sent into the West from Fort Leavenworth to menace the Comanches and
curb their depredations. Colonel Sanborn proceeded to the Santa Fe Trail
and followed that road to the point at which it crossed the Arkansas River.
The movement appears to have had the desired effect iTpon the hostile
Indians, as they kept out of reach and refrained from continuing their
foravs against travelers and wagon-trains upon the trail. From the Arkan-
sas River Crossing, Sanborn presently moved up the river to the mouth
of the Fontaine qui Boixille, and thence up the valley of the latter to the
"Boiling Springs". After having rested here a few days, he marched his
command northward, across the Arkansas-South Platte Divide and down
to the mouth of Cherry creek, where he encamped. Continuing his north-
ward march, he proceeded to Fort Laramie, at that time a United States
militarv post, and at which he arrived without having had any noteworthy
adventures while on the way.
During the remainder of that decade, small bodies of United States
troops occasionally passed between New Mexico and Fort Laramie and Salt
Lake City, as w-ell as in the reverse direction; and, with one notable excep-
tion — that taken by Captain R. B. ^Marcy (who later became a General),
with sixty-iive men, in the winter of 1857-'58 — by a route of which a part
lay adjacent to our eastern foothills. However, aside from Marcy's march,
such military movements across the land of our State were devoid of im-
portant historical incidents.
In November, 18.57, Captain Marcy, then an officer of the Fifth Regi-
ment of United States Infantry, which formed a part of General Albert Sid-
ney Johnston's army in the "ilormon War", the troops then being encamped
at Fort Bridger, was ordered by General Johnston to take forty enlisted
men and proceed across the mountains by the most direct route into New-
Mexico, where he was to procure and bring back supplies for the command.
Marcy set out on the S-lth of that month, with his soldiers and twenty-five
mountainmen to serve as packers and guides ; one of the latter being "Old
Jim" Baker, a noted frontierman, who was an interesting figure in Colorado
for years after our pioneer period. The guides said the march to Fort
]ilassachusetts (in the San Luis Valley, near the western end of the Sangre
de Cristo Pass) could be made in twenty-five days; "but," says General
Marcy, in his Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border (New York, 1866),
"to make sure of having enough provisions, I deemed it wise to take thirty
day's supply, which, with our luggage, was packed upon sixty-six mules".
Marcy proceeded from Foi-t Bridger "down Henry's Fork to its con-
fluence with Green River, where we forded the latter stream, and followed
a trail that led us to the foot of the mountains dividing Green from Grand
River". After several days of further tramping, the party entered what is
now the western border of Colorado, at a point at or near the southwestern
corner of our Rio Blanco County ; and, continuing in a southeasterly direc-
tion, struck the Grand River at the site of our city of Grand Junction and
moved up the Gunnison to the mouth of the Uncompahgre. "Thus far our
journey had been pleasant, and we had encountered no serious obstacles.
Our animals had found abundance of grass, and were in fair condition." A
large band of Utes, whom Marcy calls "Digger Ute Indians", was en-
countered here. Of the purpose and result of an interview with their chief-
tain, the General relates the following:
160 HISTORY OF COLOEADO
"I endeavored to persuade the chief to accomijaiiy us as a guide to the sum-
mit of the mountains, and offered him the value of three horses in goods, but he
peremptorily refused, saying that he was not yet ready to die, and that, unless we
turned back, or stopped and passed the winter with them, we would all inevitably
perish. My interpreter asked him if he took us for a set of old women, who would
be intimidated by a little snow ; and added, that he had always before taken him for
a warrior and a man, but now he had discovered his mistake, and he would advise
him to go back to his lodge, cover up warm, and assist his squaw in tending the
babies ; that we were of the masculine gender ; we had started to cross the mountains
into New Mexico, and we were going to accomplish it at all hazards, and if he did
feel disposed to go, we could dispense with his services. This taunt had no
effect upon him, however. He persisted in refusing to go with us, saying that all we
had would not be sufficient to induce him to attempt the journey. I then asked him
how much snow he supposed we would find in the mountains? . . . He was of
opinion that we might encounter from four to five feet, and perhaps even more than
that. He concluded by saying, 'You may think I do not tell the truth, but if
you will only cast your eyes toward the mountains you can see for yourselves that
the snow is there'."
Leaving his Indian friends, on December lltli. ^larcy moved up the
basin of the Gunnison Eiver, heading for the Coochetopa Pass, his course
being practically the same as that which Gunnison had traversed westward
in the autumn of 1853, and Fremont in the following winter. On the
fourth day, the party was floundering through crusted snow so deep that
men had to he put in front to break a path for the animals, some of which,
enfeebled by the lack of forage, already were giving out and laying down to
die. The organization soon became reduced to a condition similar to that
of Fremont's, in the San Juan ilountains, in the winter of 1818-49.
"I was then obliged to cache, or hide, all our surplus luggage, which reduced
the weight of the packs very considerably. Notwithstanding this, they [the animals]
continued to perish. One day we lost five, and another day as many as eight died
out of our little stock. Tliis gave me serious uneasiness, as our supply of provisions
was becoming very small, and I knew, after these were gone, our only dependence
for subsistence must be upon our famished animals. Our beef cattle had nearly all
been consumed, and our stock of bread was very limited. I felt the necessity of hus-
banding the strength of my men and animals as much as possible. I therefore
ordered the command to throw away every article of baggage they had remaining,
excepting one blanket each and their arms and ammunition. . . .
"The snow increased day after day as we ascended, until it was four feet deep,
and was so dry and light that the men, walking in an upright position, would sink
to their waists, and could not move. One of the guides made a pair of snow shoes
and attempted to walk upon them, but tliey sank so deep in the soft snow that it
was impossible to use them.
"Our only alternative row. in tlie deepest snow, was for the three or four
leading men of the party to lie down and crawl upon their hands and feet, each man
following in the tracks of the leader, and all placing their hands and feet in the
same holes. This method packed the snow so that, after a few men had passed, it
bore up the others, and was sufficiently firm to sustain the mules after all the men
had traversed it. . . .
"Notwithstanding I reduced the rations one half, our provisions were all
consumed long before we reached the top of the mountains, and we were then en-
tirely dependent upon our famished animals for food. Our first repast upon the
novel regimen was from a colt belonging to Tim Goodale's Indian wife, who accom-
panied us and underwent the hardships of the trip with astonishing patience and
fortitude. . . .
"After this our only diet for twelve days consisted of starved mules as they
became exhausted and could go no further. Twelve of my men had frozen their feet
so badly as to be unable to walk, and we were obliged to appropriate all our service-
able animals to carry them. I had given up my own horse to one of these men and
ROBERT W. STEELE. GOVERNOR OP "JEFFERSON TERRITORY"
HISTORY OF COLORADO 161
took his place in the snow with the others. We had not a single morsel of any-
thing left to eat except these animals. If we had had some salt we would have done
better, but that was all gone. I was in the habit of sprinkling a little gunpowder
upon my mule-steaks, and it did not then require a very extensive stretch of the
imagination to fancy the presence of both pepper and salt. This lean meat did not,
however, by any means satisfy the cravings of the appetite, and we were continually
longing for fat meat. Although we consumed large quantities of the mule meat,
yet within half an hour from the time we had finislied our meals we would feel as
hungry as before we had eaten."
Nevertheless, the party pressed onward, wallowing through the snow,
toward the Coochetopa Pass, sometimes making but two or three miles be-
tween camps. The greater part of one day was wasted by traveling up the
slope of the range in the wrong direction, a mistake which doubtless would
have proved fatal to every member of the company had the march been con-
tinued upon that course. The summit of the pass was reached on the first
day of January; but in the meantime the men "had worn out their shoes,
and had patched them with mule hides as long as they would hang together,
when some of them were obliged to wrap their feet in pieces of blankets
or of their coat-tails to keep them from freezing. Many of them had worn
out their pants, and their legs were greatly exposed".
From the high point of the pas.s, Marcy sent forward two of his men,
mounted upon about the only animals that were in condition for the ride,
to go to Fort Massachusetts and return with some supplies. The remainder
of the party continued the march afoot, and on the eleventh day afterward
met these couriers riding some fifty miles ahead of the provision-laden
wagons which the fort's commandant had despatched to Marcy's relief.
Moving onward in the next morning, the famislied band met the wagons
and went into camp. Although the leader warned his men of the dangers
from over-eating, and had limited the first meal to a moderate quantity of
soup, some of them, after night came on', nriahaged to abstract sufficient
solid provisions with which to gorge themselves. "The next morning found
them suffering the most excruciating torture, and one of the poor fellows
[Sergeant William Morton] died the next day"— the only death that oc-
curred in the organization.
Now having abundant supplies, and grass being available for the few
surviving animals, the ragged and otherwise unkempt company resumed tlie
march; and four days later entered the stockade of Fort Massachusetts,
where the needs of every man were supplied in abundance. Of the appear-
ance of his command at that time. General Marcy says :
"As we approached the fort, one of the officers complimented us by saying
that he took us for a band of prairie Indians. Xot more than one half of the men
had any caps, and but few had any remains of ttowsers below the knees. Their
feet were tied up with mule hides, pieces of blankets, coat-tails, etc., and they cer-
tainly were rough and ragged-looking specimens of United States .soldiers. As for
myself, I am confident my own wife would not have recognized me."
Having obtained in New Mexico the supplies required by General
Johnston, Captain Marcy left Fort Union in the middle of March upon his
return to Fort Bridger, with his soldiers, a large wagon-train, a drove of
livestock, and "about one hundred of the best trailers, hunters, and Indian
fighters in New Mexico", "intending to pass around the eastern ba.se of the
mountains near Pike's Peak, and the headwaters of the Arkansas and
Platte Rivers". After crossing the Arkansas River at the site of our city
Vol. I— 11
162 HISTORY OF COLORADO
of Pueblo, he received orders from New Mexico directing him to halt and
await reenforcements. Therefore he "went into camp upon the headwaters
of a small tributary of the Arkansas called 'Fontaine qui Bouille', directly
at the foot of Pike's Peak, and near a very peculiar spring, which gives
the name to the stream'". His reenforcements reached him late in April,
and on the last day of that month, which was "bright, cheerful and pleasant,
the atmosphere soft, balmy and deliglitful", the caravan moved from the
peculiar spring, "and at about one o'clock encamped upon the ridge that
divides the Arkansas from the Platte Rivers", the halting-place being nn
Squirrel Creek, near its head. The "large herds of animals were turned
out to graze", the men were enjoying their social jokes and pastimes after
the fatigues of the day's march, and everj'thing indicated contentment and
happiness". Of the unexpected revolution that presently was made in these
agreeable conditions, General Marcy relates the following:
"Tliis pleasant state of things lasted until near sunset, when the wind sud-
denly changed into the north ; it turned cold, and soon commenced snowing violently,
and continued to increase until it became a frightful winter tempest, filling the
atmosphere with a dense cloud of dri%'ing snow against which it was utterly impos-
sible to ride or walk. Soon after the storm set in one of our herds of three hundred
horses and mules broke furiously away from the herdsmen who were guarding them,
and, in spite of their utmost efforts, ran at full speed, directly with the wind, for
fifty miles before they stopped. Three of the herdsmen followed them as far as they
were able, but soon became exhausted, bewildered, and lost on the prairie.
"One of them succeeded in finding his way back to camp in a state of great
prostration and suffering. One of the others was found frozen to death in the snow,
and the third was discovered crawling about upon his hands and knees, in a state
of temporary delirium, after the tempest subsided.
'â– This terrific storm exceeded in violence and duration anything of the kind
our eldest mountaineers had ever beheld. It continued with uninterrupted fury for
sixty consecutive hours, and during this time it was impossible to move for any
distance facing the wind and snow. One of our employees, who went out about two
hundred yards from camp, set out to return but was unable to do .so, and perished in
the attempt.
"The instincts of all our animals, excepting the herds alluded to, led them to
seek shelter in a grove of timber near camp, where they were somewhat protected
from the fury of the gale. But several antelopes were found frozen upon the prairie
after the storm.
"We had with us a flock of sheep, which scattered throughout the timber in
every direction during the storm, and afterward were nearly as wild as deer; they,
like the insane herdsman, seemed to have lost their senses."
The "Norther"' had left about three feet of snow upon the ground, but
the rays of the May sun soon dissipated it. Leaving some mounted men to
search for the stampeded animals. Captain Marcy again put his outfit in
motion, in the morning of May 3d, and arrived at the confluence of CnerrT
Creek and the South Platte in the evening of the 5th. "We fouml the
river at such high stage", says he, "and so rapid, that we were compelled to
encamp here for four days and construct a flat-boat, in which we crossed
our entire party." After passing the South Platte, the train and its escort
encountered no serious difficulties, and reached Fort Bridger on the 9th
day of June.
CHAPTER VIII.
FUR TRADEHS AXD THEIR TRADING-POSTS IN THE COLORADO COUNTRY.
MAISONNEUVE's EXPEDITION TO OUR SECTION OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS,
IN 1799. — SOME MISTAKEN BELIEFS. — FIRST AMERICAN TRjVDER UPON
COLORADO SOIL. — UNFAITHFUL BAPTISTE LA LANDE. — EZEKIEL WILLIAMS
AND HIS ASSOCIATES. — MILLER's PARTY. — PHILLEBERt's COMPANY. —
THE UNFORTUNATE ENTERPRISE OF CHOUTEAU AND DE MUNN. — "CHOU-
TEAU'S ISLAND." — TRADING-POSTS ON THE UPPER ARKANSAS RIVER. —
GLENN^S AND fowler's EXPEDITION. — MCKNIGHT'S ESTABLISHMENT. — •
FIRST "bent's fort." GANTT AND BLACKWELL. — LE DOUX's STATION. —
THE "pUEBLO." — ITS BUILDERS, APPEARANCE AND REPUTATION.^THE
HARDSCRABBLE POST. MASSACRE AT THE PUEBLO. — SECOND "BENT's
FORT," A FAMOUS TRADING-STATION. — THE BENT BROTHERS. — TRADING-
POSTS ON THE SOUTH PLATTE RUTIR. — ESTABLISHMENTS OF VASQUEZ,
SUBLETTE, SARPY, LUPTON, AND LOCKE AND RANDOLPH. — FORT ST. VRAIN,
THE "half-way station" BETWEEN FORT BENT AND FORT LARAMIE. —
ITS APPEARANCE, WHEN IN RUINS, IN 1846. — CERAN ST. VRAIN. —
TR.ADERS ON COLORADO'S WESTERN SLOPE. — ROUBIDEAu's POST. — OTHER
AMERICAN PIONEERS IN WESTERN COLORADO. — FORTS UINTAH, DAVY
CROCKETT, AND FRAEB. — FORT LARAMIE. — THE SANTA FE TRAIL. — ITS
COURSE UPON COLORADO SOIL. — OTHER EARLY TRAILS. — DECLINE OF THE
FUR TRADE. — THIRD "BENT'S FORT." RELATIONS OF THE TRADERS AND
TRAPPERS WITH THE INDIAN.S. — THE FUR TRADING PERIOD NOT ONE OF
DEVELOPMENT.
The far-upper reaches of the Missouri River became very well known
by French fur-gatherers from the French settlements in Illinois and from
St. Louis in the last half of the eighteenth century, and many miles of the
courses of the Platte and Arkansas rivers were equally familiar to them.
Wliile it is probal)le that some of these energetic adventurers had seen the
Colorado section of the Rocky Mountains at various times in the last quarter
of that century, the earliest definite account known to the present writer of
a trading expedition to our mountains in that period is that of the enterprise
of Jean de la Maisonneuve and a Swiss associate named Preneloupe.
These men, in 1799, with fifteen or twenty engagees, leaving St. Louis
in the spring of that year, ascended the Missouri Elver in boats, laden
with trading-goods, to the mouth of the Platte, where they had immediately
an active trade with the Indians of that part of the country.
Having sarted their boats back to St. Louis with cargoes of furs and in
the charge of some of their men, Maisonneuve and Preneloupe, with ten of
their French Canadian engagees, six Indian guides, and twenty pack animals
well burdened, set out, near the middle of June, for the "Western Moun-
tains"'. Proceeding up the course of the Platte, they reached the confluence
of the Xorth Platte and South Platte rivers in seventeen days. Turning
up the wav of the South Platte, they came within sight of the mountains
in ten more davs of travel, and on July 20th arrived at the site of Denver.
Here thev saw' arraved upon the lowland between them and the foot-hills
the encampment of a great body of Indians; and here, also they fell in with
a passin- partv of Spanish dragoons, from Santa Fe. These were com-
manded bv Don Bernardo Burro, and were upon their homeward way from
a scouting expedition that had taken them to the North Platte River.
163
164 HISTOEY OF COLUKADO
The great body of the American people believed for manv years that
the western and northwestern parts of the Louisiana Purchase formeil a
region that was practically unknown by any of their countrymen before
Fremont put forth to explore it. It was the common supposition that all
previous knowledge of this vast domain by American citizens was limited
to the somewhat meager results of the going and coming of Lewis and
Clark through itj^ northern section, and to those of the expeditions of
Captain Pike and Major Long across the central plains to the mountains
in what is now the State of Colorado; Coloned Dodge's being unknown
outside of military circles. From the voluminous and fulsome exploitations
of Fremont as "the Pathfinder of the Far West"', most of the jwople in the
older parts of the United States were given to understand that until he
began to search this wide land of plains and mountains its paths were few
and hard to find.
Some Americans from Illinois had been trading on the Missouri Eiver
liefore Lewis and Clark ascended that tortuous stream upon their way to
the Pacific Coast; and prior to Pike's expedition others had been well up
on both the Platte and the Arkansas. It is known that one American had
been in the mountain section of Colorado before Pike saw the Bockies, and
some French traders from St. Louis doubtless had built cabins upon soil
of our State in advance of Long's summer visit to our eastern foot-hills.
A great merchandizing business, carried on in fortified posts and stations,
large and small, scattered between the northern border of Xew Mexico
and the headwaters of the Missouri, and that gave employment directly
and indirectly to hundreds of American citizens and caused the western
plains as well as the recesses of the mountains to be seamed by many
paths and trails, iiad reached its prime when Fremont set out upon his
first experh'tion into the Far West. The trans-mississippi fur trade of
that period attained relatively a large development within the bounds of
Colorado, the trading-posts on the upper Avkan>as and the South Platte,
together with Fort Laramie, which was located seventy-five miles north of
the site of the present city of Cheyenne, Wyoming, forming a chain of
business establishments that made this part of the West rather a liusy
region as long as the trade flourished.
As far as records run, the first American who put foot upon the soil
of Colorado was James Purcell, at the time a trader among the Indians in
the upper Platte River country, and with whom, as I have mentioned at
the close of Chapter III., Captain Pike fell in at Santa Fe. Purcell hailed
originally from Bardstown, Kentucky, from which place he went to St.
Louis, in 1799. Pike, who seems to have been very favorably impressed liy
him, says that he was "a man of strong natural sense and of undaunted
intrepidity", and also that he was "the first American who ever penetrated
the immense wilds of Louisiana, and shewed the Spaniards of Xew ^Mexico
that neither the savages who surround the deserts which divide them from
the habitable world, nor the jealous tyranny of their rulers, was sufficient
to prevent the entei-prising spirit of the Americans from penetrating the
Arcanum of their rich establishments in the Jfew World". In 1802,
Purcell and two companions were trapping on the Osage Eiver, in Missouri ;
but as this venture turned out badly, the Kentuckian joined a French
trader who was going in a barge to the Mandan villages on the upper Mis-
souri in the autumn of that year. The Frenchman having supplied him
HISTORY OF COLOEADO 165
with some goods, Purcell left the Mandan villages, \vitli an escort of "Pa-
douca and Kioway"' Indians, upon "a trading tour" to the southward; and
the summer of 1803 found him on the lower stretches of the South Platte
River, the entire party being mounted. Here they were attacked by some
bands of Sioux Indians, and, according to Pike's version of PurcelFs recital,
"were driven by the Sioux from the Plains into the mountains which give
rise to the Plate [the South Platte], Arkansas, &c., and it was their sign
which we saw in such amazing abundance on the headwaters of the Plate'".
Therefore, it seems that the trader and his Indian friends fled up the
South Platte, -and by way of the Platte Canon reached the South Park,
in which they took refuge. After what appears to have been a sojourn in
the South Park for some eighteen months, the Indians, knowing they were
not far from Xew Mexico, sent Purcell and two of their number to Santa
Fe, "to know of the Spaniards" (again quoting Pike) "if they would receive
them amicably and enter into a trade with them". "This being acceded to
by the Governor", relates Pike, "the Indian deputies returned for their
bands; but Pursley [Purcell] thought proper to remain with a civilized
people, among whom a fortuitous event had thrown him, a circumstance
which he assured me he had at one time entirely despaired of". The ex-
plorer found and left Purcell there working at his old trade — that of the
carpenter. It appears that he remained in New Mexico until after the time
of Long's expedition, and then went back to the United States. The
Missouri Intelligencer ^ a newspaper published in the frontier town of
Franklin, Missouri, contained in its issue of April 10, 1824, an article
upon the Navajo Indians, written by James Purcell, "for nineteen vears
a citizen of Xew Mexico" and \\'ho had "lately returned from Santa Fe".
Undoubtedly this article was written by Colorado's first American pioneer.
The nineteen years of liis citizenship in Xew Jlexico corresponds exactly
with the date of his arrival at Santa Fe, as he gave it to Captain Pike.
Wliile Purcell was taiTying in the South Park, another trader, who Iiad
come to the mountains of Colorado by way of the Pawnee villages and the