Chapter I: Part 1

CAMPFIRE TALES
of
JACKSON HOLE

Cover Design, Cartography, and Sketches
By G. Bryan Harry, _former Asst. Chief Park Naturalist_

Photographs Courtesy of the National Park Service
Unless Otherwise Credited

Published by the
GRAND TETON NATURAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION
MOOSE, WYOMING 83012

In Cooperation with the
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR

COPYRIGHT, GRAND TETON NATURAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION, 1960
4TH PRINTING, 1970

FOREWORD

Man's search for wealth has taken him to many out of the way places. Wealth can assume many forms, depending on the person striving for it.

What is now Jackson Hole was a way of life to the Indians who summered here and wintered in the lower and warmer regions to the east of Togwotee Pass. A summer in this secluded valley meant plentiful fish and other wildlife for food, skins for clothing and teepees as well as a cool, well-watered environment.

Snowmelt fed streams, bordered by vegetation, supported many beaver and other fur bearers that attracted men of European descent in their never-ending quest of commercial wealth. Colter was followed by other mountain men and trappers who considered the natural resources of the area as there to be taken for their own personal gain. By 1840 beaver became scarce and fell from fashion. The land that supported bison was thought good for domestic cattle, so ranchers settled in Jackson Hole from one end to the other. Dry years and the Great Depression forced many of them to sell out.

Now millions of visitors come each year to recapture the thrill of wandering in a land still much as the Indians left it. This is a new wealth that depreciates little under protection as a National Park.

An increasing number of people look for ways to identify themselves with those who led the way into this new land. _Campfire Tales of Jackson Hole_ gives you this opportunity in an easy to read text that takes you back to the people and events that transpired in the valley that surrounds you.

THE PARK STAFF
Grand Teton National Park

CONTENTS

_Page_
John Colter, The Discovery of Jackson Hole and the Yellowstone 4
The Mountain Men in Jackson Hole 11
The Doane Expedition of 1876-1877 20
Map of the Region 30-31
The Story of Deadman's Bar 38
The Affair at Cunningham's Ranch 43
Prospector of Jackson Hole 47
Mountain River Men, The Story of Menor's Ferry 52

JOHN COLTER
THE DISCOVERY OF JACKSON HOLE AND THE YELLOWSTONE
By Merlin K. Potts, _former Chief Park Naturalist_

To John Colter, mountain man, trapper, and lone wanderer in the exploration of the Rocky Mountain wilderness, belongs the distinction of being the first white man to enter Jackson Hole and the "Country of the Yellowstone."

His biographers record that Colter was a descendant of Micajah Coalter, Scotsman, who settled in Virginia about 1700. That John was born in Virginia is not definitely known, but there is no evidence to indicate that any of the Coalters, from John's great-great-grandfather to his own generation, ever lived elsewhere. He was born toward the close of the 18th Century, probably about 1775. There are no records of Colter's early life, other than to indicate emigration to Kentucky with other members of the family before 1803. History marks his first appearance with his enlistment in the Lewis and Clark Expedition of October 15 of that year. He proved to be a skillful hunter, a faithful and reliable employee, popular with his commanders and the other men of the Expedition. He served with Lewis and Clark on the westward journey, and was returning to St. Louis in August 1806 when the party, commanded by Captain Clark, encountered 2 trappers enroute to a winter's sojourn on the upper Missouri. Colter expressed a desire to join these men, and was released from the Expedition to do so. The partnership dissolved in the spring of 1807, after what appears to have been an unsuccessful venture, insofar as peltry was concerned, but undoubtedly rewarding experience wise.

Colter again started for St. Louis, by canoe, down the Missouri. By now he was an experienced hand in unknown country. Moving alone and matching his skills against the hazards and rigors of the land were no more than everyday occurrences. As he swept down the turbid river, swollen by spring flood waters, his intention was to return to the civilization he had left 3 years before. Once again his plans were altered by chance.

A young Spaniard, Manuel Lisa, engaged in the fur trade in St. Louis, and influenced by reports of the abundance of beaver on the upper Missouri, had determined to explore the possibilities of extending his operations in that hitherto unexploited region. Accordingly, he organized a brigade and set forth up river. Colter met the party, and was persuaded by Lisa to join him. Lisa, a shrewd trader, was not a frontiersman. He recognized in Colter exactly the type of man he needed, and quite probably the inducements he offered were considerable. Yet, to a man of Colter's stamp, the financial gain possible was secondary to the prospect of further opportunity for adventure. We can surmise that Lisa experienced little difficulty in influencing the young and venturesome trapper to turn his back again on the doubtful attractions of the settlements.

It was late in November of that year, 1807, before Lisa selected a site for his trading post, at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Big Horn Rivers, in what is now south-central Montana. Construction of the post was begun immediately. Lisa named it Fort Raymond, after his son, but it was more generally known as Manuel's Fort.

It was Lisa's objective, not only to trap, but to engage in trade with the Indians, and to learn as much as possible about the trapping territory to the west. Of his men, Colter was the best suited to seek out the tribesmen, encourage them to trade at the post, and survey the lands with an eye to its productivity in fur. Thus Lisa instructed him, outfitted him, and sent him forth.

It could not have been earlier than late November when Colter set out. His equipment must have been meager; snowshoes, his gun, ammunition, a blanket or robe, and little or no food, since he would have intended to "live off the land" and his pack would likely not have exceeded 30 pounds, including "geegaws" for the Indians he encountered.

His exact route has long been a matter for conjecture among historians. He was to venture into country unknown to any other than the Indians, he carried no maps, he followed what must have appeared to him to be the route of least resistance, insofar as he could judge the terrain he traversed. He, from force of circumstance, must have followed the watercourses and game trails, sought the lowest mountain passes he could find, pursuing a devious course which led him to the south and west.

In the light of Colter's own later attempt to trace his route for Captain Clark, and through our knowledge of today's maps, it can be assumed, with a fair degree of reliability, that he moved across country to Pryor's Fork, up that stream and down Gap Creek to its junction with the Big Horn, thence up the Big Horn to the Shoshone (Stinking Water). He followed the course of the Shoshone upstream to the vicinity of what is now Cody, Wyoming, and along the base of the Absaroka Mountains into the Wind River Valley, striking the Wind probably some distance south and east of present day Dubois.

It appears that it was on the Stinking Water that Colter discovered the area which his contemporaries of the trapping fraternity derisively named "Colter's Hell," after Colter's description of the thermal features there. Historians writing many years later, perhaps more romantically than accurately, attributed Colter's reference to one or more of the now famous geyser and hot springs sections of the Yellowstone. It makes a better story thus, but the preponderance of evidence from the accounts of the trappers themselves places "Colter's Hell" in the vicinity of the DeMaris Springs, near Cody. Geological indications are that the area was much more active, insofar as thermal phenomena are concerned, then than now.

Two excellent early authorities confirm this location of "Colter's Hell." As set forth in Burton Harris' _John Colter, His Years in the Rockies_:

As late as 1848, the accomplished Belgian priest, Father DeSmet,
placed Colter's Hell on the Stinking Water on the strength of
information obtained from the few trappers who were left in the
mountains at that date. The courageous priest, known as "Black Robe"
to the Indians, was on his way to visit the Sioux in 1848 when he
wrote the following account: "Near the source of the River Puante
(Stinking Water, now called Shoshone) which empties into the Big Horn,
and the sulphurous waters of which have probably the same medicinal
qualities as the celebrated Blue Lick Springs of Kentucky, is a place
called Colter's Hell--from a beaver hunter of that name. This locality
is often agitated with subterranean fires. The sulphurous gases which
escape in great volumes from the burning soil infect the atmosphere
for several miles, and render the earth so barren that even the wild
wormwood cannot grow on it. The beaver hunters have assured me that
the frequent underground noises and explosions are frightful."

Washington Irving, in _The Rocky Mountains_: (1837) says:

The Crow country has other natural curiosities, which are held in
superstitious awe by the Indians, and considered great marvels by the
trappers. Such is the Burning Mountain, on Powder River, abounding
with anthracite coal. Here the earth is hot and cracked; in many
places emitting smoke and sulphurous vapors, as if covering concealed
fires. A volcanic tract of similar character is found on Stinking
River, one of the tributaries of the Big Horn, which takes its unhappy
name from the odor derived from sulphurous springs and streams. This
last mentioned place was first discovered by Colter, a hunter
belonging to Lewis and Clark's exploring party, who came upon it in
the course of his lonely wanderings, and gave such an account of its
gloomy terrors, its hidden fires, smoking pits, noxious streams, and
the all-pervading "smell of brimstone," that it received, and has ever
since retained among the trappers, the name of "Colter's Hell!"

Upon reaching the valley of the Wind, it would have been logical for Colter's route to have been north and west over the Wind River Mountains through Union Pass, the easiest available, at an elevation of 9,210 feet. Here historians have indulged in a long standing, and unresolvable debate, some authorities contending that he would probably have followed up the Little Wind River, crossing the Wind River Mountains further north, at Togwotee Pass. Whichever route he used to the westward--Union Pass and the Gros Ventre River drainage, or Togwotee Pass and Blackrock Creek--either brought him into Jackson Hole.

There can be little doubt that in any event his course was a circuitous one, following the twistings and turnings of many water courses, deviating along Indian trails to the winter encampments of the Crows, attentive to his instructions from Manuel Lisa. Quite probably the friendly Crows aided Colter by directing him to routes of easy passage, perhaps accompanying him over parts of his journey, though history makes no mention of this.

Entering Jackson Hole on its eastern margin, Colter saw before him a scene of unsurpassed grandeur. At this season, which must have been well into December, the floor of the Hole presented a broad expanse of snow-blanketed valley, broken only by the forested buttes, looming black against the glistening white, and the timbered water courses, marked by cottonwood, willow, and spruce. No smoke of Indian village lifted above thickets. The tribesmen had moved to areas of less rigorous climate, east, south, or west, weeks before. The soaring peaks, lifting their gleaming spires across the valley, their canyons deep shadowed in blue gloom, stretched for miles to the north and south. Even his stout heart must have faltered, at least momentarily, at the grim barrier ahead.

Other than the Snake River Canyon, a route which he could hardly have anticipated from any vantage point, he would logically have selected Teton Pass as the most feasible crossing of the Teton Range to the southwest. Here the historians, at least those who accept the theory of a trans-Teton route, are in almost unanimous agreement, although some would have us believe that he made a frontal assault through Cascade Canyon. This hardly seems likely, since Colter, bold as he was, evidenced no characteristics of the foolhardy, and to his eyes the Cascade Canyon route could scarcely have appeared to offer a feasible crossing.

One cannot but puzzle a bit, however, as to his reason for crossing the Range at all. From the broad valley of the Hole the route northward up the Snake River into the Yellowstone was to any eye an easy one. The terrain sloped gently, there were no mountain walls to scale or circle, nothing to indicate any obstacle of consequence. Indeed, many notable historical scholars have opposed the Teton Pass theory, asserting that he did avoid the Tetons by moving northward. He would certainly have fulfilled Lisa's orders to contact nearby Indian tribes by the time he had reached Jackson Hole.

Accepting the Teton route, as we must in the light of later evidence, we add further stature to Colter's perseverance and venturesome spirit. He went over the mountains, perhaps because the Indians had described the route and country beyond to him, perhaps because he was seeking the reported "Spanish Settlements" on the headwaters of the Colorado River (Green River), or perhaps for the very simple reason that he wanted to see what was on the other side.

At any rate, the Idaho side of the Range has given us the first really tangible clue as to Colter's whereabouts while on his winter journey. In 1930, about 4 miles east of the Idaho village of Tetonia, was found the "Colter Stone."

In the spring of that year, while plowing virgin land on his father's homestead, William Richard Beard, then a boy of 16, unearthed the stone from its resting place about 18 inches beneath the surface. His attention was first attracted by the shape of the rock. It had been roughly formed to resemble a human head, flattened, but with the unmistakeable outline of forehead, nose, lips, and chin. When the stone had been cleaned, it was found to have been crudely carved. One side bore the name "JOHN COLTER," the other was inscribed with the almost illegible figures, "1808."

The slab of gray, rhyolite lava from which the stone was shaped is soft and easily worked. It would have taken no great amount of labor to have accomplished the job. Perhaps it provided a means of passing time while Colter was blizzard-bound, or merely loafing in camp, taking a well-earned respite from days of arduous travel.

Immediately after the stone was given to the National Park Service in 1933 by Mr. Aubrey C. Lyon, who had acquired it from the Beards, a controversy developed as to its authenticity. The carving of stones and tree trunks by early trappers and explorers was a well-established practice; several such evidences of their passing have been found. There have been hoaxes revealed also, and there were those who refused to accept the Colter Stone as valid. The evidence, what little there was to investigate, was carefully analyzed. There was no duplicity remotely connected with the finding of the stone. The Beards had never heard of John Colter. It had rested at a depth of some several inches beneath the earth's surface. Certainly Colter would not have carved it, then buried it, so the accumulation of soil above the stone must have been the result of some years, and the stone had weathered before burial, it could hardly have weathered after being covered by earth. In the final analysis, it seems most illogical that anyone mischievously inclined would have been sufficiently informed to perpetrate a hoax at such a remote spot. A prankster would have deposited his bogus relic in a place where he could reasonably expect its ready discovery. Else why bother?

The stone now reposes in the Fur Trade Museum at Park Headquarters, Grand Teton National Park, as mute evidence that Colter did indeed "pass this way."

Colter's route, from the discovery of "his" stone, appears to have led northward along the base of the western side of the Teton Range, until he perceived the next comparatively easy route for a return toward the east. Recrossing the Tetons he struck the western shore of Yellowstone Lake, called "Lake Eustis" on William Clark's "Map of the West," published in 1814. Tracing the route outlined on this inaccurate map, historical scholars propound that he followed the Yellowstone River to a crossing near Tower Falls, up the Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek, and back across the Absaroka Range. By way then of Clark's Fork and Pryor's Fork he made his way back to Manuel's Fort, arriving early in 1808.

So ended a most remarkable tour of some 500 miles, most of it made during the winter months. Aside from the rigors of winter climate, foot travel, on snowshoes, must have proved easier, with underbrush buried beneath the snow, than hiking in summer over the same route.

That Colter made the journey, that he did traverse, in one way or another, Jackson Hole and the Yellowstone Park area, has been challenged by few historians, though all concede that his exact route will forever be a matter for speculation. The unprovable can hardly be proven.

Though Colter has not been celebrated in history as have other famous "Mountain Men" of a few years later, notably Jim Bridger, Bill Sublette, Joe Meek, and Jedediah Smith, to name a few, he remained a notable figure among his fellows until 1810.

It was in the spring or summer of 1808, following his return to Lisa's post, that Colter had his first encounter with the Blackfeet. It was the custom of these fierce and warlike Indians to send war parties south and west on forays into the lands of their enemies, the Crows and other tribes. They were not, however, particularly hostile to the whites, at least at this time.

Colter had again been dispatched by Lisa to "drum up" trade with the Indians. While traveling with a large party of Flatheads and Crows, near the Three Forks of the Missouri, Colter's band was attacked by a Blackfoot war party. In the battle that ensued Colter was wounded, the Blackfeet were driven off, and the crippled Colter eventually managed to make his way back to Manuel's Fort. The Blackfeet were enraged by the presence of a white man, however accidental it may have been, fighting on the side of their traditional enemies. Colter's participation was apparently the inspiration for the hostility of the Blackfeet toward the whites that followed, and quite probably their hatred of Colter himself, which led to his most famous adventure.

Every school boy has read accounts of Colter's famous "run." Early writers made much of it, various versions have appeared in print, all essentially similar. Summarized briefly the records indicate that Colter, in the company of one John Potts, returned again in 1808 to the Three Forks country. Again he and his companion had a "run in" with the Blackfeet. Surprised while setting their traps, Colter was taken prisoner. Potts made the mistake of resistance against overwhelming odds and was promptly riddled with arrows and bullets after shooting one of the Indians. Colter was disarmed, stripped, and then released by his captors, with the indication that he was to go. He had moved away from the Indians only a little way when several young braves, armed with lances, started in pursuit. He began his run for the Jefferson River, 5 or 6 miles away.

It is unlikely that many men ever ran better, certainly few have run for higher stakes. After some miles Colter had outdistanced all save one of his pursuers, but his strength was failing, it appeared that his desperate effort had been in vain. He stopped in despair to face the oncoming savage, and as the warrior lunged, Colter seized the lance, which broke in his hands. The Indian, off balance, fell, and Colter killed him with the blade of the weapon.

With only a mile remaining to the stream, he turned to run again, and managed to reach the river ahead of his enemies.

Here the accounts vary, one has it that Colter plunged into the stream and swam under water to a nearby beaver house in which he took refuge. The other, and probably more likely version, says he swam to an island and hid beneath a mass of driftwood that had lodged against the shore.

Although the Indians searched for him for the remainder of the day, probing the tangled mass of drift with poles and lances, Colter, in his place of concealment, avoided detection. After nightfall he made his escape and began his trek of nearly 300 miles back to Lisa's post.

Without weapons or any other means of obtaining food, he managed to reach the fort several days later, in the last stages of exhaustion, feet lacerated and torn by rocks and cactus spines, half starved and barely alive.

Colter made two more trips into the area of the Three Forks. Both times he narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Blackfeet; several of his companions were killed.

In 1810 Colter came to the decision that he had had enough of the Blackfeet, narrow escapes, and the repeated loss of furs, traps, and equipment. He left the country, this time to return to civilization without deviation or delay. He settled on a little farm in Missouri, married, and lived there for his remaining years.

Colter died in 1813, reportedly from jaundice. The legal notice of the final settlement of his estate placed its value at $229.41.

So ended, at an age of only 38 years, the career of one of America's greatest frontiersmen, a forerunner of the famous "Mountain Men." Nevertheless, what a lot of living and adventure Colter crammed into the short span of his 7 years beyond the Missouri.

Colter's part in the early exploration of one of the most rugged sections of America will forever stand as an heroic achievement. He was the West's first great pathfinder, a fitting figure to set the pace for those who followed his lonely paths into the wildest areas of the Far Western frontier.

THIS BAY IS NAMED FOR

JOHN COLTER

DISCOVERER OF THE TETON MOUNTAINS AND SCENIC WONDERS OF THE UPPER
YELLOWSTONE. EXPERIENCED AS A HUNTER FOR THE 1804-1806 LEWIS AND CLARK
EXPEDITION, HE EXPLORED THIS REGION IN WINTER OF 1807-1808 IN THE
EMPLOY OF FUR TRADER MANUEL LISA

DEDICATED ON THE 150^TH ANNIVERSARY OF COLTER'S HISTORIC PASSAGE.

1957

WYOMING HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PARTICIPATION

Bibliography

Beal, Merrill D.: _The Story of Man in Yellowstone_, The Caxton
Printers, Ltd., Caldwell, Idaho, 1949.

Harris, Burton: _John Colter, His Years in the Rockies_, Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York, 1952.

Mattes, Merrill J.: "Jackson Hole, Crossroads of the Western Fur Trade,
1807-1840," _The Pacific Northwest Quarterly_, Volume 37, April,
1946 and Volume 39, January, 1948.

Mattes, Merrill, J.: "Behind the Legend of Colter's Hell, the Early
Exploration of Yellowstone National Park," _Mississippi Valley
Historical Review_, September, 1949.

Mumey, Nolie: _The Teton Mountains, Their History and Tradition_, The
Artcraft Press, Denver, 1947.

Vinton, Stallo: _John Colter, Discoverer of Yellowstone Park_, Edward
Eberstadt, New York, 1926.

THE MOUNTAIN MEN IN JACKSON HOLE.
By Merlin K. Potts, _former Chief Park Naturalist_

MOUNTAIN MAN. The very term has an aura of romance, and the mountain man of the Fur Trade Era was a romantic character, as he most frequently appears in the novels of the wild Far West. He also appears as an uncouth, illiterate, morally degenerate, lazy lout, addicted to prolonged debauchery, often little better, sometimes inferior, to the savages with whom he frequently associated. Between this extreme, and the fearless, hardy, resourceful wanderer of the lonely plains and mountain highlands, lies the true measure of these men of the mountains. Some were as bad as they were painted, many were as fine as history describes them. They were the products of their time, neither better, nor worse, than any cross-section of the men of any time.

They were, none-the-less, unique even among the pioneers of their day. Their chosen land was far beyond the outposts of the settlements, their fellows were few, they moved through the most remote sections of America, often alone, sometimes in the company of a handful of companions.

Mountain men were the first to explore the Far West; beyond the Missouri, through the Rockies, across the Great American Desert, from the Southwest to Canada, and to the Western Sea. They came not as explorers, such intent probably never occurred to them. Their sole interest was in the quest for pelts, particularly the fine fur of the beaver. Beaver hats were the vogue during the period of the Western Fur Trade, roughly 1800-40. Until this headpiece was supplanted by the silk hat, the trappers followed the fur, their trails crossing and recrossing virtually every area where beaver were to be taken. Some were independent trappers, some were attached to various fur companies. To the organizers of the trade, the "business men" behind the enterprises, fell the financial rewards. The trappers, except in rare instances, barely made a living at their profession. Their rewards were, many times, an unmarked grave or broken health, a maimed and crippled body, or, if they survived to a ripe old age of perhaps 60 years, memories of a lifetime of adventure multiplied many times beyond the normal conception.

They were indeed a breed of men apart. It is in no way remarkable that their story is one of the most fascinating in our history. Bridger, Smith, Fitzpatrick, Carson, Meek, Sublette, Jackson; these are among the famous names engraved upon the face of the land, markers to the indomitable men who left behind these reminders of the days when the beaver was king of the furbearers.

"Jackson's Hole," the great, mountain-encircled valley lying at the east base of the Teton Range, was, as that excellent historian Mattes puts it so aptly, the "Crossroads of the Western Fur Trade." Trapper trails led into and out of the valley from all directions, through the passes to the east, Two Ocean, Togwotee, and Union, along the Hoback River to the south, through Teton and Conant Passes at either end of the great range to the west, and along the valley of the Snake and Lewis Rivers northward into the Yellowstone Country. From John Colter's memorable trek in 1807-08 through 1840 there was much activity throughout the region. With the decline of the fur trade the valley became once again, and for many years thereafter, a place of solitude, unvisited, as far as history records, by white men.

The name Jim Bridger is synonymous with mountain man. Few frontiersmen from the time of Daniel Boone have so captured the imagination, or been so voluminously treated in western lore. Bridger has been celebrated as the greatest of them all, his true exploits tremendous, his fancied feats fantastic. There were others who shared his fame, he was overshadowed by none, perhaps equaled by a very few.

Bridger was born in Richmond, Virginia, on March 17, 1804, his birthday antedating by less than 2 months the departure of Lewis and Clark on the first great western exploration. The family emigrated a few years later to St. Louis, and Jim and his younger sister were left in the care of an aunt when their mother and father died in 1816 and 1817. By the time he was 14 young Jim was supporting himself and his sister by operating a flatboat ferry, then he became an apprentice in the blacksmith's trade. This mundane life was not for him. There were too many exotic influences in the St. Louis of that time which had a tremendous attraction for a teen-aged youngster. Indians on their ponies jogged along the streets; Mexican muleteers and colorful Spaniards off the Santa Fe Trail strolled through the town; there were boatmen, fur traders, and plainsmen with their tales of buffalo, Indian fights, Lisa, Colter, Lewis and Clark; what boy could resist the lure of adventure which beckoned so importunately just beyond the skyline. Jim could not, he did not. Little sister was growing up, expenses were mounting, and there was a fortune to be made beyond the western horizon.

In March 1822, just after Jim had passed his eighteenth birthday, the St. Louis _Missouri Republican_ carried the following notice:

To Enterprising Young Men. The subscriber wishes to engage one hundred
young men to ascend the Missouri River to its source, there to be
employed for one, two or three years. For particulars inquire of Major
Andrew Henry, near the lead mines in the county of Washington, who
will ascend with, and command, the party; or of the subscriber near
St. Louis.

(Signed) William H. Ashley

No mention was made as to the employment for one, two or three years, nor was it necessary. What else but the quest for fur! Young Jim signed on, and a month later he was on his way to the promised land, one of the "enterprising young men" of Henry's company, bound up the river by keelboat to become a trapper. He was in distinguished company among experienced frontiersmen, though many of the crew were raw recruits, as green as Jim himself. There were Sublette and Fitzpatrick, Davy Jackson and old Hugh Glass, the latter to figure prominently in Jim's introduction to the frontier.

The outfit lost their horses, which had been traveling overland with a party under General Ashley's command, to the Assiniboines, however, and as Ashley returned to St. Louis, the balance of the command "forted up" at the mouth of the Yellowstone that fall. This was "Fort Union." Thus Jim became a "Hivernant." He wintered in the mountains and was a greenhorn no longer, when spring came he was a Mountain Man.

With the breakup of the ice that spring, Major Henry promptly started on the spring hunt, intending to combine trapping with trading with the Indians. The party was jumped by Blackfeet at or near the Great Falls of the Missouri, and the Indians drove them into retreat. They made their way back to the fort, losing four men killed, and with several wounded. Bridger had his first taste of Injun fightin'. It was not a palatable one.

In the meantime Ashley had not arrived at the fort, but some time after the return of Henry's party Jedediah Smith (also recruited by Ashley in the spring of 1822) arrived with one companion and the most unwelcome news that the General's party had run into difficulty with the Arikaras, and was in dire need of reinforcements. Henry, with about 80 of his men, including Bridger, returned with Smith to aid Ashley, arriving in time to achieve a doubtful and shortlived truce with the Indians, with the help of Colonel Leavenworth and a force of soldiers, trappers, and friendly Sioux, who had moved up from Fort Atkinson.

Major Henry and his men, having received their supplies from Ashley, set out at once for the fort on the Yellowstone, intending to again proceed from there into the wilderness in search of furs. Shortly after the Arikara fight occurred an incident that was to have a pronounced and lasting influence on young Jim. The aforementioned Hugh Glass was a hunter for the party, an elderly, tough Pennsylvanian. On the occasion which led to his claim to fame as a victim of one of the most tragic "bear stories" ever related, he was ahead of the party on a hunt, when he was attacked and mauled by a she-grizzly. So severely was the old man mangled that his companions despaired of his life. Here was a knotty problem. He could not be moved, he could not be left alone. Yet the party wanted to get out of the hostile Indian country and go about the business of collecting furs as speedily as possible. Major Henry decided that two men must remain with old Hugh until he died. No one wanted to stay, but the Major proposed that every man contribute a dollar as an inducement to those left behind with the old man. The men were more than willing to subscribe to the arrangement, Jim volunteered to stay, and another, Fitzgerald by name, reluctantly consented to remain also. So it was determined, and the Major and the rest of the party moved on.

Old Hugh clung tenaciously to life, while Jim and Fitzgerald sat and fretted, constantly in fear of discovery and attack by the hostile Arikaras. Fitzgerald found Indian sign on the third day. As far as he was concerned that clinched it, they couldn't do the old man any good, he was certain to "go under" anyway, in the meantime they were in terrible danger. He finally persuaded Jim to leave the dying oldster, taking with them Glass' rifle, powder, knife, all his "fixins," because it wouldn't be reasonable to show up without them, they wouldn't leave the things with a dead man, and their story to the Major would have to be that Glass had died. The old fellow was barely conscious, and they slipped away, catching up to the rest of the party just before it reached the fort on the Yellowstone.

Jim was worried, memories of the old man haunted him, suppose he hadn't died! Imagine his dismay when a few weeks later Glass appeared in the trappers' camp. Jim expected death at the hands of the hunter, he probably felt that he deserved it, but Glass seemed to be most interested in the whereabouts of Fitzgerald, placing the blame on him.

Glass had an incredible story to tell. Realizing that he had been deserted, he determined to save himself, and crawling, hobbling, barely able to move at all, he started for Fort Kiowa, nearly 100 miles away. He made it, and as soon as possible thereafter he started upriver again to locate Henry's party. He wanted "Fitz." When he learned that Fitzgerald had left the Major and gone downriver to Fort Atkinson, Glass went after him, with the avowed intention of revenge. He found him, but found also that he had joined the Army. The commanding officer at Fort Atkinson heard his story, persuaded him that shooting a soldier would be a serious matter, compelled Fitzgerald to make good the old man's losses, and thus the matter was ended, perhaps not to the complete satisfaction of the justly irate old hunter, but at least without bloodshed. Jim never forgot. The rest of his life the lesson remained with him, and his record of service to others, devotion to duty rather than self-interest, is sufficient evidence that the lesson was well learned.

Bridger's exploits in the years that followed were legion. In 1824 he explored the Bear River, discovering the Great Salt Lake which at that time he believed to be an arm of the Pacific. He advanced from a trapper in the employ of others to a partnership in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company with Fitzpatrick, Milton Sublette, Fraeb and Gervais, when in 1830 they brought out the company of Jedediah Smith, David Jackson, and Bill Sublette. He is best known for his services as a guide. As his knowledge of the Rockies increased with his years of wandering over the west, he repeatedly served as a scout for the Army, in which capacity he was invaluable, his knowledge of Indians and their ways was second to none. He guided many notable expeditions, one of them the Raynolds party, into Jackson Hole. It was said of him that he could brush clear a patch of earth and inscribe thereon, with a twig, an accurate and detailed map of any section of the Northern Rockies, depending only upon a photographic memory of the terrain.

Bridger visited Jackson Hole for the first time in 1825, with Thomas Fitzpatrick and 30 trappers, following Jedediah Smith's route of the previous year, that is by way of the Hoback River from the south. They passed through the Hole, going north along the Snake River into the Yellowstone. This was probably the first trapping venture with Jackson Hole as the center of operations. Mattes says, in _Jackson Hole, Crossroads of the Fur Trade, 1807-1840_:

This was a notable occasion, for the full glory of the Tetons was then
revealed for the first time to these two young fur trappers who were
destined in later years to become famous as guides for the government
explorers and the emigrant trains, and as scouts for the
Indian-fighting armies.

Bridger's trails, and those of many others, crossed and recrossed the valley at the foot of the Tetons many times in the ensuing several years, as they moved to and from the rendezvous sites on Bear River, the Green, Pierre's Hole, and the Wind. Through this period the Hole justified its designation as the "crossroads." Traffic was heavy, and upon at least one occasion, following the Pierre's Hole rendezvous of 1832, two men (not with Bridger) were killed by the Blackfeet near the mouth of the Hoback. These men did not, for a time, attain even the "unmarked grave" reward. Their bones were discovered and buried the following August by men of the American Fur Company.

Bridger's fame as a Rocky Mountain guide was well established by 1859, when he was employed by Captain W. F. Raynolds, of the Corps of Engineers of the U. S. Army, to assist his expedition in the exploration of the Yellowstone and all its tributaries. The Raynolds expedition left St. Louis on May 28, 1859, and included about 15 scientific men, one of whom was the later renowned Ferdinand V. Hayden. The expedition wintered on the Platte near the present site of Glenrock, Wyoming.

During the several months that Raynolds and his men were idling away the winter, Bridger's stories of the Yellowstone aroused in Raynolds an intense desire to see these wonders for himself, and he determined to do so. The old guide and his leader were both to suffer keen disappointment. The party left the winter camp on May 6, 1860, and headed for the Wind River country, eventually reaching Union Pass, so named by Captain Raynolds because he thought it was near the geographic center of the Continent, on May 31. Bridger and the Captain reconnoitered to the north, but found the route discovered by Bridger in previous years, Two Ocean Pass, blocked by snow too deep to negotiate. They were thus forced, to their profound regret, to continue on down the Gros Ventre, entering Jackson Hole on June 11. So Raynolds was unable to verify Bridger's tales of the wonders of the Yellowstone, marvels that Jim was as anxious for him to see as the Captain was to see them.

The Snake River was a raging torrent, but a boat was contrived of blankets and a lodge-skin of Bridger's stretched over a framework of poles. The animals were persuaded to swim the river, and the party eventually managed the crossing. One man was drowned, however, while trying to find a ford. Raynolds and his men left Jackson Hole by way of Teton Pass and proceeded north through Pierre's Hole.

Although Bridger was engaged as a guide for many subsequent explorations, including a survey of a more direct stage and freight route between Denver and Salt Lake City, he did not come again to Jackson Hole. He made his last scout for the Army in 1868.

Bridger's name appears on landmarks and features throughout the Rockies. In Wyoming there is Bridger's Pass across the Continental Divide a short distance southwest of Rawlins; Fort Bridger, a small town on U.S. Highway 30 near the site of the Fort established by Bridger in 1843; the Bridger National Forest, and Bridger Lake near the southeastern corner of Yellowstone National Park, to name only a few.

Bridger's "home" was in the mountains he loved. He bought property near Kansas City, a small farm and a home in Westport, where various members of his family lived, but Jim spent little time there until his declining years. He had a large family, was survived by four children from his Indian wives. Jim didn't believe in the practice of plural marriage, as many of the mountain men did. He was married three times, successively to women of the Flathead, Ute, and Snake tribes, his third wife died in 1858. He was a good family man. His children were sent to school in the east, except for one daughter, Mary Ann, who was placed in the Whitman Mission School at Waiilatpu, Oregon, and who died tragically in the Whitman Massacre of 1847.

Jim Bridger's yarns of the west have long been famous. He could supply facts, when facts were needed, but he loved to embroider his facts into fanciful tales for the edification and delight of the "greenhorns," to some extent because his facts were sometimes doubted. One of his greatest stories concerned the petrified forest of the Yellowstone. According to Jim not only the trees were "peetrified," but there were "peetrified birds asettin' on the peetrified limbs asingin' peetrified songs." One time he was riding through this section when he came to a sheer precipice. He was upon it so suddenly that he was unable to check his horse, which walked off the cliff into space and proceeded on its way because even gravity had "peetrified."

Jim died on July 17, 1881. His last years were not pleasant. He had a goitre from which he suffered, rheumatic miseries plagued him, and his sight failed. By 1875 he was totally blind. As his old eyes grew dim he longed for his mountains, he said a man could see so much farther in that country.

His old friend, General Grenville M. Dodge, had erected above his grave in Mount Washington Cemetery in Kansas City a memorial monument which bears the inscription:

1804-James Bridger-1881. Celebrated as a hunter, trapper, fur trader
and guide. Discovered Great Salt Lake 1824, the South Pass 1827.
Visited Yellowstone Lake and Geysers 1830. Founded Fort Bridger 1843.
Opened Overland Route by Bridger's Pass to Great Salt Lake. Was a
guide for U. S. exploring expeditions, Albert Sidney Johnston's army
in 1857, and G. M. Dodge in U.P. surveys and Indian campaigns 1865-66.

Jedediah Strong Smith, a contemporary of Bridger's, was another of General Ashley's "enterprising young men" who came west with the General and Major Henry in 1822. He was one of the rawest of the green hands, yet was one of the first to attain stature. He was older than Bridger by 5 years, head of an Ashley party at the end of one year on the frontier, in 2 years a partner with the General, and in 3 the senior partner of the fur-trading company of Smith, Sublette, and Jackson.

To say that Smith was second only to Bridger in his prominence as a mountain man, to attempt to place any of the leaders among the trappers in any order of rank or importance, would be like trying to rate the military commanders of history. Each in his own rugged individualistic way moved toward his own destiny. Many would have risen to even greater fame than they achieved, had they not met with misfortune early in their careers. So, we may assume, it might have been with Smith. He was already a famous figure in the West at the time of his untimely death in 1831.

He was an unusual type of man to be a frontiersman, most would have said it was unlikely that he would last long or rise to any prominence in the rough, brawling, blood-and-thunder ways of the west of that day. He did not smoke or chew tobacco, was never profane, and rarely drank any spirituous liquor. He was a profoundly religious man, always carried his Bible with him, and allowed nothing to shake or alter his religious beliefs. For his day he was also a well-educated man, and one of the few who kept a journal, in which he recorded in some detail his experiences.

For all this divergence from the usual ways of his fellows, he was respected and admired, accepted by the other trappers, affectionately known as "Old Jed" or "Diah," and even upon occasion referred to as Mr. Smith. He was the first of the trapping fraternity to reach California overland from the Rockies, the first across the Sierras, and the first to reach Oregon by way of the West Coast.

When Henry had established his fort at the confluence of the Yellowstone and the Missouri in 1822, Smith was sent back to St. Louis to advise General Ashley of the needs of Henry and his men for the following year. Smith then accompanied Ashley west in the spring of 1823, and as mentioned previously, was sent ahead to enlist Henry's aid when Ashley ran into trouble with the Arikaras. He again returned with the General to St. Louis, and in February 1824, Ashley sent him out again with a party which traveled overland by pack train. On this occasion Smith and his party made the first crossing, east to west, of the famous South Pass at the head of the Sweetwater River, the pass which was to become the crossing of the Great Divide on the Oregon Trail. This pass had been used by the Astorians, traveling in the opposite direction, in 1812. (General Dodge's memorial, crediting discovery of the pass to Bridger in 1827, was thus in error, although various routes were being "discovered" and "re-discovered" at intervals by individuals who had no knowledge that others had preceded them.) A new era in fur trade history was opened when Smith's party found the rich beaver fields at the head of Green River. As Smith and his contingent moved north from the Green, they entered Jackson Hole by way of the Hoback, passed through the valley, and crossed north of the Tetons by way of Conant Pass into Pierre's Hole (the Teton Basin.) Thus Smith preceded Bridger into Jackson Hole by a year.

Although Smith became possibly the greatest of the trapper-explorers, at least with relation to the wide territory covered in the course of his journeys, he did not return to Jackson Hole. He was killed by Comanches only 7 years later on the Santa Fe Trail. Crossing desert country with a wagon train, Smith was scouting ahead for water when he was slain. His remains were never found, the story of his death came to light when Mexican traders, who dealt with the Comanches, brought his pistols and rifle to Santa Fe.

William "Bill" Sublette and David E. Jackson became Smith's partners in the fur trade when they bought Ashley's interests in the business at the rendezvous near the Great Salt Lake in 1826. Both of these men had been among those who made up Ashley's 1822 expedition, Sublette at that time was 24 years of age, a Kentuckian whose family moved to Missouri in 1817. Jackson has remained throughout the years an enigma, practically nothing is known of him before his advent into the fur trade, or following his activity as a mountain man.

Sublette was the entrepreneur of the trio. It was Bill who handled the outfitting, the business contracts, the transportation of trade goods and furs. That the partnership was successful is indicated by their disposal of their interests to Bridger and his partners in 1830 for an overall sum involving some $16,000. Sublette and his partners were shrewd enough to anticipate the gradual dissolution of the fur trade, which influenced their desire to get out of the business. It was Sublette's wagon caravan from St. Louis to the Popo Agie and return in 1830 that proved the overland trail could be used by wheeled vehicles, this was the caravan that pioneered the immigrants' route to Oregon. Sublette later returned to the west as a trader, in partnership with Robert Campbell, and built Fort William (later Fort Laramie) in 1834.

Sublette and Jackson first entered Jackson Hole in 1826, after the rendezvous of that year near the Great Salt Lake. They crossed the lower end of the valley on their way to Green River, while their new partner, Smith, was headed with another contingent of trappers southwest across the desert toward California.

The system of trading at annual summer "rendezvous," several of which have been previously mentioned, was inaugurated by Ashley in 1825. The rendezvous site of that year was on Henry's Fork of the Green River. By such a method, more flexible than the previously used "fixed fort" system, the trappers assembled at a previously determined place, conveniently located for the widely separated trapper bands. The trader brought his goods to the site where furs were exchanged for the trade goods. It was a time of celebration, frolic, and general carousal for all concerned. The rendezvous site can be likened to the hub of a wheel, the trails followed by the trappers as they came in from the spring hunt and departed for the fall hunt were the spokes. Thus rendezvous sites were on the Green, Wind, Popo Agie Rivers, at the Bear and Great Salt Lakes, in Pierre's Hole, and finally at Fort Bonneville. Jackson Hole was never a rendezvous site because of the difficulty of access for the traders over the high mountain passes surrounding the valley.

There is no positive evidence of trapping activity in the valley in 1827-28, although it is quite probable that the Hole received its share of attention. In 1829, however, Sublette and Jackson joined forces again in Jackson Hole, where by previous arrangement they were to meet "Diah." Smith did not appear, and the partners were greatly concerned by his absence. Tradition has it that Sublette named "Jackson's Hole" and "Jackson's Lake" in honor of his associate while they were encamped on the shore of the lake waiting for Smith. Smith was eventually located in Pierre's Hole by one of the Sublette-Jackson party, Joe Meek, and the partners were finally reunited there, Jackson and Sublette moving over via Teton Pass.

Throughout the period 1811-40, nearly every mountain man prominently connected with the fur trade visited Jackson Hole. It was an area greatly favored by Jackson, which undoubtedly accounts for Sublette's most appropriate name. Following Colter's discovery of the valley, it was traversed in 1811 by three employees of the St. Louis-Missouri Fur Company, John Hoback, Edward Robinson, and Jacob Reznor. These three, en route to St. Louis in the spring, encountered the Astorian expedition (John Jacob Astor's overland party of the American Fur Company) and agreed to guide the party, commanded by Wilson Price Hunt, over a part of the westward route. This group entered Jackson Hole that fall by way of the Hoback River, then went west over Teton Pass. Robert Stuart brought a returning band of Astorians back in the fall of 1812, following the same general way and discovering the "South Pass," as they moved eastward beyond the Green.

British interests took the initiative in the exploration of the fur country following the War of 1812 and a general, and temporary, decline of American interest. In 1819 Donald McKenzie of the Northwest Company brought a large party through Jackson Hole and on north into the Yellowstone.

The Americans again entered the picture with Smith's previously mentioned venture of 1824, and from that time forward the list of Jackson Hole visitors reads like a "Who's Who" of the western fur trade. There were James Beckwourth (with Sublette), all of Bridger's partners (Fitzpatrick, Milton Sublette, Fraeb, and Gervais), Nathaniel Wyeth, Captain Benjamin L. E. Bonneville, and probably on one occasion the redoubtable Kit Carson.

The era of the mountain man was brief. It is doubtful that the trappers, traders, and fur company men realized the significance of their exploits in the expansion westward of a new nation. Yet without their activities the exploration of the western lands might have been long delayed, and the claim of the United States to the Pacific Northwest much less secure.

Bibliography

Alter, J. Cecil: _James Bridger, Trapper, Frontiersman, Scout and
Guide_, Shepard Book Company, Salt Lake City 1925.

Chittenden, Hiram Martin: _A History of the American Fur Trade of the
Far West_, Academic Reprints, Stanford, California 1954.

Mattes, Merrill J.: "Jackson Hole, Crossroads of the Western Fur Trade,
1807-1840, _The Pacific Northwest Quarterly_, Volume 37, April,
1946 and Volume 39, January, 1948.

Morgan, Dale: _Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West_, The
Bobbs-Merrill Company, Incorporated, New York 1953.

Sullivan, Maurice S.: _Jedediah Smith, Trader and Trailbreaker_, Press
of the Pioneers, Incorporated, New York 1936.

Sunder, John E.: _Bill Sublette, Mountain Man_, University of Oklahoma
Press, Norman, Oklahoma 1959.

Vestal, Stanley: _Jim Bridger, Mountain Man_, William Morrow and
Company, New York 1946.

THE DOANE EXPEDITION OF 1876-77
FORT ELLIS, MONTANA TERRITORY TO FORT HALL, IDAHO
By Merlin K. Potts, _former Chief Park Naturalist_

Telegram
St. Paul, Minnesota
October 4, 1876
To the
Commanding Officer
Fort Ellis, Montana Territory