USA > Idaho > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 67
USA > Montana > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 67
USA > Washington > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 67
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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604
NATURAL WEALTH AND SETTLEMENT.
pany, and all foreign-born except the half-breeds. These men seldom had any trouble with the Indians,
At the same time the Cœur d'Alene mission was equally prosperous. It was situated on the Cœur d'Alene River, ten miles above Cœur d'Alene Lake. Here about 200 acres were enclosed and under cultivation; mission buildings, a church, a flour-mill run by horse-power, 20 cows, 8 yokes of oxen, 100 pigs, horses, and mules, constituted a prosperous settlement. About both of these establishments the Indians were gathered in villages, enjoying with the mis- sionaries the abundance which was the reward of their labors. The mission of St Mary in 1846 consisted of 12 houses, neatly built of logs, a church, a small mill, and other buildings for farm use; 7,000 bushels of wheat, between 4,000 and 5,000 bushels of potatoes, and vegetables of various kinds were produced on the farm, which was irrigated by two small streams running through it. The stock of the establishment consisted of 40 head of cattle, some horses, and other animals. Then comes the old story. The condition of the Indians was said to be greatly ameliorated. They no longer suffered from famine, their children were tanght, the women were shielded from the barbarous treatment of their husbands, who now assumed some of the labor formerly forced upon their wives and daughters, and the latter were no longer sold by their parents. But alas for human schemes of happiness or philan- throphy ! When the Flatheads took up the cross and the ploughshare they fell victims to the diseases of the white race. When they no longer made war on their enemies, the Blackfoot nation, these implacable foes gave them no peace. They stole the horses of the Flatheads until they had none left with which to hunt buffalo, and in pure malice shot their beef-cattle to pre- vent their feeding themselves at home, not refraining from shooting the owners whenever an opportunity offered. By this system of persecution they finally broke up the establishment of St Mary in 1850, the priests find- ing it impossible to keep the Indians settled in their village under these cir- cumstances. They resumed their migratory habits, and the fathers having no protection in their isolation, the mission buildings were sold to John Owen, who, with his brother Francis, converted them into a trading-post and fort, and put the establishment in a state of defence against the Blackfoot ma- rauders.
In 1853-4 the only missions in operation were these of the Sacred Heart at Cœur d'Alene, of St Ignatius at Kalispel Lake, and of St Paul at Colville, though certain visiting stations were kept up, where baptisms were performed periodically. Iu 1854, after the Stevens exploring expedition had made the country somewhat more habitable by treaty talks with the Blackfoot and other tribes, Hoeken, who seems nearly as indefatigable as De Smet, selected a site for a new mission, 'not far from Flathead Lake, and about fifty miles from the old mission of St Mary.' Here he erected during the summer several frame buildings, a chapel, shops, and dwellings, and gathered about him a camp of Kootenais, Flathows, Pend d'Oreilles, Flatheads, and Kalis- pels. Rails for fencing were eut to the number of 18,000, a large field put under cultivation, and the mission of St Ignatius in the Flathead country be- came the successor of St Mary. In the new 'reduction,' the fathers were assisted by the officers of the exploring expedition, and especially by Lieut Mullan, who wintered in the Bitterroot Valley in 1854-5. In return, the fathers assisted Gov. Stevens at the treaty-grounds, and endeavored to con- trol the Cœur d'Alenes and Spokanes in the troubles that immediately fol- lowed the treaties of 1855, of which I have given an account elsewhere. Sub- sequently the mission in the Bitterroot Valley was revived, and the Flatheads were taught there until their removal to the reservation at Flathead Lake, which reserve included St Ignatius mission, where a school was first opened in 1863 by Father Urbanus Grassi. In 1838 the missionaries at the Flathead missions had 300 more barrels of flour than they could consume, which they sold to the forts of the American Fur Co. on the Missouri, and the Indians
605
INDIAN TROUBLES
with whom they traded and dwelt, and among whom they took wives.19 They were protected against the Blackfoot tribe by the Flatheads, whom they assisted, in their turn, to resist the common foe. But there was not the same security for other white residents. In 1853 John and Francis Owen, who bought the building of St Mary's mission, and established them- selves, as they believed, securely in the Bitterroot Valley, were unable to maintain themselves longer against the warlike and predatory nation from the east side of the Rocky Mountains, and set out with their herds to go to Oregon, leaving their other prop- erty at the mercy of the savages. They had not proceeded far when they were met by a detachment of soldiers under Lieutenant Arnold, of the Pacific division of the government exploring expedition in charge of I. I. Stevens, coming to establish a depot of supplies in the Bitterroot Valley for the use of the exploring parties which were to winter in the mountains. This fortunate circumstance enabled them to return and resume their settlement and occupations.20
Since the explorations of Lewis and Clarke, no gov- ernment expedition had followed the course of the
cultivated fifty farms, averaging five acres each. In their neighborhood were also two saw-mills. In 1871 the mission church of St Ignatius was pro- nounced the 'finest in Montana,' well furnished, and capable of holding 500 persons, while the mission farm produced good crops'and was kept in good order. In addition to the former school, the Sisters of Notre Dame had two houses at this mission. At St Peter's mission on the Missouri, in 1868, farm- ing had been carried on with much success.
It cannot be said, although no high degree of civilization among the sav- ages followed their efforts, that De Smet and his associates were not fearless explorers and worthy pioneers, who at least prepared the way for civilization, and the first to test the capability of the soil and climate of Montana for sus- taining a civilized population. The last mention I have made of the superior of the Flathead mission left him at St Ignatius in the summer of 1845. He travelled thereafter for several years more among the northern tribes, and vis- ited Idaho and Montana, finally returning to his college at St Louis, where he ended his industrious life in May 1873, after the ground he had trod first as a settler was occupied by men of a different faith with far different motives.
19 Louis Brown, still living in Missoula co. in 1872, was one of these. He identified himself with the Flatheads, and made his home among them. Deer Lodge New Northwest, March 9, 1872. See also H. Misc. Doc., 59, 33d cong. Ist sess.
20 Ballou's Adventures, MS., 13; Pac. R. R. Rept, i. 257.
606
NATURAL WEALTH AND SETTLEMENT.
Missouri in Montana, if we except some geological researches by Evans, until the railroad survey under Stevens was ordered; and to this expedition, more
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than to any other cause, may the gold discoveries in Idaho and Montana, and the ultimate rapid settle- ment of the country, be credited.21 Stevens left at
21 Stevens' party, charged with the scientific object of the expedition, con- sisted of Capt. J. W. T. Gardiner, Ist drag .; Lieut A. J. Donelson, corps of engineers, with ten sappers and miners; Lieut Beekman du Barry, 3d art .; Lieut Cuvier Grover, 4th art .; Lieut John Mullan, 2d art .; Isane F. Osgood, disbursing agent; J. M. Stanley, artist; George Suckley, surgeon and nat- uralist; F. W. Lander and A. W. Tinkham, assist eng .; John Lambert topog- rapher; George W. Stevens, William M. Graham, and A. Remenyi, in charge of astronomical and magnetic observations; Joseph F. Moffett, meteorologist; John Evans, geologist; Thomas Adams, Max Strobel, Elwood Evans, F. H. Burr, and A. Jekelfaluzy, aids; and T. S. Everett, quartermaster aud com- missary's clerk. Pac. R. R. Rept, xii. 33.
607
DOTY, GROVER, AND MULLAN.
Fort Benton, and west of there along the line of ex- ploration in Montana in the winter of 1853-4, one of his assistants, James Doty, to study under Alexander Culbertson the character and feelings of the Indian tribes of the mountains, preparatory to a council of treaty with the Blackfoot nation; Lieutenant Grover, to observe the different passes, with regard to snow, during the winter; and Lieutenant Mullan, to explore
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for routes in every direction. These officers and Mr Doty seemed to have failed in nothing. Mullan trav- elled nearly a thousand miles, crossing the divide of the Rocky Mountains six times from October to January, passing the remainder of the winter at Cantonment Stevens in the Bitterroot Valley, Grover on the 2d of January left Fort Benton, crossing the Rocky Moun- tains by Cadotte's pass on the 12th, and finding the cold severe, the temperature by day being 21° below zero. On the 16th, being on very elevated ground, at sunrise the mercury stood at 38° below zero. In the Hellgate and Bitterroot valleys it was still from 10° to 20° below zero, which was cold weather
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608
NATURAL WEALTH AND SETTLEMENT.
even for the mountains. On the 30th he left Fort Owen for Walla Walla, having warmer weather, but finding more snow from Thompson prairie on Clarke fork to Lake Pend d'Oreille than in the Rocky Mountains, and arriving at Walla Walla on the 2d of March.
Meantime Stevens had gone to Washington city to advocate the building of the Northern Pacific rail- road and the construction of a preliminary wagon-road
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from Fort Benton to Fort Walla Walla. On receiv- ing the reports of Grover and Mullan the following spring, he directed Mullan and Doty to continue their explorations, and their efforts to promote peace among the natives, especially between the Blackfoot and Flathead tribes. Of the temporary failure of the scheme of a wagon-road, through the combination of the southern tribes for war in 1855, the narrative has been given. After the subjugation of the natives, Mullan was permitted to take charge of this highway, which played its part in the early history of the set- tlement of Montana, and its trade and travel. The road was first advocated as a military necessity to
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609
ROUTES TO MONTANA.
save time and money in moving troops across the continent, and shortening land travel for the annual immigrations. The rumored discovery of gold in some places22 along the route, with the natural spreading-out of the mining population, attracted first to the British Columbia and Colville mines, together with the requirements for the transportation of mili- tary stores during the Indian war, completed the chain of sequences which led up to actual immigra- tion23 and settlement.
One of the projects of Stevens and Mullan was to induce owners of steamboats in St Louis to send their boats, which had never run above Fort Union,24 up the Missouri as far as Fort Benton. The Robert Campbell, in which a part of Stevens' expedition as- cended the Missouri, advanced seventy miles above Fort Union in 1853, when her course was arrested by sand bars.25
22 Gold Creek was named by Mullan, because Lander, it is said, found gold there. Mullan's Mil. Road Rept, 138.
23 There was an expedition by Sir George Gore, of Sligo in Ireland, to Montana, in 1854-6, simply for adventure. Gore had a retinue of 40 men, with 112 horses, 14 dogs, 6 wagons, and 21 carts. The party left St Louis in 1854, wintering at Laramie, Securing the services of James Bridger as guide, the following year was spent on the Powder River, the winter being passed in a fort, which was built by Sir George, eight miles above the mouth of the river. At this place he lost one of his men by illness-the only one of the party who died during the three years of wandering life. In the spring of 1856 Gore sent his wagons overland to Fort Union, and himself, with a por- tion of his command, descended the Yellowstone to Fort Union in two flat- boats. At the fort he contracted for the construction of two mackinaw boats, the fur company to take payment in wagons, horses, etc., at a stipulated price. But a quarrel arose on the completion of the boats, Sir George insist- ing that the company were disposed to take advantage of his remoteness from civilization to overcharge him, and in his wrath he refused to accept the mackinaws, burning his wagons and goods in front of the fort, and selling or giving away his horses and cattle to Indians and vagabond white men rather than have any dealings with the fur company. Having satisfied his choler, his party broke up, and he, with a portion of his followers, proceeded on his flat-boats to Fort Berthold, where he remained until the spring of 1857, when he returned to St Louis by steamer. Among those of the party remaining in the country was Henry Bostwick, from whom this sketch was obtained by F. George Heldt, who contributed it to the archives of the Hist. Soc. Montana, 144-8.
24 The first steamboat to arrive at Fort Union was the Yellowstone, which reached there in 1832. After that, each spring a steamer brought a cargo of the American Fur Co.'s goods to the fort; but the peltries were still shipped to St Louis by the mackinaw boats of the company. Stuart, Con. Hist. Soc. Montana, 84.
25 The Robert Campbell had a double engine, was 300 tons burden, and HIST. WASH~39
610
NATURAL WEALTH AND SETTLEMENT.
In 1858 and 1859 a steamer belonging to the firm of Chouteau & Co. of St Louis ascended to Fort Benton and Fort Brulé,26 to test the practicability of navigating the Missouri, in connection with the mili- tary road, the construction of which was commenced in the latter year. In 1860 the further test was made
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TRADING FORTS, 1807-1850.
of sending three hundred soldiers, under Major Blake, recruits to the army in eastern Washington and Oregon, to Fort Walla Walla by the Missouri River route and the Mullan road, which was so far completed that wagons passed over it in August of
drew about 5 feet of water. She had been a first-class packet on the Mis- souri, and was too deep for the navigation above Fort Union. Pac. R. R. Rept, xii. 80, 82. Lieutenant Saxton, in his report, describes the keel-boat (mackinaw) in which he descended the Missouri from Fort Benton to Leaven- worth as 80 feet long, 12 feet wide, with 12 oars, and drawing 18 inches of water. In this he travelled over 2,000 miles between the 22d of Sept, and the 9th of Nov., 1853, his duty being to return to St Louis the 17 dragoons and employés of the quartermaster's department, who had escorted the Stevens expedition to Fort Benton.
26 It is usually stated that the first steamer to reach Fort Benton was the Chippewa, in 1859. Or. Argus, Sept. 17, 1859; Con. Ilist. Soc. Montana, 317; but Mullan, in his Military Road Rept, 21, says that stcamboats arrived at Fort Benton in 1858 and 1859.
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611
DISCOVERY OF GOLD.
that year, conveying the troops from Fort Benton to their destination.27 By the time the road was quite finished, which was not until September 1862, such changes had taken place with respect to the require- ments of travel that a portion of it was relocated; but its existence was of great temporary benefit to the whole country.28
The time had now approached when this montane region could no longer remain the common ground of Indian tribes and white traders, where a travelling party was a notable event, and a steamboat a surprise. The genii of the mountains could no longer hide their secrets, and their storehouses once invaded, all was turmoil.
The existence of gold in Montana was not unknown to the Jesuit fathers, but they had other motives than the gathering of earthly treasure, and they would not risk the souls of their 'dear Indians' for the glitter- ing metal. As early as 1852 a half-caste from the Red River settlements, named François Finlay, but known as Benetsee, and who had been to California, prospected on a branch of the Hellgate River, finding the color, but no paying placers. The stream became known as Benetsee Creek; but in 1853 a member of the railroad exploring expedition took out of this stream, being ignorant of Finlay's discovery, some specimens of gold, from which circumstance it was called Gold Creek by the men of the expedition, which name it retained. But the government officers were no more gold-seekers than the fathers, and the dis- covery was passed over with brief comment. Similar indications had been observed by Evans of the geo- logical survey, and by McClellan's party in the We-
27 The Chippewa and the Key West brought the soldiers to Fort Benton.
28 After Gov. Stevens and Lient Mullan, the persons most intimately con- nected with the building of a wagon-road through the mountain ranges of Montana, then eastern Washington, were W. W. De Lacy and Conway R. Howard, civil engineers; Sohon and Engle, topographers; Weisner and Koleeki, astronomers; W. W. Johnson, James A. Mullan, and Lieut J. L. White, H. B. Lyon, and James Howard, of the 3d U. S. art.
612
NATURAL WEALTH AND SETTLEMENT.
natchee country, at the eastern base of the Cascade Mountains, hundreds of miles west of Deer Lodge Valley, and no one thought much about it.
But the time had come when the knowledge must be forced upon the world; and there appeared one day in 1857 at Fort Benton an unknown mountaineer with a buckskin sack full of yellow dust, for which he requested the agent, Culbertson, to give him in ex- change $1,000 worth of goods. Culbertson was not an expert in judging of gold-dust, never having been a miner, and but for the intercession of his clerk, Ray, would have declined the proffered treasure. On the representations of the latter, but still in some doubt, he accepted this, to him, singular currency, charging the transaction to his private account. In due time the gold was minted and produced over $1,500. Then the agent at Fort Benton would gladly have known more of his customer, who had divulged neither his name nor the locality of his mine. It happened, however, that Mercure, an old resident of Fort Ben- ton, who had been present at this transaction, after- ward met the first Montana miner, when both were digging for the precious metal, and learned that his name was Silverthorne. Further information it was said no one ever gathered from the solitary creature, and in a few years he disappeared from the territory; but whether he died or returned to friends in the east, was never revealed. Such was the story. Silver- thorne was undoubtedly the first, and for several years the only, miner in the Rocky Mountains.29 But except that he was reticent concerning the source of his gold supply, there is no mystery about him more than about many other mountain men. In 1859 he was in the Bitterroot Valley, and his name was John, . as I shall show further on.
The first party to undertake to prove the truth of certain rumors concerning gold placers in the then unorganized castern limits of Washington, and the
29 James H. Bradley, in Deer Lodge New Northwest, Oct. 8, 1875.
613
THE STUART BROTHERS.
western part of Dakota, was one of which James Stuart was the leading spirit. In the spring of 1857 James and Granville Stuart, brothers, left Yreka, California, to pay a visit to their former home in Iowa,30 in company with Reece Anderson and eight other persons. Granville Stuart being seized with a severe illness when the company had progressed as far as Malade Creek, a branch of Bear River, they en- camped for ten days at the place of Jacob Meeks, a mountain man and Indian trader. At the end of that time, Stuart not having recovered, the eight proceeded on their journey, leaving the two brothers and Anderson on the Malade. By the time the sick man could ride, all the roads leading to the states were patrolled by Mormon troops, then at war with the United States, and the Stuarts decided not to place themselves in the power of the Latter-day Saints, but to join some mountain men, who traded with the annual immigrations at different points, and who were intending to winter in the Beaverhead and Bighole valleys, east of the Rocky Mountains.31
30 The Stuart brothers were natives of Va. James was born March 14, 1832. His parents removed to Ill. in 1836, and two years later to Muscatine, Iowa. The country being new, the only education James received was from his parents, supplemented by a year of study at a private school taught at Iowa City by James Harlan, afterward U. S. senator. In 1852 the brothers immigrated to Cal. in company with their father, who returned in 1853, leav- ing them in the mines in the northern part of that state. From 1857 their history belongs to Montana, where they became prominent citizens, and where James died Sept. 30, 1873. Con. Hist. Soc. Montana, 36-79; Helena Rocky Mountain Gazette, Oct. 8, 1873.
31 The place of the Bighole River camp was a short distance below where Brown's bridge later stood. Here were encamped Jacob Meeks, our adven- turers, Robert Dempsey and family, Jackson Antoine Leclaire and family, and Oliver and Michacl Leclaire 'and family,' meaning an Indian woman and half-caste children. Within a radius of 25 miles were the following H. B. Co. and other traders: Richard Grant, Sr, and family, John F. Grant and family, James C. Grant, Thomas Pambrun and family, Louis R. Maillet, John M. Jacobs and family, Robert Harcford, John Morgan, John W. Powell, John Saunders, Mr Ross, Antoine Pourrier, several employés of Hereford and the Grants whose names have been lost, Antoine Courtoi and family, and a Delaware Indian named James Simonds who was also a trader. The Indians sold horses, furs, and dressed skins; and the white men paid them: for a horse, two blankets, one shirt, a pair of cloth leggings, a knife, a small mirror, a paper of vermilion, and perhaps some other trifles; for a dressed deer skin, from 15 to 20 balls; for an elk skin, from 20 to 25 balls, and powder; for an antelope skin, 5 to 10 balls; for a beaver skin, 20 to 25 balls; for a pair of good moccasons, 10 halls. Con. Hist. Soc. Montana, 38-9.
614
NATURAL WEALTH AND SETTLEMENT.
There were ten adults and a number of half-breed children in the camp, and within a radius of twenty- five miles a number of similar communities. Late in December, while they were in Bighole Valley, their encampment was enlarged by the addition of ten volunteers from Johnston's headquarters at Fort Bridger, commanded by B. F. Ficklin, and guided by Ned Williamson,32 a noted mountaineer, their errand being to purchase beef for the army.33 But not being able to obtain cattle on the terms offered, and fearing to return across the high divide in midwinter, the detachment remained in Bighole Valley until early spring, when they returned to Fort Bridger, expe- riencing many hardships on their journey, owing to the scarcity of game and the inclemency of the weather.
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