USA > Colorado > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 72
USA > Nevada > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 72
USA > Wyoming > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 72
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WYOMING.
that Fort Bridger was founded, Sabille Adams and com- pany erected Fort Platte on the point of land formed by the junction of Laramie fork with the Platte. It was never completed, having one side open toward the river.
Let us leave fur-hunting and hunters and turn to other enterprises. We cannot quite get away from them after all, for it is in their company that all come who venture to invade this grand and virgin heart of the continent. In 1834, 1835, 1836, 1838 and 1839 parties of missionaries, men and women, crossed the
OLD FORT BRIDGER.
plains and mountains, descending to the shores of the Pacific. Two days' travel from the rendezvous on the Sweetwater, the two pioneer white women of the Pacific coast received such a welcome as the men of the mountains knew how to give, and were escorted to the great camp of that year on Green river. For a week, civilization in their persons, rested in this
company for the mountains in 1826. In his long experience in the moun- tains he became acquainted with every part of them, and was the most skill- ful and reliable guide known. While in the east in 1856-7 he purchased a farm near Westport, Mo .; but the change in his habits was unendureble, and he returned to the mountains, and resumed the occupation of guide, which he followed until age compelled him to abandon it, when he went to live upon his farm, He died at his home near Westport in ISS1.
686
EARLY EXPLORATIONS.
meadowy vale, and then passed on with the great English fur company to the Columbia.2
Another devotee comes, in 1840, to christianize the same savages which other Christian men are doing their best to heathenize. His enthusiastic faith does not fail him however, and he finds one nation at least which is approachable by spiritual teaching. They receive him joyfully, pleased with the notion of receiving knowledge, for even the savage had per- ceived that knowledge is power. This is P. J. De- Smet, Jesuit, and man of brains, which even his par- rowing religion could not deaden, if it could pervert. Promising to come again prepared to teach, he returned to St Louis with the fur company, redeem- ing his promise in 1841, when he established a mis- sion west of the Rocky mountains, among the Flat- heads, after which, in 1842, he once more returned to St Louis for recruits.
On Smet's homeward journey he was escorted by his Indians through the Hellgate pass of the Rocky mountains, along their eastern slope to the forks of the Missouri, whence he journeyed with a single companion, John de Velder, by way of the Yellow- stone to Fort Van Buren at the mouth of the Big- horn, and thence to Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone, where he took passage down the Mis- souri on one of the American company's boats. On a subsequent expedition-for Smet was an almost con- stant traveller-he discovered and named Smet lake in the Bighorn country, and detected the presence of gold in the soil and rocks of Wyoming.25
24 The missionary travellers above referred to, were the Lce brothers, Jason and Daniel, in 1834, Samuel Parker and Marcus Whitman in 1835; Mr and Mrs Whitman, Mr and Mrs Spalding, and W. H. Gray, in 1836; Mr and Mrs Walker, Mr and Mrs Eells, Mr and Mrs Smith, 1838; Mr and Mrs Griffin, Mr and Mrs Munger, 1839.
25 According to Thomas Sun, of Rawlins, Wyoming, De Smet gave some captivating accounts of the precious metals in that Bighorn region. Sun, born in Quebec, was for several years in the service of the American Fur company, during which time he became acquainted with the reverend trav- eller, who said he had no doubt that this region was the richest gold field in the world, and would be found to be such when the Indian hostilities were
-
687
WYOMING.
In 1841 passed the forts the first deliberate emigra- tion to Oregon and California of men, women, and children, fifteen in number.26 The same year passed Bidwell's California company. In 1842 Elijah White's Oregon company of 112 men, women, and children, and a train of eighteen great Pennsylvania wagons, cattle, pack-mules, and horses. Bouideau was in charge of Fort Laramie at that time, and gave the emigrants timely advice and assistance, although they grumbled much at the price of provisions in the mountains. The trappers had done the same before them, and were often half-starved, while their employ- ers rolled in wealth which their toil had accumulated. In 1843 passed the fur company's posts an army of occupation destined for the Columbia river, consisting of 1,000 men, women and children, with draft cattle, herds of cows and horses, farming implements, and household goods. After this, things were never more to be as they were aforetime in the hunting grounds of the Rocky mountains. The beaver were all but exterminated; few trappers remained; the Indians were, if not more hostile, at least better armed and more dangerous ; immigration westward increased ; the state of Deseret was planted on our border; and in a few years gold was discovered in California, after which the great highway became like a vast human river dividing the continent in twain, and bearing on its bosom what argosies of human hopes, alas! how often wrecked.
If the reader will turn to my History of Oregon, he will find there related the long series of political
sufficiently quelled to allow of thorough prospecting. He had seen white men who lived with the Indians, panning rich dirt, and had seen large nug- gets in the hands of the Indians. Strahorn, Wyoming, etc., 189-90. De Smet's writings also speak of the mineral wealth of the country he travelled over, but less definitely as to locality.
26 These were Joel P. Walker, wife, sister, three sons and two daughters; Burrows, wife and child; Warfield, wife and child, and one Nichols. Mrs Kelsey was the only woman in the Bidwell party, and arrived in Cal. a little later than Mrs Walker, though the Walker company went by the way of Oregon.
.
6SS
EARLY EXPLORATIONS.
events which led to sending a half military exploring expedition to the South pass in 1842, in charge of Frémont, the ostensible design of which was to look out positions for a line of posts to the mouth of the Columbia river for the protection of the American fur companies from the encroachments of the Hud- son's Bay Company, and to encourage American immi- gration by protecting it from the savages. He was to connect his explorations with those of Wilkes on the Pacific coast, but did nothing further this year than to make a summer jaunt2 to the South pass, which, being a military officer and not a private citi- zen, trader, trapper, missionary, immigrant, or what not, he "discovered," naming its altitude, and ascend- ing the highest peak in the Wind River range, 13,570 feet, planted thereon the United States flag. This mountain he named Frémont's peak ; and consider- ing that the government paid all the costs, and that he had an experienced mountain man, Kit Carson, for a guide, it must be admitted that the eternal mountains might be put to nobler use than to perpet- uate such achievements.28 He did, however, in his subsequent expeditions actually explore some new territory.
The first United States soldiers in Wyoming were the detachment with Frémont, making with his guide twenty-one men. Events soon led to more. After long and often wearisome discussions in congress, and frequent appeals from the settlers in the north-west, an act was passed, May 19, 1846, for the establish- ment of military stations on the route to Oregon,29 appropriating the munificent sum of $3,000 to defray the expense of each such station, and $2,000 each to
27 Scenes in the Rocky Mountains, 151. Schell, Hist. Fort Laramie, MS., 3-6. 28 I find in the report of Silas Reed, the first surveyor-general of Wyom- ing, the statement that President Tyler sent Frémont on this expedition, 'over the heads of all his superior officers in the engineer corps,' he having just married Jessie Benton, to appease the hostility of the great Missouri senator against his administration. The explanation is plausible, and no doubt true. U. S. Misc. Doc., 40, p. 24, 41st cong., 3d sess.
29 Acts of Cong., 29, 1st sess., chap. 22, 9 stat. at large, 13.
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WYOMING.
purchase the consent of the Indians to the occupa- tion of the ground.
In order to carry into effect this act, the president made a requisition upon the state of Missouri for a . battalion of five companies of mounted volunteers.30 The Oregon battalion, as it was called, being raised rather late in the summer of 1847, halted about the middle of September at a point on the Missouri known as Table creek, near the present site of Nebraska City, going into camp, and naming the cantonment after General Stephen W. Kearny. A detachment was however sent forward to select and lay out a site for a post to be occupied in the spring. The point selected was on the south bank of Platte, just below the head of Grand island and three-fourths of a mile from the river. This station, which was 300 miles northwest of Fort Leavenworth, and 200 from Camp Kearny, was named Fort Childs, in honor of General Thomas Childs, of Cerro Gordo fame, which name was changed to Kearny, by the department on the abandonment of the former camp.31 The volunteer battalion encamped at the place designated, without erecting quarters, and when relieved about the first of November by two companies, I and G of the regiment of mounted riflemen first raised for this ser- vice, and afterwards diverted to Mexico, returned to Fort Leavenworth. Upon Captain C. T. Ruff, now in command of the suppositious post, devolved the difficult task of building quarters for the garrison, without brick or lumber, in the cold and snows of winter. Sod huts were made to answer the purpose
30 This was bat. cos A, B, C, D, and E, 454 men. It was commanded by Lieut-col Ludwell E. Powell. The other com. officers were captains D. Mc- Causland, James Craig, Andrew W. Sublette, R. M. Stewart, and W. H. Rodgers. First lieuts, A. Lefairro, Thos L. Mara, F. M. Imprey, and H. Smith. Second lieuts, J. S. Jones, H. Thomas, R. J. Watson, and S. Lin- gelfelter. Brevet second lieuts, S. Mackett, Thos L. Young, W. Mara, and J. M. Searcy. The adjt of the command was First Lieut T. J. Todd; med. officer, Asst Surg. J. Walker; quar, Capt Stewart Van Vliet, of the regular army; engineer, Daniel P. Woodbury, of the U. S. engineer corps. Schell, Hist. Fort Laramie, MS., 8-9.
31 Steele, Rifle Regiment, MS., 2-3. HIST. NEV. 44
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EARLY EXPLORATIONS
of houses ; the nearest post-office where any news or communications from the department could be received, being at Linden, Atchison county, Missouri, an expe- rienced post-rider was necessary to carry the mail to and from that point, over 200 miles distant ; most of the horses of the squadron were sent to Leavenworth to be wintered, forage and shelter being lacking; and altogether the founding of the first fort beyond the Missouri frontier was a rude and distasteful experi- ence. One of the first recommendations of Captain Ruff to the adjutant-general was that he be permitted
CLEAR CREEK.
FORT LARAMIE IN 1849.
to issue provisions to emigrant parties in distress. Instructions were accordingly given to sell to distressed travellers supplies out of the surplus stores, and hence- forward the government rescued many a perishing family whom misfortune had robbed of its outfit in the midst of the wilderness. Fort Kearny thus became a household word in all the Pacific north-west. It was discontinued as a military post in May 1871, and the garrison removed to Omaha barracks.
In the spring of 1849 measures were taken to estab- lish the second and third of the line of forts contem-
691
WYOMING.
plated for the protection of travel across the conti- nent, and Lieutenant Woodbury of the engineer corps was authorized to purchase, should he think best, the fort of the American Fur company at Laramie fork for the second. This was done, Woodbury paying $4,000 32 for the property as it stood, and other build- ings being added for men and horses, the first one, afterwards known as " bedlam," being constructed of lumber brought from Fort Leavenworth. It took 123 days for official papers to go to the adjutant-gen- eral's office in New York and back to Laramie, which made it necessary that much discretion should be lodged with post commanders.
When the regiment of mounted riflemen, being fully recruited and equipped, after its return from Mexico, was started on its march to Oregon in the spring of 1849, under Colonel Loring, it was joined at Fort Kearny by Ruff's squadron, which was replaced by one company of 1st dragoons, and two companies of 6th infantry. On coming to Laramie, Major Win- slow F. Sanderson, four officers, and fifty-eight men were detached to garrison this post.33 In July and August they were reinforced by one company of
32 Cochran, in his Hist. Fort Laramie, 24, says that Woodbury had no authority, there being no appropriation, etc .; but that is a mistake, as con- gress had appropriated $5, 000 in 1846, for each fort, and as the suggestion of purchase came from the adjutant-general, which was all the authority he needed. See letter of Adjt-gen. R. Jones to Maj .- gen. D. E. Twiggs, in Schell's Hist. Laramie, MS., 23-7, 37-8.
33 Carlin, Experiences in Wyoming, MS., 5. Major S. P. Moore surgeon, Capt Thomas Duncan comdg co. E, Ist Lieut Daniel P. Woodbury engineer corps, Ist Lieut Thomas G. Rhett, post-adjt quartermaster. On the 26th of July Capt Benjamin S. Roberts, co. C, mounted rifles, 2 officers, and 60 inen joined the post. Wash. L. Elliott was Ist lieut. On the 12th of August 2nd Lieut Levi C. Bootes, co. G, 6th infantry, 2 officers, and 33 men were added to the garrison. They had for transportation an ox train and were three months on the road. The Ist sergeant, Leodgar Schnyder, is still at the fort, where he is ordnance sergeant. Steele, in his Rifle Regiment, MS., 2-3, says that Roberts was in command, which is an error. Steele was a surgeon in the regiment. In the summer of 1850 the mounted rifles, co. left the post, which was garrisoned for a year by a single co., G; 6th infantry. Rev. Richard Vaux was schoolmaster at Fort Laramie from 1850 to 1861. Duncan served with distinction in the civil war, becoming brevet brig .- gen., and was retired in 1873. Rhett, a South Caroliniau, joined the confederate army, as also did Major Moore, where he became surgeon-general. Cochran, Hist. Fort Laramie, MS., 27.
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EARLY EXPLORATIONS.
mounted rifles, and one of 6th infantry, comprising, together, 115 men. Major Sanderson was relieved in October 1850 by Captain William S. Ketchum of the 6th infantry, who commanded until July 1852.3
Ketchum was not happy in his position, and obtained leave of absence, when Lieutenant Garnett of the same regiment took command, retaining it until May 1854, when he was ordered elsewhere, and the
EXPLANATIONS.
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OLD HOSPITAL
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FORT LARAMIE IN 1874.
garrison was reduced from 170 men to a portion of one company and a single officer, 2d Lieutenant Hugh B. Fleming, no reinforcements being sent until Novem- ber, when B and D companies of the 6th infantry, numbering 111, men arrived under Lieutenant Colonel William Hoffman, who assumed command of the post.
Gradual changes had taken place in the appearance of Fort Laramie ; old buildings had been removed and
34 According to Cochran, Ketchum was always in a quarrel with his sub- ordinates. Sanderson died in 1853.
OFFICERSTOR'S
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693
WYOMING.
new ones erected, until 1862, when the present maga- zine was constructed in part out of the adobes used in the old fort. It has been occupied continuously from 1849 to the present, as a military post, and has been the scene of many notable, and some exciting, events. For many years it was the actual capital of a large extent of territory. 33 The history of the further march of the mounted rifle regiment which founded it is fully given in my History of Oregon.
It is not to be supposed that the American Fur company retired from the territory upon the advent of troops. They simply removed to Scott Bluffs, sixty miles distant from their former fort, where they continued to trade with the buffalo hunting Indians for a number of years, and where their presence was influential in the suppression of difficulties between the military and Indians, and in the making of treat- ies. 36 36 Dripps was in charge in 1851.
A trading establishment was also maintained in the immediate vicinity of Fort Laramie by Ward and Guerrier. In fact the trading companies remained upon the ground so long as a skin or a robe could be purchased, or until treaties and annuities had rendered hunting less necessary, and the wars between the aboriginal and invading races had caused the removal of the Indians to reservations.
35 In a communication from Gen. Carlin, col 4th infantry, who was sta- tioned at Fort Laramie when a lieut in the 6th inf. reg., in 1855, I find the names of Bissonette, Baudeau, John Richard, Sr, G. P. Beauvais, Seth E. Ward, post-sutler, and Todd Randall, who lived at or near the fort at that period. Experiences in Wyoming, MS., is Gen. Carlin's contribution to my work. He left the Laranie country in 1858, and caine to Cal., where he was for some time at Benicia. In 1882 he was again for a short time in Wyom- ing at Fort A. D. Russell.
36 Scott Bluffs are a perpetual monument to the tragedy of the death from starvation of a man of that name deserted by his companions on Laramie fork, being too ill to travel, and the whole party without food. He lived to crawl 60 miles, and leave his bones in this place. These bluffs are among the many curious and interesting geological phenomena of the North Platte region, being fantastic shapes in indurated clay and sandstone, having grand architectural effects. Chimey rock and Independence rock, much farther west, have long been famous features in the topography of the country. Independence rock in the Sweetwater valley was thus named from the cir- cumstance of its being ascended by a party who there celebrated the anni- versary of American independence, on the 4th of July,
CHAPTER III.
SETTLEMENT AND GOLD-HUNTING.
1847-1863.
PATHWAY TO THE PACIFIC-COMING OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS-MILITARY
MEN-PROSPECTING FOR GOLD-AN ANGRY ENGLISHMAN-BRIDGER AND HIS FORT -- MORMON WAR-THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS ABANDON WYO- MING-MOVEMENTS OF ARMY FORCES-GOVERNMENT EXPEDITION- ROADS ORDERED OPENED-PLACER GOLD DISCOVERED-THE MORRISITES -INDIAN HOSTILITIES-MILITARY MEN AND FRONTIERSMEN-LEGENDS OF THE WIND RIVER MOUNTAINS-SWIFT PETRIFACTIONS.
IT is remarkable that a section of country more travelled over than any other between the great plains and the Pacific ocean, should have remained unsettled for nearly half a century, the only white men there being traders and military men. The first who came to spy out the land for settlement were men professing a new religion, which their neighbors did not like, who sought to found an empire in the mountains which, in time, should reach to the shores of the Pacific. Their pioneers, headed by Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, numbered 143 men, with a train of seventy-three wagons, which arrived at Fort Laramie June 1, 1847, while it was yet a trading post. Passing on to Great Salt lake, they selected a spot on its border where a city was to be founded, and on the 23d of July plowed the first ground ever broken for seed in all the regions west of the Platte and east of the Sierra Nevada.'
In 1848 passed Brigham Young again with over
1 It is said in the Utah Hand-book of Reference, 65, that Bridger 'consid- ered it impossible to bring a large population into the great basin until it could be ascertained that grain could be raised there. So sanguine was he that it could not be done that he said he would give $1,000 for a bushel of corn produced there.
( 694 )
695
WYOMING.
1,200 men, women, and children, and 397 wagons ; H. C. Kimball with 662 persons and 226 wagons, and W. Richards with 526 persons and 169 wagons. There was a large migration to Oregon also that year, and out of these thousands not one cared to tarry on the North Platte. In 1849 1,400 emigrants for Salt Lake passed Forts Laramie and Bridger, and an unknown great number bound to the gold mines in California.
In this year, also, came Captain H. Stansbury and Lieutenant J. W. Gunnison, who surveyed the valley of Salt lake, by order of the government. And every year thereafter emigration passed beyond, pausing only to purchase supplies. There are indications that at some time, probably after the discovery of gold in California, some persons had turned aside to prospect in the mountain streams, but of their fate nothing definite is known. It is remembered that frequent efforts to discover gold were made by persons passing along the Sweetwater.
The private expedition, in 1854-6, of Sir George Gore, of Sligo, Ireland, from the Missouri river at St Louis to the headwaters of Powder river has been mentioned in my History of Montana. The baronet had forty retainers, fourteen dogs, one hundred and
2 Such a party was one of 300 men from Council Bluffs, led by Capt. Douglas of St Joseph valley, Mich., who in 1852 set out for Cal. At Fort Laramie 30 men left the main company to prospect in the mountains to the north, agreeing to overtake and report to the captain at Humboldt river. Eight of them did overtake the company as promised, reporting that they had found gold upon two streams, which from the description are believed to be Rapid and Spring creeks, in the Black hills, and desiring the company to return to this place. But it was already late in the season, and the Ind- ians along the route were troublesome, which decided the reunited company to push forward to Cal. The 22 men left were never heard from, and were supposed to have perished. Strahorn, Wyoming, Black Hills, etc., 220. In 1876 some prospectors on Battle creek, Black hille region, in an old shaft which they opened, at 20 feet from the surface, under 10 feet of earth, found a shovel and pick, the handles of which were decayed, and the iron much rust-eaten. On the same stream were found a skull, under 3 feet of earth, and near by a pair of silver-bowed spectacles. There were several prospect holes in the vicinity, in some of which trees six inches in diameter were growing. On Whitewood creek a hammer and small poll-pick were found, 15 feet from the surface, and a hatchet in another place, all imbedded in earth and rusting to decay. Whether these were relics of the Council Bluffs party, or some other, will probably never be known.
696
SETTLEMENT AND GOLD-HUNTING.
twelve horses, six wagons, twenty-one carts, and twelve yoke of cattle. He spent the first winter at Fort Laramie, hunting in the vicinity. The following year, procuring James Bridger for a guide, he trav- elled north, making his headquarters on Powder river for a season, after which he built a fort near the mouth of Tongue river, which he occupied until the autumn of 1856, when he left it to return to St Louis. His only object in seeking the mighty solitudes of the heart of the American continent was the gratifi- cation of that savage instinct preserved with so much care by the landed aristocracy of Great Britain, the love of the chase, to secure themselves in the enjoy- ment of which the land is kept from the homeless poor. Whether he grew more savage under this in- dulgence I do not know, but he was furious enough at what he considered the extortion of the North American Fur company, with which he had contracted for boats, to burn all his Indian goods, wagons, and supplies in front of Fort Union, guarding the flames from plunder while they were consumed, and even throwing the irons of the wagons into the Missouri river, rather than pay the price asked for boats. His horses and cattle were sold for little to vagabond white men, or given to the Indians, and having thus cut himself off from any possible return to civilization that year, he wintered in the lodge of a Crow chief at Fort Berthold, purchasing fifty beeves at thirty dollars a head, rather than pay fifty dollars a head for six, which was all he needed. That transaction was purely in accordance with the reasoning of his race. He returned to St Louis by steamboat in 1857.
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