy in the library of Columbia University, New York.
