Book: The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California

B >> Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont >> The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California



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FIFTEENTH THOUSAND.

THE
EXPLORING EXPEDITION
TO THE
ROCKY MOUNTAINS,
OREGON AND CALIFORNIA,


BY BREVET COL. J.C. FREMONT.


TO WHICH IS ADDED A DESCRIPTION OF THE
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CALIFORNIA.

WITH RECENT NOTICES OF
THE GOLD REGION
FROM THE LATEST AND MOST AUTHENTIC SOURCES.

1852


* * * * *


PREFACE.

No work has appeared from the American press within the past few years
better calculated to interest the community at large than Colonel J.C.
Fremont's Narrative of his Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains,
Oregon, and North California, undertaken by the orders of the United
States government.

Eminently qualified for the task assigned him, Colonel Fremont entered
upon his duties with alacrity, and has embodied in the following pages the
results of his observations. The country thus explored is daily making
deeper and more abiding impressions upon the minds of the people, and
information is eagerly sought in regard to its natural resources, its
climate, inhabitants, productions, and adaptation for supplying the wants
and providing the comforts for a dense population. The day is not far
distant when that territory, hitherto so little known, will be intersected
by railroads, its waters navigated, and its fertile portions peopled by an
active and intelligent population.

To all persons interested in the successful extension of our free
institutions over this now wilderness portion of our land, this work of
Fremont commends itself as a faithful and accurate statement of the
present state of affairs in that country.

Since the preparation of this report, Colonel Fremont has been engaged in
still farther explorations by order of the government, the results of
which will probably be presented to the country as soon as he shall be
relieved from his present arduous and responsible station. He is now
engaged in active military service in New Mexico, and has won imperishable
renown by his rapid and successful subjugation of that country.

The map accompanying this edition is not the one prepared by the order of
government, but it is one that can be relied upon for its accuracy.

July, 1847.



* * * * *


ADVERTISEMENT TO THE NEW EDITION.

The dreams of the visionary have "come to pass!" the unseen El Dorado of
the "fathers" looms, in all its virgin freshness and beauty, before the
eyes of their children! The "set time" for the Golden age, the advent of
which has been looked for and longed for during many centuries of iron
wrongs and hardships, has fully come. In the sunny clime of the south
west--in Upper California--may be found the modern Canaan, a land "flowing
with milk and honey," its mountains studded and its rivers lined and
choked, with gold!

He who would know more of this rich and rare land before commencing his
pilgrimage to its golden bosom, will find, in the last part of this new
edition of a most deservedly popular work, a succinct yet comprehensive
account of its inexhaustible riches and its transcendent loveliness, and a
fund of much needed information in regard to the several routes which lead
to its inviting borders.

January 1849.




* * * * *


A REPORT

ON

AN EXPLORATION OF THE COUNTRY
LYING BETWEEN THE
MISSOURI RIVER AND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS,

ON THE LINE OF THE
KANSAS AND GREAT PLATTE RIVERS.



* * * * *


Washington, March 1, 1843.

To Colonel J.J. Abert, _Chief of the Corps of Top. Eng._

Sir: Agreeably to your orders to explore and report upon the country
between the frontiers of Missouri and the South Pass in the Rocky
Mountains, and on the line of the Kansas and Great Platte rivers, I set
out from Washington city on the 2d day of May, 1842, and arrived at St.
Louis by way of New York, the 22d of May, where the necessary preparations
were completed, and the expedition commenced. I proceeded in a steamboat
to Chouteau's landing, about four hundred miles by water from St. Louis,
and near the mouth of the Kansas river, whence we proceeded twelve miles
to Mr. Cyprian Chouteau's trading-house, where we completed our final
arrangements for the expedition.

Bad weather, which interfered with astronomical observations, delayed us
several days in the early part of June at this post, which is on the right
bank of the Kansas river, about ten miles above the mouth, and six beyond
the western boundary of Missouri. The sky cleared off at length and we
were enabled to determine our position, in longitude 90° 25' 46", and
latitude 39° 5' 57". The elevation above the sea is about 700 feet. Our
camp, in the mean time, presented an animated and bustling scene. All were
busily engaged in completing the necessary arrangements for our campaign
in the wilderness, and profiting by this short stay on the verge of
civilization, to provide ourselves with all the little essentials to
comfort in the nomadic life we were to lead for the ensuing summer months.
Gradually, however, every thing--the _materiel_ of the camp--men,
horses, and even mules--settled into its place; and by the 10th we were
ready to depart; but, before we mount our horses, I will give a short
description of the party with which I performed the service.

I had collected in the neighborhood of St. Louis twenty-one men,
principally Creole and Canadian _voyageurs_, who had become familiar
with prairie life in the service of the fur companies in the Indian
country. Mr. Charles Preuss, native of Germany, was my assistant in the
topographical part of the survey; L. Maxwell, of Kaskaskia, had been
engaged as hunter, and Christopher Carson (more familiarly known, for his
exploits in the mountains, as Kit Carson) was our guide. The persons
engaged in St. Louis were:

Clement Lambert, J.B. L'Esperance, J.B. Lefevre, Benjamin Potra, Louis
Gouin, J.B. Dumes, Basil Lajeunesse, François Tessier, Benjamin Cadotte,
Joseph Clement, Daniel Simonds, Leonard Benoit, Michel Morly, Baptiste
Bernier, Honore Ayot, François La Tulipe, Francis Badeau, Louis Menard,
Joseph Ruelle, Moise Chardonnais, Auguste Janisse, Raphael Proue.

In addition to these, Henry Brant, son of Col. J.B. Brant, of St. Louis, a
young man of nineteen years of age, and Randolph, a lively boy of twelve,
son of the Hon. Thomas H. Benton, accompanied me, for the development of
mind and body such an expedition would give. We were well armed and
mounted, with the exception of eight men, who conducted as many carts, in
which were packed our stores, with the baggage and instruments, and which
were drawn by two mules. A few loose horses, and four oxen, which had been
added to our stock of provisions, completed the train. We set out on the
morning of the 10th, which happened to be Friday, a circumstance which our
men did not fail to remember and recall during the hardships and vexations
of the ensuing journey. Mr. Cyprian Chouteau, to whose kindness, during
our stay at his house, we were much indebted, accompanied us several miles
on our way, until we met an Indian, whom he had engaged to conduct us on
the first thirty or forty miles, where he was to consign us to the ocean
of prairie, which, we were told, stretched without interruption almost to
the base of the Rocky Mountains.

From the belt of wood which borders the Kansas, in which we had passed
several good-looking Indian farms, we suddenly emerged on the prairies,
which received us at the outset with some of their striking
characteristics; for here and there rode an Indian, and but a few miles
distant heavy clouds of smoke were rolling before the fire. In about ten
miles we reached the Santa Fé road, along which we continued for a short
time, and encamped early on a small stream--having traveled about eleven
miles. During our journey, it was the customary practice to encamp an hour
or two before sunset, when the carts were disposed so as to form a sort of
barricade around a circle some eighty yards in diameter. The tents were
pitched, and the horses hobbled and turned loose to graze; and but a few
minutes elapsed before the cooks of the messes, of which there were four,
were busily engaged in preparing the evening meal. At nightfall, the
horses, mules, and oxen were driven in and picketed,--that is, secured by
a halter, of which one end was tied to a small steel-shod picket, and
driven into the ground; the halter being twenty or thirty feet long, which
enabled them to obtain a little food during the night. When we had reached
a part of the country where such a precaution became necessary, the carts
being regularly arranged for defending the camp, guard was mounted at
eight o'clock, consisting of three men, who were relieved every two hours
--the morning-watch being horse-guard for the day. At daybreak the camp was
roused, the animals turned loose to graze, and breakfast generally over
between six and seven o'clock, when we resumed our march, making regularly
a halt at noon for one or two hours. Such was usually the order of the
day, except when accident of country forced a variation; which, however,
happened but rarely. We traveled the next day along the Santa Fé road,
which we left in the afternoon, and encamped late in the evening on a
small creek, called by the Indians, Mishmagwi. Just as we arrived at camp,
one of the horses set off at full speed on his return, and was followed by
others. Several men were sent in pursuit, and returned with the fugitives
about midnight, with the exception of one man, who did not make his
appearance until morning. He had lost his way in the darkness of the
night, and slept on the prairie. Shortly after midnight it began to rain
heavily, and, as our tents were of light and thin cloth, they offered but
little obstruction to the rain: we were all well soaked, and glad when
morning came. We had a rainy march on the 12th, but the weather grew fine
as the day advanced. We encamped in a remarkably beautiful situation on
the Kansas bluffs, which commanded a fine view of the river valley, here
from four to five miles wide. The central portion was occupied by a broad
belt of heavy timber, and nearer the hills the prairies were of the
richest verdure. One of the oxen was killed here for food.

We reached the ford of the Kansas late in the afternoon of the 14th, where
the river was two hundred and thirty yards wide, and commenced,
immediately, preparations for crossing. I had expected to find the river
fordable; but it had swollen by the late rains, and was sweeping by with
an angry current, yellow and turbid as the Missouri. Up to this point the
road we had traveled was a remarkably fine one, well beaten, and level--
the usual road of a prairie country. By our route, the ford was one
hundred miles from the mouth of the Kansas river. Several mounted men led
the way into the stream to swim across. The animals were driven in after
them, and in a few minutes all had reached the opposite bank in safety,
with the exception of the oxen, which swam some distance down the river,
and, returning to the right bank, were not got over till the next morning.
In the mean time, the carts had been unloaded and dismantled, and an
India-rubber boat, which I had brought with me for the survey of the
Platte river, placed in the water. The boat was twenty feet long and five
broad, and on it were placed the body and wheels of a cart, with the load
belonging to it, and three men with paddles.

The velocity of the current, and the inconvenient freight, rendering it
difficult to be managed, Basil Lajeunesse, one of our best swimmers, took
in his teeth a line attached to the boat, and swam ahead in order to reach
a footing as soon as possible, and assist in drawing her over. In this
manner six passages had been successfully made, and as many carts with
their contents, and a greater portion of the party, deposited on the left
bank; but night was drawing near, and, in our anxiety to have all over
before the darkness closed in, I put upon the boat the remaining two
carts, with their accompanying load. The man at the helm was timid on
water, and in his alarm capsized the boat. Carts, barrels, boxes, and
bales, were in a moment floating down the current; but all the men who
were on the shore jumped into the water, without stopping to think if they
could swim, and almost every thing--even heavy articles, such as guns and
lead--was recovered.

Two of the men who could not swim came nigh being drowned, and all the
sugar belonging to one of the messes wasted its sweets on the muddy
waters; but our heaviest loss was a large bag of coffee, which contained
nearly all our provision. It was a loss which none but a traveler in a
strange and inhospitable country can appreciate; and often afterward, when
excessive toil and long marching had overcome us with fatigue and
weariness, we remembered and mourned over our loss in the Kansas. Carson
and Maxwell had been much in the water yesterday, and both, in
consequence, were taken ill. The former continuing so, I remained in camp.
A number of Kansas Indians visited us to-day. Going up to one of the
groups who were scattered among the trees, I found one sitting on the
ground, among some of the men, gravely and fluently speaking French, with
as much facility and as little embarrassment as any of my own party, who
were nearly all of French origin.

On all sides was heard the strange language of his own people, wild, and
harmonizing well with their appearance. I listened to him for some time
with feelings of strange curiosity and interest. He was now apparently
thirty-five years of age; and, on inquiry, I learned that he had been at
St. Louis when a boy, and there had learned the French language. From one
of the Indian women I obtained a fine cow and calf in exchange for a yoke
of oxen. Several of them brought us vegetables, pumpkins, onions, beans,
and lettuce. One of them brought butter, and from a half-breed near the
river, I had the good fortune to obtain some twenty or thirty pounds of
coffee. The dense timber in which we had encamped interfered with
astronomical observations, and our wet and damaged stores required
exposure to the sun. Accordingly, the tents were struck early the next
morning, and, leaving camp at six o'clock, we moved about seven miles up
the river, to a handsome, open prairie, some twenty feet above the water,
where the fine grass afforded a luxurious repast to our horses.

During the day we occupied ourselves in making astronomical observations,
in order to lay down the country to this place; it being our custom to
keep up our map regularly in the field, which we found attended with many
advantages. The men were kept busy in drying the provisions, painting the
cart covers, and otherwise completing our equipage, until the afternoon,
when powder was distributed to them, and they spent some hours in firing
at a mark. We were now fairly in the Indian country, and it began to be
time to prepare for the chances of the wilderness.

17th.--The weather yesterday had not permitted us to make the observations
I was desirous to obtain here, and I therefore did not move to-day. The
people continued their target firing. In the steep bank of the river here,
were nests of innumerable swallows, into one of which a large prairie
snake had got about half his body, and was occupied in eating the young
birds. The old ones were flying about in great distress, darting at him,
and vainly endeavoring to drive him off. A shot wounded him, and, being
killed, he was cut open, and eighteen young swallows were found in his
body. A sudden storm, that burst upon us in the afternoon, cleared away in
a brilliant sunset, followed by a clear night, which enabled us to
determine our position in longitude 95° 38' 05", and in latitude 39° 06'
40".

A party of emigrants to the Columbia river, under the charge of Dr. White,
an agent of the government in Oregon Territory, were about three weeks in
advance of us. They consisted of men, women, and children. There were
sixty-four men, and sixteen or seventeen families. They had a considerable
number of cattle, and were transporting their household furniture in
large, heavy wagons. I understood that there had been much sickness among
them, and that they had lost several children. One of the party who had
lost his child, and whose wife was very ill, had left them about one
hundred miles hence on the prairies; and as a hunter, who had accompanied
them, visited our camp this evening, we availed ourselves of his return to
the States to write to our friends.

The morning of the 18th was very unpleasant. A fine rain was falling, with
cold wind from the north, and mists made the river hills look dark and
gloomy. We left our camp at seven, journeying along the foot of the hills
which border the Kansas valley, generally about three miles wide, and
extremely rich. We halted for dinner, after a march of about thirteen
miles, on the banks of one of the many little tributaries to the Kansas,
which look like trenches in the prairie, and are usually well timbered.
After crossing this stream, I rode off some miles to the left, attracted
by the appearance of a cluster of huts near the mouth of the Vermilion. It
was a large but deserted Kansas village, scattered in an open wood, along
the margin of the stream, chosen with the customary Indian fondness for
beauty of scenery. The Pawnees had attacked it in the early spring. Some
of the houses were burnt, and others blackened with smoke, and weeds were
already getting possession of the cleared places. Riding up the Vermilion
river, I reached the ford in time to meet the carts, and, crossing,
encamped on its western side. The weather continued cold, the thermometer
being this evening as low as 49°; but the night was sufficiently clear for
astronomical observations, which placed us in longitude 96° 04' 07", and
latitude 39° 15' 19". At sunset, the barometer was at 28.845, thermometer
64°.

We breakfasted the next morning at half-past five, and left our encampment
early. The morning was cool, the thermometer being at 45°. Quitting the
river bottom, the road ran along the uplands, over a rolling country,
generally in view of the Kansas from eight to twelve miles distant. Many
large boulders, of a very compact sandstone, of various shades of red,
some of them of four or five tons in weight, were scattered along the
hills; and many beautiful plants in flower, among which the _amorpha
canescens_ was a characteristic, enlivened the green of the prairie. At
the heads of the ravines I remarked, occasionally, thickets of _saix
longifolia_, the most common willow of the country. We traveled
nineteen miles and pitched our tents at evening on the head-waters of a
small creek, now nearly dry, but having in its bed several fine springs.
The barometer indicated a considerable rise in the country--here about
fourteen hundred feet above the sea--and the increased elevation appeared
already to have some slight influence upon vegetation. The night was cold,
with a heavy dew; the thermometer at 10 P.M. standing at 46°, barometer
28.483. Our position was in longitude 96° 14' 49", and latitude 39° 30'
40".

The morning of the 20th was fine, with a southerly breeze and a bright
sky; and at seven o'clock we were on the march. The country to-day was
rather more broken, rising still, and covered everywhere with fragments of
silicious limestone, particularly on the summits, where they were small,
and thickly strewed as pebbles on the shore of the sea. In these exposed
situations grew but few plants; though, whenever the soil was good and
protected from the winds, in the creek bottoms and ravines, and on the
slopes, they flourished abundantly; among them the _amorpha_, still
retaining its characteristic place. We crossed, at 10 A.M. the Big
Vermilion, which has a rich bottom of about one mile in breadth, one-third
of which is occupied by timber. Making our usual halt at noon, after a
day's march of twenty-four miles, we reached the Big Blue, and encamped on
the uplands of the western side, near a small creek, where was a fine
large spring of very cold water. This is a clear and handsome stream,
about one hundred and twenty feet wide, running with a rapid current,
through a well-timbered valley. To-day antelope were seen running over the
hills, and at evening Carson brought us a fine deer. Longitude of the camp
96° 32' 35", latitude 39° 45' 08". Thermometer at sunset 75°. A pleasant
southerly breeze and fine morning had given place to a gale, with
indications of bad weather; when, after a march of ten miles, we halted to
noon on a small creek, where the water stood in deep pools. In the bank of
the creek limestone made its appearance in a stratum about one foot thick.
In the afternoon, the people seemed to suffer for want of water. The road
led along a high dry ridge; dark lines of timber indicated the heads of
streams in the plains below; but there was no water near, and the day was
oppressive, with a hot wind, and the thermometer at 90°. Along our route
the _amorpha_ has been in very abundant but variable bloom--in some
places bending beneath the weight of purple clusters; in others without a
flower. It seemed to love best the sunny slopes, with a dark soil and
southern exposure. Everywhere the rose is met with, and reminds us of
cultivated gardens and civilization. It is scattered over the prairies in
small bouquets, and, when glittering in the dews and waving in the
pleasant breeze of the early morning, is the most beautiful of the prairie
flowers. The _artemisia_, absinthe, or prairie sage, as it is
variously called, is increasing in size, and glittering like silver, as
the southern breeze turns up its leaves to the sun. All these plants have
their insect inhabitants, variously colored--taking generally the hue of
the flower on which they live. The _artemisia_ has its small fly
accompanying it through every change of elevation and latitude; and
wherever I have seen the _asclepias tuberosa_, I have always
remarked, too, on the flower a large butterfly, so nearly resembling it in
color as to be distinguishable at a little distance only by the motion of
its wings. Traveling on, the fresh traces of the Oregon emigrants relieve
a little the loneliness of the road; and to-night, after a march of
twenty-two miles, we halted on a small creek which had been one of their
encampments. As we advanced westward, the soil appears to be getting more
sandy; and the surface rock, an erratic deposite of sand and gravel, rests
here on a bed of coarse yellow and gray and very friable sandstone.
Evening closed over with rain and its usual attendant hordes of
mosquitoes, with which we were annoyed for the first time.

22d.--We enjoyed at breakfast this morning a luxury, very unusual in this
country, in a cup of excellent coffee, with cream, from our cow. Being
milked at night, cream was thus had in the morning. Our mid-day halt was
at Wyeth's creek, in the bed of which were numerous boulders of dark,
ferruginous sandstone, mingled with others of the red sandstone already
mentioned. Here a pack of cards, lying loose on the grass, marked an
encampment of our Oregon emigrants; and it was at the close of the day
when we made our bivouac in the midst of some well-timbered ravines near
the Little Blue, twenty-four miles from our camp of the preceding night.
Crossing the next morning a number of handsome creeks, with water clear
and sandy beds we reached, at 10 A.M., a very beautiful wooded stream,
about thirty-five feet wide, called Sandy creek, and sometimes, as the
Ottoes frequently winter there, the Otto fork. The country has become very
sandy, and the plants less varied and abundant, with the exception of the
_amorpha_, which rivals the grass in quantity, though not so forward
as it has been found to the eastward.

At the Big Trees, where we had intended to noon, no water was to be found.
The bed of the little creek was perfectly dry, and, on the adjacent sandy
bottom, _cacti_, for the first time made their appearance. We made
here a short delay in search of water; and, after a hard day's march of
twenty-eight miles, encamped, at 5 o'clock, on the Little Blue, where our
arrival made a scene of the Arabian desert. As fast as they arrived men
and horses rushed into the stream, where they bathed and drank together in
common enjoyment. We were now in the range of the Pawnees, who were
accustomed to infest this part of the country, stealing horses from
companies on their way to the mountains; and, when in sufficient force,
openly attacking and plundering them, and subjecting them to various kinds
of insult. For the first time, therefore, guard was mounted to-night. Our
route the next morning lay up the valley, which, bordered by hills with
graceful slopes, looked uncommonly green and beautiful. The stream was
about fifty feet wide, and three or four deep, fringed by cotton-wood and
willow, with frequent groves of oak, tenanted by flocks of turkeys. Game
here, too, made its appearance in greater plenty. Elk were frequently seen
on the hills, and now and then an antelope bounded across our path, or a
deer broke from the groves. The road in the afternoon was over the upper
prairies, several miles from the river, and we encamped at sunset on one
of its small tributaries, where an abundance of prele (_equisetum_)
afforded fine forage to our tired animals. We had traveled thirty-one
miles. A heavy bank of black clouds in the west came on us in a storm
between nine and ten, preceded by a violent wind. The rain fell in such
torrents that it was difficult to breathe facing the wind; the thunder
rolled incessantly, and the whole sky was tremulous with lightning--now
and then illuminated by a blinding flash, succeeded by pitchy darkness.
Carson had the watch from ten to midnight, and to him had been assigned
our young _compagnons de voyage_, Messrs. Brant and R. Benton. This
was their first night on guard, and such an introduction did not augur
very auspiciously of the pleasures of the expedition. Many things
conspired to render their situation uncomfortable; stories of desperate
and bloody Indian fights were rife in the camp; our position was badly
chosen, surrounded on all sides by timbered hollows, and occupying an area
of several hundred feet, so that necessarily the guards were far apart;
and now and then I could hear Randolph, as if relieved by the sound of a
voice in the darkness, calling out to the sergeant of the guard, to direct
his attention to some imaginary alarm; but they stood it out, and took
their turn regularly afterwards.

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