A Majority of Scountrels - Don Berry

by Don Berry

  During the winter of '30-'31 Smith was busy outfitting this foray into new fields. There was also a good deal of family business to be taken care of; his brothers were congregating in St. Louis. Ira Smith arrived shortly before Christmas of 1830, possibly with some notion of joining his elder brother on one of his far-flung jaunts. If so, he was disappointed, because Jedediah immediately enrolled him in a seminary at Jacksonville, Illinois. Two other brothers, Austin and Peter, Jedediah decided to take with him on the Santa Fe run.

  In the meantime Sublette and Jackson had been engaged in preparation for an expedition, too. They had formed another partnership, called Jackson & Sublette, and were outfitting with merchandise. It would seem most likely that this was originally destined for RMF; contingent, of course, on the spring express in the event business warranted supplies for another year.8

  But as the spring wore on—the traditional March 1 date for such an express had passed—it began to appear there was going to be no word from the mountains. Jackson & Sublette then shifted plans; They decided to go with Smith to Santa Fe, though not as partners with him. On March 23, through General Ashley, Sublette requested a passport for the Mexican provinces. Ashley comments that Sublette will be with Smith (for whom a passport was previously issued) "to a certain point, Thence they will take different directions."

  Whatever the plans for eventual separation, the two groups were combined for the Santa Fe run. In combination they had about twenty-two wagons and seventy-four men. They were later joined by two other wagons of independent traders, and more men to the total of eighty-three.

  Ownership of the main body of wagons was divided about equally between Smith and the Jackson-Sublette partnership. Only one of them was owned jointly by the three: an artillery wagon, carrying a six-pounder and ingeniously arranged so that the cannon could be pulled out, using the back wheels of the wagon as a carriage.

  Some of the wagons may have gone ahead as early as April 1, but the main caravan got off from St. Louis around the 10th of the month. They put up for some days at Lexington to take on last-minute provisions, supplies, and so forth. (They were there at the end of April; on "April Thirty first" Smith made out a will, naming General Ashley as executor.)

  Either during their encampment at Lexington or a few days out on the trail, the Santa Fe-bound caravan was joined by two more men.

  Tom Fitzpatrick, unofficial head of the brand-new Rocky Mountain Fur Company, had come down from winter quarters looking for supplies, a little too late.

  The sudden appearance of Fitzpatrick here has been confusing to historians and may well have been equally so to Jackson & Sublette. There is little, information on this whole year in the trade. (Smith wrote to his brother Ralph that "it is certainly verry far from my wish to have too much publicity given; to our business." This policy he followed so assiduously that it is quite difficult to tell what was going on that winter.)

  If the sketch I have given is correct, it is difficult to understand why Jackson &.Sublette did not then proceed from Lexington to the mountains, leaving the Santa Fe expedition to Jedediah Smith. Possibly they were so far committed that they had no choice; the merchandise required was somewhat different. It is also possible that Sublette, Jackson, and Smith had planned the Santa Fe trip from the beginning and that the encounter with Fitzpatrick was in the nature of an accident.

  Whatever the case, Fitzpatrick was persuaded to accompany the caravan to Santa Fe. An arrangement was made for him to be supplied there, with Jackson & Sublette providing two thirds of the outfit, Smith the remaining third.

  The last encampment before the march began was at the Big Blue, outside Independence. The caravan left here on the 4th of May, slanting southwest across present Kansas on nearly a direct line toward Santa Fe. There were four distinct phases to the Santa Fe Trail, each providing a different sort of traveling. This first leg ended at Council Grove, 150 miles from Independence. By this time the caravan was shaken down into marching order; and here the final organization was made by most parties. Officers selected, messes organized or reorganized; the whole caravan, in short, whipped into shape for the crossing of the barren country.

  Council Grove was the last source of wood along the route, and one of the more important orders of business would have been stocking the party with replacement axle trees and so forth. The wood collected here was generally strapped beneath the wagons.9

  From Council Grove to the ford of the Arkansas (known as Cimarron Crossing) was another 240 miles; and now the geography began to change. From the fertile prairies the caravan moved into dry, arid plains; the beginning of the desert. Cimarron Crossing was a few miles above Dodge City, and represented the halfway point from Independence to Santa Fe.

  Now came the worst section of the entire passage; crossing the Cimarron desert. One man of the party had already been lost, less than two weeks out of Independence. Around Pawnee Fork, Jackson & Sublette’s clerk, a man named Minter, was separated from the main body of the caravan while out hunting antelope. A band of roving Pawnees found him and killed him. This was in the relatively safe portion of the passage, and the event was ominous.

  Crossing the Arkansas, they entered the desert. This was bleak and forbidding country, bone-dry, scorched, and desolate. There was no telling the wagon road from the interwoven net of buffalo trails. Nothing was here to mark the trail, and the land itself was dead-flat and featureless. This desert was a crossing of fifty or miles (from the Arkansas to the Cimarron River) without water. The caravans moved slowly, perhaps averaging fifteen miles a day, and with luck the crossing could have been made in four days.

  But luck was not with them. The way was lost, and the water ran out. When they had been without water for nearly three days, the party divided. In desperation small groups of men scattered in all directions, combing the parched countryside along their route, finding nothing; the season was one of drought.

  Smith rode on ahead in the direction the party was traveling, roughly south. One story says Tom Fitzpatrick was with him. According to this version, the two men finally reached a dryhole where water might have been expected. Smith told Fitzpatrick to stay behind there, and wait for the party to come up to them. Alone, he rode on ahead. This was the 27th of May, 1831.

  Smith passed over a low ridge of broken ground and passed beyond Fitzpatrick’s sight. Some fifteen miles beyond, he topped a bank and stood looking down at the bed of the Cimarron.

  "River" by courtesy only; the drought had hit it, too, and there was nothing that might be called a stream. But along the bed were scattered pools of precious water. He scrambled down over the bank, having once more escaped death by thirst through the narrowest of margins. Buffalo trails converged on the minuscule water hole, and had Smith not been in the desperation of thirst the fact might have made him more cautious; butfalo water holes were good hunting.

  He and his horse drank from the pool, bathing their seared bodies in the cool water. Finally Smith rose and mounted, returning to bring the caravan up to him; to carry back the good news. He found himself confronted by a band of Comanches.

  Riding directly to them, Smith tried to communicate. The Comanches did not understand; or were simply not interested. There were fifteen or twenty of the Indians, and they began to move out to either side as Smith tried to talk to their headman. Smith’s gun was at cock and ready; and the Comanches had no desire to look down its muzzle. They concentrated then on Smith’s horse, shouting to frighten it.

  The horse shied, and swung away. The Comanches fired on him immediately, wounding him

  in the shoulder. Smith turned back to the headman and shot him through the chest.

  Seconds later Smith slid from his horse and died under the Comanche lances.

  Surviving the three great massacres of the trade, Jedediah Smith died at last with only his God for comfort in the desert.

  ***

  The main caravan found its way to the Cimarron some distance from the spot of Jedediah’s death. They refreshed
themselves there, and, when Smith did not retum, set off again. Shortly after this they were attacked by a huge band of Gros Ventres; relatives of the Blackfeet and ranging very far south from their usual grounds.10 Sublette was able to negotiate with them—possibly through judicious demonstration of his artillery—and the caravan escaped unhurt. That night, not trusting to luck, Sublette had the wagons drawn up in a barricade; and the trouble was well worth it. During the night they were surrounded by the war party again, and Sublette’s defensive measures once more preserved them.

  From there to Santa Fe they encountered no trouble from the Indians. They reached the Mexican settlement on the 4th of July; and found the relics of Jedediah’s death among a recently arrived party of Mexican traders. The Mexicans had traded Smith’s ride and two pistols from the Comanche band.

  Peter and Austin Smith were able to secure the guns, and also the details of the attack (as given above), which the Comanches had passed on to the Mexicans.

  Sublette made a fairly successful trade in Santa Fe, and took his payment in furs: 55 packs of beaver and 800 buffalo robes. But he liked neither the country nor the business. He and Jackson broke up their short-lived partnership there in Santa Fe; Jackson to go on to southern California with Peter Smith and several others, in the mule-trading business. Jackson’s partner in Santa Fe was David Waldo, who was given a power of attorney by both Sublette and Jackson for the purpose of collecting their $15,000 note from RMF in beaver at the Santa Fe price $4.25 a pound.

  Tom Fitzpatrick, acting for RMF, was apparently toying with the idea of marketing their—furs through Taos and Santa Fe rather than St. Louis; this $4.25 price was contingent on delivery within sixty miles of Taos.

  Fitzpatrick was outfitted as agreed, with Smith’s part of the agreement (1/3) being handled by his clerk.11 He set out north toward Taos with a few men, and recruited more as he went along. (One of his more interesting recruits was a young runaway named Christopher Carson.) By now it was late summer; long past rendezvous time and Fitz was almost as far from the mountains as though he had still been in St. Louis. He started a forced march across present Colorado, probably heading almost due north along the eastern base of the Rockies. His outfit was not large—probab1y thirty men all told, and not more than about $6,000 worth of merchandise—and he was able to make fairly good time.

  By September he had reached the Platte. Now it was known territory to him, He would ascend the Platte, the Sweetwater, across South Pass—the familiar last stages of the overland route from St. Louis. Rendezvous 1831 had been set in the old stamping grounds of Cache Valley, and Fitz hoped to be able to locate the RMF brigades near there.

  While camped near the mouth of the Laramie, Fitzpatrick was found by the party of his own men under Henry Fraeb. They went into camp together for a short time; then set out for winter quarters, trapping as they traveled. There was a lot of news to be exchanged; and it was nearly all bad. The death of Smith, who was genuinely liked by all his compatriots; the small amount of merchandise Fitz. had gotten from Jackson & Sublette; Fitz was not bringing very cheerful tidings.

  Old Frapp’s news was little better. The hunting had been fair, but they were no longer alone in the mountains. During the Fall '30 hunt, Fraeb and Gervais had been joined by a brigade of American Fur men, under the shrewd and competent Joseph Robidoux. This brigade had stuck with them throughout most of the fall hunt, not leaving until December. (Even the small firm of Gant & Blackwell had a party in the mountains now; though the partners did not yet know of it.)

  It was absolutely necessary to be sure of a supply train for next spring. Owing to both the competition and the slightness of the present load, RMF could not afford another mistake; couldn’t take the risk of another late arrival of supplies. Accordingly, Fitzpatrick turned his goods over to Fraeb and with three other men set out down the Platte to arrange for the supply outfit for 1832.

  Just after he left Fraeb’s brigade, Fitzpatrick came on the camped party of Gant & Blackwell, which was trapping the tributaries of the Platte on their way to the mountain country.

  This did little to improve Fitzpatrick’s disposition; nor was he a particularly gracious man in the best of times. The Gant & Blackwell party received him hospitably, but Fitz was in no mood to encourage the opposition, however feeble.

  One of the members of this brigade was Zenas Leonard, a young mangeur de lard out on his first trip. He left a record,12 and says of this meeting with Fitzpatrick:

  He was an old hand at the business and we expected to obtain some useful information from him, but we were disappointed. The selfishness of man is often disgraceful to human nature; and I never saw more striking evidence of this fact, than was presented in the conduct of this man Fitzpatrick. Notwithstanding we had treated him with great friendship and hospitality, merely because we were to engage in the same business with him, which he knew we never could exhaust or even impair—he refused to give us any information whatever, and appeared disposed to treat us as intruders.

  On the 3d of September, Captain Blackwell, with two others, joined Fitzpatrick, and started back to the state of Missouri.

  Well, Tom had things on his mind. And Leonard would soon become accustomed to the techniques of mountain competition.

  Meanwhile Fraeb and his party started back across the divide with the supplies, headed for the Salmon River country in central Idaho, which had been selected as their wintering grounds for '31-'32.

  After Fitzpatrick’s nonappearance at Rendezvous 1831 the other RMF trappers had made their Fall ’3l hunt in small detached brigades. One of them is recorded; Bridger and Sublette were accompanied by that chronicler of few words, Doc Newell: "left for fall hunt from Bear River to Greys fork of Snake River (a Scrimmage with Black feet) from thare to Snake River and on to Psalmon River."

  That is: from Cache Valley north to the Snake; then northwest across the Snake River plains to the Salmon. He then adds a trip due north into Montana to the Flathead River and—late in the fall—a final return to the winter quarters on the Salmon: "and met Mr Freab with supplies from Mr. Fitzpatrick and took up winter quarters with the flat heads and napercies."

  What Newell does not mention is that the Flatheads and Nez' Perces were not their only companions this winter of '31-'32. Joseph Robidoux of the Company was somewhere in the vicinity. And Henry Vanderburgh had gotten another party into the mountains from Fort Union; he was making his winter camp back in Cache Valley (running about a season behind RMF, who’d been there in the summer).

  Well, the Salmon was good wintering country, and RMF settled down to see in the new year with the customary festivities: 1832 was upon them, the most eventful year in the history of the trade. All hell was about to break loose, and very little of it would do the Rocky Mountain Fur Company any good.

  IV

  Two of the Company men, Drips and Fontenelle, had returned to St. Louis in the early summer of 1831 to make arrangements for supplies. Drips, with a small load, returned in the late fall, joining the Vanderburgh brigade in Cache Valley for the winter. (These present Company men had all been involved in Joshua Pilcher’s abortive mountain attempt in '27-'28.)

  As soon as spring made mountain travel feasible again, this detachment set out north from Cache Valley, hoping to catch up with an RMF brigade; and they did.

  At about the same time that Vanderburgh and Drips were moving out of Cache Valley RMF was breaking up its winter camp on the Salmon and dispersing for the Spring '32 hunt. One brigade, under Milton Sublette and Bridger, worked across to Henry’s Fork—southeast from the winter camp, across the Idaho lava beds. Then down the Snake to the Salt River, Gray’s Hole, and finally down to Bear River.

  But at Gray’s Hole, to the enormous disgust of the RMF partisans, they were found by Vanderburgh. The Company contingent had apparently not had a very successful spring hunt; but then trapping, for the present, was not their main interest. Vanderburgh promptly latched on to the RMF brigade as Robidoux had done to Fraeb and Gervais; h
appily turned around and headed back toward Bear-River with them.

  It was obvious by now what the Company was doing—taking on-the-job training from RMF. Vanderburgh and Drips were learning their geography by the simple expedient of following the master trappers of RMF. "Whither thou goest, I will go," and a very fine idea it was, probably springing direct from the man at Fort Union who was now beginning to be called the King of the Missouri,. Kenneth McKenzie.13

  Each firm had something the other lacked. RMF had the skills of the best trappers in the mountains; men with years of experience that dated back to Ashley and Henry’s first expeditions; but financially they were: on the thinnest of ice (their note to SJ&S hadn’t yet been paid off—and more debts were being incurred all the time). The Company had as much capital as it needed. If necessary, it could absorb losses for several years, and still end with a profit in the long run. It had, in short, a comfortable margin for error, which RMF had not at all. Further, the Company brigades could, in time, learn to trap effectively, particularly when they took as mentors men like Bridger, Fitzpatrick, and the other partisans. But RMF had no way of making up its disadvantage in capital; there were no resources to call on.

  This situation was sufficient to enrage the RMF partners, but there was little they could do about it, except to delay the inevitable outcome as long as possible. And the way to do that was to show the Company their heels as often as they could; it was a solution that would be congenial to these mountain men par excellence, proud of their wilderness skills. According1y Bridger and Milton decided to take off.

  However, at this Bear River meeting, probably while the rival camps were near each other, Milton ran into trouble. Somewhere along the line, possibly an unrecorded hunt of early spring, Milton had picked up a band of eight Iroquois trappers in Ogden’s Hole.14 This outfit, now operating semiattached to RMF, was led by John Gray. (Probably the troublemaker John Gray-Ignace Hatchiorauquasha who had deserted from Peter Skene Ogden.) An altercation came up between Gray and Milton "on account of some indignity, real or fancied, which had been offered to the chiefs daughter."