Utah Historical Quarterly Volume IX

007_W. A. Ferris in Utah, 1830 - 1835, By J. Cecil Alter

W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 1830- 1835 By J. Cecil Alter The recent publication for the first time in book form1 of the Journal of Warren Angus Ferris2 which the diarist himself entitled " Life in the Rocky Mountains" 8 has turned the spotlight of atten­tion upon a number of interesting episodes and upon an important period in Utah's presettlement history, which but for Ferris, would still be enshrouded in oblivion. Inklings of some of these levents have come to us at second hand from historians who had seen parts of the Ferris writings;' but in the main we now have for the first time the original narratives of travel and adventure by Ferris, and his many fur- gathering associates, in the Utah region long before the " white women era" of civilization in this storied domain. While scattered reports in other early prints indicate visits of several independent parties into or through what is now Utah during the fur- gathering period, it happens that there was " nobody home" on the occasion of Ferris' first visit* and he could only ^ The Rocky Mountain Book Shop, Salt Lake City, Utah, issued the Ferris journal in April, 1940, in a large- page, well- illustrated volume, with map and index edited by the present writer. The title is " Life In The Rocky Mountains," by Warren Angus Ferris. aWarren Angus Ferris, born December 26, 1810, in New York State, was cast for the civil engineering profession; but the lure of the fur trapping industry, then at its height in the far west, out- weighed the allurements of an engineering career, and he Joined an American Fur Company brigade out of St. Louis in mid- February, 1830, aged nineteen. s" Life In The Rocky Mountains" is the title of a serial, authored by Ferris, and published in the " Western Literary Messenger" of Buffalo, New York, 1842- 44, It was based upon the written daily journal kept in the field, and his photographic memory of events in the mountains during his six most eventful years. The file of the " Western Literary Messenger," until quite recently, remained incomplete; but promptly upon the finding of certain missing volumes ( now in the Buffalo Public Library), concerted plans were made for releasing this historic treasure. * The " Wasp," a Mormon newspaper at Nauvoo, Illinois, published anonymously on August 13, 1842, what is often regarded as the earliest trustworthy description of the Yellowstone Park geysers, hotsprlngs and other phenomena. It later developed that the article had been borrowed from the " Western Literary Messenger," and was in fact written by W. A. Ferris. Through that circumstance, but more than a half century later, Olin D. Wheeler came upon the incomplete Ferris series in the " Western Literary Messenger." and wrote of his " find" in the Northern Pacific " Wonderland" for 1901. This was followed immediately by many much further revelations of the Ferris narrative, by General Hiram M. Chittenden, in " The History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West," Francis P. Harper, New York, 1902. Since that time, while there may have been other plans for publishing the Ferris series in book form, nothing was actually done about it until the present writer in 1929 negotiated for the photostats of the Ferris material in the " Western Literary Messenger," for possible use in the " Utah Historical Quarterly." The work in its entirety, however, proved too extensive for the " Quarterly;" and the material was subsequently salvaged through the interest and generosity of Mr. Herbert S. Auerbach, a distin­guished collector and student of western Americana. Unwittingly and unfortunately, through de­lays incident to various trials at new offsetting processes of reproduction, the final publication was very nearly coincidental with the appearance of another most estimable book containing the » me material. 82 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY leave his calling card- and his Journal entries, supplemented by writings from memory after leaving the mountains. 7' hese are now of exceptional historical value in fitting certain facts into their proper places, and clarifying the historian's focus on other events. Andrew Drips and Joseph Robidoux, celebrated team- mates in The American Fur Co., were at the head of the rollicking band of about thirty eager, hopeful, young men first to leave St. Louis in 1830. Moving on mule- back up the well- worn tow path along the banks of the Missouri and Platte Rivers, they were some weeks ahead of their rivals in the Rocky Mountain Fur Co., who that year took the first wheeled vehicles as far as the South Pass, Wyoming. 6 Ferris gives us a microscopic insight into camp life and travel routines of a large trapping party, these mostly young Canadians; but Ferris detaches himself sufficiently to gather up and tuck away into his notebook many interesting facts along the way. Thus it was Ferris who preserved for us the original ( in print) melancholy story of the naming of Scotts Bluffs, near that other historic land­mark, Chimney Rock, Nebraska, both well known to early Utah emigrants. The Ferris party continued up- river passing " Laramie's Fork" before Fort Laramie appeared, thence up Sweetwater River trail to a night at Independence Rock, June 13- 14, 1830. The Rock, also well known to Utah emigrants, was named, so Ferris explains, from the circumstance several years previously, of a party celebrating the Fourth of July at the Rock." Even in that early day, while Utah's dawn was yet gray, the westbound trail led the Ferris trappers through South Pass and down the Sandy to a crossing of Green River, just as it did for the emigrant hosts that followed during the ensuing 25 years. Ferris, though still a greenhorn in the wilderness, was not a dullard, and he told his diary what the other trappers told him, namely, that the Green River joins the Grand ( in those days; BThe wagons reached South Pass. July 16, 1830, in charge of Jedediah S. Smith. David E. Jackson and W. L. Sublette, with a company of eighty- one men. Their report, addressed to the Secretary of War, is reproduced, pages 110, 111, of " James Bridger, an Historical Narrative," by J. Cecil Alter. Shepard Book Company. • 408 South State Street. Salt Lake City. Utah. 1925. Drips, Robidoux, Ferris, et al, had reached South Pass. June 20, 1830. ° Ferris gives the earliest report of the naming of the Rock, and Chittenden bases his reference to the date of naming, to the Ferris account. (" The History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West," page 471.) Father De Smet, writing from the Sweetwater, July M, 1841, relates a similar story ( pages 1348, 1349, " Life, Letters and Travels of Father Pierre- Jean De Smet, S. J.," by Hiram M. Chittenden and A. T. Richardson, New York, 1905.) Rufus B. Sage, sojourning at the Rock in the early April of 1842, notes the same circumstance, giving the name " Thorp" to the leader of th » celebrants ( page 164, " Rocky Mountain Life, or Startling Scenes and Perilous Adventures in the Far West," Omaha). The earliest engraving on the Rock is " M. K. Hugh, 1824," if this date is authentic. However, the great Rock became the Register of the Desert, from the passing of the Mormon Pioneers in 1847, until the late 1860' s, when it entertained its tens of thousands of covered- wagon emigrants, in­cluding vast numbers of Mormons, bound for Utah, scores of whom engraved their names upon it " Independence Rock. The Great Record of the Desert." by Robert Spurrier Ellison. Casper, Wyo­ming, 1931. W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 83 the Colorado now) forming " The Rio Colorado of the West, one of the most magnificent streams in the World." 7 James Bridger in 1843 began to draw the westbound emigrants southward to his establishment on Black's Fork; but in 1830 the trail led the Ferris party directly over to Ham's Fork ( they called it that in 1830, but he doesn't say why), by way of the present Kemmerer, Wyoming, to the heavily grassed bottomlands of Bear River opposite the Utah- Idaho- Bear Lake region. Sojourning in the neighborhood of the present Cokeville, Wyoming, the design of the trappers was to await a contact by courier with the free trappers who had wintered in the mountains and knew the state of the current fur market. Incidentally at this point, Ferris correctly observes that Bear River " rises in the Eut Mountains, flows northward about a hundred miles when it turns westward and after a further course of seventy- five miles, dis­charges itself into the Big Lake" ( Great Salt Lake). They had no maps but the trappers knew their rivers, their mountains, their valleys and their trails, often far better than we know them today with the best authoritative route maps. Only a growing, hungry boy could have written such ecstasy into his diary as Ferris did at Bear River concerning the delicate tongues, rich humps, fat roasts, and savory steaks of the " noble" buffalo. " We killed a great many" he says, and went on to record how fat and delicious they were, the meat strangely enough " re­quiring no seasoning; we boil, roast, or fry it as we please, and live upon it solely, without bread or vegetables of any kind and what seems more singlar, we never tire of or disrelish it." 8 Ferris, though but a comparatively tender youth, was never­theless selected by the leader Drips, to accompany him, along with three others, to Cache Valley, Utah, in quest of the Free trappers- the traveling salesman or fur- jobbers of the mountains. Ferris' group departed the same day the wagons of the Rocky Mountain ' Not many trappers visited the Grand Canyon, for beaver were not very plentiful down that way; though it is generally assumed that more than one fur trapper- adventurer has gone to his death down the great maw of the Colorado. General William H. Ashley, most successful of Fur Company leaders, descended the fearsome gorges of the Green about as far as the present town of Green River, Utah. 1825, starting from the point where Ferris crossed the Green. (" The Ashley- Smith Explorations," by Harrison C, Dale. The Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland, Ohio, 1918.) HItah was alive with buffaloes, in those days, especially the more fertile northern valleys, the year 1830 witnessing the peak of the buffalo population. The construction of an Indian tepee or a bull- boat took from six to eight buffalo hides; and for every skin so utilized, a dozen were shredded from the slain buffalo carcasses by coyotes. These carcasses were left by Indians and trappers who had regaled themselves on only the tidbits or the meat. Thus, with the aid of some destructive deep snows, by 1832 the buffalo herds began to decline in the Utah region; and by 1840, buffalo had become a rarity, though the luscious meadows of Bear River Valley would still have subsisted them by the thousands, as they do the purebred cattle today. ( For a further comment on the dis­appearance of the buffaloes, see pages 143- 146, Fremont, J. C, Report of his Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Washington, 1845.) Ferris later wrote; in retrospect: " It is a prevailing opinion among the most observing and intelligent hunters, that ten years from this period, a herd of buffalo will be a rare sight, even in the vast plain between the Rocky Mountains, and the Mississippi. Though yet numerous, they have greatly decreased within the last few years. The fact is alarming and has not escaped the notice of some shrewd Indians, who bowever believe the evil to be unavoidable." 84 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Fur Co. halted at South Pass, July 16, 1830. This may account for the ill- luck of the Drip- Ferris crowd, in not finding trace of the mountain men. But we must get Ferris into Utah, which we do by accom­panying him and the small scouting party up Bear River a short distance, crossing it, and ascending Six Mile Creek to its head near the crest of Bear Lake mountains- immediately east of Bear Lake, Utah. Ferris' survey of the landscape from the summit com­manded a vast area in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah and used up a very great many of the lad's adjectives, but the effusion was noth­ing compared to the extravagant language he summoned upon gaining first sight of Bear Lake below them to the west. It was " Naveled in the Hills" he says. Surely the Lake had done some­thing to him! Descending to its shores on the southeasterly margin, they followed the old trapper trail to the rendezvous frequently used in those days.' In later years the best worn trail over the Wasatch Mountains lay on a wide curve to the southward from the south end of Bear Lake on a lower elevation contour. This party however, ascended the divide somewhat farther north. The first examination of Ferris' description suggests their passage down the present Logan Canyon but a more minute inspection clearly reveals their route to have been up Cottonwood Canyon out of the present Laketown, thence over the crest and into left or North Fork of Blacksmiths' Fork. The strikingly steep and rugged canyon walls that so deeply im­pressed Ferris were evidently in the region of the present Danish Dugway. Here, too, he saw several grizzly bears- much as he might do today if he could revisit the region. They came out of Blacksmiths' Fork Canyon ( the Cache Valley Creek of that day) July 19,1830, turning northward toward the present Logan City, in quest of their free- trapper friends. Ferris' description of Cache Valley would give him a life mem­bership in the local Chamber of Commerce. He says it is one of the most beautiful valleys in the West. " This valley, called also by some, the Willow Valley," says Ferris; " is situated about thirty miles due west of the Little Lake, from which the passage is so nearly impracticable, that it requires two days to perform the distance- at least by the route we came. It lies parallel with the Little Lake, extending nearly north and south; is sixty miles long, and fifteen to twenty broad, and is shut in on every side by lofty mountains. Numerous willow- skirted " The celebrated letter " From the West." dated July 8. 1827, at " Sweet Lake," had been written from this point, first describing the Yellowstone Park features. ( See page 269. of the Rocky Mountain Bookshop edition, of Ferris's Journal.) Aquilla Nebeker, a Mormon pioneer of the Bear Lake region, told the present writer he had often visited the cave or alcove at the old trappers' rendezvous, a few miles northeasterly from the present Laketown. Under the debris of ages, he had found and held as a treasure the remains of an old muzzle- loading rifle which some trapper had left. Incidentally, Ferris writes September 20, 1830. when on Bear River in the vicinity of Smith's Fork. " The same evening. I was thrown from my horse, by which my gun was broken so as to render it entirely useless." W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 85 streams, that intersect and diversify it, unite and flow into Bear River, which crosses the valley, and after cutting its way through a low bald mountain, falls into the Big Lake, distant twenty miles to the west." " Cache Valley is abundantly fertile, producing everywhere most excellent grass, and has ever for that reason, been a favorite resort for both men and animals, especially in the winter. Indeed, many of the best hunters assert that the weather is much milder here than elsewhere, which is an additional inducement for visiting it during that inclement season. It received its name from a melancholy incident that occurred in it a few years ago. The circumstances are briefly these:-" " A man in the employ of Smith, Sublette and Jackson, was engaged with a detached party, in constructing one of those sub­terranean vaults for the reception of furs, already described ( five years previously). The cache was nearly completed, when a large quantity of earth fell in upon the poor fellow, and completely buried him alive. His companions believed him to have been instantly killed, knew him to be well buried, and the cache destroyed, and therefore left him." " Unknelled, uncoffined, ne'er to rise Till Gabriel's trumpet shakes the skies," and accomplished their object elsewhere. It was a heartless, cruel procedure, but serves to show how lightly human life is held in thesedistant wilds."" " In this country, the nights are cold at any season, and the climate perhaps more healthy than that of any other part of the globe. The atmosphere is delightful, and so pure and clear, that a person of good sight has been known to distinguish an Indian from a white man, at a distance of more than a mile, and herds of buffalo may be recognized by the aid of a good glass, at even fifteen to eighteen miles. " Passing down the valley, we met a number of grizzly bears, one of which of a large size, we mistook for a buffalo bull, and were only convinced of our error when the huge creature erected himself on his haunches, to survey us as we passed. These animals are of every shade of colour, from black to white, and were seen singly in the prairies, busied in digging roots, which constitute their chief subsistence until fruits ripen in the fall." " The object of our visit to Cache Valley, was to find the Free 10It is appropriate that Beckwourth, a beneficiary of this episode, should give another detail-that of taking the widow of the deceased. The story opens on page 96 of " The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth," by T. D. Bonner, New York, 1856; also on the same page of the Charles G. Leland edition. Of the woman, Beckwourth says, " She was of light complexion, smart, trim and active, and never tired in her efforts to please me, she seeming to think that she belonged to me for the remainder of her life. I had never had a servant before, and I found her of great service to me in keeping my clothes in repair, making my bed and taking care of my weapons." This happy arrangement began in the Spring of 1826, from the' renaming of Cache Valley. 86 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Men, but our search for them proved fruitless. We were unable to discouver any recent traces either of whites or Indians, and retracing our steps halted at the lake beneath the shade of an aged cottonwood, in the branches of which a bald eagle sat quietly on her nest, apparently indifferent to our presence; nor did she leave it during our stay. While here, we killed one of the many pelicans which were disporting on the lake, and found that it meas­ured eight and a half feet between the tips of its extended wings." After the return to camp on Bear River, below the present Cokeville, on the invitation of a band of Shoshone Indians the entire trapper band moved up to neighbor with them; this was on the equally good grazing lands between the present Randolph and Woodruff, Rich County, Utah. There were nearly a thousand in the Shoshone Village, counting women and children, but not counting dogs. " The lodges were placed quite close to each other, and taken together, had much the appearance of a military camp," says Ferris. " I strolled through it with a friend, to gratify my curiosity, as to their domestic manners. We were obliged to carry clubs to beat off the numerous dogs that were constantly annoying us by barking and trying to bite our legs. Crowds of dirty, naked children followed us from lodge to lodge, at each of which were seen more or less filthy but industrious women, employed in dressing skins, cutting meat into thin strips for drying, gathering fuel, cooking, or otherwise engaged in domestic labor. At every lodge was a rack or frame constructed of poles tied together, forming a platform, covered over with half- dried meat, which was curing over a slow fire." " The women were all at work, but not so the men. Half of them were asleep in the lodges, and the rest either gaming, keep­ing guard over their horses, or leisurely strutting about camp." " They are extremely jealous of their women, though I could not help thinking with but slight occasion when I surveyed the wrinkled, smoke- dried unprepossessive features of the latter, and the dirt and filth by which they are surrounded." On August 16 the Ferris trappers returned, by way of the Muddy to Ham's Fork, Wyoming, cached their goods and dis­persed in quest of beaver. Ferris' lot was cast with Lucien Fon-tenelle's group, which headed August 23, 1830, for the upper reaches of Black's Fork and Henry's Fork in the Uinta Mountains of Utah. They explored these streams from source to mouth, with little adventure or success, " having starved one half of the time." A boy is always hungry, they say! The Fontenelle- Ferris party did however, ascertain from some Crow Indians, that the Free- Trappers were on the Yellowstone, but Ferris returned with a party to trap Bear River tributaries in the Utah- Wyoming- Idaho region. W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 87 The grim- faced Snake ( Shoshone) Indians, whose jealousy for their women, was without cause, up Bear River, proved also to have been even more jealous of the guns and the mountain goods of the trappers, for Ferris tells us they later came into the lower camp pretending friendship, but without their women, and with weapons concealed, ready to annihilate the whites. Their chief, wearing as a helmet, the skin, ears and horns of an antelope head, sternly warned them he would not countenance such a cowardly act and would aid the whites. He called them names, and shamed them out of face till they slunk away one by one, though this Horn Chief, a predecessor of Washakie, and of the same kindly mind toward the trappers, later told the Crows the trappers had a narrow escape. The late autumn found both the American Fur Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company's men together with a con­siderable number of Free Men and Indians, encamped in Utah's Cache Valley for the winter, probably near the present Hyrum. But for the want of accommodations and possibly forage for the animals, the American Fur Company's men finally moved south­ward to Ogden's Hole, ( Huntsville, Utah) for a week or two. " From Ogden's Hole, we passed by short marches down Cache Valley forty miles to Bear River," says Ferris, " where we remained at the same encampment a whole month ( December, 1830). During this time it stormed more or less every day, and the snow accumulated to such a depth that four of our hunters, were compelled to remain away from camp for thirty- four days, the impossibility of traveling having prevented their return from an expedition after game. In all December the snow lay upwards of three feet deep, throughout Cache Valley; in other parts of the country the depth was still greater." " In the latter part of this month, we separated from Fraeb and Jarvis, and crossed over to the Big Lake, ( near the present Brigham City) a distance of thirty miles, which we accomplished in four days. The ' Big Lake' is so called in contradistinction to the Little Lake, which lies due East from it fifty miles, and which has been described in a former chapter. It is sometimes also called Salt Lake' from the saline quality of its waters." " An attempt has been recently made to change the name of this lake to Lake Bonnyville, from no other reason that I can learn, but to gratify the silly conceit of a Captain Bonnyville, whose ad­ventures in this region at the head of a party, form the ground work of ' Irving's Rocky Mountains.' There is no more justice or pro­priety in calling the lake after that gentleman, than after any other one of the many persons who in the course of their fur hunting expeditions have passed in its vicinity. He neither discovered, or explored it, nor has he done anything else to entitle him to the honor of giving it his name, and the foolish vanity that has been 88 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY his only inducement for seeking to change the appellation by which it has been known for fifty years, to his own patronymic, can reflect no credit upon him, or the talented author who has lent himself to the service of an ambition so childish and con­temptible." " The dimensions of the Big Lake have not been accurately determined, but it may be safely set down as not less than one hundred miles in length, by seventy or eighty broad. It was circumnavigated a few years since by four men in a small boat, who were absent on the expedition forty days, and on their return reported that for several days they found no fresh water on its western shore, and nearly perished from the want of that neces­sary article. They ascertained that it had no visible outlet, and stated as their opinion that it was two hundred miles long and one hundred broad, but this was doubtless a gross exaggeration. I ascended a high mountain between Bear River and Webber's Fork, in order to obtain an extensive view of it, but found it so intersected by lofty promontories and mountains, not only jutting into it from every side, but often rising out of its midst, that only thirty or forty square miles of its surface could be seen. Its waters are so strongly impregnated with salt that many doubt if it would hold more in solution; I do not however, think it by any means saturated, though it has certainly a very briny taste, and seems much more buoyant than the ocean. In the vicinity of the Big Lake we saw dwarf oak and maple trees, as well on the neigh­boring hills as on the border of the streams. This was the first time since leaving the Council Bluffs that we have seen timber of that description." " About the first of February we ascertained that a number of Caches we had made previous to our leaving Cache Valley, had been robbed by a party of Snakes, who without doubt discovered us in the act of making them. However, the ' Horn Chief,' a dis­tinguished chief and warrior of the Shoshone tribe, made them return everything he could find among them into the Caches again, though a multitude of small articles to the value of about two hun­dred dollars were irrecoverably lost." " Some days after the robbery of the Caches, seventeen horses were stolen from a detachment of our party which had been sent to Cache Valley for provisions. The thieves were about sixty in number, and supposed to be Blackfeet. They departed in the direction of Porteneuf. This misfortune prevented our obtaining supplies of meat, and we were consequently reduced to the neces­sity of living on whatever came to hand. Famished wolves, ravens, magpies, and even raw hide made tender by two days boil­ing, were greedily devoured. We lived or rather starved in this manner ten or twelve days, daily expecting the arrival of our hunters with meat, but they came not, and we were compelled to W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 89 return to Cache Valley where we halted on the first of March, 1831, on Cache Valley Creek ( Blacksmith's Fork). We saw in our route several boiling springs, and most remarkable of which bursts out from beneath a huge fragment of rock, and forms a reservoir of several rods in circumference, the bottom of which was covered with a reddish slimy matter. The water of these springs was as hot as in those of Salt River. They are situated near the trail that leads from the head of Cache Valley to the Big Lake." " We found the snow in Cache Valley reduced to the depth of eighteen inches, but covered with a crust so thick and firm that it cut our horses' legs, making them bleed profusely, and the trail of our poor beasts was sprinkled with blood at every step, wherever we went." " During the month of March ( 1831), we proceeded slowly to Bear River, starving at least one- half the time. Our horses were in the most miserable condition, and we reduced to mere skeletons. Our gums became so sore from eating tough bull meat, that we were forced to swallow it without chewing; and to com­plete our misery, many of us were nearly deprived of sight from inflammation of the eyes, brought on by the reflection of the sun­beams on the snow." " Early in April wild geese began to make their appearance,- a happy omen to the mountain hunter. The ice soon disappeared from the river, and the days became generally warm and pleas­ant, though the nights were still extremely cold. About this time three Flathead Indians came to us from the Hudson's Bay Trap­pers, who had passed the winter at the mouth of Porteneuf, and reported that the plains of Snake River were already free from snow. This information decided our leaders to go there and recruit our horses preparatory to the spring hunt, which would commence as soon as the small streams were disencumbered of their icy fetters; and we set about the necessary arrangemnets for departure." " On the fourth of April, having cached our furs ( at Lewiston) and made other necessary arrangements for our journey, we set off, and proceeding but slowly, though with great fatigue, owing to the great depth and hardness of the snow, which though en­crusted stiffly, would by no means bear the weight of our horses- accomplished but a few miles, when we halted for the night at a spring source, in the northern extremity of Cache Valley. The following day we crossed a prairie hill, and encamped at evening at the fountain source of the south fork of Porteneuf, having seen on our route great numbers of buffalo, and many with young calves. We found the snow next day increased to the depth of from three to five feet, and floundered along through it for a few miles, though with the greatest toil and difficulty. Buffalo were 90 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY quite as numerous on this day as the preceding, and we caught thirty or forty of their calves alive in the snow. Quite as many more were observed either killed or maimed by the frighted herds in their fugitive course. We rested that night on the south side of a hill, which the wind had partly denuded of snow, leaving here and there spots quite divested of it; but found neither grass nor water, both of which were greatly needed, and but scant supply of sage ( wormwood) which we were obliged from the absence of every other, to use as a substitute for fuel. Water we obtained both for ourselves and horses, by melting snow in our kettles,- a tedious and vexatious proces. The exertion of another day suf­ficed us to reach a point where fuel was more abundant, and of somewhat better quality,- a few scattered clusters of large wil­lows furnished us the necessary firewood to our comfort. We killed a number of buffalo, but upon any one of them the least particle of fat could not be found, and our fare was therefore none of the best, as may well be imagined." " On the morning of the eighth, several men were sent out with directions to drive, if possible, a herd of bulls down the river. Could this have been effected, we should have had a tolerable road for our feeble horses to follow, but no such good fortune was the reward of our endeavors, for the buffalo refused absolutely to move, and were all, to the number of fifty and upwards, milled on the spot. Disappointed of this hope, we had no alternative but to resume our weary march as before, which we did at sunrise, on the following day. At first, we got along with tolerable ease, but as the forenoon advanced, the warmth of the sun melted and softened the crust of the snow, that our horses plunged in at every step, and speedily became quite exhausted from the excessive fatigue of constantly breaking through, and forcing their way un­der such disadvantage. There was no alternative but for us to carry them, since they could neither carry us nor themselves even, and we therefore procured poles, and transported them two miles through the snow to a hill side, which was accomplished only at the cost of incredible labor, hardship, and misery. In addition to this, we had our baggage, which lay scattered along the whole distance, from one encampment to the other, to collect and bring in on our shoulders, a work of immense toil, as at almost every step the crust gave way and engulphed us up to our armpits in the damp snow. However, we had the pleasure of seeing everything safe at camp in the evening, except three or four of our poorest horses, which being unable to extricate from the snow, we were obliged to abandon to their fate." " All hands were employed on the tenth, in making a road. We marched on foot one after another in Indian file, ploughing our way through the snow to the forks of Portneuf, a distance of six miles, and back again, thus beating a path for our horses, the UTAH INDIAN VILLAGE. From the collection of Herbert S. Auerbach. COPYRIGHT 1941 UINTAH BASIN INDIANS, UTAH, IN PRIMITIVE TEPEES. From rfte collection o/ Herbert S. Auerbach. W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 91 labor of which almost overcame our strength. When we re­turned, many of us were near dropping down from fatigue, so vio­lent had been our exertion. At three o'clock next morning, rous­ing our weary limbs and eyelids from their needful rest and slum­ber, we pursued our journey and succeeded in reaching a narrow prairie at the forks, which was found nearly free from snow. Here we remained over the following day, to refresh our half- dead horses, and rest our nearly exhausted selves. In the meantime we were visited by two hunters of the Hudson's Bay Company, who gave us the grateful information that our troubles were nearly at an end, as the snow entirely disappeared after a few miles be­low. Six miles marching on the thirteenth, brought us out of the narrow defile we had hitherto with so much labor threaded, and into a broad and almost boundless prairie, which far as the eye could reach, was bare, dry, and even dusty. Since our departure from Cache Valley to this point, where Portneuf leaves the moun­tains, we have made a distance of sixty miles, which to accom­plish, has cost us nine days' toil." In the flow of ensuing circumstances, Ferris was carried away from Utah, chiefly northward into Montana, but also occasionally traversing Idaho and Western Wyoming. He revisited the Bear River and Bear Lake region once or twice in 1832 and 1833. The interesting Journal entries carry a vast deal of informa­tion as to the activities of all the mountain fur men, Rocky Moun­tain Fur Company, American Fur Company, and Hudson's Bay Company alike. Ferris, more restless or more energetic, than most, would not stay " put" in a rendezvous of inactivity and thus records excursions up and down the Salmon, back into Montana, visiting various Indian tribes, trapper groups and observing the winter habitats of wild game, and incidentally killing a hundred buffalo in one valley in Northwestern Idaho, to while away the winter of 1831- 32. A new story is set forth at some length of the adventures and mishaps of John Gray and David Montgomery, who had gone to Utah's Cache Valley in March, 1832, expecting to find Mr. Drips, on a canard of the Bannocks. Finding at the time traces only of Indians afoot, Gray and Montgomery returned northward im­peded by snow and plagued by dire hunger before Montgomery was killed and Gray wounded by the lucky savages. Gray evaded his pursuers on gaining the Portneuf, by loading himself on a raft of bulrushes and floating away to safety. While moving to Cache Valley, Montgomery's Pass was named by the Ferris trappers to memorize a comrade and identify the pass leading from Cache Valley to the Portneuf slope. Ferris and party established visiting relations with the Cache Valley hunters, of the American Fur Company who had wintered 92 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY at the south end of the Valley, under Henry Vanderburgh. Four of the Cache Valley trappers had been killed and four were miss­ing, Ferris learned on arriving March 20, 1832. Together the Vanderburgh- Ferris parties left Cache Valley in April, 1832, moving northward, up Bear River and thence eastward by way of Soda Springs to the Bear Lake region. Learning by advance courier, that Andrew Drips with forty- eight men" were advanc­ing, they promptly joined him at the mouth of the Muddy, not far below the subsequent site of Fort Bridger on Black's Fork. The Vanderburgh- Ferris party promptly escorted the senior mountain partner up Ham's Fork, over the mountains to the luxuriant mea­dows along Bear River at the mouth of Smith's Fork ( below the present Cokeville, Wyoming.) Drips had left Council Bluffs about the first of October, 1831, but it was a poor grass season on the plains, and because of weak­ened mounts, he had wintered below the Black Hills ( in East- Central Wyoming.) It was Ferris' happy lot to be sent from the Smith's Fork Camp with three others on April 29, 1832, as he writes, " By way of the Little Lake ( Bear Lake) forty- five miles to the head of Cache Valley ( Hyrum, Utah) and thence thirty- five miles, by night, to Rush Creek, to raise a small cache of furs. This is a small stream ( that flows into Bear River, on the south side) bordered by dense thickets, and at this time was not fordable." u A bear scare, which no boy would forget, and plenty of descriptive narrative, made good reading, while the boys are get- " Drips also had with him his Oto Indian wife. She gave birth to a child. July 18. 1832, during a prolonged fight between the trappers and the Gros Ventre Indians at the terrible Battle of Pierre's Hole. uRush Creek: This is the present Summit Creek, at Smithfield. John C. Dowdle, a Mormon pioneer settler at Smithfield, in his Diary, says; " There was a small log pen made by a company of U. S. soldiers in 1833. ( It is presumed they were either Walker's or Mathieu's band of Captain Bonneville's men. JCA). The account of this can be found in Lewis & Clark's ( sic) travels across the Rocky Mountains, vol. 1. We find these soldiers wintered at this place. The title of this place is found on the maps, marked Summit Creek, ( now Smithfield), Cache County, Utah. These soldiers lost most of their mules during this winter, and were obliged to cache most of their lading. This they did, and thus came the name of Cache Valley. I met a German in Los Angeles, California, in 1864, ( should be January, 1865. JCA), who claimed to be a member of that company. He gave me sufficient evi­dence to satisfy me that he was there; he gave me a full description of the place and the articles that were cached and the manner that it was done. Done as follows- a little way from the camp, about two or three miles he thought, in a northwest direction, in the bluff bank of the Cub River." ( Cub River flows through Franklin, Idaho, and empties into Bear River five miles northwest of Smithfield, Utah. JCA). " In going down this bluff, they had to make a dugway in order to get down with their teams, and in this dugway they dug a hole for the cache. They made a box out of their wagon boxes that they were leaving, and placed in it the articles, consisting as near as I can remember, of the following articles: Several cannon, two or three sets of blacksmith tools, several dozen picks and shovels, cro- bars, several ploughs, some whiskey, several muskets, powder and lead and a number of other articles. After covering the cache with some of their wagon boxes, timbers, etc., they drove over it with their teams, hiding all signs of anything being there. This is as I got it from him as near as possible. I only regret that I did not get the name of the man that told me of it." ( Captain Bonneville's wagon boxes were specially made for use also as boats. He complained that the dry, mountain climate caused the wheels to fall apart. This Dowdle report may indicate what became « * f the extra wagon boxes. JCA). W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 93 ting back through the head of Cache Valley" to the main camp at Smith's Fork ( below the present Cokeville.) Again Ferris was drawn by the course of events into the mountain region for a year or two, managing to make several returns to Idaho and Wyoming. His Journal contains extended and often first- hand accounts of such episodes as the Battle of Pierre's Hole, The Killing of Henry Vanderburgh, and a great deal about the movement and activities of the various trapper-bands and companies. Following Ferris' enthusiastic adventure narrative, with its rapid- fire mention of so many names and places which have had but an uncertain place in history heretofore, it is difficult to remind ourselves that this present thesis concerns only his move­ments in Utah. Ferris' description of such places as Jackson's Hole in 1830 is revealing and his gossip of the trappers reads like a Sunday So­ciety Supplement of the Rocky Mountains. We are indebted to Ferris for example for a description of Fort Nonsense, or Fort Bonneville, an original Yellowstone Park description, and for the details of a dozen Indian battles, often with names of the trappers killed. Probably no other Journal con­tains so much early Indian and trapper history of Western Mon­tana, Idaho, and Western Wyoming at any period. Geographic names are sowed over the map through the Ferris diary in a most enlightening manner and few other works are so elucidating on so many phases of Indian life and habits. Ferris also assits the historian by quoting the adventures of some other trappers at length- thus enriching the narrative far beyond its value to students of Utah history. Unfortunately, however, the serial appearance of Ferris' day by day Journal in the far away Buffalo newspaper became rather monotonous and doubtless the writer himself sought to make some­thing else out of his own writings. Thus when the journal or diary returned the principal character to Utah again, the material was being published more in the nature of separate articles than a daily journal. This material is none the less valuable as picturing the country and describing the inhabitants and wild life, but one wishes the writer could have stuck to the detailed diary so that the route of his ramblings in Utah could have been more easily and definitely followed. While in the neighborhood of Fort Bonneville ( Daniel, Wyo­ming), in May, 1834, Ferris learned through the usual mountain " Head of Cache Valley, vicinity of Hyrum. The fact is obvious that the chief winter rendez­vous encampment in Cache Valley was usually in the south or upper end of the valley, though probably not always in the same spot. The site or region of the present town of Hyrum probably offers the most desirable combination of climate, exposure, shelter, forage, fuel and safety from Indians, though Ferris gives us definite facts of caches in Cache Valley being located at places remote from the supposedly usual rendezvous. 94 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY " grapevine" that Lucien Fontenelle and others were trappingin the " Eutaw" Country or Wasatch Mountain region. One of Fonte-nelle's men, Chevalia ( Chevalier) had been killed by Eutaw Indians in Utah. " On the twenty- fourth of August, 1834," writes Ferris, ap­proaching the northern slope of the Uinta Mountains but still in what is now Wyoming, " two women arrived in our camp in a starving condition. One of them had an infant at her breast, and was the wife of Con- mar- ra- nap, a famous Eutaw chieftain; the other was a young married girl of the same nation. They were taken prisoners by a party of Snakes during the early part of the summer and were conducted to the village where they were condemned to die, but were saved by the timely interference of Capt. ( J. R.) Walker, who humanely purchased their lives and sent them to overtake us as the surest means of getting to their own country in safety." " On August 29, 1834," he continues, " We passed southward over a rolling country covered with cedars; and halted on a small stream that discharges itself into Green River. The borders of this creek were covered with bushes laden with fruit which was now ripe ( buffalo berries)." This last paragraph reads like the Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah, south of the Uinta Mountains; but without further details, we can only infer from the context and the character of the country described, that he was on Brush or Ashley Creek. Obviously however, the hitch- hiking Indian women made a good pick- up, for in five days, Ferris was in the vicinity of Thistle, or Indianola ( using similar methods of designing Ferris' where­abouts, in the absence of specific data in his Journal). How he got around Fort Robidoux without mentioning it, is left to the gods - and possibly to the readers of the original script, who complained that the Journal was losing its interest. " On the third of September, 1834," Ferris says, " being within the Territory of Mexico, three of the wild natives of this region ventured into our camp. They were stark naked and betrayed al­most a total want of intellect, which was perhaps the result of extreme wretchedness and misery to which they are continually exposed from infancy until death. They spoke a tongue perfectly unintelligible to us, and evidently not well comprehended by each other; neither could they understand any of those expressive signs and gestures by which other Indians convey their ideas with per­fect success. Severe hunger, however, instinctively helped them to make us understand that they wanted something to eat, which indeed was all they could communicate. We gave them the car­casses of two beavers, together with the head and feet of a dog, which they warmed a few moments over the fire and devoured with wolfish avidity. A Nezperce in our party regarded them attentively W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 95 until they had finished their repast, when he arose and with evident marks of astonishment on his countenance, exclaimed, " Why my horse has got more sense than those Indians." " September 4, 1834, four Indians calling themselves " Sann-pitch" came into camp" bringing to my surprise, several deer skins. I say to my surprise" says Ferris, " because from the hasty opinion I had formed yesterday, I imagined deer to be the more intelligent animal of the two, and should have expected them with skins of the Sann- pitch, marching up to trade, almost as soon. However, in justice to the superiority of the latter, skins they brought, and made us understand by simply pointing to the skins and then to­ward our horses, that they wanted one of them. We finally in­formed them that our horses could not be disposed of for deer skins. They manifested a great deal of disappointment and finally offered them for provisions, but were equally unsuccessful. These are by far the most miserable human beings we have ever seen. The barrenness of their country, and scarcity of game, compel them to live by separate families, either in the mountains or in the plains. In the latter, they usually select the most barren places to encamp where there is apparently nothing but sand and wormwood or sage. Here the women and children are employed in gathering grass­hoppers, crickets, ants, and various other species of insects which are carefully preserved for food, together with roots and grass- seed. From the mountains they bring the nuts which are found in the cones of the pine, acorns from the dwarf oaks, as well as the different kinds of berries and the inner bark of the pine, which has a sweet acid taste, not unlike lemon syrup. In the meantime the men are actively employed in hunting small animals such as prairie dogs, squirrels and field mice, and larger animals or birds, which fortune sometimes places within the reach of their arrows. They likewise take fish, with simple instruments of their own invention, which will be hereafter described." " The Sann- Pitch are generally quite naked, though in some instances, a small piece of skin is fastened before them. The women all wear a piece of skin, reaching from the middle to the knees, and instances are not uncommon, where they possess a complete leather skirt, but no other article of dress. They are extremely shy and approached us with evident fear and caution. If in the plains, they conceal themselves from our approach, by crawling into the sage or into gullies, but if discovered in the open prairie, where flight would be useless, they throw themselves flat upon the ground in hopes of being mistaken for a rock or other unusual appear­ance, which practice generally succeeds if they were not discovered before putting it into effect." uThe camp on September 4, 1834 was probably above the present Sanpitch River ( called Deep Water River by Ferris), not far from the present Mount Pleasant or Ephraim, Utah. 96 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY " On the eighth ( of September, 1834)," I set out with others to procure salt, at a place discovered by our hunters yesterday. We passed three miles down the river, and found the salt in a slough on the west side of it. It was found on the surface of a black stinking mire, fifty or sixty paces in circuit; the upper strata was fine, and white as snow, to the depth of two inches; beneath which, was a layer of beautiful chrystals to the depth of five or six inches, that rested on the surface of the mire. We slowly sank into the latter to our knees, whilst scooping up the salt, and then changed places, for we could scarcely extricate ourselves at that depth; and concluded that if we should remain long enough in the same spot, we would at length disappear entirely. This opinion was corroborated by thrusting down a stick four feet in length, without meeting any resistance, more than at the surface. I gath­ered about a half bushel in a few minutes, and returned with my companions, who were equally fortunate, to camp. " I observed during our stay on the Sararah," that the Indians ^ September 8, 1834. During the few intervening days, the Ferris party clearly had traveled southward across the Sanpete ( Sanpitch) and Sevier Valleys- the present Sanpete and Sevier Counties of Central Utah- to the vicinity of the present Richfield, turning thence northward and going along the west side of the Sevier River, which Ferris calls the Savarah. The salt beds on the marsh land were found in the neighborhood of the present Salina or Redmond, the only region along the Sevier River marked by salt in such quantities, both above and below the ground surface. Extensive rock salt mines are operated hereabouts. leSararah ( Savarah) is the Sevier River and Lake in Central Utah. F. S. Dellenbaugh, in his " Fremont and ' 49." page 256, suggests it might have been named for John Sevier, an American statesman, though Sevier had not figured in western affairs. Father Escalante in 1776 called the stream Santa Isabel (" The Catholic Church in Utah," by W. R. Harris), the name probably being of his own selection. But the Spanish explorer, Maurico Arze. journeyed in 1813 from Abiquiu " to Rio Sebero." which according to his journal was none other than the present Sevier River. Antonio Armijo, and 60 followers reached " Rio severo" December 20, 1829. Phelps, Ensigns and Thayer's Pictorial Map of The United States, dated 1847 but printed early in that year, if not late in 1846, shows " Sevier River" and " Sevier Lake." Map of California, New Mexico and Utah, 1853, calls it Nicollet River and Lake, while the John R. Bartlett map about the same time calls it " Sevier or Nicollet." Fremont's map in his " Memoirs" calls it Sevier, though Nicollet was the early associate and esteemed friend of Fremont. The pronunciation of " Sebero" and " Savarah" in Spanish are similar. The meaning is prac­tically the same as the English " Severe." The name was doubtless originally applied to the River to describe some traveler's " severe" experience, possibly Mauricio Arze's, since his is the earliest known use of the word. The following reference to " Severe river" appears on p. 318 of " Life, Adventures, and Travels in California," by T. J. Farnham, New York and St. Louis. 1848. " About four hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the Colorado, and a short distance north of that stream, a river arises, which, on account of its rough character, the Mexican Spaniards have named Rio Severe- Severe River. Its source is among a small cluster of mountains, ( Cedar Breaks region, above Hatch. JCA). where it presents the usual beautiful phenomena of rivulets gathering from different quarters-uniting- increasing- tumbling and roaring, till it reaches the plain. ( Panguitch and Cirdeville region. JCA) when it sinks into chasms or kenyons. ( Circle and Marysvale Canyons. JCA) of basalt and trap rocks, and dashes on terribly over fallen precipices ( Sevier Bridge Dam. JCA) for about^ eighty miles, where it loses itself in the sand. ( Sevier Desert and Lake. JCA). " This river was explored by an American trapper, several years ago. under the following cir­cumstances. He had been hunting beaver for some time among the mountains in which the river rises, ( Good beaver country above the present Hatch. JCA) with considerable success, and with­out seeing any Indians to disturb his lonely tranquility. One night, however, when the season was far advanced, a party of the Arapahoes. which had been watching his movements unseen by him, stole all his traps. Thus situated, without the means of continuing his hunt, and being two hundred miles from any trading post where he could obtain a supply, be determined to build a canoe and descend the Rio Severe, in the hope that it might bear him down, to the habitable parts of California. ( He was about 200 miles from Antoine Robidoux', Fort Wintey. JCA). " He. therefore, addressed himself to this task with great perseverance, completed his bark, and launched himself upon the angry stream, with life pledged to his undertaking, and that daring ex­pectation so peculiar to the " mountain men," to light his way among the dark and brawling caverns through which his frail and perilous craft was to bear him. Seven days he passed in floating to o i < i O t U £ u og 2s o> W 6 o g "^ 2> < z 2 < r- t a z J y S h W, A. FERRIS IN UTAH 97 had two kinds of arrows in their quivers, one of which was made of a single hard stick, feathered and pointed with transparent flint, artfully broken to a proper shape, and firmly fastened to the end or the arrow with sinews and glue. The others were made of a hol­low weed, having six or eight inches of hard wood nicely inserted, and firmly glued into it, to the end of which the stone point is fas­tened, and is poisoned with venom from the fangs of the rattle­snake. Hence the slightest wound from them is certain death. These arrows may be known at sight, by the natural joints of the cane; and the artificial one, where the wood part is inserted. They are not solely used in battle, as some have asserted; but are equally advantageous in hunting, for the slightest wound causes the animal to droop, and a few moments places it within the power of the hunter. The flesh of animals thus poisoned, is harmless in the stomach." The September- October period is usually one of pleasant weather in Central Utah and theparty enjoyed themselves for some time in these genial valleys. The natives encountered however, were not very nappy or opulent. Finally moving northward from the Sevier, Ferris reached the divide between the present Nephi and Santaquin, Utah, on October 19, 1834. They encamped pre­sumably on the Santaquin, " a small stream that flows into Eutaw Lake." " During our march we encountered a feeble old Indian, whose down this stream. Most of its course ( Not quite that much! Probably one- fifth Is boxed or has high mountains along it! JCA) he found walled- in by lofty perpendicular cliffs, rising several hundred feet high, dark and shining, and making palpable his imprisonment within the barriers of endless solitude. At intervals he found cataracts. ( The greatest was at the present Sevier Bridge Dam. fCA) down which he passed his boat by means of lines, and then with great labor and hazard. clambered up and down the precipices till he reached the waters below. On these rapids the water was from two to three feet deep, and a hundred yards in width. In the placid sections, the stream was often thirty and forty feet in depth, and so transparent, that the pebbly bottom and the fish swimming near it, were seen, when the sun shone, as distinctly as the like appear in the supposed peerless waters of Lake George. " As this man drew near the close of his fifth day's journeying, the chasms began to disappear, and the country to open into rolling and drifting plains of sand, interspersed with tracts of dark-colored hard- pan. About the middle of the seventh day, he came to the sands in which the river was swallowed up, ( Beyond the present Deseret. JCA) and hauling his shattered boat on shore, explored the country northwest, for the reappearance of the stream. But to no purpose. A leafless dry desert spread away in all directions, destitute of every indication of animal life, breathless and noiseless, a great Edom, in which every vital function was suspended, and where the drifting sands and the hot howling winds warned him that he must perish if he persisted. ( The Sand Dunes of northeastern Millard County are among the most extensive west of the Atlantic Sea­board. JCA). " He therefore left his faithful old boat and made his way back to the mountains, where he lost his traps, and thence traveled to Robidoux's fort, on the upper waters of the San Juan, ( sic) ( So far as known Robidoux had posts only on the Uncompahgre and the Uinta rivers. JCA). He subsisted on snails and lizards during his journey; and when he arrived, was reduced to a skeleton, with barely strength enough to creep into that solitary fortress. It is needless to add that he was fflost kindly received by the hospitable owner, for who does not know that from the Arctic seas to the southernmost limit of the fur- traders' habitations, the wayworn stranger finds a home and a brother at any of their posts? These iron men of the wilderness, like those who combat the waves and the winds of the seas, never fail to feel a bond of holy brotherhood for those who have met and overcome the same difficulties. " The old trapper is forgotten: but his exploration of Rio Severe with all its attendant dangers, undertaken and accomplished alone, far in the deserts, hundreds of miles from the voice of civil­ized roan, in a frail canoe, liable to be swallowed up by the torrent, yet daring to float onward down a stream of cataracts, whose existence became known to him only as he approached their brink and heard their roar, was a noble deed of perseverance and courage, which will ever be re­membered by those who shall be interested in the history of that wild part of our continent." 98 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY age and infirmities, if they could not have insured him respect, ought at least to have shielded him from harm. Innocent and in­offensive, this miserable old man- destitute of the means of offense, and engaged in the harmless occupation of gathering roots, his only apparent means of subsistence, which he deposited in a willow basket on his back- was overtaken by one of our heartless com­rades, who, having had a valuable horse stolen on the seventeenth, in a most unfeeling manner, inflicted a severe blow upon his head, with his gun. For once the fortitude of the Indian yielding to the frailty of nature, he gave utterance to a scream of agony, which was distinctly heard by all of us, though for in advance of them. I galloped back as soon as possible, and saw him covered with blood, while a few paces distant stood the hunter in the act of loading his gun, with the avowed intention of taking his life. I easily persuaded him, however, to leave the Indian without further molestation, and he accordingly proceeded with me to the company, heartily ashamed of his brutal conduct. Similar instances I am happy to say, are of rare occurrence." If Ferris wrote any more about his stay in the present fertile, populous and beautiful Utah Valley, his publisher lifted it, or he himself left it out of the manuscript he turned in for publication. Likewise the report of his trip eastward from Utah Lake to Green River, in the Uinta Basin. Indeed a paragraph about injuring an old Indian ( near Utah Lake) is followed close- up with the fol­lowing description of the " Chanion of White River" which is located to the eastward from the present Ouray, Utah. Of this " Chanion" Ferris says, " On the 29th ( October, 1834) we entered a narrow passage between two formidable walls of cut rocks, called by the hunters the Chanion of White River, which rose, perhaps from one to two hundred feet in perpendicular height, and sixty or eighty yards asunder. This narrow space is chiefly occupied by the river, winding from one side to the other, as if en­raged, at being thus confined. The walls are seldom accessible, and are surmounted in some places, by singular peaks of weather­worn sand stone, resembling, when beheld at a distance, domes, turrets, steeples, and towers, so strikingly that a single glance is sufficient to excite in the mind of the spectator, the idea of a flour­ishing village, and the vicinity of a civilized country. But, alas! a nearer and more careful view, dispels the pleasing illusion, changes those spires to solitary desolation, and turns the lovely creations of imagination, to naked cliffs and sandy deserts, far, far from the inspiring presence of home, and the affectionate relations of social life." It is obvious from the text that the party went from the " Chanion of White River" to a more permanent camp- but the Journal does not definitely say where. Most probably however, it was at the junction of the White River with the Green River, W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 99 on the flat, wooded point of dry land north of the White and east of the Green, the site of a well known Fort, usually called Fort Carson, because Kit Carson wintered there 1833- 34" while Ferris was in Montana. At this camp says Ferris, " on the first of November ( 1834) we were joined by twenty families of Eutaw Indians, who were returning from Buffalo" having loaded their horses with dried meat. They had several stolen, whilst they were engaged in pre­paring their meat, for transportation, which induced them to re­treat expeditiously, fearing an attack from their enemies, the Snakes. This was effected with so much rapidity, that they packed their horses unskilfully, and nearly ruined them; for in consequence of such neglect, many of them had their backs completely skinned." " A party of Indians also came in from the southward on the fourth, and we immediately opened a brisk trade with them for furs, deer skins, etc. The principal chief is a hardy warrior, about forty years of age; evidently superior both in a mental and phys­ical point of view, to any of his followers. His hair, which is of uncommon length, he wears coiled up in a knot on his forehead, secured by a thong; but differs from his tribe in no other par­ticular, either of dress or ornament. The expression of his coun­tenance is mild and thoughtful, and rather pleasing than other­wise. His keen wandering eye bespeaks intelligence, and his demeanor is dignified and impressive. He is reputed the bravest man of his nation; and has won, on the sanguinary field, more trophies, than any of his warriors. He is known to the hunters by the name La Toque, which he has received from our French com-i'" Kit Carson's Own Story of His Life,'' on page 30, says Captain Stephen Louis Lee, a prominent fur trader of Taos, with a caravan of Indian goods, engaged Carson as guide and hired hand in October, 1833. " We followed the Spanish Trail that leads to California till we struck White River," says Carson, " Took down White River till we struck Green River, crossed Green to the Wintey ( Uintah), one of its tributaries. There we found Mr. Robidoux. He had a party of some twenty men that were trapping and trading. The snow was now commencing to fall, and we concluded to go into winter quarters. We found a place that answered every purpose on the mouth of the Wintey ( now called Duchesne at that point). We passed a very pleasant winter. * * * * * There was a Utah ( Indian) village close by. * * * * * Some trappers came to our camp and Informed us that Fitzpatrick and Bridger were on the Snake River. In March, 1834, we struck out for the purpose of finding their camp." Moving into the Wyoming region, they attended the trading rendezvous that season on Ham's Fork, Wyoming. Lee sold his furs to Fitzpatrick and returned south, while Carson went north, wintering, 1834- 5, in Montana. There is reason to assume that Ferris's reference to " trappers from Taos" who had occupied one of the log huts, meant none other than Lee and some companions, or some of Lee's party- the original builders of the log huts! ( See text near footnote 19.) " Fort Carson" has been " reconstructed" in description only, in the Proceedings, Utah cademy of Sciences, 1934, page 57, by Albert B. Reagan. ( Ham's Fork, Wyoming." Second paragraph above. The Chronicles of George C. Yount in the Quarterly of the California Historical Society, San Francisco, April, 1923, says that William Wolfskill's party fitted out in New Mexico in the fall of 1830, and included Francis Z. Branch, Lewis T. Burton, Samuel Shields, Zacharias Ham. Juan Lobar, Francois le Fourri, Baptiste St. Germain. Bautista Guerra and Cooper. Also the Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1902, in an article by H. D. Barrows on William Wolfskill, says that Ham died soon after arriving in the West, There can be no harm in conjecturing that Zacharlas Ham came to the end of the mountain trapper's trail somewhere in the vicinity of Ham's Fork, Wyoming, for he is the only trapper known, named Ham. But there is no definitely known reason for naming the stream Ham's Fork, a name designated by the trappers in the early trapper era.) leBuffalo then ranged plentifully over the Red Desert of Wyoming and thence southward into what is now northwestern Colorado and the smoother lands in northeastern Utah. 100 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY rades, probably because his hair has some resemblance to a cap. His followers do not steal, but are continually loitering about our encampment, curiously examining everything they see, and never fail to ask for everything examined; hence they are even more intolerable, than some of their less honest neighbors." Again either Ferris or his printer deletes or condenses beyond all recognition, much travel narrative and brings the reader into another scene in another region, without the ceremony of move­ment. This time, it appears from the context, they had, for some reason, probably seeking pasturage for their mounts, gone over to the present White Rocks- Altonah bench lands, seldom deeply snow- covered and usually well grassed. To make such a journey, they would have surely gone by way of Fort Wintey or Robidoux ( White Rocks); but no conclu­sive reference to it gets into print. Presuming they were on Lake Fork River, and well up on the bench land, on November 10,1834, " we were alarmed in the morning by the cry of ' robbers,' and im­mediately sallied out to collect our horses- twenty of which be­longing to the Indians were missing. We always fastened ours in camp at night, whilst the Indians frequently permitted theirs to run loose, and were consequently the sufferers. Unfortunately, one of our men had discovered traces of Indians, some distance below our encampment last night; but neglected to inform the chief, and thereby put him on his guard. The consequence of this neglect on our part, was a universal belief among the Indians that the robbers were Snakes, with whom, they knew we were friendly, and that we had seen and given them the requisite information, to the accomplishment of their design. No arguments of ours could prevail against this opinion." " They doubted not, that we had formed an alliance with their enemies, to effect their destruction. Fully pursuaded of this, the chief instructed the women to saddle their horses, and be ready to fly into the mountains, should his fears be confirmed; whilst himself and many of his boldest followers, set out in pursuit of the robbers. Several of our men, who wished to prove their suspicions ground­less, accompanied them; but returned in the evening with some of the Indians, having continued the chase to Bear River, thirty miles to the northward; where the course taken by the robbers proved them to be Arrappahoes, with whom we were at war as well as the Eutaws. This fact immediately restored confidence between us, and our men having no other object in view, returned to camp; but twenty of the Indians still followed on." " On the seventeenth, some of the Indians returned from hunting, with a razor, shaving box, two shirts, and a blanket, which they found near a small stream. They had lain exposed to the weather for months. But of their being found here, there W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 101 were no marks on either of these articles, by which the mystery could be unraveled." To make this available story fit, we must now accompany the trappers and Indians back to camp ( Fort Kit Carson), on the east bank of Green River, just above the White, where Ferris writes " On the twenty- third, Conmarrowap, a celebrated Chief, with his wife, and ten warriors, came into camp. This noted personage is a Eutaw by birth, but forsook his own people and joined the Py- Euts, after he became a man, and by his prowess and bravery, acquired such an ascendency over the tribe of his adoption, as to become their principal chief. He had rendered himself an object of terror to them, by an atrocious custom of taking their lives, for the most trivial offences. He is the subject of conversation every­where among the Eutaws, by whom he is universally detested; all agreeing, that he deserves death, but none can be found daring enough to attempt its accomplishment. He is the only Indian in the country, who ever dared to chastise a white man, in his own camp; and had not the partisans of the hunter interfered, his soul at that time would have taken its flight to eternity; for the high spirited trapper could not brook from the haughty Chieftain, an insult, that would have awakened a spirit of vengeance in the breast of the meanest Indian, and immediately leveled his rifle at the heart of his intended victim, who, perhaps for the first time in his life, betrayed emotions of fear. However, the comrades of the justly exasperated hunter, dashed his gun aside, and prevented the execution of a deed which would certainly have been avenged by the Indians; though the poor trapper shed tears of regret for the loss of an opportunity of appeasing his wounded honor, and at the same time punishing a savage tyrant. This evil genius once fell in with a party of trappers, some of whom are now present, and bored his fingers in their ears, to make them more readily comprehend him; but I doubt whether this treatment rendered their understanding more susceptible to the Eut- gibberage afterward. I heard one of these Indians seriously ask a hunter, with whom he was conversing, to allow him to spit in his ear, assuring him that if he would permit it, he must inevitably understand the Eut language thence forward; but he seemed more inclined to laugh at the folly of the proposition than to submit to the mode of in­struction." " Conmarrowap's wife and her companion, after leaving us last summer, fell in with the relations of the latter, who unhesitat­ingly killed and devoured the horse we had given to the former. Leaving the inhospitable relations of her companion, she proceeded on, and reached her husband some days later. He had been sick during several weeks, and for some time was considered past recovery; but survived, and as soon as sufficient strength returned, set out to visit those who had robbed his wife. An altercation 102 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY ensued, which resulted in the death of the man who was at the head of the family that had injured him, though not until he had received a slight wound from an arrow himself. He lost all his horses last summer, when his wife was taken prisoner, yet he now had ten of the finest we have ever seen among the Indians. He says they were presented to him by the passing traders from Taos to California; but it is much more probable that he took them by force, as he has already done to our knowledge in many instances. All the hunting parties from Taos look upon his as a terrible fellow, and submit to his insults, which they dare not resent; although I have seen one or two individuals, who have sworn to take his life, the first opportunity that occurs, when they may not endanger themselves. During our stay on this river, one of the log huts was occupied by those trappers from Taos, who joined us last fall. They brought with them from the sources of the Eurata," the flesh of several fine deer, which was piled upon some branches, in a corner of the room. Conmarrowap's wife entered the house one day and asked for some meat; but as the men did not immediately attend to her request, she departed without any; in a few moments Conmarrowap himself hastily entered, and without speaking ap­plied his herculean strength to tossing the meat to and fro, until he found the best deer in the lot, which he shouldered and with it disappeared; whilst those men sat in mute astonishment, nor dared to cast a glance of dissatisfaction towards him; though he was armed with nothing but a frown, from which they shrunk back with awe, having before felt the consequences of his displeasure. There is nothing uncommon in the appearance of this Indian, save a stern and determined look; he is now slender, of a middle stature, and has a dark, keen and restless eye; but before his sickness, was quite corpulent, a rare circumstance among Indians. There is less in his dress and manner, to distinguish him from his fellows, on ordinary occasions. He appears to be about forty years of age." Again in order to make the word picture fit the scenery, we must move from the White ( Fort Carson), this time probably because the owner took possession of his log house and there was not enough forage for all- to the mouth of Ashley Gorge, above Dry Fork Junction, six or eight miles north of the present Vernal. " The season having become far advanced, we pitched quarters in a large grove of aspen trees, at the brink of an excellent spring that supplied us with the purest water, and resolved to pass the winter here. Our hunters made daily excursions in the mountains, by which we were half surrounded, and always returned with the flesh of several black- tail deer; an animal almost as numerous as the pines and cedars among which they were found. They fre­quently killed seven or eight individually in the course of a day; "• Eurata- doubtless Uinta, or Wintey. above Fort Robidoux. W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 103 and consequently our encampment, or at least the trees within it, were soon decorated with several thousand pounds of venison. We passed the time by visiting, feasting, and chatting with each other or by hunting occasionally, for exercise and amusement. " Our camp presented eight leathern lodges, and two constructed of poles covered with cane grass, which grows in dense patches to the height of eight or ten feet, along the river. They were all com­pletely sheltered from the wind by the surrounding trees. Within, the bottoms were covered with reeds, upon which our blankets and robes were spread, leaving a small place in the center for our fire. Our baggage was placed around at the bottom of the lodge, on the inside, to exclude the cold from beneath it, and each one of the inmates had his own particular place assigned him. One who has never lived in a lodge, would scarcely think it possible for seven or eight persons to pass a long winter agreeably, in a circular room, ten feet in diameter, having a considerable portion of it occupied by the fire in the center; but could they see us seated around the fire, cross legged like Turks, upon our beds, each one employed in cleaning guns, repairing moccasins, smoking and lolling at ease on our elbows, without interfering with each other, they would exclaim, indeed they are as comfortable as they could wish to be! which is the case in reality. I moved from a lodge into a comfortable log house, but again returned to the lodge, which I found much more pleasant than the other. These convenient and portable dwellings, are partially transparent, and when closed at the wings above, which answer the double purpose of windows and chimneys, still admit sufficient light, to read the smallest print without inconvenience. At night a good fire of dry aspen wood, which burns clear without smoke, affording a brilliant light, obviates the necessity of using candles. " Our little village numbers twenty- two men, nine women and twenty children; and a different language is spoken in every lodge, the women being of different nations, and the children invariably learn their mother's tongue before any other. There were ten distinct dialects spoken in our camp, each of which was the native idiom of one or more of us, though French was the language pre­dominant among the men, and Flat- head among the women; yet there were both males and females, who understood neither. One would imagine that where such a multiplicity of tongues are spoken, a confusion, little short of that of Babel, would ensue. However, it is not the case. Men who find it difficult to convey their ideas to each other, through ignorance of their opposing dialect, readily make themselves understood by avoiding difficult or abstract ex­pressions, and accompanying their simple speech with explanatory gestures." Ferris writes, " On the thirtieth of March ( 1835) we entered 104 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY the chanion of a deep creek" and attempted to pass through one of the most frightful chasms, perhaps, in existence. On either side of the narrow space, at the bottom, which was thirty paces in width, huge perpendicular walls arose, to the apparent height of a thousand feet, and were surmounted by large pines, which appeared but as twigs from the abyss beneath. We had not penetrated far beyond the entrance to this murky cave, whose gloomy vaults have probably never been explored by mortal footsteps; and whose recesses are veiled in a shrowd of everlasting night, when we found it impossible to proceed farther with our horses, in consequence of innumerable obstacles by which the passage was obstructed. Dismounting, I forced my way some distance over banks of snow, that entirely bridged the stream- huge fragments of immense rocks, which had been precipitated from the summit of the walls, and crumpled to pieces on the stony pavement below- lofty pines that had been torn up by descending avalanches, which accumulate on the steep side of the mountain, until even the gigantic trees can no longer sustain the super- incumbent pressure of the mighty mass, that gliding down resistlessly sweeps all before it, over the eternal cliffs, and thundering thence with ac­celerated fury, mingles in one chaotic heap of shapeless ruins below. Deterred from advancing further by the sublime terror of the surrounding scene, and the absolute impossibility of accom­plishing my design, I stood for a few moments in mute astonish­ment and wonder- profusely showered by the ever- dropping spray from elevated regions of perpetual snow- beside a stream, whose foaming current has for ages dashed impetuously along its rock-bound channel- gazing in awe upon the dangers that had already stripped of branches a few lonely monarchs of the soil, that towered in solitary grandeur here and there, and seemed to mourn the dis­mal desolation scattered around and still threatened destruction. Turning my eyes aloft, the view was menacing indeed. Over­hanging trees and rocks, and banks of snow, were poising on the verge of this dire descent, and on the very point of tumbling off; perhaps imagination or dismay made them appear to tremble, but so they did. Shivering with dread, I turned from a place, so preg­nant with dangers, and hastening forward, heard, as I returned, the deafening sound of timber, stones and snow, hurled down the giddy heights from crag to crag, into the gulf below. Rejoining my companions who had heard appalled those tremendous con­cussions. We gladly abandoned a spot so dreary, and proceeding to the plain halted on a portion of the prairie, that was covered with dry sticks; having been the camping ground of a party of Indians, a year or two since." This was the beginning of the end of Ferris' mission in the w" Chanion of a deep creek," was Ashley Gorge, or the Canyon of Ashley Creek, where the stream debouches from the Uintas. W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 105 Western Mountains. He wended his way northward over the Uinta Mountains, not directly, but northwesterly, by way of the Bear River headwaters, and thence far into the Snake River region, the Northwest Country generally for a last lingering survey. He turns thence eastward through the South Pass, down the Sweet­water, the Platte and the Missouri to St. Louis, little dreaming at the time, that those six years in the mountains would become the outstanding period of his life, upon which he would be reflect­ing till his dying day, which was February 8, 1873, on a Texas Farm, near Dallas. Numerous essays of historic importance cover such subjects as Western Indian Tribes, Indian Culture, customs, religion, mi­grations, artifacts, habits, achievements, sports, and languages and especially fur trappers, and wild game. Among the historical episodes originally reported alone by Ferris, but co-incidently supported by other evidence, and accepted by his­torians generally, is the following, usually, but mistakenly, pre­sumed to have occurred near the present site of Provo, Utah. However, for the first time, through the publication of the original Ferris material, we find that the " Proveau Fork" on which this fight occurred, is none other than the present Jordan, drain­ing Utah Lake into Great Salt Lake and passing through the western limits of Salt Lake City. The lower part of the Jordan ( Proveau Fork) is through swampy, inhospitable lands near Great Salt Lake, though most of the rest of the stream's course offers plenty of good ground, grass, and timber for encampment. A popular place for gathering was at the head of the stream where it leaves Utah Lake, three or four miles west of Lehi, and fifteen miles from the outlet of the present Provo River near the present Provo City. Here the shore of the lake and banks of the stream are shown by artifacts found, to have been extensively used by Indians, ancient and pre- historic, for fishing and fraternizing. The next most likely place, a place extensively and frequently used, was within the corporate limits of Salt Lake City, near the airport road bridge over the Jordan. It was a well known and largely used ford or crossing utilized by the Indians in the remote past as well as by the trappers and explorers in pre- settlement days. But to the Ferris story-" The Snake Indians are termed in their own dialect, Sho- sho- ne. They are brave, robust, active and shrewd, but suspicious, treacherous, jealous and malicious. Like the Crows, war parties frequently go out to plunder, and some­times kill and rob the trappers if they think it will not be discov­ered. They are utterly faithless even to each other." " There is one evil genius among them, called the ' Bad Gocha,' ( mauvais gauche- bad left- handed one) who fell in with a party of trappers, led by a well known mountaineer, Mr. E. Proveau, on 106 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY a stream flowing into the Big Lake" that now bears his name, several years since. He invited the whites to smoke the calumet of peace with him, but insisted that it was contrary to his medicine to have any metallic near while smoking. Proveau, knowing the superstitious whims of the Indians, did not hesitate to set aside his guns, and allow his men to follow his example; they then formed a circle by sitting indiscriminately in a ring, and com­menced the ceremony; during which, at a preconcerted signal, the Indians fell upon them, and commenced the work of slaughter with their knives, which they had concealed under their robes and blankets. Proveau, a very athletic man, with difficulty extricated himself from them, and with three or four others, alike fortunate, succeeded in making his escape; the remainder of the party of fifteen were all massacred. Notwithstanding this infernal act, its savage author has been several times in the camp of the whites; but his face not being recognized, he has thus far escaped the death his treacherous murder so richly merits. As the whites are determined, however, to revenge their murdered comrades, the first opportunity, there is little doubt that his forfeit life will, sooner or later, pay the penalty of his crimes to injured justice. During the life of that white man's friend, the Horned Chief, Gocha was seldom if ever seen with the Snake village, but was heard of frequently, with a small band of followers, prowling about the Big Lake." A corroborating story of this fight appeared in the Missouri Intelligencer, June 25, 1825. Other circumstances point to the occurrence being in the early spring of 1825. Ferris says it oc­curred on the river, but does not mention the lake which he must have done had it been on Utah Lake or the head of the Jordan River. Thus in view of Provost's wintering in 1824- 25 at the site of Ogden, we are inclined to place the fight where the Utah State Fair Grounds are today, at the old Indian ford crossing the Jordan and within the corporate limits of Salt Lake City. " The principal chief of the Snakes is called the 7ron Wrist' band' a deceitful fellow, who pretends to be a great friend of the whites, and promises to punish his followers for killing them or stealing their horses. The ' Little Chief,' a brave young warrior, is the most noble and honorable character among them. " Notwithstanding the bad qualities of these Indians, their country is rich in game, and the whites have thought proper to overlook many serious offences, rather than expose small trapping parties to the vindictive attacks that would characterize an open war. " It is hardly necessary to say, that though not so completely " Big Lake, meaning of course, the Great Salt Lake. Ferris implies the Shoshones ( Snakes) were occupants of the Great Salt Lake Valley much of the time, especially as far south as the Brigham City region. Being at war with the Eutaws to the southeast, the Salt Lake City region, as found by the Mormon Pioneers in 1847. was a sort of neutral or no- man's- land. W. A. FERRIS IN UTAH 107 adept in the art of stealing as the Crows, they are nevertheless tolerably expert. I saw one of them steal a knife without stooping from his upright position, or in the least changing countenance. He was barefooted, and contrived to get the handle of the instru­ment between his toes, and then drew his foot up under his robe, where a hand was ready to receive the booty." " There is one Snake who has distinguished himself in battle, called ' Cut Nose,' from a wound he received in the facial ex­tremity, from the Blackfeet, who has joined the whites, lives with and dresses like them. He is an excellent hunter, and has frequent­ly rendered them important services." " The females are generally chaste, the men extremely jealous. I have heard of but one instance of adultery among them, which was punished by the enraged husband by the death of the female and her seducer, the latter of whom was murdered, and then placed upright on a high cliff, in a valley on Horn's Fork, as a warning to all, and a fearful monument of an injured husband's revenge." " Of the Snakes on the plains, there are probably about four hundred lodges, six hundred warriors, and eighteen hundred souls. They range on the plains of Green River as far as the Eut Moun­tains; southward from the source to the outlet of Bear River, of the Big Lake; thence to the mouth of Porto- muf, on Snake River of the Columbia; and they sometimes ascend the Snake River of the Soo- so- dee, or Green River and visit the Arrappahoes, on the sources of the Platte and Arkansas." " They are at war with the Eutaws, Crows, and Blackfeet, but rob and steal from all their neighbors, and anybody else when­ever an opportunity occurs. It may be said of them that stealing is their master passion; and indeed they are so incorrigibly ad­dicted to the practice, that they have been known in some instances to steal, in the most adroit manner imaginable, even their own horses, mistaking them, of course, for the property of others." " The Eutaws are neither ugly nor prepossessing. They are brave, but extremely suspicious; are candid, never treacherous, and are not inhospitable, though they rarely feast a stranger who visits them, like the Crows, Arrappahoes, or Blackfeet, but in general ask for something to eat themselves of their guests. Unlike the Crows or Snakes, they never steal; but they are most accom­plished beggars. With unblushing assurance, one of them one day asked me for my coat, and was of course refused. ' Then give me your blanket'- denied; ' your pistols, then'- no; and was going on to ask for every article he saw about me, but ascer­taining by a very abrupt reply, that I was not inclined to listen to him, and still less to give him anything, he turned to one of his companions and observed, ' that man's heart is very small.' The reader no doubt remembers the ingenious impudence of La Fogue in directing his children to weep, and then telling us they were 108 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY crying for something to eat, with a pathetic gravity, to obtain a little food, when there were in his lodge at the time several bales of dried buffalo meat, and we had nothing else, he well knew. It is not, however, so much for the property itself that they beg with incorrigible pertinacity on every occasion, as they do invariably, but for the honor of having obtained it in that mode; for to be adroit and successful in the art is considered a demonstration in-contestible of uncommon talent." ' They are very jealous, though their women give them little cause for being so. They are as well clad, but are not so well supplied with lodges as some other Indians, because there are no buffalo in their country, and they are obliged in winter season to construct cabins of cedar branches, which are by no means so comfortable. " They are, by far, the most expert horsemen in the moun­tains, and course down their steep sides in pursuit of deer and elk at full speed, over places where a white man would dismount and lead his horse. " They are less addicted to gambling than most other Indians; probably, because they subsist principally upon small game, more difficult to obtain, and hence have less leisure for other pursuits. In places where deer are numerous, they excavate holes in the earth, in which they conceal themselves, and shoot them as they pass in the night. They frequently visit Taos on the Del Norte, and California; consequently many speak, and nearly all under­stand, the Spanish language. " There are of the Eutaws, in all, about two thousand five hundred souls."