USA > Oklahoma > A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. I > Part 9
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Maj. William Bradford, of the Rifle Regiment, under whose direc- tion Fort Smith was established.3
In 1820 Major Long ascended the Missouri River to the mouth of the Platte. He then followed the course of the Platte to the base of the Rocky Mountains. Thence he marched southward to the Arkansas River, where a part of the expeditionary force was detached under the command of Capt. J. R. Bell, an artillery officer, to descend the Arkansas and meet Major Long at Fort Smith. Major Long then continued his journey in a southerly direction until he came to the valley of the Canadian River, in Eastern New Mexico. This, he presumed to be the headwaters of the Red River of Louisiana, which Captain Pike had planned to explore fifteen years before. He therefore followed the course of the Canadian to its confluence with the Arkansas before he discovered his mis- take. His journey across Oklahoma was made during the months of August and September, 1820, following the divide between the Canadian and the North Fork of the Canadian most of the way.
Like Major Long, Captain Bell's detachment traveled with saddle horses and pack animals. The route followed was on the north bank of the Arkansas River all the way. His journal is even more interesting than that of Major Long because it includes more in the way of detail and incident. He saw small fields of corn along the valley in Oklahoma which he presumed to have been planted and cultivated by the Osage Indians. He also tells of visiting the trading post of Hugh Glenn, which was situated on the Verdigris River, a mile above its mouth. Unfortunately, three of the soldiers of his command deserted, each taking one of his best horses, and, what was a much more serious loss, the saddle-bags which con- tained much of the data, scientific notes and other important infor- mation which had been gathered and recorded by the expedition. Captain Bell arrived at Fort Smith several days in advance of Major Long.
NUTTALL'S TRAVELS IN OKLAHOMA
Thomas Nuttall, the English naturalist, ascended the Arkansas River to Fort Smith in the late winter and early spring of 1819.
3 The report of Major Long's Expedition through Southern Arkansas, Northern Louisiana and Southeastern Oklahoma, in 1817, unfortunately has never been published with those of his other explorations in the West, though a number of references are made to it and the route traversed is indicated on the general map which accompanied the published report of the other expeditions.
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After spending several weeks at the post, he accompanied a military expedition to the valley of the Red River. The expeditionary force consisted of one company of soldiers and was under the command of Maj. William Bradford, who was the post commandant at Fort Smith. The route followed was in a southwesterly direction, up the valley of the Poteau and thence across the divide to the headwaters of the Kiamitia, the valley of which was then followed to its con- fluence with the Red River. Major Bradford organized and led this expedition in compliance with orders of the War Department directing him to expell all white people found living in the terri- tory of the Osages, the Kiamitia River being its eastern boundary in the region which was tributary to the Red River. A number of families had formed a settlement near the mouth of the Kiamitia, even at that early day. Nuttall did not regard them very favorably, stating that many of them were fugitives from justice in the states, "such as have forfeited the esteem of civilized society" and, further- more, that, to some extent at least, they were disloyal to the Gov- ernment of the United States. When thus required to move on by military force, they crossed over the Red River into the Spanish dominions, going in the direction of San Antonio.
Nuttall spent much of his time gathering botanical specimens and observing the plant and animal life of this region. Becoming separated from the troops, he remained nearly three weeks in the country along the lower valley of the Kiamitia. He saw herds of buffalo and of wild horses in Southeastern Oklahoma during the course of this trip and found other kinds of wild game, especially deer, very plentiful. He also stated that the Mexican wild hog (peccary) was reported to be quite common in the valley of the . Red River, a few miles above the mouth of the Kiamitia.
In the early part of July, several weeks after his return from the Red River country, Mr. Nuttall took passage on a boat which was bound up the Arkansas to the trading post at the mouth of the Verdigris. His description of the trip up the river is interesting. Many objects in the line of landmarks are mentioned, such as the cliff-buttressed hill upon which Fort Coffee was built fifteen years later, the distant views of Sugar Loaf and Cavaniol Mountains, the mouths of the Canadian and Illinois rivers, the falls of the Arkansas (Webbers Falls),4 and the Charbonierre Cliff (the ledge at the
4 Nuttall found the falls of the Arkansas to be but three feet high, which was four feet less than they were when Wilkinson passed that way, thirteen years before.
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western end of the Frisco Railway bridge across the Arkansas) near Muskogee.
Several days after his arrival at the trading post, Mr. Nuttall set forth with two companions to ascend the Grand River (or Six Bull, as it was often called in those days) in a canoe, their desti- nation being the salt works at a certain saline spring on the west side of the river, about fifty miles above its confluence with the Arkansas. This salt spring is located about seven miles southeast .of the Town of Chouteau, in the southern part of Mayes County, and near the site of the Union Mission, which was established the following year.5 From thence Nuttall returned, afoot and alone, through the wilderness to the trading post at the mouth of the Verdigris.
Three weeks after his return from the salt works, with but a single companion, he started to visit the valley of the Cimarron, the route leading by way of the valley of the Deep Fork of the Canadian, through the counties of Muskogee, Okmulgee and Creek. He was taken seriously ill during the course of this trip and it was with difficulty that he finally succeeded in returning to Bougie's trading post after an absence of a month. From thence he floated down the Arkansas, in a canoe, to Fort Smith.
One of the most notable features of Nuttall's narrative is his suggestion of the possibility of the development of a large city at or near the confluence of the Grand and Verdigris rivers with the Arkansas. The fulfillment of his vision in that regard is seen in the growing metropolis which bears the name of Muskogee.
5 Nuttall found the salt works practically abandoned as the result of the death of the principal owner, whose name was Camp- bell, and who had been murdered by his business partner only a few weeks before. Major Long's map shows the location of Camp- bell's salt works as described in the text. The following year, Capt. J. R. Bell visited the salt works of a man by the name of Bean, on the Illinois River, who stated that he was about to install salt kettles which had been used on the Neosho (or Grand), presumably at the Campbell salt works.
CHAPTER VIII ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FIRST MILITARY POSTS
FORT SMITH
As already stated, the site for a military post at the mouth of the Poteau was selected by Maj. Stephen H. Long, in 1817 .. Shortly afterward the post was established and formally occupied by troops under the command of Maj. William Bradford,1 of the Rifle Regi- ment. The first troops that arrived belonged to a company that came from old Fort Adams, on the Mississippi River, where they had been stationed immediately after the Battle of New Orleans, in which they had participated only a little over two years before. The site selected for the post was promontory at the confluence of the Poteau and the Arkansas. The face of this rocky bluff or low cliff was covered with mosses and ferns, thus forming an object of such beauty that the early French voyageurs had named it Belle Point. The ground above and back of this cliff was covered with a heavy growth of forest trees.
The new post was typical of the frontier fortifications of that day, consisting of a ten-foot palisaded enclosure of heavy, bullet- proof pickets, with loop-holes for defensive fire, and with block- houses at the salient angles, while a cannon was set in the center to command the gate. Within this enclosure were barracks and of- ficers' quarters, buildings for quartermaster and commissary stores, guard-house and other necessary structures, all built of heavy hewed logs. The post was named Fort Smith, in honor of Col. Thomas A. Smith, of the Rifle Regiment. It was continuously garrisoned until
1 Maj. William Bradford was appointed from Kentucky as a captain in the Seventeenth United States Infantry, in 1812. Two years later he was promoted to the grade of major. In the reorgani- zation of the regular army at the end of the War of 1812, he was transferred to the Rifle Regiment, of which he became major, in 1818. In 1821 he was transferred back to the infantry arm of the service, where he continued until his resignation in 1824. Of his life subsequent to that time, nothing is known. Vol. 1-4
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1834, when it was abandoned, the garrison being transferred to Fort Coffee. In 1838 it was reoccupied and then plans were made for the building of a more modern fortification.
FORTS GIBSON AND TOWSON
Forts Gibson and Towson were established respectively in April and May, 1824, by Col. Matthew Arbuckle,2 of the Seventh United States Infantry, and were garrisoned by detachments of troops
MATTHEW ARBUCKLE
from that regiment. Fort Gibson, or Cantonment Gibson, as it was called during its earlier existence, was named in honor of Col. George Gibson, then and for many years afterward the head of the subsistence department of the United States Army. Canton-
2 Matthew Arbuckle was born in Greenbrier County (West) Virginia, in 1776. He entered the United States Army as an ensign in 1799, was promoted to the rank of captain in 1806 and to that of major in 1812. At the Battle of New Orleans, in 1815, he served as an aide on the staff of Gen. Andrew Jackson. He was com- missioned colonel of the Seventh Infantry in 1820, and ten years later was brevetted brigadier general. He was in command of the military forces in the eastern part of Oklahoma for nearly twenty years, being transferred to Fort Jessup, Louisiana, about 1842; in 1845 he was again transferred, being stationed at Fort Smith, where he was in command at the time of his death, in 1851.
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VIEW AMONG THE RUINS OF FORT TOWSON
FORT GIBSON HOSPITAL
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ment Towson was named in honor of Col. Nathan Towson, who subsequently became a general officer in the army.
The site of Fort Gibson was on the east bank of the Grand River, a few miles above the mouth of that stream. Like Fort Smith, it was a typical frontier military post of that period, with a palisaded enclosure of stout pickets, heavy, log-walled block- houses at diagonally opposite angles, with log-walled quarters, barracks, and other buildings inside the enclosure. The site was a beautiful one, situated in the valley of the Grand River. It was the station of regimental headquarters, Colonel Arbuckle being in command there for nearly twenty years. After the Mexican war work was begun upon the construction of the buildings for a new post on Garrison Hill, overlooking the site of the original post. Fort Gibson was for many years the head of navigation on the Arkansas River, was near the agencies of the Cherokee, Osage and Creek tribes and was the center of much of the official and social life of the old Indian Territory. The Town of Fort Gibson per- petuates its name on the map of Oklahoma.
The site of Fort Towson was in the Red River country, about ten miles from the mouth of the Kiamitia. Unlike Forts Gibson and Smith, its buildings were largely constructed of stone, only the upper parts of its walls being of logs. The buildings were arranged in a manner as to form a quadrangular enclosure, however. This difference in the material used in construction may have been due to the fact that it was placed so close to the Red River, which marked the boundary between the United States and Mexico at that time. It was continuously garrisoned until 1854, when it was abandoned on account of the establishment of Fort Arbuckle, to which post its garrison was transferred.3
Military roads were surveyed and laid out by Lieut. B. L. E. Bonneville, of the Seventh Infantry, between Fort Smith and Forts Towson and Gibson, and large warehouses were built at Fort Smith for the storing of goods and supplies consigned to those posts. For
3 On May 28, 1854, within three days of the time specified in the orders for the abandonment of Fort Towson, a violent wind storm or tornado swept over it and completely wrecked several of the buildings. The post was therefore practically in ruins when the garrison marched away. During the Civil war, detachments of the Confederate Army were sometimes encamped at the ruined post. The Town of Fort Towson, in Choctaw County, preserves the name in the geography of Oklahoma.
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some years after the establishment of Fort Gibson, Fort Smith was the actual head of steam navigation on the Arkansas. These two roads were the first of the permanent highways, or trails, which are of historic interest to the people of Oklahoma now.
CHAPTER IX COMMERCIAL RELATIONS
THE FUR TRADE
The trade with the Indians, especially in furs, robes and pelts. continued to be the principal industry followed by the few white men who lived or sojourned within the bounds of the present State of Oklahoma during this period. However, toward the end of the period, English-speaking Americans came to divide the privilege with the Creole Frenchmen who had previously held a monopoly of this trade. The Chouteau trading post, which had been estab- lished on the Grand River during the last decade of the previous period, still continued to be the chief center of the industry.1
While it is not improbable that American trappers and traders began to visit the Arkansas River region within a few years after the transfer of Louisiana to American jurisdiction, it was not until after the close of the second war with Great Britain that they made any organized effort to embark in trade in this field. The first trading post to be established in Oklahoma by Americans was that of French and Rutherford,2 near the mouth of the Verdigris River.
1 Although the trading post on the Grand River was owned by the Chouteau brothers of St. Louis, its active management was for many years in the hands of superintendents, or, as the Creole en- gagees or trappers called them, "les bourgeois." The last of these was Joseph Revard, who was killed by a band of Western Cherokees from Arkansas, about 1818 or 1819. This was during the era of hostilities between the Osages and the Western Cherokees. The suc- cess of the Osages in their predatory attacks upon the Cherokees was believed by the latter to be largely due to the counsel and sup- port of Revard and a party of Cherokee warriors was accordingly made up for the express purpose of proceeding to the Grand River and making way with him, which was promptly done. He was suc- ceeded by Col. Auguste P. Chouteau, who remained in active control until the time of his death, nearly twenty years later.
2 Of the senior member of this firm, French, not much is known, though he is supposed to have been a Kentuckian and to have been a man of mature years at that time. The junior member of the firm, Samuel Morton Rutherford, was born in Goochiland County, Virginia, March 31, 1797. His parents migrated to the vicinity of
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This enterprise was undertaken in 1817, apparently at the same time with, or immediately after, the establishment of the military post at Fort Smith. Just how this venture was regarded by the Chouteaus,
SAMUEL M. RUTHERFORD
who had hitherto enjoyed a virtual monopoly of the trade with the Osages in the region of the Arkansas, not even a tradition remains.
Nashville, Tennessee, in 1805. At the age of seventeen he enlisted in Colonel Ralston's Regiment of Tennessee volunteers, with which organization he participated in the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. After the expiration of his term of military service he re- mained at New Orleans until the beginning of 1817, when, in eom- pany with French, he aseended the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers to the mouth of the Verdigris where a trading post was built for the purpose of engaging in traffic with the Osage Indians. Freneh and Rutherford remained in the business at that place for two years and then sold their establishment to Glenn and Pryor. Young Ruther- ford then settled in Arkansas. He was appointed sheriff of Clark County, at its organization in 1819, serving as such until 1823. He
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It is reasonable to presume, however, that such an invasion of their trade territory was not pleasing to them and it is just possible that there may have been some eonfliet between the 'rival interests thus involved, resulting in the final sale of the French and Rutherford trading establishment to Hugh Glenn 3 and Nathaniel Pryor + and,
then moved to Phillips County, where he was appointed clerk of the Cireuit Court, which position he filled until 1825. During the next five years he served as sheriff of Pulaski County. After represent- ing that eounty in the Territorial Legislative Assembly, he was ap- pointed to the office of territorial treasurer, which he filled for three years. From 1836 to 1840 he was register of the land offiee at Little Rock and, at the election held in the last mentioned year, he was ehosen as a presidential eleetor on the Van Buren ticket. In the spring of 1846, President James K. Polk commissioned him as su- perintendent of Indian Affairs for the distriet embraeing the five eivilized tribes, his duties ineluding also those of tribal agent of the Choetaws and Chiekasaws. While holding this position he resided at Skullaville, where the Choetaw-Chickasaw ageney was located. Being a strong party man, he promptly resigned at the beginning of the administration of President Taylor, in 1849, and was relieved during the following summer. He represented Sebastian County in the Arkansas Legislature in 1851 and served as probate judge of that eounty from 1854 to 1856. In 1857 he was appointed by Presi- dent James Buchanan to the position of tribal agent for the Semi- nole Indians and held the same until the outbreak of the Civil war, in 1861, when he permanently retired from publie life. His death oeeurred on his farm, near Fort Smith, the day after he had at- tained the age of seventy years, April 1, 1867.
3 Hugh Glenn, who was associated with Nathaniel Pryor in the fur trade, was a merchant of Cineinnati. He was mentioned by Nuttall, Long and Say in their narratives of western travel. He accompanied Fowler and Pryor on the trading and trapping expe- dition to the Rocky Mountains in 1821-2.
4 Nathaniel Pryor, Kentuekian and eitizen of the wilderness, must have been easily one of the most pieturesque and romantie figures in Oklahoma during this period of its history. Though but little is known of his early life, he is believed to have been born in Kentucky about 1786, of a family that had long been regarded as a prominent one, not only in that state but also in Virginia. About the beginning of 1804, he enlisted in the army as a private, along with eight other young men of good families, for the purpose of aecompanying Lewis and Clark on their memorable exploring expe- dition aeross the continent to the mouth of the Columbia River. He was a cousin of Serg. Charles Floyd, who died while the expedition was aseending the Missouri River. Pryor returned with the rank of a sergeant and was shortly afterward commissioned an ensign in the First United States Infantry, in which eapaeity he was placed in eommand of a detachment of troops which was detailed to eseort
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moreover, it is not improbable that the Chouteaus may have been concerned in the purchase. About the time that Glenn and Pryor entered the Indian trade on the Arkansas River, another trader
the Mandan chief, Shahaka (who had accompanied Lewis and Clark to Washington) to his home country on the Upper Missouri. En- sign Pryor was prevented from performing this mission by the hos- tility of the Arikara Indians, however. In 1808 he was promoted to a second lieutenancy and, two years later, he resigned. Nothing is known of his whereabouts during the ensuing two years, though it is safe to infer that he was somewhere on the frontier. During the second war with Great Britain he re-entered the military serv- ice, being commissioned first lieutenant. of the Forty-fourth Infantry in August, 1813. He was promoted to the grade of cap- tain in October, 1814, and was discharged because of the end of the war, in June, 1815. He probably came West again shortly after- ward and it is surmised that he may have been employed for a time at Chouteau's Trading Post on Grand River. If so, the name of Pryor Creek (whence came that of the Town of Pryor) probably dates from that time. Nuttall made mention of meeting him early in 1819 on the lower Arkansas as he was going down with a cargo of furs and pelts which had been secured in trade with the Osages, so it was evident that he had been in Oklahoma the year before he joined with Glenn in buying out the business of French and Ruther- ford. In 1821 he accompanied Fowler and Glenn on a trading and trapping expedition to the Rocky Mountains, during the course of which he visited Santa Fe. On its return from the mountain coun- try, this expedition headed for the frontier settlements in Missouri instead of retracing its course down the Arkansas. In Missouri Pryor met with the Patties, father and son, who were just on the point of starting for the Mexican provinces and he joined their ex- pedition. He continued with the Patties throughout all of their wanderings until they entered Southern California, in 1828, where all the members of the party were seized and imprisoned by the suspicious Mexican authorities. After their liberation most of the members of the party remained in California, Pryor among the number. In 1836 he was granted a certificate of long residence and good character, after which he married a lady who was a member of a prominent Spanish family. In 1846 he commanded a company of artillery in the uprising which helped to end the dominion of Mexico over California and ultimately led to its annexation to the" United States. He died at Los Angeles in 1850. When the Western Cherokees first moved from Arkansas to the valley of the Grand River, in 1829, they are said to have found a number of well bred race horses in the possession of some of the French trad- ers at Chouteau's Trading Post and among some of the mixed-blood French-Osage people, the original stock of which was said to have been brought there from Kentucky by Captain Pryor while he was living in that country. It is probable that he contracted a marriage
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appeared in the person of Charles Bougie," a French Creole who was a resident of Arkansas Post. He built a trading establishment, near that of Glenn and Pryor, at the mouth of the Verdigris River."
One of the earliest American expeditions across the plains to the Rocky Mountains was that of Fowler, Glenn and Pryor, which set forth from Fort Smith in the month of September, 1821, to ascend the valley of the Arkansas to the Rocky Mountains for the purpose of trading and trapping. The route of this expedition led across the northeastern part of Oklahoma. The party returned by the route which afterward became known as the Santa Fe road, ending the journey in Western Missouri, the following year.
In 1822 a trader by the name of John McKnight established a stockade post near the North Canadian River (on the south side), probably within the present limits of Oklahoma County. Al- though he was an experienced frontiersman, he was surprised and treacherously slain by the Comanche Indians shortly afterward.7
RIVER NAVIGATION
The rivers formed practically the only avenues of communica- tion with the rest of the world and also the sole means of trans- portation. In addition to the bateaux and canoes which had been employed for travel by water from the time of the first French exploration, keel-boats came into more or less common use for the transportation of merchandise, furs, robes and conunodities of considerable weight and bulk.8 These keel-boats were towed up-
while living among the Osages as the Pryor family, which is now a prominent one among the Osage people, is said to trace descent from him.
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