Uinta County WY Archives History - Books .....Chapter Seven The Oregon Trail 1924
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/wy/wyfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com April 27, 2007, 11:17 am

Book Title: Uinta County, Its Place In History

CHAPTER SEVEN 
The Oregon Trail

    Four years after the journey of Whitman and Spaulding to the northwest a
missionary of different faith but no less devoted to the service of God and man
entered the confines of the original Uinta County. He was Father de Smet, a
member of the Society of Jesus, who had come as a young man from his home in
Belgium to work in the missionary field. After some years spent among the
Indians of the southwest, in April, 1840, he left St Louis to join an expedition
of the American Fur Company, with the purpose of taking the gospel to the
Flathead Indians. He was thirty-nine years old at this time.

    On the 30th of June the fur traders reached Green River, near the mouth of
Horse Creek, and a large rendezvous soon assembled. The news of the coming of
the "Black Robe," as the Indians called Father de Smet, had preceded him, and a
band of Flatheads, lead by Chief Bigface, was sent out to meet him. An Iriquois
Indian by the name of Ignace, who came with him as guide from St. Louis, acted
as interpreter. A large number of Indians were attracted to the spot. After a
week spent by Father de Smet in preaching and giving instruction, there took
place one of the most impressive ceremonies recorded of the West. It is
described by the reverend father in the following words: "On Sunday, the 5th of
July, I had the consolation of celebrating the holy sacrifice of Mass sub Dio.
The altar was placed on an elevation, and surrounded by boughs and garlands of
flowers. I addressed the congregation in French and in English, and spoke also
by an interpreter to the Flatheads and Snake Indians. It was a spectacle truly
moving for the heart of a missionary, to behold an assembly of so many different
nations, who all assisted at our holy mysteries with great satisfaction. The
Canadians sang hymns in French and Latin, and the Indians in their native
tongue. It was truly a Catholic worship. * * * This place has been called since
that time, by the French-Canadians, La Prairie de la Messe." [1]

[1] To the Rev. F. J. Barbelin, dated St. Louie University, February 4, 1841,
published as letter 1, of "Letters and Sketches."


    The scene is one to stir the imagination—the wild and majestic surroundings,
the awe of the children of the wilderness at this new manner of communing with
the Great Spirit and the solemnity and gratitude of the self-sacrificing priest
over the first fruits of his toil, combine to make a picture that stands out in
contrast to the rough life of the frontier. With earnest reverence the
spectators follow the service and listen to the admonitions of the priest, and
then crave his blessing before they part. The spot where this service was
performed is two miles above the town of Daniel. [2]

[2] On November 7, 1922, Father Short, Father Moreton, Father Schillenger and
Father Welch met with citizens of Daniel for the purpose of marking the location
of the Prairie of the Mass. Reverend N. S. Thomas, Bishop of the Episcopal
Diocese of Wyoming, was the author of the movement. Bishop Thomas possesses the
finest and most complete historical library in the state concerning early
Wyoming, and has been interested in spreading information.


    The following day, in company with the Flathead chiefs, Father de Smet
proceeded on his westward way. They ascended Horse Creek, crossed the range to
John Day's Rdver, and followed it down to the Snake and to Pierre's Hole, where
the main body of the Indians was encamped, awaiting his coming. Father de Smet
spent a few weeks with them and returned to St. Louis.

    In April of the next year, in accordance with a promise made to the Indians,
Father de Smet returned, with five other missionaries, traveling to the Snake by
way of the Green River crossing and Fort Hall. It was not long before a mission
was founded near the present city of Missoula, Montana, and later one among the
Coeur d'Alene Indians. For the next six years he was engaged in work among the
Indians in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, and his labors in promoting peace between
the Blackfeet and the Flatheads were so successful as to win for him the thanks
of Franklin Pierce, President of the United States. In 1858 Father de Smet once
again passed through Wyoming, this time coming as far south in what is now Uinta
County as Fort Bridger, with Johnson's army. [3] His counsels and companionship
were highly valued by officers and men.

[3] Levi Edgar Young, "Father de Smet."


    In 1868 Father de Smet once more left the monastery in St. Louis, where his
last days were spent, to confer in behalf of the government and the Sioux
Nation. On this trip he visited Cheyenne and met old acquaintances, one of whom
was Jim Bridger. He died five years later and was mourned by white men and red.

    Several bands of missionaries and a few settlers made the trip to Oregon in
the six years following the journey of Whitman and Spaulding, but the number did
not reach two hundred. Some came in wagons and brought their families, but the
majority traveled with pack horses. In 1842 Whitman, in company with Amos
Lovejoy, made his heroic trip from Oregon to the national capital in the dead of
winter to plead for the settlement of the northwest, upon which, according to
the treaty of 1818, the claim of the United States depended. At Fort Hall the
deep snow compelled them to leave the usual route and go far to the south.
Whitman arrived in Washington March 3, 1843, succeeded in impressing on
President Tyler and Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, the importance of
his mission, and the next spring started west with an emigrant train of a
thousand men, women and children. They had two hundred wagons and a thousand
head of cattle, and they carried implements and seed grain. The next year about
fifteen hundred traveled the Oregon Trail, and in 1845 three thousand. The
Whitman Massacre, on November 29, 1847, lent a new impetus to the settlement of
the northwest, and led to the greatest movement of home-seekers that the world
has ever seen. Within the next six years over three hundred thousand people were
in the northwest. [4]

[4] Meecham, "Old Oregon Trail."


    In 1842 the government, impressed with the importance of the west as
something more than a field for fur traders and adventurers, sent out Captain
John C. Fremont at the head of a well-equipped party to make a survey of the
mountain roads. His first expedition crossed South Pass and turned back after
exploring the country east of the Wind River Range. Fremont's report on
returning to Washington resulted in his being sent out again the following year.
Fitzpatrick, whom the Indians called "Man with the Broken Hand," was chosen
guide, and with nineteen men went in advance to Fort Hall, where he was joined
by Fremont and the rest of the party the first of September. Their route from
Green River was practically the same as the present Oregon Short Line Railroad,
up the valley of Ham's Fork and over the divide to Twin Creek, which they
followed down to Bear River. The early fur traders had often gone this way.
These were the first United States soldiers to cross the Rockies, and they
brought with them a twelve-pound brass howitzer that inspired terror in the
hearts of the Arapahoes, who followed them up after having raided Fort Bridger. [5]

[5] Fremont, "Memoirs of My Life."


    Fremont has been called "The Trail Maker", but, as one of our Wyoming
historians points out, "Map Maker" would more accurately describe him. He
followed old trails, but his were the first authorized maps of the West. [6]
They were published in great numbers by the government, and a heavy demand for
them was created by the growing interest in western colonization.

[6] Hebard, "Path Breakers from River to Ocean."


    About eight miles north of Evanston rises a mountain which bears the name of
Medicine Butte, bestowed upon it by the Indians before the coming of white men.
It is an outstanding landmark for many miles, and on a clear day it is possible
to see from its summit the Teton peaks, more than a hundred and fifty miles to
the north. On its rounded summit there is a pile of stones that is commonly
called "Fremont's Monument". As has been seen, Fremont's survey did not approach
nearer than thirty miles to this spot, but old settlers in the neighborhood
believe that some of the party climbed the slopes for the purpose of
observation, and piled up the first stones, to which each visitor is constrained
by custom to add a contribution of at least one.

    Between the years of 1849 and 1858 expeditions led by Stansbury and by
Simpson were sent out to explore the country through which the Oregon Trail
passed. Their reports gave the first exact knowledge of the geology of the
country, and are still authority. Both were officers in the United States Army,
as was also Beckwith, who was sent out to report the feasibility of a railroad
route across the mountains. The vision of the iron link between the Atlantic and
Pacific was already dawning on the minds of men, though its consummation was
more than a decade away.

    Meanwhile the stream of immigration flowed on. The trains stopped at Fort
Laramie and Fort Bridger to buy provisions at exorbitant prices, and as the
years rolled on other trading places were built, but none within the region we
are studying. The swelling tide deepened and widened the trail, the dead were
buried by the roadside, but no other lasting impress was left upon the mountain
region save for the hatred sowed in the breasts of their savage foes, that was
to bear fruit in later years.

    From South Pass the main road led to Green River, near the mouth of the
Sandy, and dipped south to Fort Bridger. From here it turned northwest to Fort
Hall. There were many cutoffs, as the shorter routes were called, but the great
majority of emigrants wisely kept to the main road. Those who did not often paid
for their daring with their lives.

    Experience taught the necessity of organization, and the caravans, for the
most part, moved under the strictest discipline. By night the camps were well
guarded, and scouts rode ahead by day to watch for savage foes. Bridger and
Fitzpatrick escorted many trains through Wyoming.

    The ill-fated Donnar party was the first to attempt the cutoff from Fort
Bridger to California through Utah. It consisted of thirty-two people who had
left their homes in Sagamon, [sic] Illinois, on the 15th of April, 1846, and
other emigrants who had joined them on their way, making eighty-one in all. At
Fort Bridger they formed a well-organized train under the leadership of George
Donnar, and, with a good stock of provisions, started out on what was called the
Hastings Cutoff. They were seven days in reaching Weber Canyon by way of Echo
Canyon. [7] The tragic story of the hardships that befell the Donnar party does
not properly belong to this history, save as another added illustration of the
folly of leaving the beaten trails. It was not until March, 1847, that they were
rescued from their winter camp in the Sierra Nevada mountains, after thirty-six
of their number had perished from hunger and cold.

[7] Levi Edgar Young, "The Story of the Donnar Party."


    On the 17th of July, 1846, was ratified the treaty between the United States
and Great Britain, ceding the Northwest Territory to the United States. It
included that part of Wyoming lying west of the crest of the Rockies and north
of the 42nd parallel. In 1848 this cession was organized as the Northwest
Territory, and President Polk appointed General Joseph Lane first governor.

    In 1848 the gold rash to California began. Twenty thousand people traveled
the Oregon Trail in the early spring, and the number was greatly increased by
midsummer. All sorts and conditions of humanity were represented, and great was
the variety of vehicles, ranging from the favorite prairie schooner, drawn by
from four to eight oxen, to the frailest of carts. When horses, mules and oxen
died by the wayside, cows were often used as draft animals. From the discarded
articles found in later years along the way, it is clear that many of the
travelers had but little conception of the hardships of the journey. Mahogany
furniture, heavy trunks and other cumbersome objects have been picked up within
the bounds of Uinta County, and many are the unmarked graves. In the summer of
1852, the year of the cholera, over five thousand people died on the Oregon
Trail. [8] The way in which this crisis was met showed the metal of the
emigrants; some were terrorized, and advocated leaving the victims by the
wayside, but the great majority proved their fitness as builders of the new West
by faithfully standing by the stricken ones. The train in which John T. Slate
with his wife and five children crossed was an example of the contending
elements of self-preservation and fidelity to trust, in which the latter won
out. Mrs. Slate, maternal grandmother of Rev. J. F. Vernon, formerly of Evanston
and now missionary of Alaska, was among the stricken ones. She was cared for as
well as circumstances permitted, and recovered. Mr. Vernon's grandfather on his
father's side traveled the same road one year later, and both families settled
in the state of Washington.

[8] Meecham, "Old Oregon Trail."


    One of the most interesting historic documents of the West is Independence
Rock, on the Sweetwater, on which are inscribed the names of hundreds of
emigrants and which Father de Smet aptly called the "Great Register of the
Desert." Only second in importance is Names' Rock, a light-colored boulder about
twenty feet high and one hundred feet wide, that stands seven miles north of the
mouth of Fontenelle Creek and about six miles west of Green River. The meadows
below were the camping place of many travelers, who climbed the hill to cut in
the soft rock names and dates, many of which are still legible. The name of the
scout Jim Bridger is here inscribed, either by a companion, as he could not
write, or by some subsequent traveler.

    In the early spring of 1857 Capt. Frederick West Lander, an engineer in the
Department of the Interior, was sent out to explore the country west of South
Pass for the purpose of determining the shortest practicable route to the
Pacific. He made a painstaking survey as far as Point of Rocks on the western
boundary of Idaho, and laid out a road that shortened the distance materially.
From South Pass it led northwest over the Wind River range to New Fork of Green
River, which it followed to a point a little north of the present site of Big
Piney. From here it ran over Thompson's Pass to Salt River and on to Grey's
Lake. [9]

[9] J. Cecil Alter, "Old Oregon Trail"


    The estimated cost of this road was seventy thousand dollars. A band of
workmen, under a contractor by the name of William F. McGraw, had been sent out
with a military escort the previous fall, but reached South Pass too late to
begin work. During the winter the party scattered, some returning to the east
and others going on to the Pacific Coast. In the summer of 1858 work was begun.
Although one of the avowed objects of this road was to avoid the Mormon
settlements, it is interesting to note that the forty men who were engaged for
the work were from Salt Lake. Twenty miles of heavy pine forest was cleared, ten
miles of willows, and upward of four hundred thousand cubic yards of earth was
excavated. [10]

[10] Ibid.


    The emigrant guide issued that year by the government calls attention to the
following reasons why travelers should take this new cutoff, namely, shortened
distance, good feed, wood, water, no tolls, and fewer steep grades. Many trains
did take this route, but after the arrival of Johnson's army and the settlement
of the Mormon question, the main tide turned again to the old traveled highway,
and the road through Salt Lake grew in favor with California-bound travelers.
The Lander Cutoff can still be traced, and many sections of it are in use today.

    In 1913 the Legislature of Wyoming appropriated the sum of $2,500 to place
appropriate markers along the old Oregon Trail. A committee of three was
appointed by the governor to carry out this work, the members being Capt. H. C.
Nickerson of Lander, president, A. H. Parshall of Cheyenne and Mrs. B. B. Brooks
of Casper. They worked in conjunction with the Sons and Daughters of the
American Revolution. The first secretary was Mrs. H. B. Patten, and she was
succeeded by Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard. Subsequent legislatures have appropriated
the sum of five hundred dollars at each session. The veteran Ezra Meeker, who
traveled the road in 1850 in an ox cart, has twice retraced his steps in more
modern conveyances, and has been of untold help in marking its course. In
October, 1924, at the age of ninety-three, he made the trip from Vancouver to
Dayton, Ohio, by airplane with Lieutenant Kelley of the United States service.
The following markers have been set up within the boundaries of the old Uinta
County: About three miles northeast of Fontenelle a slate slab inscribed "Oregon
Trail 1843-1914." In Township 24, Range 113, there has been chiseled on a
sandstone bluff "Oregon Trail 1843." On Slate Creek, Township 23, Range 113, a
slate slab is marked "Oregon Trail 1843-1914." At Emigrant Springs, near the
postoffice called Supply, is a slate slab marked "Oregon Trail, 1843-1915." In
the sagebrush near this stone are the graves of several emigrants with unmarked
slabs above them. Near the crossing of Rock Creek, about eight miles from
Cokeville, a solid granite stone has the inscription "Oregon Trail, 1843-1915."
The little city of Cokeville has two stones on the old trail. On the eastern
border of the town is a pillar about nine feet high, appropriately inscribed.
The other is near Border, just south of Bear River on the Wyoming-Idaho line. A
fine monument of cobblestones set in cement has been erected at Fort Bridger,
and bears the following inscription on a bronze tablet donated by the State:
"Fort Bridger, established as a trading post, 1843. U. S. Military Post on the
Oregon Trail, June 10, 1858, to October 6, 1890. This monument is erected by the
State of Wyoming and a few interested residents. 1914."


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

UINTA COUNTY ITS PLACE IN HISTORY
ELIZABETH ARNOLD STONE
GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A. 
THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY

A History of the Original Uinta County, Wyoming, and its Subdivisions

To the dear memory of my father,
Rev. F. L. Arnold


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/wy/uinta/history/1924/uintacou/chapters29gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/wyfiles/

File size: 19.0 Kb