USA > Wyoming > History of Wyoming, Volume I > Part 12
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: OTHER SPANISH EXPEDITIONS
In 1599 Don Juan de Onate led an expedition from New Mexico in search of Quivira. The reports of his movements are conflicting and unreliable. He says he reached the "City of Quivira, which is on the north band of a wide, shallow river." Some historians think the river mentioned is the Platte, and the location described by Onate corresponds fairly well to the ruins found by the Union Pacific engineers.
Certain Spanish writers tell of an expedition that left Mexico some time prior to 1650 and established a settlement on a large tributary of the Missouri River, where they found gold mines, stone-built houses, arrastres for reducing the ore, but the entire party was killed by Indians about 1650. The story is probably largely traditional, as at that time the Spaniards had all they could do
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to hold their own in New Mexico, though in 1865 ruins were found in the Powder River Valley-foundations of houses and what appeared to be the remains of an arrastre-that give color to the story.
Another Spanish expedition into the Missouri Valley was that of the so-called "Duke of Penalosa" in the spring of 1662. Friar Nicholas de Freytas, who accompanied the expedition as chronicler, says that at the end of three months they came "to a wide and rapid river," where they made friends with a large party of Indians, who accompanied the expedition to Quivira. After a march of several days they reached another large river and saw "a stream of consider- able size entering it from the north." Along this tributary, De Freytas says, could be seen "a vast settlement or city, in the midst of a spacious prairie. It contained thousands of houses, circular in shape for the most part, some two, three, and even four stories in height, framed of hard wood and skilfully thatched. It extended along both sides of this second river for more than two leagues."
Penalosa encamped on the south side of the large river (which may have been the Platte), intending to cross over the next morning and visit the city. During the night his Indian allies stole out of the camp, crossed the river and attacked the city. All the inhabitants who were not killed fled in fright, hence Penalosa did not meet a single occupant of that fabled province which had so long commanded the curiosity of the Spanish adventurers of New Spain. This is a rather fanciful story, but it doubtless served to increase Penalosa's impor- tance with the Spanish authorities, which was probably the chief purpose for which it was invented.
VERENDRYE
In the early part of the Eighteenth Century a belief existed among the Euro- peans that there was a river which flowed to the South Sea, as the Pacific Ocean was then called. This belief was based upon reports given to traders by Indians, who said that near the mouth of the river the surface was so rough that it was dangerous to try to pass over it in canoes, while farther up the stream were great falls and rapids, unsafe for canoes. This description answers the Colum- bia, then unknown to white men. In the spring of 1731 Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Verendrye, received authority from the French officials in Canada to discover the river. On June 8, 1731, Verendrye, with his three sons, a nephew and a number of Canadian voyageurs, left Montreal on his mission. Not much can be learned of his first effort to find the fabled river, as the expedition met with a war party of Indians and a fight ensued in which Verendrye's youngest son and a number of the voyageurs were killed, and the project was for a time given up.
In January, 1739, after repeated failures, Verendrye reached the Mandan villages on the Missouri River, near the present City of Bismarck, N. D. There his interpreter deserted him and he was forced to turn back. With his two sons. two Canadians and an interpreter, he again visited the Mandan villages, arriving there some time in the spring of 1742. From the Mandan villages he pressed on toward the West until he arrived at the Black Hills, where his interpreter again deserted him. Trusting to luck, he went on, and on January 1, 1743. the party came within sight of the Big Horn Mountains, somewhere near the northern
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boundary of Wyoming. One account says that after his interpreter deserted him at the Black Hills he found a friendly Indian, who acted as guide and interpreter, while he explored the Assiniboine, Upper Missouri, Yellowstone and Big Horn rivers. He then ascended the Shoshone River and crossed over to the Wind River. From the Indians living in the Wind River Valley he learned of a river farther west, which flowed in southerly direction (probably the Green River), but the same Indians warned him that a hostile tribe inhabited the country about the pass through the mountains and that it would be dangerous to attempt to proceed farther in that direction. Verendrye then retraced his steps and in May, 1744, arrived at Montreal, having spent thirteen years in seeking for a passage by water to the South Sea.
V'erendrye and his associates were no doubt the first white men to set foot upon the soil of Wyoming. After his last expedition no further efforts were made by the French to discover the river. A few years later came the French and Indian war, at the conclusion of which Canada passed into the hands of the English, who left the matter of exploration to the fur traders.
LEWIS AND CLARK
After Verendrye, no exploring expeditions were sent into the Great Northwest for more than half a century. In the summer of 1803 President Jefferson began making plans to send an expedition up the Missouri River to discover its sources, ascertain the character of the country, and whether a water route to the Pacific coast was possible. The Treaty of Paris, however, was not ratified until the fall of that year and the expedition was postponed until the spring of 1804. Mr. Jefferson selected as leaders of this expedition Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Capt. William Clark, officers of the regular United States army.
Captain Lewis was born near Charlottesville, Va., in 1774, and was not quite thirty years of age when he received his appointment as one of the leaders of the expedition. He entered the army in 1795, received his commission as cap- tain in 1800, and from 1801 to 1803 was President Jefferson's private secretary. In 1807 he was appointed governor of Louisiana Territory, which office he held until his death. He died near Nashville, Tenn., in 1809, while on his way to Washington.
Clark was also a Virginian and a brother of Gen. George Rogers Clark, who distinguished himself during the Revolution by the capture of the British posts in the Northwest. In 1784 he went with his family to Kentucky and settled where the City of Louisville now stands. In 1792 he was commissioned lieutenant and served under Gen. Anthony Wayne in the campaigns against the Indians of Ohio and Indiana. He resigned from the army in 1796 on account of his health, and settled at St. Louis. Regaining his health, he again entered the army, and in 1813 was commissioned captain. In 1813 he was appointed governor of Mis- souri Territory and held the office until the state was admitted in 1821. The next year he was appointed superintendent of Indian affairs for the St. Louis district and remained in that position until his death at St. Louis in 1838. Ten years before his death he founded the City of Paducah, Kentucky.
Such, in brief, was the character of the men chosen to conduct the first official explorations in the new purchase of Louisiana. The expedition consisted Vol. 1-8
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of nine young Kentuckians, fourteen regular soldiers, two French voyageurs or boatmen, an Indian interpreter, a hunter, and a negro servant belonging to Cap- tain Clark. The equipment embraced a keel-boat fifty-five feet in length, two pirogues and two horses, which were to be led along the bank, to be used in hunting game or in towing the keel-boat over rapids. The large boat was fitted with a swivel gun in the bow, a large square sail to be used when the wind was favorable, and twenty-two oars that could propel the boat forward when there was no wind. It also had a cabin in which were stored the most valuable articles, scientific instruments, etc.
On May 14, 1804, the little company left the mouth of the Missouri River and started up that stream on their long journey. As they went along they named the creeks that entered the river, the names often being derived from some animal killed in the neighborhood, such as Antelope Creek, Bear Creek, etc. Near the northeast corner of Kansas is a stream which still bears the name of Independence Creek, because the expedition spent the Fourth of July near its mouth. The three rivers that united to form the Missouri they named the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin, after the President and two of the leading statesmen of that period.
At the Mandan villages, in what is now North Dakota, Lewis and Clark employed Toussaint Charboneau and his wife to accompany the expedition as guides and interpreters. Mrs. Charboneau was an Indian woman, a member of the Snake tribe, who had been captured a few years before and sold to Charboneau, who married her. Her Indian name was Sac-a-ja-wea (the bird woman). She proved an invaluable guide, especially on the return trip through the Bozeman Pass. On the return from the Pacific coast the expedition divided on the east side of the Bitter Root Mountains, one party under Captain Lewis descending the Missouri River and the other, under Captain Clark, crossing over to the Yellowstone and descending that stream. They met at the mouth of the Yellowstone and on September 23, 1806, about noon, they arrived at St. Louis, having explored the Missouri River to its source, crossed over the divide and followed the Columbia River to the Pacific.
Numerous accounts of the Lewis and Clark expedition have been published. The explorers did not touch the present State of Wyoming, but their report acquainted the people of the United States with the nature of the country pur- chased from France, encouraged the organization of the Missouri and Rocky Mountain fur companies, and hastened the day when white settlements were extended west of the Missouri River.
HANCOCK AND DIXON
Two Illinois men named Hancock and Dixon were engaged in trapping beaver on the Yellowstone in 1804. when the Lewis and Clark expedition was on its way to the coast. Two years later, as Clark passed down the Yellowstone, his party encountered the two trappers, who persuaded John Colter, one of the private soldiers with Clark, to join them. Colter was granted his discharge when the expedition was near the Mandan villages, and was supplied with the necessary outfit for his new venture. In the spring of 1807 Colter, and possibly one or both of his companions, passed through the Pryor Gap of the Big Horn
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Mountains to Clark's Fort; thence by way of the Stinking Water Pass to the Yellowstone; thence to the headwaters of Green River; back to the head of the Wind River, which he mistook for the Big Horn, and finally found his way back to the camp of the previous winter. An account of Colter's wanderings is given in the chapter on the Yellowstone National Park.
LIEUTENANT PIKE
On August 9, 1805, Lieut. Zebulon M. Pike left St. Louis for the purpose of ascending the Mississippi River to its source and holding councils with the Indian tribes that dwelt upon its banks. He returned to St. Louis in April, 1806, and soon afterward was commissioned to lead an expedition to the Rocky Mountain country south of where Lewis and Clark crossed over to the western slope.
With twenty men he passed westward through what is now the states of Kansas and Colorado, and discovered the lofty peak near Colorado Springs that bears his name. It was Pike's intention to descend the Arkansas River, cross over to the Red River and go down that stream to the Mississippi, but he made a mistake, struck the Rio del Norte instead of the Red River and got into Spanish territory. He and his men were arrested and taken to Mexico. His men were not disarmed and Pike saved most of his notes by concealing them in the barrels of the guns. When he explained his error to the Spanish authorities, the expedi- tion was escorted to Natchitoches, on the Red River, where all were released. Pike's report of his expedition, although part of his notes were confiscated by the Spanish, gave the country the first official information regarding the south- western portion of the Louisiana Purchase.
EZEKIEL WILLIAMS
As Lewis and Clark were returning to St. Louis in 1806, they induced one of the Mandan chiefs to accompany them to that city and from there to Wash- ington. In 1807 Ezekiel Williams was employed by the Government to escort the chief back to his tribe. Williams took with him twenty men, and after the chief had been safely conducted to the Mandan villages on the Missouri River, he went on up the river to the Blackfoot country to hunt and trap. The men were divided into two parties of ten men each. Near the mouth of the Yellow- stone one party was attacked by the Blackfeet and five were killed. The five survivors then joined the other party and the fifteen turned southward to the country inhabited by the Crow Indians.
One of the party, a man named Rose, remained with the Crows, and Williams and the others went on toward the southwest, aiming to get to California by way of the South Pass. On the headwaters of the North Platte they were attacked by a Crow war party and lost five men. The remaining nine cached the furs and went on to the South Platte. One by one they were cut off by the Comanche bands wandering over the plains, until only Williams, James Work- man and Samuel Spencer were left. After many difficulties they reached the Arkansas River and passed down that stream into Kansas. In 1809 Williams returned with a party to the upper Platte and got the furs cached two years
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before, but they were in such a condition that they hardly repaid the expenses of the trip.
LONG'S EXPEDITION
On May 3, 1819, the steamboat Western Engineer left Pittsburgh, Pa., carry- ing Maj. Stephen H. Long and his party of topographical engineers, for the purpose of ascending the Missouri as far as the mouth of the Yellowstone. On September 15, 1819, the Western Engineer passed the mouth of the Platte River, being the first steamboat to ascend the Missouri to that point. Long tied up at Fort Lisa, a few miles above the present City of Omaha, where he spent the winter. In the summer of 1820 he explored the Platte River as far as the junction of the North and South forks, but did not reach Wyoming. His expe- dition demonstrated that the Missouri River was navigable for boats of light draft, a knowledge that had a great influence upon the fur trade during the next few years and upon the ultimate settlement of the West.
NATHANIEL J. WYETH
Nathaniel J. Wyeth was born at Cambridge, Mass., January 29, 1802. His father, Jacob Wyeth, was a graduate of Harvard. Nathaniel was fitted for col- lege, after which he was engaged in various occupations until he was about thirty years old. After the failure of Astor's enterprise on the Columbia, Hall J. Kelley, a Boston schoolmaster, wrote a number of articles concerning Oregon. Many of the statements contained in these articles were incorrect, but they caused young Wyeth to become interested in the Great West and he read every- thing on that subject that he could find. In the winter of 1831-32 he undertook to organize an expedition of fifty men to engage in the fur trade, and made the following announcement :
"Our company is to last for five years. The profits are to be divided in such a manner that if the number concerned is fifty, and the whole net profits are divided into that number of parts, I should have eight parts, the surgeon two, and the remaining forty parts should be divided among the forty-eight persons."
Under this arrangement Wyeth was to furnish all the necessary capital. On March 1, 1832, the company of twenty men left Boston and at St. Louis met Sublette, Mckenzie and other veterans of the fur trade. Says Chittenden : "With his perfect knowledge of conditions in the mountains, Sublette saw that he had nothing to fear from this new company and might very likely draw all the men and the outfit into his own business before he got through with them. He there- fore lent them a ready hand, set them on their feet, and offered them the protection of his own party as far as he should go."
Under Sublette's guidance the two parties left Independence on May 12, 1832, and on the 8th of July arrived at Pierre's Hole, the annual rendezvous of the traders. Here eleven of Wyeth's men decided to return east, and later two others withdrew, reducing the number of the party to eleven. With this little handful Wyeth went on to Oregon. Upon reaching the coast he learned that the vessel laden with supplies, which he had sent from Boston around Cape Horn, had been wrecked on a reef while coming northward in the Pacific. The
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trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company at Vancouver gave the wanderers a cordial welcome and provided them with supplies for the return journey.
WYETH'S SECOND EXPEDITION
In 1833, while on his way east, Wyeth made a contract with Milton G. Sublette and his associates to bring out to them their supplies in 1834. He then went back to Boston, where he organized the "Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company." Early in the year 1834 another vessel left Boston for Ore- gon, and on the 7th of March Wyeth left St. Louis on his second trip to the Rocky Mountain country. He was accompanied on this expedition by the nat- uralist, John K. Townsend, who afterward wrote an account of the journey across the plains.
On May 18, 1834, the expedition reached the Platte River and on June Ist was at the Laramie Fork. On the 19th Wyeth encamped on the Green River and spent the balance of that month in exploring the Green River Valley. On July 4th he left Ham's Fork and crossed over to the Bear River, which stream he descended for four days, encamping on the 8th at a place called the "White Clay Pits." On the 11th the expedition encamped near the Three Tetons, and on the 14th began the construction of Fort Hall. The old Fort Hall, built by Wyeth, was named for the senior member of the firm that furnished him the money to equip his second expedition. It was located about forty miles south- west of the Government post called Fort Hall, which was established in 1870. When Wyeth left Ham's Fork he passed beyond the boundaries of the present State of Wyoming and his subsequent movements have no bearing upon the state's history.
CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE
Contemporary with Wyeth was Capt. Benjamin L. E. Bonneville, who spent some time in the Northwest and explored a large part of the country included in what is now the State of Wyoming. Captain Bonneville was born in France in 1796. His father was a printer, who, during the American Revolution, printed and circulated a number of pamphlets that awakened sympathy for the colonists in their struggle against British oppression, and he was a member of a republican club in Paris organized by Thomas Paine. After the French Revolution he printed something that was displeasing to Napoleon, who ordered him to be imprisoned. His wife and son were then brought to this country by Thomas Paine, who secured for the boy an appointment to West Point as soon as he was old enough to enter that institution. In the meantime the father had been released from prison, but was forbidden to leave France. He managed to make his escape, however, and joined his family in America. Young Bonneville grad- uated at West Point in 1819 and entered the army. When Lafayette visited this country in 1824 he made inquiries about the Bonneville family, and Lieutenant Bonneville was assigned his escort. He then returned with Lafayette to France for a visit. Upon coming back to America he was commissioned captain in the Seventh New York Infantry.
In 1831, having become interested in the West, he asked for leave of absence,
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which was granted, his leave to extend to October, 1833, and he was instructed by Maj .- Gen. Alexander Macomb to provide suitable instruments, the best maps of the country he could obtain, and to make report as to the number of Indians in each tribe he visited, their manner of making war, etc.
Although Bonneville's object in asking for a leave of absence was to engage in the fur trade, General Macomb's order made him more of an explorer than a fur trader. On May 1, 1832, with 110 men, he left Fort Osage on the Mis- sonri River, taking with him twenty wagons laden with provisions, ammunition and goods for the Indian trade. His destination was Pierre's Hole, the rendez- vous of the fur traders. On the 26th of the same month he encamped on the Laramie River. The next six weeks were spent in examining the country along the North Platte and Sweetwater rivers, and on July 20th he came in sight of the Wind River Mountains. Here he met Lucien Fontenelle with a party of American Fur Company trappers and went with him through the South Pass to the Green River. His wagons were the first to go through the South Pass.
While on the Green River an incident occurred that caused an estrangement between Bonneville and Fontenelle. From the Osage Mission Bonneville had obtained several Delaware Indians as hunters. Fontenelle saw that these Indians were skilful in bringing in game and lured them away from their employer by offering them better wages. Bonneville knew that Fontenelle was waiting for a party of free trappers to join his party, and intercepted them. He then opened a keg of whisky, treated the trappers to a banquet, and persuaded them to join his expedition instead of going on to Fontenelle's camp.
About five miles above the mouth of Horse Creek, in what is now the eastern part of Lincoln County, Wyoming, in the fall of 1832, he built Fort Bonneville. Trappers called this fort "Bonneville's Folly" and "Fort Nonsense." W. A. Ferris, in his "Life in the Rocky Mountains," gives the following description of the fort:
"It is situated in a fine open plain, on a rising spot of ground, about three hundred yards from Green River, on the west side, commanding a view of the plains for several miles up and down that stream. On the opposite side of the fort, about two miles distant, there is a fine willowed creek, called Horse Creek, flowing parallel to Green River and emptying into it about five miles below the fortification. The fort presents a square enclosure, surrounded by posts or pickets of a foot or more in diameter, firmly set in the ground close to each other, and about fifteen feet in length. At two of the corners, diagonally opposite to each other, blockhouses of unhewn logs are so constructed and situated as to defend the square outside of the pickets and hinder the approach of an enemy from any quarter. The prairie in the vicinity of the fort is covered with fine grass and the whole together seems well calculated for the security of both men and horses."
It was not long until it became apparent that the trappers had good grounds for calling the place "Fort Nonsense." They were no doubt better acquainted with the character of the Indians in that section than was Captain Bonneville. The hostility of the tribes near the fort compelled. him to evacuate it almost as soon as it was completed, and he went over to the headwaters of the Salmon River, where he established his winter quarters.
Captain Bonneville spent nearly three years in the mountains. Most of that
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time he was on the move, making maps and notes, trying to carry out the instruc- tions given him by General Macomb. When he went to Washington to make his report, he was informed by General Macomb that, as he had greatly over- staid his leave of absence, it had been taken for granted that he was dead and his name had been dropped from the rolls of the army. He then appealed to President Andrew Jackson, who ordered him to be reinstated with his original rank of captain, but the war department refused to accept and publish his report. He then began the work of rewriting his report, with a view of publishing it himself. While engaged in this work he met Washington Irving, to whom he submitted his manuscript, and gave Mr. Irving the privilege of publishing it in such manner as he might deem most advisable. The result was Irving's volume giving an account of Bonneville's adventures. In February, 1855, Captain Bonne- ville was made colonel of the Third United States Infantry. He remained in the army until September 9, 1861, when he was retired, and died at Fort Smith, Ark., June 12, 1878.
FATHER DE SMET
Early in the Seventeenth Century Jesuit missionaries were among the Indian tribes inhabiting the country about the Great Lakes. As the traders and settlers pushed their way farther westward these missionaries always formed part of the advance guard, far into the Nineteenth Century. Pierre Jean de Smet was born in Belgium on the last day of January, 1801. He came to America in boyhood, joined the Jesuit Society at an early age, and was sent as a missionary to the tribes living along the Missouri River, in what are now the states of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. His labors on the frontier so impaired his health that when he was about thirty years old he returned to his native land.
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