KING OF THE MOUNTAIN MEN Copyright, , 1961 by GENE CAESAR All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. FIRST EDITION No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in con nection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast. Published simultaneously in Canada by Clarke, Irwin & Co., Ltd. of Toronto Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-6022 Tills book is for CHERYL LEE CAESAR born July 13, 1959, during its writing CONTENTS FOREWORD 11 One THE RIVER TO THE WEST 1804-1822 21 Two THE BABY OF FALSTAFFS BATTALION 1822-1823 33 Three LORD JIM IN BUCKSKINS 1823 45 Four THE DIVERTED WATERS 1824-1825 61 Five THE GREAT DAWN 1826-1829 79 Six OF MEN AND MOUNTAINS 1829-1830 93 Seven THE GATHERING STORM 1830-1832 107 Eight THE RACE FOR PIERRE S HOLE 1832 119 Nine VALHALLA 1832 131 Ten MOUNTAIN MEDICINE 1832-1834 143 7 8 CONTENTS Eleven THE STANDARD ON THE SUMMIT 1834-1836 157 Twelve HAIR OF THE GRIZZLY 1836-1838 169 Thirteen THE LAST RENDEZVOUS 1838-1843 181 Fourteen THE OASIS 1843-1846 193 Fifteen THE SAINTS COME MARCHING IN 1847-1849 205 Sixteen THE LITTLE FAWN 1849-1852 221 Seventeen SAINTS AND SINNERS 1853-1857 233 Eighteen BACK TO GREEN RIVER 1857-1858 247 Nineteen BOOTS AND SADDLES 1859-1865 259 Twenty THE ELDER STATESMAN 1865-1881 279 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES 295 INDEX 307 ILLUSTRATIONS Halftones Facing Page Miller 62 "Rendezvous," by Alfred Jacob Grand Teton Peak 63 Jim Beckwourth 94 Kit Carson 94 95 Jackson s Hole, Wyoming 19 Tom Fitzpatrick Chief Washakie *9 19 Joe Meek 19 1 Fort Bridger Alfred Miller 222 "Captain Bridger," by Jacob 222 Bridger s Ferry 223 Jim Bridger Maps and 47 The Opening of the West Pages 46 and in The Fur-Trade Land Pages no 206 and 207 The Wagon Trails Westward Pages 270 and 271 The Bloody Bozeman Pages The author wishes to thank Doug Kennedy and Don McKinney of True magazine for their permission to re- explore herein ground he first covered in two articles, "The Terrible and of the Trek," August, 1957, "King Mountain Men," May, 1958; and to thank Ted Patrick and Harry Sions of Holiday magazine for allowing him to include description of scenery and other material from his article in the For "High Jinks Rockies," May, 1960. extensive help in obtaining the illustrations accompany ing this narrative, he is indebted to Edward S. King of the Walters Art Gallery, Jesse H. Jameson of the Wyom ing State Archives and Historical Department, Mrs. Laura Ekstrom of the Allyn State Historical Society of Colorado, and Mrs. Alys Freeze of the Denver Public Library Western Collection. FOREWORD THE Green River of Wyoming rises in the Bridger National Forest the cen and flows southward through Bridger Basin, just below of the tral summit of the Rockies, that lofty land where the sources Missouri, the Columbia, and the Colorado merge. To the eyes of all except air-line travelers, the beauty of the Green s sagebrush- in its floored valley veined with streamside cottonwoods is lost very vastness. And the early emigrants who wormed their way last of the from Fort across it in covered wagons on the lap trip Laramie to Fort Bridger usually hated it and called it desert in is a land Nature their journals. For this a giant land, designed by their hearts to shrink men in their own eyes, mock them, and break with the full abrupt realization of their insignificance. for its walls of Yet this valley once knew men who were a match the Green sky-high peaks. Before the age of the covered wagon, River country was the playground of a strange race of men who at heart of the fur-trade considered it a paradise. Because it lay the its could land, because the pasture that bordered creeks support its could firewood great herds of horses and cottonwoods provide of the and timber, this valley was the favorite meeting place early colorful breed known Western beaver trappers, the boisterous and as mountain men. hero to the A mountain man was many things to many people-a him set out for small boys of frontier towns who watched casually and the destinations two thousand miles beyond the last outposts, those an spawn of Satan to the camp-meeting preachers of towns; his domain elemental nature-god to the first novelists to penetrate to of the missionaries; a de and a hopelessly lost soul most early a shunned outcast and an graded savage and a noble pathfinder; a member of a envied adventurer. But basically he was merely with a staircase of skilled-trades group, a profession apprentice 11 12 FOREWORD levels from laborers or eaters" to leaders or ranging "pork brigade Like all he had his traditions, his "partisans." professionals occupa beaver hide was a tional pride, and his own peculiar jargon. A Trinkets for the affection of Indian "plew." winning teen-age girls were "fooferaw." A knife was a "Green River." Much of this jargon had its roots in French or Spanish or Indian old tongues, but the skinning and scalping knife of the West gained its name through a freak blending of royal politics and un derhanded economics. A good deal earlier the Hudson s Bay Com pany had begun stamping "G. R." on knives for the Indian trade, meaning George Rex. Their suspicious customers refused to accept a change of initials when Britannia changed monarchs and kept right on demanding the G. R. brand. In order to compete, American fur traders needed the same letters on their knives, and American manufacturers supplied them, usually without knowing why. But to the mountain man G. R. could stand for only one thing his be loved Green River. For the Green River Valley was the focal point of the trapper s wild, roving existence, the hub of his trails across half a continent. It was on this river and its creeks that eight of the fifteen annual mountain trade fairs or "rendezvous" were held, including the first and the last. And since Jim Bridger was essentially the trapper s trapper, the mountain man personified, it seems only natural that this valley should lie at the heart of the Bridger coun try today. Fort Bridger, Wyoming, is now a state park, but the spot holds surprisingly little to commemorate its namesake. Due east and halfway across the state sits the towering Bridger Peak on the Continental Divide. North and slightly west from this point lie the Bridger Mountains, and if wild geese coming up the flyway in the were to a spring go on in straight line their mile-high cries would be heard over Bridger, Montana. Sharply west and only slightly north is the Bridger Range, not far southeast of Helena, where a huge painting of Jim Bridger hangs on a wall of the Capi tol Enclosed building. by these outposts are such past and present landmarks as Bridger Creek, Bridger Butte, the Bridger Flats, the the Old Bridger Road, Bridger Trail, Bridgets Crossing, Bridgets Ferry, Bridger Lake, and Bridger Pass. At Farson, Wyoming, a FOREWORD bronze marks the plaque spot where in 1847 Jim Bridger told and his Brigham Young vanguard of Saints how to get to the Great Salt Lake and what they would find there, but there are no bronze at Fort plaques Bridger memorializing the day in 1853 when a 150- man Mormon returned the favor posse by attacking, looting, and Fort Not far burning Bridger. from La Barge, Wyoming, is a cliff known as Names where locally Hill, among the inscriptions is one that reads JAMES BRIDGER 1844, but someone else must have chipped it in the rock for him. Half the West seems to be named after this man. Yet he never learned to write his own name. the time the covered By wagons were flooding west, Jim Bridger was a the already legendary figure, hero of nearly every impossible story told around the campfires by the former mountain men who d gone to work guiding the emigrant trains. And the folks who were staking their future on Oregon or California listened in wide- eyed fascination. They d read in their Eastern newspapers that an army officer named Fremont had personally discovered and ex plored the West. Now, for the first time, they heard of men like Jed Smith and Tom Fitzpatrick and Bill Sublette, men who had been exploring the Rockies some twenty years before Kit Carson had guided Captain Fremont there. They heard of Manuel Lisa and Andrew Henry and John Colter, men who had penetrated the interior West in a still-earlier era, on the very heels of Lewis and Clark. They heard of Kenneth McKenzie, the King of the Missouri, and Lucien Fontenelle and Andrew Drips and Henry Vander- burgh. But most of all, they heard of Jim Bridger. "Winter o the this ever 1830 were wust child seen," a grizzled veteran of the fur-trade years might tell them, while coyotes far off in the darkness. and the snow yapped "Seventy days nights come down. Seventy foot deep it set on the ground. The Bridger the brigade was holed up north o the Great Basin that year. Half and froze solid.