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Opening Of The West

Folks talk about the "opening of the west". Instantly, the rugged cowboy on horseback or the wild-eyed outlaw or the unwavering lawman come to mind. But there was a spell, nearly 40 years earlier than the cowboy era, when rugged individuals combed the west. These were the "mountain men".

After the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806, white men headed into the vast unknown territory west of the Mississippi. With pack horses or canoes filled with trade goods from suppliers in St. Louis, They followed the rivers west. Once they made contact with the Indians, they spent months trading their goods for furs, primarily beaver for the insatiable hat industry. With luck, the traders would come out ahead and with their fur packs intact. They would then make the arduous journey back east to sell their furs, pay off debts, re-supply, and hopefully make a little money. All the while, they were exploring, mapping rivers, trails, mountains and prairies.

No one knows exactly when the white man started trapping beaver on their own, and thus ending the fur "trade". However, accounts confirm William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry leading a group of men in 1822 up the Missouri Rivedr, down the Yellowstone and into the mouth of the Powder River (Montana). There they would trap till the freeze came and then they would hold up for the winter, trap again in the spring and then head back to St. Louis for re-supplying.

With Stories of unending beaver, the feaver took hold and many adventurers headed west. Not only did they bring back furs, they brought back stories of encounters with grizzly, vast buffalo herds, beautiful landscapes, friendly and not so friendly natives. To the entrepreneurs who hired many of these men, there was a problem with the system. The problem was "down time".

Trappers were spending too much valuable time delivering the furs back to St. Louis, restocking supplies and heading back west again. That time could better be used for exploring and trapping more beaver. In September of 1823, Jedediah Smith led Ashley's second group west. They met Henry's men, wintered with them and the Crow Indians in the Wind River Valley in Wyoming. In the spring of 1824 the trappers headed west to the Green River country and into beaver paradise. Completing the spring hunt, two of the trappers took the furs back east while the remainder stayed in the mountains to trap. The reports these trappers brought back with them got Ashley brainstorming once again about the down time problem.

Rendezvous

So in November of 1824, Ashley headed west with the first supply train to the Rockies, to meet the trappers by mid summer. On July 1, 1825, with about 120 trappers in attendance at the rendezvous site, a new system of business was born. No more depending on native trade, no more down time, no more supplying trading posts. For now rendezvous could distribute supplies AND procure the beaver pelts. The fur companies from St. Louis made a handsome profit on the goods sold to the trappers, bought the furs for less than they had been paying in St. Louis, and the trappers could stay in the mountains.

Between 1825 and 1840, once each summer, hundreds of trappers, along with many natives, came from all over the western continent, to a pre-destined rendezvous location. There they traded furs for whiskey, traps, guns, horses, tobacco, salt, sugar, beads, lead, cloth, knives, coffee, mirrors and more. They exchanged information about who "went under", new beaver areas, and what natives were not so friendly to their encroachment. They held competitions of shooting, horsemanship. They told lies and tall tales. It was a blow out of pure freedom in the finest sense of the word. 1836 they saw the first white women at rendezvous, wives of missionaries heading to Oregon. This brought a chill to many mountaineers because it meant civilization was encroaching on them much of it due to the exploration and mapping they had done over the past 20 years. In fact, some former trappers were serving as guides to these immigrants. In 1840, with almost no demand for beaver because of the popularity of silk hats, the last official rendezvous was held. Less than 100 mountain men attended. (Down from a high of nearly 1000 participants including natives).

Mark "Rooster" Roster. The Real Opening Of The West. This article was first printed in The American West Magazine Vol. 1, No. 3 October-November 2000.

John Colter

1773?-1813

When Captains Meriweather Lewis' and William Clark's Corps of Discovery neared the Mandan villages on their return trip in 1806, most of the men were good and ready for the comforts of home. Not John Colter. When two trappers headed up the Missouri invited him to join them, he accepted and received his discharge. John Colter was the prototypical mountain man. By 1806, he had already crossed the continent twice with Lewis and Clark, gaining valuable experience in the rigors of wilderness life. Colter was also not a stranger to dealing with the Indians; he had been involved in Captain Lewis' conflict with the Blackfeet on the return trip from the Pacific.

In 1807, Colter joined Manuel Lisa's newly formed Missouri Fur Company on an expedition to the Rocky Mountains. The party was successful in getting up the Missouri and establishing Fort Raymond. That winter, Lisa sent Colter out to all the winter Indian camps to alert them of his presence and desire to trade. Alone, with only his rifle and a 30lb pack, Colter traveled an estimated 500 miles that winter with the help of Indian guides. His route has been disputed, but general consensus is that he was the first white man to see Jackson's Hole and Yellowstone Lake. He also saw part of the thermal wonders of Yellowstone and through the tales he told it would come to be called "Colter's Hell."

The next year, while trapping beaver he and a partner were attacked by Blackfeet Indians. The attackers swarmed on Colter, stripping him naked and taking all his possessions. They killed his partner and Colter awaited his own execution. To his puzzlement, they set him free and told him to run. He took off and soon realized this was a game of "human hunt". After running a couple of miles, Colter turned around and killed the only Indian that was close with his own spear. He stole his blanket and continued to run until he came to a river. By hiding in the river under a pile of logs, Colter was able to evade his pursuers. He walked the 200 miles back to Fort Raymond with only a blanket for warmth and bark and roots to eat. After eleven days, he stumbled into the stockade, more dead than alive.

The Blackfeet would not leave Colter alone, however, and eventually they would drive him to leave the mountains for good. After gaining strength at Fort Raymond, he returned to the site of the attack to retrieve the traps he had thrown in the river. Again he was attacked, but this time he escaped unscathed.

Shaken, but not ready to give up his exciting and dangerous life, Colter signed on to lead another Missouri Fur Company party in 1810. True to past experience, the group was attacked by the Blackfeet and Colter finally vowed to leave the west. He did just that, using his fur trade profits to buy a plot of land in Missouri and build a cabin. There he married a woman remembered by history simply as "Sally" and had a son. It was jaundice, not the Blackfeet that killed John Colter in 1813.

Colter left no records of his journeys, what we do know about him came from the random writings of others. He also left no map of his own, but he did have a conversation with his former leader, William Clark, in 1810. It is assumed Colter told Clark of the things he had seen in his years of travel as a trapper, as the map that appeared in Nicholas Biddle's 1814 version of the Lewis and Clark journals reflects Colter's knowledge.

Jedediah Smith

1799-1831

I wanted to be the first to view a country on which the eyes of a white man had never gazed and to follow the course of rivers that run through a new land."

At the age of 22, Jedediah Smith signed on with the expedition of General William Ashley to travel to the Upper Missouri and trap beaver. A year later, he led another of Ashley's groups deep into the central Rockies where he rediscovered the forgotten South Pass, the key to the settlement of Oregon and California.

The wandering spirit was planted deep in the heart of Jedediah Smith. Born January 6th, 1799, Smith's family moved several times in an effort to stay on the edge of the growing frontier boundary. According to family tradition, young Jedediah read Biddle's 1814 edition of the Lewis and Clark journals and was set on living a life in the wilderness.

In his lifetime, Smith would travel more extensively in unknown territory than any other single mountain man. He traveled in the central Rockies, then down to Arizona, across the Mojave Desert and into California making him the first American to travel overland to California through the southwest. In a most amazing journey, he also came back from California across the desert of the Great Basin. The heat became so unbearable Smith and his men had to bury themselves in sand to keep cool.

Though he was an accomplished outdoorsman, Smith did not fit the stereotype of the typical mountain man. He never drank, never used tobacco, never boasted and was rarely humorous. Another rare quality was his strident faith. Smith was very religious and often prayed and meditated. When fellow trapper John Gardner died, Smith gave the eulogy, as recorded by expedition member Hugh Glass:

Mr. Smith, a young man of our company made a powerful prayer which moved us all greatly and I am persuaded John died in peace.

Smith proved himself a leader quickly on the trail. On his second expedition, he was attacked by a grizzly bear. The bear came out of the thicket and mauled Smith violently, throwing him to the ground, smashing his ribs and literally ripping off his scalp. When the attack was over, the scalp was hanging on to his head by an ear. Smith instructed Jim Clyman to sew it back on. Clyman did the best he could, but thought nothing could be done for the severed ear. Smith insisted that he try. According to Clyman,

I put my needle sticking it through and through and over and over laying the lacerated parts together as nice as I could with my hands.

In 1830, Smith, rattled over the death of his mother and his neglect of family duty, decided he had had enough of mountain life. He purchased a farm and townhouse, complete with servants, in St. Louis. However, he would have to make one more fated trip into the wilds of the Southwest. When Smith sold his shares in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company the year before, he had agreed to help procure supplies for the subsequent owners. He left in the spring of 1831 and while looking for water on the Santa Fe Trail, he was killed by Comanche warriors.

Most of Smith's knowledge died with him. His plans to edit and publish his journals and have a master map constructed were never realized. Nevertheless, Smith was satisfied with his wilderness career.

I started into the mountains, with the determination of becoming a first-rate hunter, of making myself thoroughly acquainted with the character and habits of the Indians, of tracing out the sources of the Columbia River and following it to its mouth; and of making the whole profitable to me, and I have perfectly succeeded.

James Bridger

1804-1881

James Bridger (Old Gabe) was in good company when he signed on with Hugh Glass, Jedediah Smith, and Thomas Fitzpatrick to be a member of General Ashley's Upper Missouri expedition. At the age of 17, he was the youngest member of the expedition. This was beginning of a long and colorful career in the mountains for Jim Bridger.

Bridger rose to the status of the quintessential mountain man. Biographer Grenville Dodge described him as:

a very companionable man. In person he was over six feet tall, spare, straight as an arrow, agile, rawboned and of powerful frame, eyes gray, hair brown and abundant even in old age, expression mild and manners agreeable. He was hospitable and generous, and was always trusted and respected.

Bridger had a remarkable sense of humor and he especially loved to shock tenderfeet and easterners with his tall tales. He would tell of glass mountains, "peetrified" birds singing "peetrified" songs, and reminisce about the days when Pikes Peak was just a hole in the ground. These stories were related in such a serious manner as to fool even skeptics into believing them, making Jim's laughter all the louder when his ruse was revealed.

All of these attributes served Bridger well, and made him adaptable to just about every situation he found himself in. By the end of his lifetime, Bridger could claim the titles of trapper, trader, guide, merchant, Indian interpreter and army officer.

After working for Ashley, Bridger trapped the Rocky Mountains with various companies and partnerships. Renowned by his peers, Bridger was an able brigade leader and an excellent trapper. Year after year he was able to avoid Indian attack and turn a profit from his trapping.

One particular discovery early on in Bridger's career brought him lasting celebrity. To settle a bet in the winter camp of his trapping party of 1824, Bridger set out to find the exact course of the Bear River from the Cache Valley. He returned and reported that it emptied into a vast lake of salt water. The men were convinced he had found an arm of the Pacific Ocean. In reality, he was the first white man to view The Great Salt Lake.

Bridger's most important discovery would come years later, in 1850. Captain Howard Stanbury stopped at Fort Bridger and inquired about the possibility of a shorter route across the Rockies than the South Pass. Bridger guided him through a pass that ran south from the Great Basin. This pass would soon be rightfully called Bridger's Pass and would be the route for overland mail, The Union Pacific Railroad line and finally Interstate 80.

Although he would remain a trapper, Bridger easily turned to other means of income after the softening of the beaver market in the 1840's. In the summer of 1841, Bridger and Henry Fraeb began building a crude structure on the west bank of the Green River. They intended it as a trapping and trading base. Later that summer, the first wagon load of overland missionaries and emigrants rolled up and Fort Bridger was born. Jim did not recognize the significance of that moment, but in the coming years he realized the potential of his crude building. Years later he described it:

I have established a small store, with a Black Smith Shop, and a supply of Iron on the road of the Emigrants on Black's fork Green River, which promises fairly, they in coming out are generally well supplied with money, but by the time they get there are in want of all kinds of supplies. Horses, Provisions, Smith work &c brings ready Cash from them and should I receive the goods hereby ordered will do a considerable business in that way with them. The same establishment trades with the Indians in the neighborhood, who have mostly a good number of Beaver amongst them.

James Bridger died on a Missouri farm in 1881. At 77, he was one of the last living mountain men.

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