An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 3

Author: Miller, Joaquin, 1837-1913. cn
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1216

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10 Petite Cerise-Choke Cherry.

1.1

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

ment of stones, which they called Beauharnois .* They returned to the Lake of the Woods on the 2d of July.

North of the Assiniboine, they proceeded to Lake Dauphin (Swan's Lake), explored the river "des Biches," and ascended even to the fork of the Saskatchewan, which they called Poskoiac. The two forts were established, one near Lake Dauphin, and the other on the river "des Biches, " called Ft. Bourbon. The northern ronte by the Saskatchewan was thought to have some advantage over the Missouri, because there was no danger of meeting with the Spaniards.

Governor Beanharnois having been prejudiced against Verendrye by envious persons, De Noyelles was appointed to take command of the posts.

During these difficulties, we find the Sieur de la Verendrye, Jr., engaged in other duties. In August, 1747, he arrived from Mackinaw, at Montreal, and in the autumn of that year he accompanies St. Pierre to Mackinaw, and brings back the convoy to Montreal. In February, 1748, with five Canadians, five Knisteneanx, two Ottawas, and one Santeur, he attacked the Mohawks near Schenectady, and returned to Montreal with two scalps, one that of a chief. On June 20, 1748, it is recorded that Chevalier

la Verendrye departed from Montreal for the West Sea. Margry states that he perished at sea, in November, 1761, by the wreck of the "Auguste."

Fortunately, Galissoniere, the successor of Beauharnois, although deformed and insig- nificant in appearance, was fair-ininded, a lover of science-especially botany-and anxious to push discoveries toward the Pacific.

Verendrye, the father, was restored to favor, and made captain of the Order of St. Louis, and ordered to resume explorations. While planning a tour np the Saskatchewan, he died, on December 6, 1749.

The Swedish professor Kalm met him in Canada not long before his decease, and had an interesting conversation with him about the furrows on the plains of Missouri, which he erroneously conjectured indicated the former abode of an agricultural people. These ruts are familiar to modern travelers, and are ouly buffalo trails.

Father Coquard, who had been associated with Verendrye, says that they first met the Mantanes, and next the Brochets.11 After these were the Gros Ventres,12 the Crow's, 13 the Flat-

* Among the papers of the late James Stuart, who was stationed, during the three years preceding his death, at Ft. Browning on Milk river, and Ft. Peck on the Missouri, was found a memorandum, evidently referring to a monu- ment of which he had heard, and of which he made a note for the purpose of tracing it up; but his untimely death occurred before he had the opportunity of doing so- The memorandum reads as follows: "Twenty feet in diameter-on river bluffs-round, and run to point- spaces between the bowlders filled with green grass and weeds." The fact of moss and earth having accumulated in the interstices between the stones, so as to sustain grasa and weeds, would indicate great antiquity, and the Historical Society are instituting inquiries concerning it, in the hope that it may prove to be Verendrye's monu- ment. The Indians ol those regions erect no permanent monuments .- G. S.

11 Perhaps the Brochets or Fish tribe may be the Assiniboines. The Dakotahs call these Hohaya, or Fish- netters. Fish were cooked by heating the water with hot stones.

12 The Gros Ventres and Crows are bands of Min- nelarees, and belong to the Dakotah family. They are found on the tributaries of the upper Missouri and Yellowstone.

The Crows are called Abaarokis, or Upsaroka. The Gros Ventres are said to have formerly lived on the Assiniboine and Red river. Governor Ramsey, of Minnesota, in a report, in 1850, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, says: "The chief of Red Lake Chippeways of Minnesota, some years ago, met a village of Gros Ventres, toward the sources of the Missouri. They learned that the smoke of the Gros Ventres lodges once arose at Sandy Lake, and that they had a large village of earthen houses at the mouth of the Savanna river, which empties into the St. Louis." The Gros Ventres now number six hundred and twenty.

13 The River Crows roam between the Missouri and

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

heads," the Blackfeet,15 and Dogfeet," who were established on the Missouri, even up to the Falls, and that about thirty leagues beyond the rapids they found a norrow pass in the mountains.16

Bongainville gives a more full account. He says: "He who most advanced this discovery was the Sieur de la Veranderie. He went from Ft. La Reine to the Missouri. He met, on the

Marias rivers, and number twelve hundred. The Mountain Crows are in the valley of the Yellowstone, and are estimated at three thousand.

(This is a mistake. The River Crows roam along the Missouri river, from the mouth of the Musselshell to Ft. Benton, and between the Missouri and the Yellowstone rivers. They never go between the Missouri and the Marias, that being in the Blackfoot country .- G. S.)

14 The Flatheads live west of the Rocky Mountains. in the vicinity of Flathead Lake and river. They are estimated to be about nineteen hundred. Are much diminished by wars with the Blackfeet. They hunt for buffalo on the plains east of the mountains.

(This estimate is much too high. There are only a few hundred Flatheads; but possibly it may have included the Pen d'Oreilles, who speak the same language and occupy the same region. But the combined tribes do not reach so high a number. It is probable that Ver- endrye met them on the Judith or Musselshell river, where they frequently go in search of buffalo .-- G. S.)

15 The Blackfeet, or Satiska, are divided into: Bloods, 1,560; Pigeon or Pheasants, 2,450; and Blackfeet, 1,500. Some of the Gros Ventres are now incorporated with them. They are between the Missouri, Sun, and Marias rivers.

* As there is now no such tribe in that region, and has not been since the time of Lewis and Clarke, it is highly probable that the "Dogfeet" were a village of Blackfeet, who took their names from their petty chief. In 1862-63, there was a chief residing near the Great Falls who was known as the "Little Dog."-G. S.

16 The entire sentence, as quoted by Margry in a letter dated July 5, 1875, reads: "Trouvent les Gorges des Missouri entre des Montagnes et le Missouri est la decharge du Lac dont on ne connait pas l'entendue."

Mullan, in a map of a military road from Ft. Benton, on the Missouri, to Ft. Walla-Walla, on the Columbia, marks Flathead lake, whose waters enter the Pacific by the Columbia river, and are very near the sources of the Marias, a tributary of the Missouri.

At the Gate of the Rocky Mountains the Prickly Pear river enters the Missouri, whose headwaters flow through Mullau's Pass, and are not far distant fron the Bitter Root river, whose waters enter the Columbia.

The Madison branch of the Missouri nearly interlocks with the discharge of Yellowstone Lake, and the Jefferson

banks of this river, the Mandans or White Beards, who had seven villages, with fine stockades, strengthened by a ditch. Next to these were the Kinongewiniris, or the Brochets,* in three villages; and toward the upper part of the river were three villages of the Mahantas.17 All along to the north of the Wabiek or Shell river18 were situated twenty-three villages of the Panis.19 To the southwest of this river, on the

Fork is a short distance from the headwaters of the Suake river, a tributary of the Columbia.

(The literal translation of the sentence quoted by Mar- gry would be: "Found the passes of the Missouri between some mountains, and the Missouri is the discharge of the lake of which they know not the extent." This goes to show that they ascended the Missouri as far as the Gates of the Mountains, at the "Bear's Tooth," near Helena, Montana, and ascended the mountains in this vicinity, on tt e 12th of January, 1743. They doubtless got the idea of the Missouri being the outlet of a large lake from the Flatheads, whom they met lower down, and who told them that they went up the river when returning to their country, and that in their country was a very large lake. It also seems from Stoddard's sketches of Louisiana, that from a very early period in the settlement of Canada and the Atlantic States, the idea prevailed that among the "Shining Mountains" (the Rocky Mountains were first called by this name because of the glittering snow upon them), in the direction of the upper Missouri, was a great lake, whose shores were inhabited by a fair people, and where were many wonders.

Neither the Prickly Pear, the Missouri, nor any other stream, flows through Mullan's Pass, or any of the passes of the main range; they do, however, pass through spurs that put out from the main divide, and in doing so have formed many magnificent cañons and gorges. Many of the passes in the Rocky Mountains are but little lower than the main chain ou either side of them, but owe their name mostly to the peculiarly favorable nature of the approaches to them on both sides .- G. S.)

* Assiniboines.

17 The Mahas, or Omahas, on De L'Isle's map of Louisiana, are marked as near the Aiouez (anglicized, Iowas). They live now on the Missouri, in eastern Nebraska, and number about one thousand.

(This note would convey the impression that the Mahantas were the Omahas, which is evidently not the case ; for Lewis and Clarke, in 1804, found a village of Gros Ventres called "Mahaha," at the mouth of Knife river, above old Ft. Clark, and these are doubtless the "Mahantas" of Verendrye .- MONT. HIST. Soc.)

18 Perhaps the Musselshell river of modern maps.

19 The Pawnees, on De L'Isle's map, are marked on the Missouri, and on Panis, now Platte, river. Jeffreys, on his map, marks a tribe west of Lake Winnipeg, called

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

banks of the Quanaradeba, or La Graisse,20 are the Hectanes or Snake tribe.2 They extend to the base of a chain of mountains which run north-northeast. South of this is the river Karoskion, or Cerise Pelee, which is supposed to flow to California.22

He found, in the immense region watered by the Missouri, and in the vicinity, the Mahantas, the Owiliniock or Beaux Hommes, four villages; opposite the Brochets the Blackfeet, three villages, of a hundred lodges each; opposite the Mandans are the Ospekakaerenousques or Flat- heads, four villages; opposite the Panis are the Arcs or Knisteneaux and Utasibaoutchactas of Assiniboel, three villages; following these the Makesch or Little Foxes, two villages; the Piwassa or Great Talkers; three villages; the Kakokoschena or Gens de la Pie, five villages; the Kiskipisounouini or the Garter tribe, seven villages.

Galissoniere was succeeded by Jonquiere in the governorship of Canada, who proved to be

a grasping, peevish, and very miserly person. For the sons of Verendrye he had no sympathy, and forming a clique to profit by their father's toils, he determined to send two expeditions toward the Pacific ocean-one by the Missonri and the other by the Saskatchewan.

Father Coquard, one of the companions of Verendrye, was consulted as to the probability of finding a pass in the Rocky mountains, through which they might, in canocs, reach the great lake of salt water, perhaps Puget's Sound.

The enterprise was at length confined to two experienced officers -- Lamarque de Marin and Jacques Legardeur de Saint Pierre.23 The former was assigned the way by the Missouri, and the latter was given the more northern route; but Saint Pierre in some way excited the hostility of the Knisteneaux, who attempted to kill him, and burned Ft. La Reine. His lieutenant, Boucher de Niverville,24 who had been sent to establish a post toward the source of the Saskatchewan, failed on account of sickness.

"Cria Panis Blanc." Drake speaks of White Pawnee,s and Pawnees of the Platte. They now number about eighteen hundred, and dwell on a reservation on a branch of the Platte, in Nebraska.

(Lewis and Clarke say that the Mandans call the Aricarees, Pawnees; and this is correct, because they both speak the same language. Therefore, it was Aricarees that Verendrye found near the Musselshell river. G. S.)

20 La Graisse. There is a shrub called Grease-bush, like the currant bush, from which the Indians of the upper Missouri used to make arrow shafts. In the Wind River valley is Greasewood creek. Ounaradeba, per- baps derived from the Dakotah wasna (ouasna) grease, and watpa (ouadeba) river.

(This river, Ounaradeba, is most probably Wind river. A portion of the Snake Indians have lived there from time immemorial .- MONT. IlIST. Soc.)

21 The Snakes are known as Shoshonees, Bonacka, or Diggers. The Hictans, Padoucas, or Comanches of Texas, as well as the Utahs, are offshoots of this nation. In De L'Isle's map, the Padoucas are marked as dwelling from the upper Missouri to the Arkansas. About eighteen hundred Shoshonees are on a reservation in Wind River valley, Wyoming, and fifteen hundred are about Ft. Ilall or Snake river, in Idaho.

(The Bonacks are a distinct tribe, whose language bears no analogy to the Snake. There are Digger Snakes and Digger Bonacks. It is supposed that the Comanches and Shoshonees were once one tribe, but the Utahs are a different tribe, and speak a different language .- G. S.)

22 Near the southern sources of the Missouri are found the headwaters of the Colorado, whose mouth is in the Gulf of California.

(The river Karoskiou, or Cerise Pelee (peeled cherry), is most probably what is now known as Green river, which is the most northern, and also the longest branch of the Colorado.)

23 St. Pierre, in 1737, was stationed at Ft. Beauharnois, on Lake Pepin. The Jesuit Conquard, the old associale of Verendrye, was present in September, 1755, at the battle near Lake George, aud in a letter to his brother, aays : "We lost on that occasion a brave officer, M. de St. Pierre."

" Boucher de Niverville, in 1746, lett Montreal to annoy the New England seulements, and returned in May with John Spafford and Israel Parker prisoners. In 1746, he attacked the stockade al Fall Mountain, Charlestown, New Ilampshire, and during this raid burned three churches. In August, 1748, he was alarm- ing the people at Williamstown, Ft. Massachusetts.

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

Some of his men, however, pushed ou to the Rocky mountains, and in 1753 established Ft. Jonquiere. In Henry's Travels he says that Saint Pierre established Ft. Bourbon.

In 1753, Saint Pierre was succeeded in the command of the posts of the West by De la Corne, and sent to French creek, in Penn- sylvania. He had been but a few days there when he received a visit from Washington, just entering upon manhood, bearing a letter from Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, complaining of the encroachments of the French. *

Three years later, he is burning houses and capturing horses in Virginia, on the banks of the Potomac, fifteen leagues from Ft. Cumberland. He is next at the siege of Ft. William Henry, and then with Montcalm, in his contest with Wolfe.

* From the general tenor of the foregoing narrative, the Historical Society is inclined to believe that the route pursued by Verendrye was as follows:

Starting from Ft. La Reine, on the Assiniboine river, they went up Mouse river in a southerly direction, and then crossed over to the Missouri a little below where is now Ft. Berthold. They then ascended the Missouri as far as the Gates of the Mountains, where the river breaks through the Belt range (uear Ilelena, Montana), and as- cended those mountains on the 1st of January, 1743. Thence they passed np Deep or Smith's river, and over to the head of the Mussleshell, and from there they went south to the Yellowstone, crossing which they went up Pryor's fork, and through Prior's Gap, to Stinking river, which they crossed, and continuing on south, came among the Snake Indians, on Wind river, who told them that on the south side of Wind River Mountains was the river Karoskiou (Kanaraogwa, in the modern Snake tongue), now called Green river. The Snakes also told them they would be killed if they tried to go any farther south, because war parties of the Sans Arcs band of Sioux, heredi- tary enemies of the Snakes, were always watching abont the South Pass, to kill and plunder them as they passed to and from Green river, where lived another band of the Suake tribe. Ilere the party turned back, and, "on the 19th of May, 1744, they had returned to the upper Mis- souri, and in the Petite Cerise ( Choke Cherry') country they planted on an eminence a leaden plate of the arms of France, and raised a monument of stones, which they called Beauharnois." This proves that they were about a year making this southern trip; but whether they returned by the way they went or not, can not be determined, as there is no tribe known as the "Choke Cherries " now in that region, and the fruit itself grows all over the Upper Missouri country. After erecting the monument they doubtless descended the Missouri to where they first

The first reliable + navigator who approached as nearly as may be to Montana by way of the high seas was Captain James Cook, the Eng- lish discoverer who lost his life at the hands of the Kanakas, or "cannibals" so called, soon after his voyage to the extreme north in 1779.

True, the Spaniards and the Portuguese had pushed far north years before; but perhaps not so far north or so near to Montana, in an air line, as this intrepid Englishman. True, also, it is that the Russians, during the reign of Peter the Great, pushed their way through

struck it on their outward journey, and from there returned by the way of Mouse river and the Assiniboine, to the Lake of the Woods, where they arrived on the 2d of July, 1744 .- G. S.

Of course no one assumes to say what is fact or what is fiction here, but no man can read these lines of Verendrye without admiration .- J. M.

+ Doubtless the bold Spanish navigators knew these northern natives well long before, even centuries before; and the Portuguese also; but in their mad and de- structive adventures in search of gold they paid little heed to scientific discovery ; and romance trenches so closely on truth that we are loth to give them any great reliance. Still, we know from the names Cape Blanco, Straits of Fuca and the Oregon, which remain fixed on the country to this day and are found in the romances of Spain and Portugal written centuries ago, that their ships ran here before those of the exact and reliable Briton.

There is, or was in 1859, a copper plate near the sea shore of one of the principal Sandwich islands bearing this inscription:

. IN MEMORY OF CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, R. N., WHO DISCOVERED THESE ISLANDS IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1778. THIS HUMBLE MONUMENT IS ERECTED BY HIS FELLOW COUNTRYMEN IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1825.

The plate is, or was when I saw it, fastened near the top of a piece of mast which rises about ten feet above a monument of lava, reared by Lord Byron.

In 1878 I saw unveiled in London a heroic figure in bronze of this great navigator, who fell at the cruel hands of the Kanakas. The statue stands facing that of General Outram, of India fame, at the entrance of the Athenaum Club, Pall Mall.

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

Kamtchatka and took possession of a region not so very remote from Montana toward the last of the sixteenth century. Trne, Behring passed the straits which bear his name in 1741. Trne it is, also, that Sir Francis Drake navigat- ed and named bays and inlets north of the ut- most claimn of Spain, if we except Cape Blanco; but it was left for Captain Cook, so far as we ean say positively, to point his ship's prow to- ward the mountains of Montana and break the hush of ice-bound seas as nearly under the beetling banks of Montana as ocean ships have ever sailed or ever shall sail. Yet it is worthy of mention that the French made land in 1785 near Mount St. Elias, and a few years later opened trade with the Indians.

It may be of interest to relate, also, that Hudson entered the bay which bears his name a century and a half before; but how far he penetrated those drear inland seas we may not know certainly. We know that his courage cost him his life, and possibly he broke the silence of this lonely and deserted inland sea far ont toward the rock-built battlements of this now mighty mountain empire.

It is not folly to say that destiny seemed pointing men toward these mountains of gold almost from the first discoveries. Spanish, French, English, Portuguese and Russian,-all sent ships here and there, hovering like mighty birds along sea bank and bay. Then the new man, the wondrous explorer and world-builder, was born of it all.

Two things constantly tower above all others and fill the mind as we approach and contem- plate the story of Montana. First, after all the search and research for the road to India, be- ginning even before the first voyage of Colum- bus, when King John of Portugal took his brief saif to the West, the one only direct way

to India and China was found by passing through what is now Montana, np the Mis- souri and down the Columbia. Then, after all the mad, persistent search for gold, during nearly four hundred years, the richest deposit of gold yet discovered on the globe was found in the heart of Montana at the heads of the great rivers of this continent. Expedition after expedition went ont under the gandy banner of Spain from the carliest conquest of the Montezumas in search of the fabled cities of gold for a full generation. Yet here in Montana lay all the time, as they had lain for ages, not cities, but literally mountains of gold ! These two things, the two most important in the commercial his- tory of the earth, certainly lend a Inster and a brilliant attraction to what lies before ns, above all other things in all this constellation of States, and we can but approach the subject with eager impatience and boundless exultation.

How many brave men went ont to search for the way to India! How many ships ! The very catalogue would fill a volume. Magellan, in the "Ancient Mariner," is supposed to say,

" We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea."

And the ships that followed, breaking the dreadful hush of a thousand centuries on south- ern seas or northern seas, up to the time when Benton arose in the Senate, and, pointing to the snow-walled passes of Montana, cried to his peers: " Yonder in the West lies the East; there lies the path to India !"

First, then, in contemplating the search for the northwest passage, divest your mind of the idea that Montana is backed and banked against a desolate north. The truth is, Montana is in the heart of this continent, so far as fertility and product of soil is concerned. Geographi- cally, she is ahnost entirely central. She is

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

hardly full half way to the farthest northwest of the United States of America, reckoning from Plymouth Rock.

As for the resources of the northwest of the continent to the north of Montana, they can hardly be estimated. They are simply bound- less. When the new India, which England has latterly brought into competition with Califor- nia and other wheat ports of the world, has put off her garments of gold and lain down to rest, the Red river and other rivers to the north will take up and wear the yellow mantle of Ceres as it was never worn before, and the world will be fed as it has never yet been fed. For the wheat- fields of the north have only to-day been dis- covered, as the gold fields of Montana were only yesterday discovered.

Let us take up one single book, the first of a dozen ponderous tomes on this theme to be found in the Sutro library at San Francisco. Let us take the very first paragraph in this book of discoveries: we can do no more now. This one opening paragraph will show that Montana is not new. The trappers of Alexander Mackenzie and his followers tracked every stream of Montana from foot to head fully a quarter of a century be- fore the Government of the United States took formal possession of the land; but "they left no sign." Mackenzie, the geographer of the British Fur Company, personally led to the northern ocean. He was discovering lakes, mountains; he was naming rivers that rolled away toward the North Pole.

If you will contemplate the distance of Santa Fe from the capital of Montana and then locate a wheat center as far away toward the North Pole, you may fix some partial idea in your mind of the room and richness to the north of Montana. But here is the opening paragraph

referred to, and with this we must end, so far as he and his massive book of expeditions to the north of Montana is concerned, as he sought in vain for the northwest passage to the sea of seas.

"The fur trade, from the earliest settlement of Canada, was considered of the first import- ance to the colony. The country was then so populous that, in the vicinity of the establish- ments, the animals whose skins were precious in a commercial view, soon became scarce, if not altogether extinct. They were, it is true, hunted on former fields, but merely for food and clothing. The Indians, therefore, to pro- cure the necessary supply, were encouraged to penetrate into the country, and were generally accompanied by some of the Canadians, who found means to induce the remotest tribes of natives to bring the skins which were most in demand, to the settlements, in the way of trade."-Mackenzie's Voyages, vol. 1, 1.

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An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 3

Author: Miller, Joaquin, 1837-1913. cn Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis pub. co. Number of Pages: 1216

Author: Miller, Joaquin, 1837-1913. cn
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1216