Chapter III: Preface: To Volume XXI (2)

The distance from Pittsburg to the Mississippi is about one thousand miles. Hutchins estimated it at one thousand one hundred and eighty-eight,--Dr. Drake at only nine hundred and forty-nine.[19] Wheeling is a town of some importance. Here the great national road into the interior from the city of Washington, meets that of Zanesville, Chillicothè, Columbus, and Cincinnati.[20] It is the best point to aim at in very low stages of the water, and from thence boats may go at all seasons of the year. We passed Marietta, distinguished for its remarkable remains of mounds, and works, resembling modern fortifications, but doubtless the labor of the ancient aboriginals, of whom there is now no existing account; but by these works, and articles found near them, they must have belonged to a race of men farther advanced in arts and civilization than the present Indian in that region,[21]--a people who, we may well suppose, were the ancestors of the Mexicans. Yet we see at this time little more than log-houses belonging to miserable tenants of white people. All the sugar used by the people here is obtained from the maple tree. Fossil coal is found along the banks. There is a creek pouring forth _Petroleum_, about one hundred miles from Pittsburg on the Alleghany, called _Oil_ Creek, which will blaze on the application of a {20} match. This is not uncommon in countries abounding in bituminous coal. Nitre is found wherever there are suitable caves and caverns for its collection. The people here are rather boisterous in their manners, and intemperate in their habits, by what we saw and heard, more so than on the other side of the river where slavery is prohibited. Indeed slavery carries a black moral mark with it visible on those whose skins are naturally of a different color; and Mr. Jefferson's opinion of the influence of slavery on the whites, justifies our remark.[22]

[19] Thomas Hutchins (1730-89), born in New Jersey, entered the
British army at an early age. He served in the French and Indian
War, and later as assistant engineer under Bouquet (1764), for whom
he prepared a map. In 1779 he was arrested in London, on a charge
of sympathizing with the American cause. Escaping to Paris, he
finally joined the continental army at Charleston, South Carolina,
and was made geographer general by General Greene. The estimate
here referred to is in his _Topographical Description of Virginia,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina_ (London, 1778), p. 5.

For Dr. Daniel Drake, see Flint's _Letters_ in our volume ix, p.
121, note 61.

The length of the Ohio from Pittsburg is estimated by the map of the
U. S. corps of engineers, published in 1881, as 967 miles.--ED.

[20] For Wheeling and the National Road, see A. Michaux's _Travels_,
in our volume iii, p. 33, note 15, and Flint's _Letters_, in our
volume ix, p. 105, notes 51, 52.--ED.

[21] For a more extended description of Marietta and its
antiquities, consult Cuming's _Tour_, in our volume iv, pp. 123-125.
The mounds are now believed to be the work of North American
Indians; consult Cyrus Thomas, "Mound Explorations," in U. S. Bureau
of Ethnology _Report_, 1890-91.--ED.

[22] Referring to Jefferson's account of the degradation of masters
under the régime of slavery, in _Notes on Virginia_ (original
edition, 1784), pp. 298-301.--ED.

We stopped one day and night at the flourishing town of _Cincinnati_, the largest city in the Western country, although laid out so recently as 1788.[23] It is twenty miles above the mouth of the Great Miami, and four hundred and sixty-five miles below Pittsburg. It appears to great advantage from the river, the ground inclining gradually to the water. Three of us had an evidence of that by a mischievous trick for which we deserved punishment. We were staring about the fine city that has risen up with a sort of rapid, mushroom growth, surprising to every one who sees it, and who considers that it is not more than forty years old. In the evening we went into a public house, where we treated ourselves with that sort of refreshment which inspires fun, frolic, and mischief. We remained on shore till so late an hour that every body appeared to have gone to bed, when we set out to return to our steam-boat. In our way to it we passed by a store, in the front of which stood three barrels of lamp-oil, at the head of a fine sloping street. The evil spirit of mischief put it into our heads to set them a rolling down the inclined plane to the river. No sooner hinted, than executed. {21} We set all three a running, and we ran after them; and what may have been lucky for us, they were recovered next day whole. Had there been legal inquisition made for them, we had determined to plead _character_, that we were from Boston, the land of steady habits and good principles, and that it must have been some gentlemen Southerners, with whose characters for nightly frolics, we, who lived within sound of the bell of the University of Cambridge were well acquainted. The owners of the oil came down to the steam-boat, and carried back their property without making a rigid examination for the offenders; without suspecting that prudent New-England young men would indulge in a wanton piece of fun, where so much was at stake. But John Bull and Jonathan are queer fellows.

[23] For the early history of this city, see Cuming's _Tour_, our
volume iv, p. 256, note 166.--ED.

From Cincinnati to St. Louis, we experienced some of those disagreeable occurrences, that usually happen to democratical adventurers. Our Captain, to lessen the expenses of the expedition, had bargained with the Captain of the steam-boat, that we of his band should assist in taking on board wood from the shore, to keep our boilers from cooling. Although every one saw the absolute necessity of the thing, for our common benefit and safety, yet some were for demurring at it, as not previously specified and agreed upon. Idleness engenders mutiny oftener than want. In scarcity and in danger men cling together like gregarious animals; but as soon as an enterprising gang can sit down, as in a steam-boat, with nothing to do but to find fault, they are sure to become discontented, and discontent indulged leads to mutiny. Whatever I thought then, I do not think now that Captain Wyeth was {22} to blame for directing his followers to aid in _wooding_; nor should the men have grumbled at it. I now am of opinion that our aiding in wooding the steam-boat was right, reasonable, and proper. Every man of us, except the surgeon of the company, Dr. Jacob Wyeth, ought, on every principle of justice and generosity, to have given that assistance.

Our navigation from Cincinnati to St. Louis was attended with circumstances new, interesting, and very often alarming. Passing the rapids of the Ohio, or _falls_ as they are called, between the Indiana territory and Kentucky, was sufficiently appalling to silence all grumbling. These falls, or rapids are in the vicinity of Louisville, Jeffersonville, Clarksville, and Shipping-port, and are really terrific to an inexperienced farmer or mechanic.[24] Our Hell-gate in Long-Island Sound is a common brook compared with them; and when we had passed through them into the Mississippi, the assemblage of trees in the river, constituting snags and sawyers, offered themselves as a species of risk and danger, which none of us had ever calculated on or dreamt of. We knew that there was danger in great storms, of huge trees blowing down on one's head; and that those who took shelter under them in a thunder-storm, risked their lives from lightning; but to meet destruction from trees in an immense river, seemed to us a danger of life, which we had not bargained for, and entirely out of our agreement and calculation. We had braced ourselves up only against the danger of hostile Indians, and enraged beasts, which we meant to war against. Beyond that, all was smooth water to us. The truth of the matter is,--the {23} men whom Captain Wyeth had collected were not the sort of men for such an expedition. They were too much on an equality to be under strict orders like soldiers. Lewis & Clarke were very fortunate in the men they had under them. Major Long's company was, in a great degree, military, and yet three of his soldiers deserted him at one time, and a fourth soon after.[25]

[24] Wyeth somewhat exaggerates the difficulties of the navigation
of the Falls of the Ohio. See our volume i, p. 136, note 106; also
Thwaites, _On the Storied Ohio_ (Chicago, 1903), pp. 218-222. For
Jeffersonville, see Flint's _Letters_, in our volume ix, p. 160,
note 80; for Clarksville and Shippingsport, Cuming's _Tour_, our
volume iv, pp. 259, 260, notes 170, 171.--ED.

[25] See our volumes xiv-xvii for James's _Long's Expedition_.--ED.

On the 18th of April, 1832, we arrived at St. Louis. As we had looked forward to this town, as a temporary resting-place, we entered it in high spirits, and pleased ourselves with a notion that the rest of our way till we should come to the Rocky Mountains would be, if not down hill, at least on a level: but we counted without our host.

_St. Louis_ was founded by a Frenchman named _Peter la Clade_ in 1764, eighty-four years after the establishment of Fort Crève-coeur on the Illinois river; and inhabited entirely by Frenchmen and the descendants of Frenchmen, who had carried on for the most part a friendly and lucrative trade with the Indians.[26] But since the vast Western country has been transferred to the United States, its population has been rapidly increased by numerous individuals and families from different parts of the Union; and its business extended by enterprising mechanics and merchants from the New-England States; and its wealth greatly augmented. The old part of St. Louis has a very different aspect from that of Cincinnati, where every thing appears neat, and new, and tasteful; as their public buildings, their theatre, and spacious hotels, not forgetting Madam Trollope's bazar, or, as it is commonly called, "Trollope's Folly,"[27] as well as its spacious streets, numerous coaches, and other {24} marks of rapid wealth, and growing luxury. As St. Louis has advanced in wealth, magnitude, and importance, it has gradually changed the French language and manners, and assumed the American. It however contains, I am told, many of the old stock that are very respectable for their literary acquirements and polished manners.

[26] For the foundation of St. Louis, see A. Michaux's _Travels_,
in our volume iii, p. 71, note 138. Fort Crêvecoeur was La Salle's
Illinois stockade, built in 1680. See Ogden's _Letters_ in our
volume xix, p. 46, note 34.--ED.

[27] Frances Milton Trollope (1780-1863), an Englishwoman of
note, came to the United States in 1827 with Frances Wright. She
established herself at Cincinnati, and attempted to recuperate the
family fortunes by the opening of a bazaar for the sale of small
fancy articles. The experiment failed, and the Trollope family
returned to England (1831), where Mrs. Trollope issued _Domestic
Manners of Americans_ (London, 1832), a criticism of our national
customs that gave great umbrage to our forebears in the West. She
later became a novelist of note, dying in Florence in 1863. Her sons
were Anthony and Adolphus Trollope, well-known English authors.--ED.

We shall avoid, as we have avowed, any thing like censure of Captain Wyeth's scheme during his absence; but when we arrived at St. Louis, we could not but lament his want of information, respecting the best means of obtaining the great objects of our enterprise. Here we were constrained to sell our complicated wagons for less than half what they originally cost. We were convinced that they were not calculated for the rough roads, and rapid streams and eddies of some of the rivers we must necessarily pass. We here thought of the proverb, "that men never do a thing right the first time." Captain Wyeth might have learned at St. Louis, that there were two wealthy gentlemen who resided at or near that place, who had long since established a regular trade with the Indians, Mr. M----, and a young person, Mr. S----, and that a stranger could hardly compete with such established traders. The turbulent tribe, called the _Black-foot_ tribe, had long been supplied with fire arms and ammunition, beads, vermilion and other paints, tobacco and scarlet cloth, from two or three capital traders at, or near, St. Louis, and every article most saleable with the Indians. Both parties knew each other, and had confidence in each other; and having this advantage over our band of adventurers, it does not appear that Mr. Mackenzie, and Mr. Sublet felt any apprehensions or jealousy {25} of the new comers from Boston; but treated them with friendship, and the latter with confidence and cordiality; the former gentleman being, in a manner, retired from business, except through numerous agents.[28] He owns a small steam-boat called the Yellow Stone, the name of one of the branches of the Missouri river.[29] Through such means the Indians are supplied with all they want; and they appeared not to wish to have any thing to do with any one else, especially the adventurous Yankees. These old established traders enjoy a friendly influence, or prudent command, over those savages, that seems to operate to the exclusion of every one else; and this appeared from the manner in which they treated us, which was void of every thing like jealousy, or fear of rivalship. Their policy was to incorporate us with their own troop.

[28] Kenneth McKenzie was born in Rossshire, Scotland, in 1801, of
a good family, relatives of Sir Alexander Mackenzie the explorer.
Coming to America at an early age, young McKenzie entered the
service of the North West Company; but upon its consolidation with
the Hudson's Bay Company (1821), he entered the fur-trade on his own
account. Going to New York in 1822, he secured an outfit on credit,
and for some time traded on the upper Mississippi. Later he formed
a partnership with Joseph Renville in the establishment of the
Columbia Fur Company. This concern was bought out by its rival, the
American Fur Company in 1827, whereupon McKenzie was taken into the
latter corporation. He was soon placed in command of what was known
as the "Upper Missouri Outfit," and built Fort Union at the mouth of
the Yellowstone, where for several years he ruled almost regally.
Among his earliest successes--to which Wyeth here refers--was his
acquisition of the Blackfoot trade. This tribe, influenced by
British traders, had long been hostile to Americans; McKenzie had,
however, been known to them in the North West Company, and through
one of their interpreters, Berger, he secured a treaty with them and
built (1831-32) a post in their country. McKenzie lost the good-will
of the American Fur Company, by erecting a distillery at Fort Union,
in defiance of United States laws. In 1834 he came down the river,
and visited Europe; but at intervals he re-ascended to his old post,
until in 1839 he disposed of his stock in the company. He then made
his home in St. Louis, until his death in 1861. It does not appear
that he had considered retirement as early as Wyeth's visit in 1832,
for he was then in the full tide of success. He lived magnificently
at Fort Union, ruling over a wide territory, an American example of
the "bourgeois of the old Northwest."

For William Sublette, see our volume xix, Gregg's _Commerce of the
Prairies_, p. 221, note 55.--ED.

[29] The "Yellowstone" was the first steamboat to visit the upper
Missouri. McKenzie and Pierre Chouteau, Jr., convinced of the
utility to the fur-trade of such a craft, persuaded the American Fur
Company to secure a steamer. She was built at Louisville, Kentucky,
in the winter of 1830-31, departing from St. Louis on her first
voyage, April 16, 1831, with Captain B. Young as master. This season
she ascended to Fort Tecumseh (near Pierre), and the following
year made her initial trip to the mouth of the Yellowstone River.
She had left St. Louis about a month before the arrival of Wyeth's
party.--ED.

We put our goods, and other baggage on board the steam-boat Otter, and proceeded two hundred and sixty miles up the Missouri river, which is as far as the white people have any settlements. We were obliged to proceed very slowly and carefully on account of the numerous _snags_ and _sawyers_ with which this river abounds. They are trees that have been loosened, and washed away from the soft banks of the river. They are detained by sandbanks, or by other trees, that have floated down some time before. Those of them whose sharp branches point opposite the stream are the _snags_, against which boats are often impelled, as they are not visible above water, and many are sunk by the wounds these make in their bows. The _sawyers_ are also held fast by their roots, while the body of the tree whips up and down, alternately visible and concealed beneath the surface. These {26} are the chief terrors of the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers. As to crocodiles they are little regarded, being more afraid of man than he of them. On account of these snags and sawyers, boatmen avoid passing in the night, and are obliged to keep a sharp look out in the day-time. The sawyers when forced to the bottom or near it by a strong current, or by eddies, rise again with such force that few boats can withstand the shock. The course of the boat was so tediously slow, that many of us concluded to get out and walk on the banks of the river. This, while it gave us agreeable exercise, was of some service in lightening our boat, for with other passengers from St. Louis, we amounted to a considerable crew. The ground was level, and free from underwood. We passed plenty of deer, wild turkeys, and some other wild fowl unknown to us, and expected to find it so all the way.

We arrived at a town or settlement called _Independence_.[30] This is the last white settlement on our route to the Oregon, and this circumstance gave a different cast to our peregrination, and operated not a little on our hopes, and our fears, and our imaginations. Some of our company began to ask each other some serious questions; such as, Where are we going? and what are we going for? and sundry other questions, which would have been wiser had we asked them before we left Cambridge, and ruminated well on the answers. But _Westward ho_! was our watchword, and checked all doubts, and silenced all expressions of fear.

[30] For Independence, see Gregg's _Commerce of the Prairies_, in
our volume xix, p. 189, note 34.--ED.

Just before we started from this place, a company of sixty-two in number arrived from St. Louis, under the command of _William Sublet, Esq._, an experienced Indian trader, bound, like ourselves, {27} to the American Alps, the Rocky Mountains, and we joined company with him, and it was very lucky that we did. Our minds were not entirely easy. We were about to leave our peaceable country-men, from whom we had received many attentions and much kindness, to go into a dark region of savages, of whose customs, manners, and language, we were entirely ignorant,--to go we knew not whither,--to encounter we knew not what. We had already sacrificed our amphibious wagons, the result of so much pains and cost. Here two of our company left us, named Kilham and Weeks. Whether they had any real cause of dissatisfaction with our Captain, or whether they only made that an excuse to quit the expedition and return home early, it is not for me to say. I suspect the abandonment of our travelling vehicles cooled their courage. We rested at Independence ten days; and purchased, by Captain Sublet's advice, two yoke of oxen, and fifteen sheep, as we learnt that we ought not to rely entirely upon transient game from our fire-arms for sustenance, especially as we were now going among a savage people who would regard us with suspicion and dread, and treat us accordingly. From this place we travelled about twenty-five miles a day.

Nothing occurred worth recording, till we arrived at the first Indian settlement, which was about seventy miles from Independence.[31] They appeared to us a harmless people, and not averse to our passing through their country. Their persons were rather under size, and their complexion dark. As they lived near the frontier of the whites, they were not unacquainted with their usages and customs. They have cultivated spots or little farms, {28} on which they raise corn and pumpkins. They generally go out once a year to hunt, accompanied by their women; and on killing the Buffalo, or Bison, what they do not use on the spot, they dry to eat through the winter. To prevent a famine, however, it is their custom to keep a large number of dogs; and they eat them as we do mutton and lamb. This tribe have imitated the white people in having fixed and stationary houses. They stick poles in the ground in a circular form, and cover them with buffalo-skins, and put earth over the whole, leaving at the top an aperture for the smoke, but small enough to be covered with a buffalo-skin in case of rain or snow.--We found here little game; but honey-bees in abundance.

[31] This appears to have been an insignificant village of
somewhat sedentary Indians, probably of the Kansa tribe, near the
northwestern corner of what is now Douglas County, Kansas. Joel
Palmer notes it in 1845; see our volume xxx.--ED.

We travelled on about a hundred miles farther, when we came to a large _prairie_, which name the French have given to extensive tracts of land, mostly level, destitute of trees, and covered with tall, coarse grass. They are generally dreary plains, void of water, and rendered more arid by the Indian custom of setting fire to the high grass once or twice a year to start the game that has taken shelter there, which occasions a hard crust unfavorable to any vegetable more substantial than grass. At this unpromising spot, three more of our company took French leave of us, there being, it seems, dissatisfaction on both sides; for each complained of the other. The names of the seceders were Livermore, Bell, Griswell.[32] In sixteen days more we reached the River _La Platte_, the water of which is foul and muddy.[33] We were nine days passing this dreary _prairie_. We were seven and twenty days winding our way along the borders of the La Platte, which river we could not leave on {29} account of the scarcity of water in the dry and comfortless plains. Here we slaughtered the last of our live stock, and at night we came to that region where buffaloes are often to be found; but we suffered some sharp gnawings of hunger before we obtained one, and experienced some foretaste of difficulties to come.

[32] Thomas Livermore was a cousin of Nathaniel Wyeth, whose home
was in Milford, New Hampshire. He was a minor, and his father's
consent was essential that he might join the party.

Bell appears to have been insubordinate from the start, and upon
his return to the East, published letters injurious to Wyeth's
reputation; consult Wyeth, _Oregon Expeditions_, index.--ED.

[33] For the River Platte, see our volume xiv, p. 219, note 170. The
Oregon Trail from Independence led westward, south of the Kansas,
crossing the latter stream near the present site of Topeka; thence
up the Big and Little Blue rivers, and across country to the Platte,
coming in near Grand Island.--ED.

The Missouri Territory[34] is a vast wilderness, consisting of immense plains, destitute of wood and of water, except on the edges of streams that are found near the turbid La Platte. This river owes its source to the Rocky mountains, and runs pretty much through the territory, without enlivening or fructifying this desert. Some opinion may be formed of it by saying that for the space of six hundred miles, we may be said to have been deprived of the benefits of two of the elements, _fire_ and _water_. Here were, to be sure, buffaloes, but after we had killed them we had no wood or vegetables of any kind wherewith to kindle a fire for cooking. We were absolutely compelled to dry the dung of the buffalo as the best article we could procure for cooking our coarse beef. That grumbling, discontent, and dejection should spring up amongst us, was what no one can be surprised at learning. We were at times very miserable, and our commander could be no less so; but we had put our hands to the plough, and most of us were too stuffy to flinch, and sneak off for home without reaching the Rocky Mountains; still hunger is hunger, and the young and the strong feel the greatest call for food. Every one who goes to sea may lay his account for coming to short allowance, from violent storms, head winds, damaged vessel, and the like; but for a band of New-England {30} men to come to short allowance upon land, with guns, powder, and shot, was a new idea to our Oregon adventurers, who had not prepared for it in the article of hard bread, or flour, or potatoes, or that snug and wholesome article, _salt fish_, so plenty at Marblehead and Cape Ann, and so convenient to carry. When the second company shall march from the seat of science, Cambridge, we would advise them to pack up a few quintals of salt fish, and a few pounds of ground sago, and salep, as a teaspoonful of it mixed with boiling water will make three pints of good gruel, and also a competent supply of portable soup.

[34] The Territory of Missouri was formed in 1812 of all the
Louisiana Purchase outside the limits of the newly-erected state
of Louisiana. In 1819 Arkansas Territory was cut out, and the
following year the state of Missouri. The remaining region was left
with no definite organization; but by an act of 1830 it was defined
as Indian Territory--south of a line drawn from Missouri River at
the mouth of the Ponca, and west to the Rocky Mountains. This vast
unorganized region was indefinitely called Missouri Territory,
Indian Territory, Western Territory, and even (on one map of the
period) Oregon Territory--although the latter name was usually
confined to the region west of the Rockies, and north of Mexican
bounds.--ED.

Buffaloes were plenty enough. We saw them in frightful droves, as far as the eye could reach, appearing at a distance as if the ground itself was moving like the sea. Such large armies of them have no fear of man. They will travel over him and make nothing of him. Our company after killing ten or twelve of them, never enjoyed the benefit of more than two of them, the rest being carried off by the wolves before morning. Beside the scarcity of meat, we suffered for want of good and wholesome water. The La Platte is warm and muddy; and the use of it occasioned a diarrhoea in several of our company. Dr. Jacob Wyeth, brother of the Captain, suffered not a little from this cause.--Should the reader wonder how we proceeded so rapidly on our way without stopping to inquire, he must bear in mind that we were still under the guidance of Captain Sublet, who knew every step of the way, and had actually resided four years in different green valleys that are here and there in the Rocky Mountains. To me it seems that we must have perished for want of {31} sustenance in the deserts of Missouri, had we been by ourselves. It may have been good policy in Sublet, to attach us to him. He probably saw our rawness in an adventure so ill provided for as ours actually was. But for him we should hardly have provided ourselves with live stock; and but for him we should probably never have reached the American Alps. By this time every man began to think for himself.

We travelled six days on the south branch of the La Platte, and then crossed over to the north branch, and on this branch of it, we travelled eighteen days.[35] But the first three days we could not find sufficient articles of food; and what added to our distress was the sickness of several of our company. We noticed many trails of the savages, but no Indians. The nearer we approached the range of the mountains the thicker were the trees. After travelling twelve days longer we came to the Black Hills. They are so called from their thick growth of cedar. Here is the region of rattle snakes, and the largest and fiercest bears,--a very formidable animal, which it is not prudent for a man to attack alone. I have known some of the best hunters of Sublet's company to fire five and six balls at one before he fell. We were four days in crossing these dismal looking hills. They would be called mountains, were they not in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, whose peaks overtop every thing, and elevate themselves into the region of everlasting frost and snow. Our sick suffered extremely in ascending these hills, some of them slipped off the horses and mules they rode on, from sheer weakness, brought on by the bowel complaint already mentioned; among these was Dr. {32} Wyeth, our Captain's brother, who never had a constitution fit to encounter such an expedition. And yet we could not leave them under the care of a man, or two or three men, and pass on without them, to follow us, when they were able. It was to me particularly grievous to think that he, who was to take care of the health of the company, was the first who was disabled from helping himself or others, and this one a blood relation. It required a man of a firmer make than Dr. Jacob Wyeth to go through such a mountainous region as the one we were in: a man seldom does a thing right the first time.

[35] The Oregon trail touched the North Platte at Ash Creek, now an
important railway junction in Deuel County, Nebraska.--ED.

From the north branch we crossed over to what was called Sweet-water Creek.[36] This water being cool, clear, and pleasant, proved a good remedy for our sick, as their bowel complaints were brought on and aggravated by the warm, muddy waters of the Missouri territory we had passed through. We came to a huge rock in the shape of a bowl upside down. It bore the name of Independence, from, it is said, being the resting-place of Lewis and Clarke on the 4th of July; but according to the printed journal of those meritorious travellers, they had not reached, or entered, the American Alps on the day of that memorable epoch.[37] Whether we are to consider the rock Independence as fairly in the Rocky Mountains, let others determine. We had now certainly begun our ascent to those lofty regions, previous to which we had to pass the chief branch of the river La Platte; but we had no boat whatever for the purpose; and had we not been in the company of Captain Sublet, it is hard to say what we should have done short of going a great way round. Here I, and others were entirely {33} convinced that we were engaged in an expedition without being provided with the means to accomplish it. Our boats and wagons we had disposed of at St. Louis, and here we were on the banks of a river without even a canoe. Captain Clarke brought his canoes to the foot of the range of mountains and there left them. The reader will understand that not only the Missouri river, but the Yellowstone river, the La Platte, and many other smaller ones commence by small beginnings in the Black Hills, and in the Rocky Mountains, and increase in size and depth as they proceed down to join the Arkansa, or the Canadian river, and finally the Mississippi, and so run into the vast salt ocean. Whether it was Captain Sublet's own invention, or an invention of the Indians, we know not, but the contrivance we used is worth mentioning. They called it a _Bull-boat_. They first cut a number of willows (which grow every where near the banks of all the rivers we had travelled by from St. Louis), of about an inch and a half diameter at the butt end, and fixed them in the ground at proper distances from each other, and as they approached nearer one end they brought them nearer together, so as to form something like the bow. The ends of the whole were brought and bound firmly together, like the ribs of a great basket; and then they took other twigs of willow and wove them into those stuck in the ground so as to make a sort of firm, huge basket of twelve or fourteen feet long. After this was completed, they sewed together a number of buffalo-skins, and with them covered the whole; and after the different parts had been trimmed off smooth, a slow fire was made under the Bull-boat, taking care to dry the skins moderately; and as {34} they gradually dried, and acquired a due degree of warmth, they rubbed buffalo-tallow all over the outside of it, so as to allow it to enter into all the seams of the boat, now no longer a willow-basket. As the melted tallow ran down into every seam, hole, and crevice, it cooled into a firm body capable of resisting the water, and bearing a considerable blow without damaging it. Then the willow-ribbed, buffalo-skin, tallowed vehicle was carefully pulled up from the ground, and behold a boat capable of transporting man, horse, and goods over a pretty strong current. At the sight of it, we Yankees all burst out into a loud laugh, whether from surprise, or pleasure, or both, I know not. It certainly was not from ridicule; for we all acknowledged the contrivance would have done credit to _old_ New-England.

[36] Sweetwater River, a western affluent of the North Platte, rises
in the Wind River Mountains, and for over a hundred miles flows
almost directly east. The name is supposed to be derived from the
loss at an early day of a pack-mule laden with sugar. Wyeth speaks
of "crossing over" to this stream, because the trail abandoned the
North Platte, which here flows through a formidable cañon, and
reached the Sweetwater some miles above its mouth.--ED.

[37] Lewis and Clark did not pass within hundreds of miles of
Independence Rock, having ascended the Missouri to its source.
Independence Rock is a well-known landmark on the Oregon Trail--an
isolated mass covering twenty-seven acres, and towering 155 feet
above Sweetwater River. On it were marked the names of travelers, so
that it became the "register of the desert." Frémont in 1843 says,
"Many a name famous in the history of this country, and some well
known to science are to be found mixed with those of the traders and
of travelers for pleasure and curiosity, and of missionaries to the
savages."--ED.

While Captain Sublet and his company were binding the gunwale of the boat with buffalo-sinews, to give it strength and due hardness, our Captain was by no means idle. He accordingly undertook to make a raft to transport our own goods across the river. Sublet expressed his opinion that it would not answer where the current was strong; but Captain Wyeth is a man not easily to be diverted from any of his notions, or liable to be influenced by the advice of others; so that while Sublet's men were employed on their Bull-boat, Wyeth and a chosen few were making a raft. When finished, we first placed our blacksmith's shop upon it, that is to say, our anvil, and large vice, and other valuable articles belonging to black-smithery, bar-iron, and steel traps, and alas! a cask of powder, and a number of smaller, but valuable articles. We fixed a rope to our raft, and with some difficulty got {35} the other end of it across the river to the opposite bank by a man swimming with a rope in his mouth, from some distance above the spot he aimed to reach. We took a turn of it round a tree. Captain Sublet gave it as his opinion that the line would not be sufficient to command the raft. But our Leader was confident that it would; but when they had pulled about half way over, the rope broke, and the raft caught under the limbs of a partly submerged tree, and tipped it on one side so that we lost our iron articles, and damaged our goods and a number of percussion caps. This was a very serious calamity and absolutely irreparable. Almost every disaster has some benefit growing out of it. It was even so here. Two thirds of our company were sick, and that without any particular disorder that we can name, but from fatigue, bad water, scanty food, and eating flesh half raw. Add to this, worry of mind, and serious apprehensions of our fate when the worthy Captain Sublet should leave us; for he was, under Providence, the instrument of our preservation. Our own individual sufferings were enough for us to bear; but Captain Wyeth had to bear the like, and more beside, as the responsibility lay heavy upon him. Most men would have sunk under it. At this point of our journey we were sadly tormented by musquetoes, that prevented our sleep after the fatigues of the day. This little contemptible insect, which they call here a gnat, disturbed us more than bears, or wolves, or snakes.

The next day after we started from this unlucky place, we descried a number of men on horseback, approaching us at full speed. Various were our conjectures. Captain Sublet had an apprehension that they might be hostile Indians who fight on {36} horseback; he therefore ordered every man to make fast his horse as quick as possible, and prepare for battle on foot. But on their near approach, we found them a body of white men called _trappers_, whose occupation is to entrap the beaver and other animals that have valuable furs. Captain Sublet has, for several years, had about two hundred of these trappers in his pay, in and around the Rocky Mountains, and this troop was a party of them. His place of rendezvous for them is at _Pierre's Hole_, by which name they call one of those deep and verdant valleys which are to be found in the Rocky Mountains from the eastern boundary of them to their extreme edge in the west, where the Oregon or Columbia river commences under the name of Clark's river, some branches of which inosculate with the mighty Missouri on the east. It is to _Pierre's_ valley or _Hole_, that his trappers resort to meet their employer every summer. It is here they bring their peltry and receive their pay; and this traffic has been kept up between them a number of years with good faith on both sides, and to mutual satisfaction and encouragement. When Sublet leaves St. Louis, he brings up tobacco, coffee, rice, powder, shot, paint, beads, handkerchiefs and all those articles of finery that please both Indian women and men; and having established that sort of traffic with his friends, the Indians on and in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, what chance was there that any small band from Boston, or even Cambridge, could supplant him in the friendship and confidence of his old acquaintance, the Shoshonees, the Black-feet, or any other tribe? He must have seen this at once, and been convinced that nothing like rivalship could {37} rise up between him and the New-England adventurers. He therefore caressed them, and, in a manner, incorporated them with his troop.

This gentleman was born in America of French parents,[38] and partakes largely of those good-humored, polite, and accommodating manners which distinguish the nation he sprang from. The old French war, and wars on this continent since then, amply prove how much better Frenchmen conciliate the natives than the English. The English and the Americans, when they come in contact with the untutored savage, most commonly fight. But not so the French. They please and flatter the Indian, give him powder, and balls, and flints, and guns, and make a Catholic of him, and make out to live in friendship with the red man and woman of the wilderness. It is strange that such extremes of character should meet. Some have said that they are not so very far distant as others have imagined,--that the refined French people love war, and the women paint their faces, grease their hair, and wear East India blankets, called shawls.--Captain Sublet possesses, doubtless, that conciliating disposition so characteristic of the French, and not so frequently found among the English or Americans; for the descendants of both nations bear strong marks of the stock they came from. The French have always had a stronger hold of the affections of the Indians than any other people.

[38] Captain William Sublette was born in Kentucky. His maternal
grandfather was Captain Whitby, a noted pioneer of Irish ancestry.
The Sublettes were also of Kentucky stock; and if French originally,
came early to America. See our volume xix, p. 221, note 55
(Gregg).--ED.

The trappers kept company with us till we came to Pierre's Hole, or valley, which is twelve miles from the spot where we first met them. Three or four days after, we were fired on by the Indians about ten o'clock at night. They had assembled to about the number of three hundred. They stole {38} five horses from us, and three from Sublet's company.[39] About the first of July we crossed the highest part or ridge of the mountains.[40] In addition to the mountain composed of earth, sand, and stone, including common rocks, there were certain peaks resembling a loaf of sugar, from a hundred to two hundred feet high; and some appeared much higher; I cannot guess their height. They were to us surprising. Their sides deviated but little from perpendicular. They looked at a distance like some light-houses of a conical form, or like our Cambridge glass manufactories; but how they acquired that form is wonderful. Subsiding waters may have left them so, after washing away sandy materials. But nature is altogether wonderful, in her large works as well as small. How little do we know of the first cause of any thing! We had to creep round the base of these steep edifices of nature. We now more clearly understand and relish the question of one of our Indians who was carried to England as a show, who, on being shown that elegant pile of stone, the cathedral of St. Paul, after viewing it in silent admiration, asked his interpreter _whether it was made by men's hands, or whether it grew there_. We might ask the same question respecting these conical mountains. Had the scaffolding of St. Paul's remained, the surprise and wonder of the sensible savage had been less.

[39] This attack was attributed to the same band of Blackfeet with
whom the Battle of Pierre's Hole occurred some days later. See
Wyeth, _Oregon Expeditions_, p. 158; Irving, _Rocky Mountains_, i,
p. 75.--ED.

[40] This is South Pass, so named in contradistinction to the
northern passes undertaken by Lewis and Clark. It is not known by
whom this mountain passage was discovered, but probably by some of
Ashley's parties in 1823. The ascent is so gradual that, although
7,500 feet above sea-level, its elevation is not perceived, and in
1843 Frémont could with difficulty tell just where he crossed the
highest point of the divide.--ED.

It was difficult to keep our feet on these highest parts of the mountains; some of the pack-horses slipped and rolled over and over, and yet were taken up alive. Those that did not fall were sadly bruised and lamed in their feet and joints. Mules are best calculated, as we experienced, for such difficult travelling. They seem to think, and to judge {39} of the path before them, and will sometimes put their fore feet together and slip down without stepping. They are as sagacious in crossing a river, where there is a current. They will not attempt to go straight over, but will breast the tide by passing obliquely upwards. One of our horses was killed by a fall down one of these precipices, and it was surprising that more of them did not share the like fate. Buffaloes were so scarce here, that we were obliged to feed on our dried meat, and this scarcity continued till after we had gained the head sources of the Columbia river. For the last five days we have had to travel on the Colorado of the West, which is a very long river, and empties into the gulph of California.[41]

[41] The upper waters of the Colorado River are now usually termed
Green River, from the "Rio Verte" of the Spaniards. This great
stream rises on the western slopes of the Wind River Mountains;
flowing nearly south, gathering many mountain streams, it next turns
abruptly east into the northwest corner of Colorado, and having
rounded the Uintah range trends to the south-southwest through Utah,
until joined by Grand River, when it becomes the Colorado proper.
The first attempt to navigate this formidable waterway was made by
Ashley's party in 1825, although Becknell is known to have visited
it the previous year. Consult Chittenden's _Fur-Trade_, ii, pp. 509,
778-781, and F. S. Dellenbaugh, _Romance of the Colorado River_ (New
York, 1902).--ED.

On the 4th of July, 1832, we arrived at Lewis's fork, one of the largest rivers in these rocky mountains.[42] It took us all day to cross it. It is half a mile wide, deep, and rapid. The way we managed was this: one man unloaded his horse, and swam across with him, leading two loaded ones, and unloading the two, brought them back, for two more, and as Sublet's company and our own made over a hundred and fifty, we were all day in passing the river. In returning, my mule, by treading on a round stone, stumbled and threw me off, and the current was so strong, that a bush which I caught hold of only saved me from drowning.

[42] From Green River the caravan crossed the divide between the
Colorado and Columbia systems, and came upon a branch of Lewis
(or Snake) River, probably Hoback's River. They did not reach the
main Lewis until July 6, arriving at the rendezvous on the morning
of July 8, after crossing Teton Pass. Consult Wyeth, _Oregon
Expeditions_, pp. 158, 159.--ED.

This being Independence-Day, we drank the health of our friends in Massachusetts, in good clear water, as that was the only liquor we had to drink in remembrance of our homes and dear connexions. If I may judge by my own feelings and by the looks of my companions, there was more of melancholy than joy amongst us. We were almost {40} four thousand miles from Boston, and in saying Boston we mean at the same time our native spot Cambridge, as they are separated by a wooden bridge only. From the north fork of Lewis's river we passed on to an eminence called Teton mountain, where we spent the night. The next day was pleasant, and serene. Captain Sublet came in the evening to inquire how many of our company were sick, as they must ride, it being impossible for them to go on foot any farther. His kindness and attention I never can forget. Dr. Jacob Wyeth, the Captain's brother, George More, and Stephen Burdit[43] were too weak to walk. To accommodate them with horses, Captain Wyeth was obliged to dig a hole in the earth, and therein bury the goods which had been hitherto carried on horseback. In the language of the Trappers this hiding of goods was called _cacher_ or hidden treasure, being the French term for 'to hide.' When they dig these hiding-holes they carefully carry the earth on a buffalo-skin to a distance, so as to leave no marks or traces of the ground being dug up or disturbed: and this was done to secure the _caché_ from being stolen by the Indians or the white men. The goods so hidden are wrapt up in buffalo-skins to keep them dry, before the earth is put over them. Nor is this all; they make a fire over the spot, and all this to prevent the Indians from suspecting that treasure is caché, or hidden there, while the owner of it takes care to mark the bearing of the spot on some tree, or rock, or some other object that may lead him to recognise the place again. But I have my doubts whether they who hid the goods will ever return that way to dig up their hidden treasure. We did not meddle with it on our return with Captain Sublet.

[43] More was killed by Indians; see _post_. Captain Wyeth found his
powder flask at Fort Union upon his return in the summer of 1833.
Burdett went on to Oregon, where he resided for some years.--ED.

{41} On the 5th of July we started afresh rather low-spirited. We looked with sadness on the way before us. The mountain was here pretty thickly timbered down its slopes, and wherever the ground is level. The pines and hemlock trees were generally about eighteen inches through. It had snowed, and we were now at a height where the snow commonly lies all the year round. Which ever way we looked, the region presented a dreary aspect. No one could wonder that even some of us who were in health, were, at times, somewhat homesick. If this was the case with us, what must have been the feelings of our three sick fellow travellers. We passed through a snow bank three feet deep. We well ones passed on with Captain Sublet to the top of the mountain, and there waited until our sick men came up with us. George More fell from his horse through weakness. He might have maintained his seat on level ground, but ascending and descending required more exertion than he could call forth; and this was the case also with Dr. Wyeth. Burdit made out a little better. When we encamped at night, we endured a snow storm. Sublet's company encamped about two miles from us; for at best we could hardly keep up with his veteran company. They were old and experienced trappers, and we, compared with them, young and inexperienced soldiers, little imagining that we should ever have to encounter such hardships, in realizing our dreams of making a fortune. Ignorance of the future is not always to be considered among the calamities of man.

Captain Sublet's grand rendezvous, or Head Quarters, was about twelve miles from our encampment.[44] He had there about two hundred {42} trappers, or beaver-hunters; or more properly speaking, _skinners_ of entrapped animals; or _peltry_-hunters, for they chased but few of the captured beasts. To these were added about five hundred Indians, of the rank of warriors, all engaged in the same pursuit and traffic of the fur-trade. They were principally the _Flat-heads_,[45] so called from their flattening the heads of their young children, by forcing them to wear a piece of wood, like a bit of board, so as to cause the skull to grow flat, which they consider a mark of beauty even among the females. They are otherwise dandies and belles in their dress and ornaments. This large body of horse made a fine appearance, especially their long hair; for, as there was a pleasant breeze of wind, their hair blew out straight all in one direction, which had the appearance of so many black streamers. When we met they halted and fired three rounds by way of salute, which we returned; and then followed such friendly greetings as were natural and proper between such high contracting powers and great and good allies. This parade was doubtless made by Sublet for the sake of effect. It was showing us, Yankee barbarians, _their Elephants_;--like General and Lord Howe's military display to our commissioners of Congress on Staten Island, when the British Brothers proposed that celebrated interview; and when Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, and some others of the deputation, whose names I do not now recollect, assumed all that careless indifference, very common with the Indians on meeting a white embassy; for the express purpose of conveying an idea, that we, though the weakest in discipline and numbers, are not awe-struck by your fine dress, glittering arms, and full-fed persons.