The pathbreakers from river to ocean; the story of the great West from the time of Coronado to the present

Front matter

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Preface

Multitudes of books have been written for jjupils of our schools recording the valiant deeds of the explorers who have made their field of operation east of the Mississippi. De Soto, Smith, Marquette, Clark, Boone and the many adventurous heroes who plied up and down all of the streams between the mighty river and the ocean to the East, have received, each in turn, due attention, and their deeds have not only been recorded upon the pages of books but written in the hearts of the American 3'ouths. The West, or that land situated between the Mississippi and the western coast, has not received its due attention in school book form. To enable the future citizens, particularly those who live in the states carved out of this story-making territory, to familiarize themselves w^ith the brave deeds of these earliest inhabitants in an unsettled and unorganized territory is the purpose of this publication. No territory or period of history so abounds in heroic deeds, daring adventures, and hazardous enterprises which have directly served to bring about civilization as the region known as the Great West. The tale is not only interesting but fascinating from the earliest beginning to the present day. The turbulent streams, the rugged and forbidding mountains, the limitless plains, the hostile natives, and the extremes of climate made the struggle a hard one, and demanded men of courage who had faith in themselves and the object of their conquests. The wonderful story is too long to appear between the covers of any one book, yet the hope is expressed that the facts assembled may awaken a new interest in the labors of those untiring climbers of streams and mountains who made that undeveloped countrj^ a part of our present-day possessions. If this is accomplished the labor of preparing the book will be abundantly rewarded.

The author is indebted for valuable corrections and suggestions to

vii viii PREFACE

Mrs. Eva Emery Dye, Messrs. O. D. Wheeler, Owen Wistcr, and Emerson Hough, whose Hterary works have done so much to create a just estimate of the West and its frontier hfe; but on these authors rests no responsibility for any inaccuracies that may be found in the text. Further mention of gratitude should be made to Mr. E. F. McGinnis for helpful ideas in outlining the work; to Mr. Frank Bond, Chief of the Drafting Division of the General Land Office, for assistance in the preparation of the trail maps; and to co-workers. Dr. A. I\I. Wergeland and Dr. J. E. Downey, for encouragement in the work and for friendly criticism. Grace Raymond Hebard.

University of Wyoming, Laramie, Jul}-, 191L

CONTEXTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE EARLY EXPLORERS 1

1 — CoRONADO. 2 — The Verendryes. 3 — Lewis and Clark. 4 — Zebulon Pike.

IL THE FUR TRADERS 45

1 — The Missouri River ]\Iex. 2 — Astoria. 3 — The Rocky Mountain Fur Company. 4 — The American Fur Company.

in. THE GREAT TRAILS 76

1 — The Santa Fe Trail. 2 — The Gila Route and THE Old Spanish Trail. 3 — The Oregon Trail. 4 — The Great Salt Lake and California Trails.

IV. THE MISSIONS 98

1 — The Catholics in the Southwest. 2 — The Methodists in Oregon. 3 — Whitman and Spalding. 4 — Father De Smet. 5 — The Mormons in Utah.

V. FREMONT'S EXPLORATIONS 133

1 — The Wind River Mountain Exploration, LS42-43. 2^-Great Salt Lake, Columbia River and California, 1843-44. 3— The Mexican War, 1845-47. 4 — The First Private Venture, 1848-49. 5— The Last Expedition, 1853-54.

VI. THE GOLD DISCOVERIES 156

1 — California. 2 — Nevada. 3 — Colorado. 4 — Montana. 5 — Idaho. 6 — The Freight, Express AND Stage Lines, and the Pony Express.

VII. THE SOLDIER AND THE SETTLER .181

1 — The Bozeman Trail. 2 — The Cheyenne L^prising. 3 — The Apaches. 4 — The Sioux. 5 — Chief Joseph. 6 — The Utah Indians. 7 — The Modocs. ix

X CONTENTS

Vni. COWS AND COWBOYS 209

1 — The Long Drive. 2 — The Cowboy.

IX. THE RAILROADS 225

1 — The Preliminary Surveys. 2 — The Union- Central Pacific. 3 — The Southern Pacific AND the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroads. 4 — The Northern Pacific. 5 — The Great Northern*.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........ 255

INDEX 2.59

THE PATHBREAKERS from RIVER to OCEAN

OCEAN

Chapter I

L CoRONADo 3. Lewis and Clark

2. The Verexdryes 4. Zebulon Pike

1. CORONADO

No narrative of the early explorers of southwestern North America would be complete without some mention of Coronado, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, seeker of the ''Seven Cities of Cibola." To prepare the way for an account of his exploits it is needful that you recall the journeys of Cordova to Central America and the quantities of golden ornaments he found among the natives there, the wanderings of Narvaez from Florida northwestward, the escape of his treasurer, Cabeza de Vaca, his wanderings through what is now Texas, his return to the Spaniards in Mexico with tales of cities of marvelous wealth in the interior, and, finally, the conquest of Mexico by the brilhant Cortez.

In 1539, Coronado was made provisional governor of Nueva GaUcia (New Gaul), by Antonio de Mendoza, viceroy of Mexico. This Viceroy Mendoza, who had been filled w^ith enthusiasm over the accounts that Cabeza de Vaca had brought home, urged Coronado to take charge of his province at once and to explore the unkno^\^l country to the north immediately. Coronado, with the spirit of adventure in his blood, was equal to the task and was eager to be off.

The army was financed from the personal wealth of Coronado and what he could borrow, though the command of the soldiers was granted to him by the viceroy. The expense of equipping the expedition was about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or sixty thousand ducats. If Coro-

From an old cut

THE STYLE OF CANNON USED BY CORTEZ AND CORONADO

nado did not succeed in his high ambition, — the loss was his. If he won, — he was dizzy with the vision of the empires he was to conquer and own. He would have wealth greater than that of Cortez, and lands unlimited.

Early in 1540, piloted by a monk, Fray Marcos, who had previously penetrated to the Zuni Villages, he started with three hundred horsemen, foot soldiers, crossbow men, arquebusiers, eight hundred Indians, and a thousand extra horses for ammunition and baggage.

Northward through tril^es more or less hostile they marched, near the present site of Tombstone, Arizona, on to

Salt River, north across the Mogollon Mountains, then northeast to the Little Colorado. Here the first station of their travels was reached, the Zuni Pueblos. We are told that the city of Zuni is the home of a people who lived there centuries before the coming of Columbus. ''There they still live, with very little change. The march of progress that has swept away other Indian tribes has spared the

AXCIEXT CLIFF RUINS NEAR SANTA FE lonely little pueblo communities in their adobe terraced houses, surrounded by the arid deserts." ^

These adobe terraces made excellent forts. Rising tier on tier to the height of three or sometimes four stories, with no doors, they covered with unbroken walls many acres, and presented a formidable front to the little army destitute of cannon with which to batter a breach. Ingress to these houses is had through the roof by aid of ladders. Upon the approach of the intruders, the Zuni had drawn up all their

' Johnson. Pioneer Spaniards of North America. Little, Brown & Co.

ladders and ranged themselves on the terraces intent on defending their homes. Wood for the construction of new ladders was hard to obtain, and when the means of assault were finally provided it was no child's play to storm that fortress through the hail of arrows and stones from the warriors in the terraces. Coronado's shining armor and his foremost

Gcortjc Whaiiun Jai

' Iiiduiiis vf the Painted Desert Region' PUEBLO HOMES place in the assault made him an especial target. After the place was won he had gaping wounds on his face, an arrow in one of his feet, and many stone bruises on his legs and arms, and tells us that if it had not been for the strength of his armor ''it would have gone hard with me." But more bitter than the perils of the assault was the disappointment of the victors upon finding that here was no gold or precious stones, — none of the wealth they had marched and starved, fought and bled, to win. Evidently these were not the famed ''Seven Cities of Cibola." They must be still farther on. So the conquerors passed on; scouts were sent in various directions, all bringing back similar reports of "no cities of gold." In August of this year, 1540, the famous Grand Canon of the Colorado was discovered by a division of the expedition under the command of Garcia Lopez de Cardenas. One often wonders if this Canon were the real **city of gold," for the discovery and possession of which

THE EARLIEST KNOWN PICTURE OF A BUFFALO

more than one continent wasted its blood and treasure. It would take no great stretch of the imagination to fancy that the glittering and sparkling mica-bearing formations responding to the sun's rays were houses built of gold. The tradition of this city was not a dream. Some one had observed something. For want of better description the vision was called a ''city of gold." Was this the end of the rainbow with its proverbial ''pot of gold"?

From this point the party pushed eastward. Had they gone west might they not have outstripped by three hundred years the "forty-niners" in their mad rush for gold? An Indian guide, named "Turk" by the Spaniards, told marvelous tales of the untold wealth of the city of Quivira to the northeast. It was towards this city they were now pushing. We next find the army in the Staked Plains of Texas, or the Buffalo Plains. On these wide plains they encountered the ^' humpbacked oxen." These buffalo had first been accurately described to the European world by Vaca. They were

RUINS OF ANCIENT CLIFF DWELLERS, NEAR SANTA Ffi

also called ''cattle or cows of Cibola." Coronado obtained many buffalo robes from the inhabitants of his first conquered village, and carried them to Spain on his return voyage. From here the band of explorers pushed up north through the land occupied now by Oklahoma, into Kansas, well toward the north central part of the state. After traveling for forty-five days with thirty of his best mounted horsemen, Coronado decided that it was useless to go farther. He had found the city a village of straw huts, the people more savage than any other they had met. The sight of these villages and of the immense plains with their countless herds of ''horned oxen" was the only reward of his labors. There was no alternative but to return. Defeated and dejected the little army journeyed back to Mexico, presenting a picture not unlike that of the defeated Napoleon and his army on their return from Russia. Less than half of the invaders returned to tell the story of defeated ambition, one hundred and fifty leaving their bones to bleach on the plains and the mountain sides.

In the fall of 1542 the explorer arrived at the City of Mexico ''very sad and very weary, completely worn out and shamefaced." Was the expedition a failure? He had not found a single thing for which he had sought. He returned empty handed; fame and money were gone. But History will say that he did much toward the finding of that vast country east of the Colorado River from the Grand Caiion to Gulf of Cahfornia, and all of those countless miles of prairie extending northward to the southern boundary of Nebraska, and possibly even into that State. To Coronado must we accord the place of the first "early explorer" of those lands situated between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean.

2. THE VERENDRYES

Two centuries after Coronado had made his unsuccessful attempt a French Canadian and his sons endeavored to find a northwest passage to the Mer' de I'Ouest, or Pacific Ocean. The journey was not to be one entirely of discovery and conquest for the French nation; combined with the desire for exploration there was the purpose to grow wealthy through the finding of new and rich trapping-grounds.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century there were persistent rumors of a river that flowed toward the Sea of the West. The Indians pointed toward the setting sun, dedaring that there was a river that throbbed with a pulse that was frightening just before it emptied into a Great Lake, the waters from w^hich were salty and undrinkable. They told further of a strange people who wore iron dresses and rode on horseback. But there was no exact knowledge of this mighty westward-flowing stream, nor of those strange iron-dressed warriors. The river was doubtless the Columbia, known by the natives before the time of Lewis and Clark. The warriors? Might they not have been some of the Spaniards from Mexico who, more daring than the others, had pushed up farther north than any page of history records? At this time the Western Sea was supposed to lie somewhere between America and Japan. The Pacific Ocean was supposed to limit the western boundary of the domain of the Sioux Indians, but no definite information could be obtained. Everyone was questioned on the subject but with no satisfactory results. ''The missionaries and the officers had nothing to tell; the voyagers and Indians knew no more than they, and invented confused and contradictory falsehoods to hide their ignorance." ^

By the authority of the Duke of Orleans, companies were allowed to organize to attempt to discover the long-sought route to the Pacific. Their duties were twofold : to establish missions among the Sioux where the missionaries could learn the language of the Indians and thus get more information about the unknown, hazy sea; and to establish a monopoly of the Sioux fur trade. After the failure of others it was left to Pierre Gaultier de Varrennes de la Verendrye and his sons to explore to the west as far as the Big Horn Mountains. Pierre was the son of Rene Gaultier de Varrennes, a trader in furs near the head of Lake Superior. He took in addition the name La Verendrye. The center of his trading was north of Lake Superior, in which locality he heard the tradition of the Western Sea. ''These people are Hars," he is

1 Purknian. A Ilalf-Contury of Conflict. Little, Brown & Co.

reported to have said, ''but now and then they tell the truth." He petitioned the King of France, Louis XV, for aid in organizing a company to search for this ocean. This aid could not be obtained, but Verendrye was authorized to build forts along the route, and to have a monopoly of the fur trade with the Indians who inhabited the territory toward the Western Sea. Knowing to his sorrow the fierceness of the Sioux, the "tigers of the plains," Verendrye determined upon a route farther to the north into the haunts of the Assinniboines and the Cristineaux, mortal foes of the savage Sioux, who hunted and trapped as far north as the country now known as Manitoba.

The starting-point of Verendrye's expedition was Montreal; the date, June 8, 1731; the men, Verendrye, his three sons, a nephew, La Jemeraye, and a number of Canadians; the object, the discovery of the Sea of the West, the aggrandizement of the French nation, and the winning of great wealth and fame. But Fate seemed to have turned her hand against him. His youngest son, his nephew, and many of the Canadians were killed by the Indians. The financial support that he had reason to expect was not given; suppUes coming to him were lost or stolen on the way ; and no definite information as to the desired route could be obtained. Finally, the Assinniboines and the Cristineaux told him of a tribe of Indians living on the Missouri River "many moons" distant, who could guide him to the much coveted sea. In 1738, October it was, Verendrye began his exploration to the west, arriving at the Mandan Villages three months afterwards. Here he found six villages of Indians.^ On account

1 When Lewis and Clark visited these villages in 1804, they had been by that time reduced to two villages and had been moved up the river about fifty-five niiles from the original location. This migration was caused by the persecutions of the Sioux, who were the Mandans' mortal enemies, and smallpox, both of which had greatly reduced their numbers.

of the desertion of his interpreter and the loss of the luggage containing the trinkets indispensable for trading with the Indians, Verendrye was obliged to retrace his steps to Fort

LaReineearlyin 1739. Ill health combined with the trials and exposure endured in this western trail made it impossible for the elder Verendrye to make another attempt to reach the mythical sea.

In the spring of 1742, his sons, Pierre and the Chevalier, with two Canadians, again visited the Mandan Villages. From here, in July, with two Mandans in addition, the party pushed to the westsouthwest between the upper Missouri and the Black Hills. Game of all kinds was encountered, including elk, mountain sheep, antelope, deer, wolves, and the ever-present prairie-dog. Far west, it may have been as far west as the Yellowstone River, the Mandan interpreter deserted the French brothers, leaving them with an unknown

Courtesy of The Arthur II. Clark Co.

A MANDAN CHIEF, MAT-TOPE, IN FULL DRESS tribe of Indians in an equally unknown country. From here a western direction was taken, in the course of which march they met a band of Little Foxes, who with other tribes were in mortal terror of the much hated Snakes, or Shoshones, who Hved some distance toward the desired sea. Finally, after a journey of a few days to the southwest, they

From Maximilian's Travels

INTERIOR OF A MANDAN HUT

came to the Bow Indians, who knew of the coveted sea only through information given to them by captive Snakes. East, west, and east again they journeyed, until on New Year's day, 1743, they sighted the Big Horn Mountains, a branch of the Rockies, somewhere near the present Yellowstone National Park in the present state of Wyoming. They came within one hundred twenty miles of this museum of nature. From here they went south on Shoshone River, down to Wind River (in the central part of Wyoming), where the natives told them of Green River beyond the mountains. To the Verendryes belongs the credit of being the first white men to see the Rocky, or '^Shining/' Mountains. Here ended their journey westward. Turning their faces to the east, after many long weeks of travel they reached Montreal

in May, 1744, having spent eleven years seeking to find the waters chat Lewis and Clark reached more than a half-century afterward.

Their journey was a failure in the same sense that Coronado's was. They gfc *^ H did not find k ^^^^^^'^^I^^B^tofiii^K' they sought,

|L ^l^lfe^mi^lK ^^^ they were

W W ^ BfcfciSWBBl plorers of the

northwest as was Coronado of the southwest. They left a lost trail to be remade by others of another century. Had the Verendryes gone less than one hundred miles farther south they might have discovered South Pass, the great gateway in the path to the West at the end of which was the much desired ^'Sea of the West." Like Coronado, their dream of many years was not realized, and they faced defeat, obscurity, and

From Maxiinilian's Travels

A LITTLE FOX INDL\N, WAKUSASSE poverty. These are some of the rewards that come to the pathbreakers whose dreams become a reahty for the next generation. Somewhere, not far from the present southern boundary of South Dakota, lies buried in the soil and rocks a leaden plate bearing the arms and inscription of the King of France. This was placed there by the Verendryes to commemorate their expedition, a monument to French enterprise.

3. LEWIS AND CLARK

La Salle's dream was that there was a waterway from the region of the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark made his dream a reality. Where the Verendryes failed, Lewis and Clark led a triumphant march. A land route was discovered to the Pacific, the river flowing to the sea definitely located, and the western boundary of the United States transferred from the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to the Pacific coast.

Louisiana, the purchase of which was made by the United States from Napoleon, was a vast, unbounded wilderness west of the Mississippi. This land first belonged to France by the right of discovery, through the exploration of the Jesuit Missionaries, Fathers Marquette and Hennepin, and especially through the efforts of the brave La Salle. In 1682 La Salle took possession of the land down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico in the name of Louis XIV of France, and named it Louis-i-anne. Spain took possession of this territory in 1763, and the United States in 1795 entered into a very indefinite and unsatisfactory treaty with Spain in regard to the use of the mouth of the Mississippi, the site of the present New Orleans. Spain possessed both sides of the river at its mouth, and controlled the western shore to its source. The denial of the free use of the highway was a real and serious injury to the frontier people. The Americans asked only

MAP I. THE PATHS OF THE EARLY EXPLORERS

-O-O-O Coronado, 1540, Carver, 1766-68

VVVVV Tho Verendrves, 1742-44. - -:<-X Pike, 18C5.

O O O O O Lewis and Clark, 18C4-C6. H H H H H Hunt, 1810-12.

X X X X X Lewisto Maria's river. -•-•-•- Smith, 1820-29.

= = = == Lewis and Clark cut off on return.

that they might have free use of the river as a highway, and a small area at its mouth where they might deposit their produce preparatory to transshipment to the Atlantic and European ports. Spain's refusal to grant the request almost brought on war.

The treaty of 1795 was only a temporary arrangement that at its best was most uncertain. Rumors of war, of a desire to take the mouth of the Mississippi by force, of the discontent arising from conditions which hindered the growth and prosperity of all of those who were dependent upon the navigation of that river, caused the authorities at Washington much anxiety. The bold frontiersmen were demanding in return for their allegiance, protection and aid from the United States.

In 1802 Spain closed the mouth of the ''Father of Waters " to our products, thus virtually stopping the navigation of the river by the citizens of the United States. President Jefferson and his administration tried to plan ways and means by which the difficulty might be overcome. The President asked Congress to appropriate $2,000,000 for the purchase of New Orleans and West Florida from France, which had just acquired them again, a purchase which would carry with it the right to navigate the entire length of the Mississippi. Robert R. Livingston, one of the five to draft the Declaration of Independence, was at this time our minister to France. James Monroe in the early spring of 1803 was sent to Paris as a special envoy to assist in the purchase of New Orleans. Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Republic of France, was about to engage in a war with England, and, seeing that his enemy with her command of the sea could take Louisiana from him, he determined to sell the whole province. Barbe Marbois, Minister of the Treasury of the Republic of France, was given charge of negotiating the sale. These four statesmen, two of whom had taken part in gaining our independence, two of whom were decidedly conspicuous in the dramatic movements of the French Revolution, perfected an agreement by which all of Louisiana was to be added to the United States. Monroe and Livingston had asked only for New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi. Napoleon with a majestic wave of his hand, pointing toward the west, said: ''I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I will cede. It is the whole country without reserve." The price was $15,000,000. The treaty was signed April 30, 1803; Congress ratified this November 3, 1803; the purchase was made December 17, 1803, when Livingston exclaimed, ''We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our lives." We have since learned that there were in the purchase 1,037,735 square miles, or about 664,150,000 acres. We paid, therefore, only two and one half cents an acre for the Louisiana Purchase. It has been said that this act was by far the greatest work of our Government during the years between the adoption of the Constitution and the outbreak of the Civil War.

Technically, France did not occupy Louisiana at the time of the purchase. The transfer from Spain had never been made. France did not possess the province she was selling. The formality of surrender from Spain to France had to be accomplished before France could surrender the land to the United States. November 30, 1803, with proper ceremonies, the yellow and red flag of Spain was lowered at New Orleans and the keys of the Island turned over to the French Representative, who then raised the colors of France. Following this, on December 20, the Tricolor descended the same pole down which the Spanish colors had traveled twenty days before, and the Stars and Stripes ascended, denoting the end of the rule of France on American soil.

Several years before the appropriation was made by Congress for the purchase of New Orleans, Jefferson, while

Secretary of State in 1792, agitated the question of sending an exploring party to navigate the Missouri River to its source. He had a desire to extend commercial relations with the Indians, and to obtain for our country some of the riches of the region which were being monopolized by the traders from Canada. No one had the slightest conception of the vastness of the territory lying beyond the Mississippi. Robert Gray had sailed from Boston around the Cape to the Pacific in the ship Columbia, casting anchor in 1792 in the harbor of a river which he named Columbia. Many Enghsh and Yankee ships were at this early date gathering furs on the Pacific coast, and the region about Vancouver Island was well known; but the region between the Mississippi and the Pacific was utterly unknown save to a few daring trappers who had ascended the Missouri a thousand miles or so, and had set their traps in some of its tributaries. Jefferson at one time had made arrangements with a John Ledyard of Connecticut to explore the Northwest by traveling eastward through Siberia, shipping at Kamchatka for the Russian port Sitka, coming down the coast and so across country to the American settlements. Ledyard journeyed from Paris, through Germany, Sweden, and Northern Russia, even into Siberia. Here he was arrested and taken to Poland with threats of death if he again attempted the exploration. Time has proved that Russia was anxious to do what she prohibited Ledyard from doing. Still another attempt did Jefferson make to secure the exploration of this region when he persuaded Andre Michaux, a French botanist, to attempt it. Michaux started with a party from the Atlantic coast for the west, but before he reached the Mississippi he was recalled by his o^vn government. All this goes to show that Jefferson's views on this great West were larger than those of his contemporaries. Indeed, if anything were needed to convince us of his statesmanship, a survey of his activities in relation to our western domain would furnish proof in plenty.

Three months before the treaty was signed transferring the Louisiana territory, Jefferson had sent a confidential letter to Congress asking for an appropriation of $2,500 to be used for equipping an expedition to explore the country that the United States claimed by right of discovery by Captain Gray. Strange as it may seem to us now that we know the value of that country, it was with difficulty that this amount was obtained. Had Congress but known that the property covered by the purchase would some day contain a taxable wealth of over $7,000,000,000 the paltry sum might not only have been more quickly granted but have been considerably increased.

Jefferson keenly realized that the success of the expedition depended upon the men chosen to conduct it. He made no mistake here. His former private secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, was chosen to take chief command, with Captain William Clark of Virginia as second. There were in the party chosen for the expedition fourteen soldiers from the United States army, nine young men from Kentucky, all expert riflemen, two French watermen, one interpreter and hunter (Drewyer),i Clark's black servant (York), who proved to be a rare curiosity to the natives, and sixteen men who were to go only part way. Among the twenty men who were to take the entire journey there was not a married man. The instructions which Lewis and Clark received from President Jefferson were minute and complete. They were expected not only to observe carefully and keep full records, but also to be diplomatists in their dealings with the Indians, naturahsts, botanists, geologists, paleontologists, astronomers, engineers, meteorologists, mineralogists, doctors, ethnologists, and, above all, ambassadors, for at all times

^ The proper spelling is Drouillard, but pronounced as indicated.