Chapter II: Transportation Development in the United States; Early Trails and Roads (1)

The early settlements of this country were made upon the shores, naturally, because the settlers were brought by ships from Europe and supplies of various sorts were from time to time renewed by ships. The settlers were not skilled in the art of living on the country as were the natives and when supply vessels failed to put in their appearance there was real hardship in and sometimes entire extermination of the colonists. The penetration of settlement to the interior was slow and even to times within the memory of men now living much of the interior was an unknown wilderness.

=The Birch Bark Canoe.=--Travel from place to place was at first insignificant and what little there was was carried on by walking, horseback riding, or by boat. Settlement, which had begun on the ocean or at the head of ocean navigation on inlets or rivers, was eventually pushed farther inland. The rivers and other waterways being at hand were utilized; the birch-bark canoe, the dugout, and the plank boat, furnished the principal vehicles of transportation. The Indians were very expert in the manufacture and operation of light birch-bark canoes. Longfellow in “Hiawatha” gives a poetical description of this:

With his knife the tree he girdled;
Just beneath its lowest branches,
Just above the roots he cut it,
Till the sap came oozing outward;
Down the trunk from top to bottom,
Sheer he cleft the bark asunder,
With a wooden wedge he raised it
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.

Then he explains how the framework is made of cedar:

Like two bows he framed and shaped them,
Like two bended bows together.

After which they were tied together and the bark fastened to the frame by fibrous roots of the larch, then Hiawatha

Took the resin of the fir tree
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure,
Made each crevice safe from water.

The aborigine paddled this frail bark so skillfully that the noise of rowing was scarcely audible or the waves visible. And when he came to the headwaters of the stream he was able to raise the light craft above his head and follow the dim trail across the lower lying hills to the stream beyond the water-shed leading in the opposite direction.

The white man, profiting by the Red Man’s experience learned to build these boats, as well as heavier ones of logs and timber for transporting goods, and utilized the same trails to push his civilization farther into the unknown.

=Meagerness of Early Roads.=--In the “History of Travel”[16] Mr. Dunbar quotes from a document in the New York Historical Society’s collection, written by Benjamin Fletcher, Governor of His Majesty’s Province of New York, and dated 1694, which shows the lack of roadways or even passable trails in northern New York: “It is impossible to march with any party of men to Canada by Land, either in winter or summer, but they must passe a Considerable Part of ye way over ye Lake, ye land on each side being extream steep and Rocky mountains or els a meer cumbered with underwood, where men can not goe upright, but must creep throu Bushes for whole days’ marches, and impossible for horses to goe at any time of ye year.”

The same author quotes from a letter by Deputy Governor Hinkley of Plymouth Colony, about 1680, asking the English Government for favors because this Colony was “the first that broke the ice, and underwent ye brunt, at our own charge, for the enlargement of his Majestie’s dominions in this heretofore most howling wilderness, amidst wild Indians and wild beasts.”

In Massachusetts,[17] on the other hand, it is stated that while communication was usually by water one writer boasts that “the wild and uncouth woods were filled with frequented ways and the large rivers were overlaid with bridges, passable both for horse and foot.” But notwithstanding this it was probably not before the beginning of the sixteenth century that any very serious attempts were made even to widen the trails so that wagon traffic was possible. In 1754[18] four days were needed to go from Boston to New York by stage, and three days more to go to Philadelphia. Twelve years later it required the “Flying Machine” two days to make the trip between New York and Philadelphia.

=Settlement Follows Waterways; Portages.=--The opening up for settlement of new territory necessitated means of communication. That near waterways was most easily reached and most easily kept within reach of older settlements and was, therefore, naturally first taken up and occupied. To penetrate farther the interior made it necessary to cross from one water system to another. As necessity arose the trails were widened into roads and often at these portages were established forts and villages for protection against the natives and to facilitate trade. Villages grew into towns and towns into cities. Portages became known and were talked about just as railroad lines were later.[19] To go from the region near New York the Hudson River was available to the watershed near Lake George, where there was a 15-mile portage guarded by Forts Edward on the Hudson and William Henry on Lake George. After traversing Lake George there was another portage to Lake Champlain guarded by Fort Ticonderoga. These names are often mentioned in the histories of the French and Indian and of the Revolutionary wars.

Showing the Location of Well-known Portages. There Were Other Portages Wherever Two Water Courses Came Near to Each Other. (See Farrand: “American Nation,” Vol. I, and Thwaites, Ib. Vol. VII.)]

The Oneida portage, leading from the Mohawk, a tributary of the Hudson, to Wood Creek thence by the Oswego River furnished a way to Ontario and the other Great Lakes. A portage around Niagara Falls is now supplanted by the Welland Canal.

=Lines of Travel.=--To reach the Ohio Valley travelers might go by way of the north along the routes just mentioned to the Great Lakes, thence to the interior of Ohio, or they could leave the Mohawk and portage across to the upper waters of the Allegheny. The Indians gave trouble along these lines, so a more southerly route was often taken. Some of these, commencing on the north, were: Up the Susquehanna to its headwaters, portage to one or the other of tributaries which flow into the Allegheny near Kittanning; leave the Susquehanna and go up the Juniata and portage over to the Conemaugh, thence to the Allegheny--a course partly occupied now by the Pennsylvania railroad; or, by way of the Potomac, and Wills Creek, then across the Youghiogheny, and Monongahela. Several other trails crossed the Alleghanies. A trail through southern Pennsylvania called occasionally Nemacolin’s Path afterward formed the line of Braddock’s Road, hastily constructed for military purposes during the French and Indian War, and over which Braddock’s unfortunate expedition traveled. Still farther south there was a well-known trail often followed by the Cherokee Indians, by trappers, hunters, traders, and missionaries desirous of reaching the lands beyond the mountains. Skirting the north end of the Blue Ridge range the traveler followed up the Shenandoah to near the present town of Staunton, thence across the ridges to the headwaters of the James, thence to upper tributaries of the New River, then by crossing a few more ridges to the Holston River, thence into the bountiful hunting grounds of Tennessee. The Cherokee Indians were jealous of this territory and as far as possible kept it closed to the settler. Therefore the country beyond the Alleghanies was not well known to the Virginia colonists, even up to 1800. True, records of Dougherty, a trader, who had visited the Indian tribes in this region as early as 1690 were known, and another (Adair) in 1730, and still others after 1740. Glowing reports were brought back by the few traders, hunters, trappers, and occasional talkative Indians, who had visited those regions of magnificent rivers, vast woods, and extended prairies. The wild beasts with which this fertile country abounded were likened to the leaves on the trees, they were so abundant. Even the great Ohio River was but a tributary of a larger river of which they had no definite information. The trip, in the language of the Indian, from the headwaters of the Holston (Hogo higee) to the Wabash (Ohio) required for its performance “two paddles, two warriors, three moons.”[20] These glowing descriptions only whetted the adventurous appetite and soon such hardy pioneers as Daniel Boone and his comrades sought this territory where they could live near to nature and be freed from high taxes. There was also a well-worn trail from Philadelphia, east of the Cherokee (Shenandoah) through Virginia to the Yadkin, from which travelers could diverge at various points and reach the Cherokee trail or go on through Cumberland Gap farther to the west.

=Trails from the North.=--Traders from Virginia who reached far out in Tennessee and Kentucky found competition from those who came down by one of the several routes from the Great Lakes or up from the lower Mississippi. A route left Lake Erie at what is now Cleveland, passed up the Cuyahoga, portaged across to a tributary of the Ohio, then into Kentucky; another left the Lake at Sandusky, followed the Miami, crossed to the Scioto, thence down to the Ohio, across Kentucky to Cumberland Gap, sometimes called the Scioto trail and farther south the Warrior’s Trail.

As western territory settled, trails and roads became more numerous. Readers desiring further detailed information are referred to Hurlbert, Thwaites, Dunbar, and Farrand.[21] A few other routes, however, should be mentioned on account of the importance they assumed in the settlement of the nation.

=Boone’s Trace, or The Wilderness Road.=--This road is said to be the first road built into the wilderness for the purpose of encouraging settlement and development. In the late years of the nineteenth century it was no uncommon thing for a railroad to precede settlement, but at the beginning of the eighteenth century roads were, in America, made largely for military purposes or where demanded by the traffic of earlier settlement.

Daniel Boone, the noted hunter and explorer, had several times left his home in North Carolina to hunt and travel in the wilds of Kentucky. He brought back to the eastern side of the mountains glowing descriptions. These excited the cupidity of a friend, a judge and prominent citizen of North Carolina, James[22] Henderson. Henderson employed Boone to confer with the Cherokee Indians who claimed this territory for the sale of their rights. Boone sought out the Indians and by means now unknown got them to agree to sell. The fact that they were persuaded to dispose of their great hunting grounds shows what influence Boone had among them. It has been intimated that the chiefs realized the futility of further fighting the white settler or that the Cherokees felt they had no real right to this land as it had been rather held as neutral territory among several tribes. However, as soon as they had given their pledge Boone is said to have gone immediately to Henderson, who repaired at once to Fort Watauga on a branch of the Holston in North Carolina, where he met 1200 natives in council and completed the deal in the name of the Transylvania Company. The main opposition came from an eloquent and powerful chief named Dragging Canoe,[23] who was able to disrupt proceedings the first day. After his speech the council broke up in confusion. The next day, however, the Indians again went into council and the treaty was ratified. Estimates of the price paid range from “ten wagon loads of cheap goods and whiskey,” to “the equivalent of ten thousand pounds sterling.”[24]

As soon as the deal was consummated Boone, employed by Henderson, began the marking and cutting out of a road from Watauga, North Carolina, to Boonesborough, Kentucky. The party numbered about forty men, consisting of colored men to care for the camp duties and the necessary pack animals and a body of woodsmen with axes. Boone went ahead and blazed the way by chopping notches in the sides of trees along the way, the axmen following cleared away the underbrush and felled and removed such trees as stood in the way. However, as it was easier to detour than to chop, usually only small trees were cut. It was not intended that this should be a wagon road, as wagons had but just made their appearance in this region. However, it was to be an easily followed way for future settlers. In Boone’s Autobiography, dictated to John Filson, the matter of the road is referred to thus:

After the conclusion of which (a campaign against the Shawanese
Indians which Boone commanded by order of Governor Dunmore), the
militia was discharged from each garrison, and I, being relieved from
my post, was solicited by a number of North Carolina gentlemen, that
were about purchasing the lands lying on the north side of Kentucky
River, from the Cherokee Indians, to attend their treaty at Wataga,
in March, 1755, to negotiate with them, and mention the boundaries
of the purchase. This I accepted; and, at the request of the same
gentlemen, undertook to mark out a road in the best passage from the
settlement through the wilderness to Kentucky, with such assistance
as I thought necessary to employ for such an important undertaking.

I soon began this work, having collected a number of enterprising
men, well armed. We proceeded with all possible expedition until we
came within fifteen miles of where Boonesborough now stands, and
where we were fired upon by a party of Indians, that killed two, and
wounded two of our number; yet, although surprised and taken at a
disadvantage, we stood our ground. This was the 20th of March, 1775.
Three days after, we were fired upon again, and had two men killed
and three wounded. Afterwards we proceeded on to Kentucky River
without opposition; and on the 1st of April began to erect the fort
of Boonesborough at a salt lick, about sixty yards from the river on
the south side.

A letter from Captain Boone to Colonel Henderson is quoted by Peck in his life of Boone, relating to this same enterprise, which shows the dangerous nature of the work and that even Boone seemed somewhat worried over the matter:

Dear Colonel: After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you with
our misfortune. On March the 25th a party of Indians fired on my
company about half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twitty and his
negro, and wounded Mr. Walker very deeply but I hope he will recover.

On March the 28th, as we were hunting for provisions, we found Samuel
Tate’s son, who gave us an account that the Indians fired on their
camp on the 27th day. My brother and I went down and found two men
killed and scalped, Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McPeters. I have
sent a man down to all the lower companies in order to gather them
all to the mouth of Otter Creek. My advice to you, sir, is to come or
send as soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the
people are very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their
lives with you; and now is the time to flusterate their (the Indians)
intentions, and keep the country whilst we are in it. If we give way
to them now, it will ever be the case. This day we start from the
battle-ground for the mouth of Otter Creek, where we will immediately
erect a fort, which will be done before you can come or send; then
we can send ten men to meet you if you send for them.

I am sir, your most obedient,

DANIEL BOONE.

N. B.--We stood on the ground and guarded our baggage till day, and
lost nothing. We have about fifteen miles to Cantuck at Otter Creek.

The road began “at the settlements,” which were probably in what are now Sullivan and Hawkins counties. Tennessee, but mostly along the Watauga River, then thought to be a part of Virginia. The road was a continuation of the Cherokee trail through the mountains. This trail served the great migration following the Revolutionary War in Tennessee and Kentucky. From the settlements there is a westerly course to the Holston River at Long Island near the site of old Long Island Fort constructed by Colonel Bird to winter his army during the French and Indian War in 1758. At this place he received some reinforcements and then continued in a generally westward direction through country he was more or less familiar with to the Clinch River, then across the ridge to the Powell River, and finally to Cumberland Gap, through which he entered the land of “Kentucke.” Here he arrived at the Warrior’s Trail leading northward, so called because Kentucky had been a sort of neutral hunting grounds of the Indians from the North, the Miamis, Shawnees, Wyandots, and others and of the Cherokees, Creeks, Catawbas, and others, from the South. Nevertheless the Indians from the South habitually crossed over and fought those from the North and vice versa, hence a large and much frequented trail.

When the Railroads Entered the Industrial Arena, the Country Was Being Covered With a Net Work of Highways. (Based on Tanner’s Map of 1825 and Turner in “American Nation,” Vol. XIV.)]

Boone appropriated this native route for a distance of about 50 miles to near the present town of Manchester in Clay County. Here he found a “street” made by the buffalo, which were wont to travel through the cane-brakes about five or six abreast, thus with their thousands of hoofs breaking and hardening a way wide enough for a team and wagon. Turning west he followed the bisons’ street to Rock Castle River, then turned northward again to the Kentucky River and the site of Boonesborough. A fort was here erected by placing stout log cabins with heavy stockades between about a rectangular space some 150 x 260 feet. A pair of strong wooden gates furnished ingress and egress. Several times was this fort attacked by Indians, the last time in 1778, by nearly 500 warriors, but always, because of the block houses at the corners with their loop-holes and the heavy barricades, also with loop holes, they were able to withstand the attacks and finally repulse the Indians.

The first legislature of the Transylvania Republic, as Henderson’s scheme came to be known, was held here. Boone was a member, as was Harrod from Harrodstown, and other early settlers of Kentucky.

There is no doubt but that this highway and blockhouse fort were of great assistance in settling and developing the country of Kentucke.

=Calk’s Diary.=--One of the first parties to make use of Boone’s Trace was that of Henderson in response to Boone’s letter heretofore quoted. A naïve diary kept by one of its members, William Calk, is still in existence. It has been made available by the publications of the Filson Club. Speed[25] and Dunbar[26] quote it extensively. Theodore (afterward President) Roosevelt[27] says “the writer’s mind was evidently as vigorous as his language was terse and untrammeled.” While spelling, capitalization, and punctuation may not conform to the best modern style it must be remembered that in those early days there were no public schools. A few private schools were taught by more or less shiftless school teachers, but the man who could read and write at all was fortunate. Boone’s schooling, of a very meager nature, closed when he and some of his schoolmates exchanged the teacher’s whisky bottle for a similar one doped with tartar emetic. The sick teacher made a “rough house” with Boone and his companions but was finally knocked down and the school dismissed.

To return to William Calk’s diary. It is a sort of log or running account of the trip and events from day to day as they impressed him, from its beginning March 13, 1775, in Prince William County, Virginia, till he arrives at Boonesborough. It is certainly a very good commentary on the early travel conditions. A few of the entries are:

1775, Mon. 13th--I set out from prince wm. to travel to Caintuck on
tursday Night our company all got together at Mr. Priges on rapadon
which was Abraham hanks phipip Drake Eanock Smith Robert Whitledge
and myself thiar Abrahms Dogs leg got broke by Drakes Dog.

Wednesday, 15th--We started early from priges made a good days travel
and lodge this night at Mr. Cars on North fork James River.

So he continues with his daily items. It may be interesting to note that

Wedns 22nd--We start early and git to foart Chissel whear we git some
good loaf bread and good whiskey.

On “fryday 24th” they turned out of the main wagon road in order to go to “Danil Smiths” on the Clinch River, where they arrived Saturday evening and very hard traveling they found it through the mountains. Those who have had experience with pack animals in the timber will relish this incident which occurred soon after the few days’ sojourn at Smith’s.

Thusd 30th--We set out again and went down to Elk gardin and there
suplid our Selves With Seed Corn and irish tators then we went on a
little way I turned my hors to drive before me and he got scard ran
away threw Down the Saddle Bags and broke three of our powder goards
and Abrams beast Burst open a walet of corn and lost a good Deal and
made a turrable flustration amongst the Reast of the Horses Drakes
mair run against a sapling and nocht it down we cacht them all again
and went on and loged at John Duncans.

They “suplyed” themselves with bacon and meal at “Dunkan’s.” This was their last chance to get provisions other than the game afforded by the country. They found this a “verey Bad hilley way.” Were mired in the mud, fell in the water and got their loads wet. Since they turned off to go to Smith’s they had been traveling unbroken or dim trails; on “mond 3rd” after traveling the woods without any track they “git into hendersons Road,” that is the trail which Boone had recently blazed for the Transylvania Company. On “Tuesday 4th” they overtook “Col. henderson and his company Bound for Caintuck,” at Capt. Martin’s where “they were Broiling and Eating Beef without Bread.” They now formed a company of about “40 men and some neagros.”

Saturday 8th--We all pack up and started crost Cumberland gap about
one oclock this Day. Met a good many peopel turned back for fear of
the indians but our Company goes on Still with good courage.

News of the depredations of the Indians frightened many and caused them to turn back. The Henderson party were able to pursuade some of these to remain. On the 9th they met “another Companey going Back they tell such News abram and Drake is afraid to go aney farther there we camp this night.”

However, after many hardships, swollen streams over which they must sometimes swim their horses, “obliged to toat” the packs over themselves, they arrived at their destination. Once “Abrams mair Ran into the River with her load and swam over” he followed her and “got on her and made her swim back again.” He mentions occasionally Killing game: one “Eavening two Deer,” another day a “beef,” and again “2 bofelos.” The writer was evidently disgusted with the uncleanly and unsanitary Drake, whose dog is mentioned in the first entry, for he notes that “Mr. Drake Bakes Bread without washing his hands,” which evidently was unusual in even these frontier times.

After arriving at “Boones foart” they drew “for chois of lots;” some as will always happen were dissatisfied. This small company, however, must have decided to accept the verdict of chance for Calk writes:

Wednesday 26th--We Begin Building us a house and a plaise of Defense
to Keep the indians off this day we begin to live without bread.

Satterday 29th--We git our house Kivered with Bark and move our
things into it at Night and Bigin houseKeeping Eanock Smith Robert
Whitledge and myself.

Thus ends this interesting journal kept under difficult conditions when ordinary men would have considered it useless labor to make such a record. There is no doubt but that Boone’s Wilderness Road and Boone’s Fort were both very instrumental in the settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee. The territory of Kentucky was separated from Virginia in 1786 and admitted to the union as a state in 1790, when it had a population, by U. S. Census, of 73,077.

=Marquette’s Explorations.=--Religious devotion and zeal has done much for the settlement of North America: the Puritans in New England, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Catholics in Maryland and Canada, and very much later the Mormons in Utah are familiar examples. A French Jesuit missionary, Jacques Marquette, who with another, Claude Bablon, had founded (1668) a settlement at St. Mary’s on the falls between Lakes Superior and Huron, said to be the first French settlement within the present boundaries of the United States, had made friends with the Illinois Indians and learned their language. He also collected the remains of the Huron tribes at St. Ignace and established a mission there (1671). Marquette had heard from the Indians many tales of the Great river to the west, and decided to explore the region along its borders, despite their assertion of great dangers, that its warriors never spared the stranger, and that monsters would devour both men and canoes. Traveling with his company up the Fox River from Green Bay he crossed the portage, which still retains the name “Portage,” to the headwaters of the Wisconsin. With the explorer Joliet and five subordinates as companions, he boldly embarked upon the Wisconsin and floated down its course, knowing not where it would lead nor what dangers might be in store. After seven days of solitary travel they floated with inexpressible joy on the broad bosom of the Mississippi, June 17, 1673. They continued their lonely voyage along its placid waters until they reached the mouth of the Moingona, where were seen evidences of habitation. Fourteen miles in the interior was a native village. They said they were received most friendly with a calumet, invited into their dwellings, and feasted. They explained their religious doctrines and were sent away with the gift of a calumet or peace pipe embellished with the heads and necks of various colored bright and beautiful birds.

They sailed along their solitary way and were soon rewarded by hearing the rush of the swifter, more turbulent, muddy waters of the Missouri, which seemed from thereon to enhance the speed of the current. They went on past the mouths of the Ohio and the Arkansas, where they found savages who spoke a new tongue and were armed with guns, proof that they had trafficked with the Spaniards from the Gulf of Mexico, or with the English from Virginia. These exhibiting hostility which was only allayed by the peace pipe, they retreated and sailed back up the river. When Marquette reached the Illinois he entered and ascended that river where he beheld the magnificent fertility and coloring inuring to the late summer and early autumn of the extensive plains and vast wooded tracts of Illinois. An easy portage brought him to the Chicago River, a short stream whose waters are now reversed and flow into the Illinois. Some authorities claim Marquette to have been the first white man to set foot upon the site of Chicago (1673). Others[28] state that the French Jesuit Nicholas Perrot and his party of fur traders pitched their tent on its prairies the latter part of 1669.

To Marquette, however, belongs the honor of discovering two very important routes to the Mississippi Valley; the one by way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, and the other by way of the Illinois. Unfortunately the hardships of this journey undermined his health and the next year (1674) a half hour after he had retired for devotion to a small altar of stones on the banks of a little stream now called by his name, he was found dead. Thus judged by the extent and value of the territory traversed, passed away, at the early age of thirty-one, one of our country’s greatest explorers.

=The Lewis and Clark Expedition.=--Another exploring expedition sought a path to extend the commerce of the United States in the far Oregon country. The great Rocky Mountain ranges precluded direct approach. The idea had evidently fastened itself upon Thomas Jefferson, even before he became president, that the Missouri River might be made the highway across the continent, and that trade and commerce thus engendered would inure to the benefit of the country. Also being a highly educated man, he was deeply interested in extending the geographical and biological knowledge of this vast region even though no remuneration to the nation might come therefrom. Furthermore, it is possible, he desired to secure the territories beyond the Rockies as a part of the country, but he was too shrewd to make plain statements to that effect. His shrewdness and the business sagacity of Livingston, minister to France, coupled with the financial straits of Napoleon resulted in obtaining an extensive portion of the country without which the United States could not have developed into a strong well-bound nation reaching from coast to coast. Whether Mr. Jefferson would have attempted to take this country by force matters not now. The fact that the Lewis and Clark military expedition was ready to start almost as soon as the purchase was made, lends suspicion to that idea. The nomination of Monroe to be Minister to France, the man whom Jefferson expected to conduct the Louisiana negotiations, and who arrived in France just in time to see them completed by Livingston, was made January 11, 1803; while the message proposing the expedition was submitted January 18; the treaty of cession for the purchase was signed May 2; and during that same month the expedition which had previously organized left its winter quarters about a day’s journey from St. Louis, and proceeded up the Missouri River. The expedition consisted of forty-five persons in three boats, one a flat boat decked over at the ends and two pirogues[29] together with a number of horses which were to be driven along the bank for the use of the hunters. The personnel consisted of the two officers, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant (by courtesy Captain) William Clark, both of whom were from families already distinguished in border service; twenty-seven men who expected to make the entire journey; seven soldiers and nine voyageurs who were to go only to the Mandan villages of the Missouri, where the party would winter. Of the twenty-seven permanent members one was a half-breed hunter who would also act as interpreter, two were French voyageurs, and one a negro servant of Clark. All, except the black slave, were enlisted in the army that discipline might be secured. Their progress was necessarily slow and a full account of it reads like a romance. They of course had to live off the country as they proceeded. There was no roadway along the river, often the brush was thick and the grass high; the river with its turbulent waters, snags, and sand bars made navigation difficult; flies and mosquitoes, those pests of bottom and marshy land, were abundant. They had some trouble with the Sioux Indians, but Captains Lewis and Clark were evidently able to cope with them successfully. They reached a point near the present site of Bismarck, N.D., that summer. This region was occupied by the Mandan Indians, who lived in villages of rather permanent character. Among these they found some who had traveled far toward the headwaters of the Missouri. One woman, known as the Bird Woman, was especially helpful to them. She had been captured some time previously from a mountain tribe and according to Indian custom married to one of their own number, a half breed. During the stay at winter quarters, in addition to writing up their journals and records very carefully, they cultivated the acquaintance of this woman. She, with her half breed husband and small child, accompanied the expedition when it began its onward journey in the spring of 1805. There was real need for them not only to act as guides and interpreters, but to replace those who had been sent back down the river with reports of the progress and observations of the expedition up to this time. Part of the duties of the expedition, as heretofore intimated, was to note the character and productivity of the land, as well as the nature and number of Indians found and general information concerning them and their mode of living.

When the falls of the Missouri were reached there seemed to be an _impasse_. But from logs and other timbers found there they constructed a crude wagon on which their supplies and equipment were transported to the river above. They had brought with them the iron framework of a smaller boat than those used heretofore with the idea of covering it with stretched skins. They found difficulty, however, in getting it watertight. They attempted to get pitch by heating pine tree trunks but were again unsuccessful. They resorted finally to a combination of powdered charcoal, beeswax, and buffalo tallow--practically natural products of the land. The boat floated nicely and they were greatly encouraged but when it was taken from the water the mixture dropped off and the seams opened up. Lewis finally gave up the attempt and buried the framework and built canoes according to the Indian fashion. In passing up they came to forks in the river and were often at a loss which to take. By conference with the Indian woman and reports of scouts sent ahead they were usually fortunate in choosing the right course. Being explorers of a new country they assigned names to the rivers as they discovered them. At three forks, they called the rivers, Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson, names which they still retain. Three branches of the Jefferson were Philosophy, Philanthropy, and Wisdom; these names have not remained--probably they were too fanciful--the Philanthropy is now the odoriferous Stinking Water.

They followed up the Jefferson until it became too shallow and precipitous to navigate longer. Lewis started out overland into the interior hoping to find an Indian habitation and someone who would guide him to waters flowing Pacificward. Game, which had been very abundant practically all the way, was here scarce and the company were often hungry, and very likely despondent. After arduous and weary wandering Lewis came across an old Indian woman and some girls. They were afraid of him and bowed their heads for execution. Instead he gave them trinkets and face paint. The men of the tribe having come up he with difficulty persuaded them to go with him to the river where the “Bird Woman” who had come with them from the Mandan village was recognized as the sister of the chief of the band with which Lewis had fortunately come in contact.

Their food up to this time, which was mostly meat, was easily supplied from the numerous herds of buffalo, elk, deer, and antelope; from flocks of wild fowl, and prairie chickens; and from several varieties of fish found in the waters. “On the return voyage, when Clark was descending the Yellowstone River, a vast herd of buffalo, swimming and wading, plowed its way across the stream where it was a mile wide, in a column so thick that explorers had to draw up on shore and wait for an hour, until it passed by, before continuing their journey.”[30] They frequently found hungry wolves, grizzly bears, and rattlesnakes which gave them more or less trouble, but they complained mostly of the mosquitoes.

But now having left the open country they found game very scarce. The Indians occasionally brought them a Rocky Mountain sheep but they themselves claim never to have seen one alive. After a short exploration in the region of the headwaters of the Jefferson they decided to continue toward the west. So purchasing ponies from the Indians and cacheing most of their goods went on until the rivers were again passable for boats, where making new canoes they again took to the waters and voyaged to the mouth of the Columbia. Hunger harassed them, while rapids and whirlpools made their downward travel very disagreeable. The Indians on the lower reaches were generally friendly but their food consisted largely of dog meat, which at first was nauseating; however, after awhile they became reconciled to the Indians’ favorite dish.

The party wintered on the coast at a post they named Fort Clatsch. The damp winds here were cold and raw and to persons used to active outdoor life the winter’s enforced idleness cloyed, and they were glad when spring came and they could turn back. The streams toward the mountains are very swift so much of the return journey to the place where they had left their horses with the Nez Percé Indians had to be made on foot. Upon again securing their horses they separated at the top of the divide, Lewis returning by way of the Missouri and Clark going by way of the Yellowstone. Clark for a portion of the way subdivided his party in order that the maximum territory might be explored. They met again at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone and concluded their expedition at St. Louis, September 23, 1806. Thus ended a marvelous journey of three and a third years through a wilderness beset with many dangers, inhabited by savage tribes, venomous reptiles, and ferocious beasts; but a wilderness on the whole extremely friendly, abounding in succulent vegetation and edible game, and endowed with a healthful and invigorating climate. During all this time, notwithstanding hardships and exposures, one man only had died, one had deserted and not more than two Indians had been killed.[31] To Lewis and Clark for their ability to handle men, for their courage, and fidelity should be given much praise.

Upon the report of this expedition being made public very many hunters, trappers and fur traders came to the lands beyond the Missouri. These in turn were followed by bona-fide settlers. Soon this country was furnishing supplies for those farther east, the great rivers Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio being busy routes of internal commerce. As a result of Lewis and Clark’s labors the United States was able to lay claim to the Oregon country some years later. The door was opened for the development of a vast empire with versatile resources far beyond the fabled riches of the far east.

=Transcontinental Trails.=--Following the purchase of the Louisiana territory there was, of course, an extension of settlement to the prairies beyond the Missouri. The State of Missouri was early occupied and became a state in 1821, but it was many years later before other portions of the Louisiana Purchase were sufficiently settled to become territories.[32] The settlement of these lands, together with the opening up of Oregon and later California with its great gold rush, created a demand for transcontinental roads. The mountain ranges were searched for passes, possibly not so much for the purposes of settlement as means for going to and coming from fur trading posts which large companies established throughout the whole Rocky Mountain region. St. Louis became the greatest fur center in the world, a position which she probably holds still.[33] Provost, leader of a detachment of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company (Wm. H. Ashley, of Virginia, founder), found the South Pass by way of the Sweetwater branch of the North Fork of the Platte River, 1823. This pass held preëminence as a crossing through the Rockies to the great interior basin and to the Pacific coast. Already has been mentioned the crossing of Lewis and Clark in the North. Bridger discovered the pass in Southern Wyoming bearing his name, about 1824. This defile though wide enough for an army to pass through seems narrow because of its lateral walls of red granite and metamorphic sandstone extending almost perpendicularly from 1000 to 25,000 feet. The overland mail route prior to the building of the Union Pacific Railroad was through this pass. Jedediah Smith, who succeeded Ashley as head of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, explored practically all the region from Great Salt Lake to the Pacific, and from San Diego to the upper Columbia River in Canada. To him is the world indebted for its first knowledge of much of the vast region west of Salt Lake as by other active members of this company was revealed the sources of the Platte, the Yellowstone, the Green and the Snake Rivers, and possible routes through the almost impassable mountains drained by them. New England was especially interested in the Oregon country and through men from there the Humboldt River route was discovered.

During this same period there were being opened up trade and trade routes with the Spanish possessions farther south. In 1822 a wagon train was taken from Missouri to Santa Fé by a man named Beckwith to trade for horses and mules, and trap along the way. For years St. Louis was headquarters for many overland traders to these regions, taking to them cloths and other manufactured goods and bringing back furs, silver, mules, and horses.

The Oregon Trail, the Santa Fé Trail, the Spanish Trail and the Gila Route, had become quite well known by the early ’thirties and after the discovery of gold in California in ’forty-nine carried many people and much traffic across the continent.

=Origin of the Oregon Trail.=--At Bellevue the Nebraska State Historical Society erected, June 23, 1910, a monument a part of the inscription on which reads:

Commemorative of the Astorian Expedition organized June 23, 1810, by
John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company. This Expedition discovered
the Oregon Trail which spread knowledge of the Nebraska country
leading to its occupancy by white people.

John Jacob Astor’s purpose in organizing the Pacific Fur Company, a subsidiary of the American Fur Company, was to establish himself and American control in the already disputed Oregon country.[34] As a result two expeditions were fitted out to go to and establish trading posts in Oregon with a central control or main post at Astoria. One of these expeditions went by water around Cape Horn to “carry out the people, stores, ammunition and merchandise, requisite for establishing a fortified trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River.” The other “conducted by Mr. Hunt, was to proceed up the Missouri, and across the Rocky Mountains, to the same point: exploring a line of communication across the continent, and noting the place where interior trading posts might be established.”[35]

The overland expedition, consisting of about sixty men with four boats left their winter quarters in Missouri and proceeded up the river in the spring of 1811. They deviated somewhat from Lewis and Clark’s route by leaving the Missouri River at the mouth of the Grand River, near where the Pacific extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railroad crosses. They seem to have gone across the country north of the Black Hills into Wyoming to the Wind River and Wind Mountains south of the Yellowstone Park, using present-day terms for locations; thence a short distance to the head waters of the Snake River, a part of the Lewis and Clark route, which with some deviations they followed to the Columbia. At the mouth of the Columbia they met the sea party, and on July 28, 1812, a party of six men started back with dispatches. They wintered near Scott’s Bluff, Nebraska, having crossed the mountains substantially along the line afterwards known as the Oregon Trail. In the spring of 1813 they continued down the Platte to the Missouri. This trip proved the possibility of a direct route avoiding the long roundabout journey by way of the headwaters of the Missouri River. The evolution of the Oregon Trail has been summarized by Albert Watkins, Historian of the Nebraska State Historical Society, in Collections, Vol. XVI, p. 26, as follows:[36]

The Missouri Fur Company sent an expedition of 150 men to the upper
waters of the Missouri in 1809. The powerful and ferocious Black Feet
Indians, who were the providence of the Oregon Trail, discouraged
the attempts of these men to gain permanent foothold there. Part
of them retreated and another part, headed by the intrepid Henry,
crossed the mountain divide in the fall of 1810 and established Fort
Henry on Henry’s Fork of the Snake River. This was the beginning of
the southern movement. In 1821 Pilcher, who succeeded Lisa as head
of the Missouri Fur Company, made another attempt at a foothold in
the Black Feet country, but was forced back. Ashley, leader of the
Rocky Mountain Fur Company, organized in 1822, was also beaten back
in 1823. By this time Henry was discouraged about holding on to the
upper Missouri and turned his attention to permanent exploitation
of the Green River valley. In that year Provost made the important
discovery of South Pass. In 1824, Ashley conducted an expedition
to the lower fields along the regular trail except that he went to
Council Bluff and from there west up the Platte Valley. In 1830, his
great lieutenants, Smith, Jackson and Sublette, went west with a
train of fourteen wagons--the first to go to the mountains over the
cut-off; that is, up the Little Blue valley to its head, across to
the Platte, following the river to the mountains. In 1832 Bonneville
also went over the cut-off and took a wagon train over the South
Pass, the first wagons to cross the mountains. In 1832 Nathaniel
Wyeth went over the cut-off to Oregon, but did not take wagons over
the mountainous part of the course. In 1836 Marcus Whitman, one of
the intrepid winners and founders of Oregon, went almost through
to the Columbia with a wagon, thus demonstrating and illustrating
the practicability of a transcontinental road for all purposes. The
Oregon Trail was now clearly outlined. It was thoroughly established
in 1842 by the aggressive Oregon emigration.

=The Final Trail.=--The Trail as finally adopted and used by emigrants and freighters to Oregon in the “forties” started from Independence and Westport (outfitting stations near the present metropolis of Kansas City, Missouri) then followed in a general way the Kansas, Big Blue, and Little Blue Rivers to near the Platte, crossing over to the latter river a short distance west of the present city of Kearney. The trail here proceeded up the South bank to the forks, and from there up the North Fork to the Sweetwater which it followed through South Pass. Thence it bore southwestward, westward, and northwestward to the Snake River which was followed to a point about west of Boise where a cutoff was made through the Blue Mountains arriving at the Columbia River about the mouth of the Umatilla, thence down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean.

=Salt Lake Trail.=--Many variations of the above described trail were in use. Travelers up the Missouri River disembarked at St. Joseph, Nebraska City, Plattsmouth and especially at Council Bluffs. The great Mormon trek was made from the last-named place. They reached the Platte River west of Omaha and followed it on the north bank, paralleling the Oregon Trail from Fort Kearney to Fort Laramie, where they crossed over and joined with the Oregon Trail through South Pass then leaving that trail turned south and west to Great Salt Lake.

=Later California Trail.=--A continuation of the Salt Lake route north of Great Salt Lake and along the Humboldt River, across the desert to near Lake Tahoe, where there was a crossing through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Truckee Pass, thence to the Gold Diggings or across California by way of the American and Sacramento Rivers, was a trail very popular to California gold miners and was afterwards used by the overland stage, and known as the Later California Trail.

=Santa Fé Trail.=--This road passed westward and a little south to the Arkansas River, which it followed to Bent’s Fort (Colorado), thence up Timpas Creek and over the Raton Pass to Las Vegas (New Mexico). Then westward through Apache Cañon to Santa Fé. This trail was too rough for wagon traffic, so later a route which crossed over south from the Arkansas to the Cimarron and meeting the old trail at Las Vegas was used.

=Gila and Spanish Trails.=--Two routes were possible from Santa Fé. One southwestward by way of the Rio Grande and Gila Rivers into southern California. The other took a northwesterly direction up the Chama River, down the Dolores Valley, and across to the Grand River near the present site of Moab, Utah. Then west to the Sevier, up which it followed until it crossed over to the Virgin River; up this for a short distance then turned directly south-west across the Mohave desert toward Los Angeles. This last route received the name of Spanish Trail.

Many of these trails were difficult on account of scarcity of water in the deserts. Descriptions of early travel over them are replete with hardships, sickness, and deaths. Some of the graves were marked with wooden, stone, or iron markers with names roughly chiseled, but more received no marking whatsoever. Many travelers and settlers were killed by the Indians; the tribes apparently becoming more hostile as the number of whites increased until their own numbers became so decimated they could no longer command sufficient warriors to warrant further attacks. It would seem as though no advance in civilization is unaccompanied by its toll of human lives.

=Era of Turnpiking.=--The need of better transportation facilities was “borne in” on the people of the eastern part of the country long before the west had been developed. The Indian trail, a single path,--for they always traveled in single file--gave way to the “tote path” over which each year the settler’s surplus crops were transported to market on pack animals. Even if they owned wheeled vehicles the roads were generally so bad they could not be used. However, wheeled vehicles were not many prior to 1800. When Braddock wished to transport his army to western Pennsylvania he called upon the colonies for wagons, but Maryland and Virginia furnished only twenty-five. He appealed to Franklin, who by his influence was able to secure 154 wheeled vehicles[37] from Pennsylvania, probably the best supplied with wagons of all the colonies.

It was the custom for communities to join together after crops were gathered to start a caravan of packers to market.[38] A master driver with one or two assistants could manage a pack-train of a dozen or so horses. “Hides and peltries, ginseng, and bear’s grease” are mentioned as articles to be bartered for salt, iron, nails, pewter plates and dishes, and cloth and articles of clothing, although the latter were usually made at home. The horses traveled in single file each fitted with a natural crotch of wood for a tree. Hobbles and bells were provided that the horses could be turned loose to graze at night. Sometimes packs had to be taken off to be carried over streams or through narrow defiles. Naturally, methods of transportation had much influence on the character of the crops raised. Stock--cows, sheep, and pigs--could be driven to market by the raiser or sold to a drover who acted as a middleman. Farm products were concentrated by being fed to stock or manufactured into something requiring less space. Settlers complained that it required two bushels of grain to get one to market. Whisky and brandy were easily made, served to concentrate the grain and surplus fruit and always had a ready sale. When the government placed an excise tax on it the opposition was so great as to produce an insurrection in Pennsylvania (1794). Had there been good transportation facilities probably there never would have been a “Whisky Rebellion.” Sixteen gallons (two kegs) of whisky worth $1.00 per gallon east of the Alleghanies was a horse load; whereas the same animal would only pack about two bushels of grain worth, perhaps, 80 cents. That packing was a business of considerable importance is shown by a statement in “The History and Topography of Dauphin (and) Cumberland Counties (Pa.)” quoted by Dunbar: “Sixty or seventy years ago five hundred pack horses had been at one time in Carlisle, going thence to Shippenburg, Fort London and further westward.” This was written in 1848.