Colorado-The Bright Romance of American History Part 3

"Thursday, 25th of December.--* * * We had before been occasionally accustomed to some degree of relaxation and extra enjoyments; but the case was now far different; eight hundred miles from the frontiers of our country in the most inclement season of the year; not one person properly clothed for the winter; many without blankets, having been obliged to cut them up for socks and other articles; lying down, too, at night on the snow or wet ground, one side burning, whilst the other was pierced with the cold wind; that was briefly the situation of the party; while some were endeavoring to make a miserable subst.i.tute of raw buffalo hide for shoes and other covering. * * *

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pike Leaving the Two Comrades with Frozen Feet at the Log Fort They Built Near Canon City.]

"Tuesday, 20th of January.--The doctor and all the men able to march returned to the buffalo to bring in the remainder of the meat. On examining the feet of those who were frozen, we found it impossible for two of them to proceed, and two others only without loads by the help of a stick. One of the former was my waiter, a promising young lad of twenty, whose feet were so badly frozen as to present every possibility of his losing them. The doctor and party returned toward evening loaded with the buffalo meat.

"Tuesday, 17th of February.--* * * This evening the corporal and three of the men arrived, who had been sent back to the camp of their frozen companions. They informed me that two more would arrive the next day, one of them was Menaugh, who had been left alone on the 27th of January; but the other two, Dougherty and Spark, were unable to come.

They said that they had hailed them with tears of joy and were in despair when they again left them with a chance of never seeing them more. They sent on to me some of the bones taken out of their feet and conjured me by all that was sacred not to leave them to perish far from the civilized world. Oh! little did they know my heart if they could suspect me of conduct so ungenerous! No, before they should be left, I would for months have carried the end of a litter in order to secure them the happiness of once more seeing their native homes and being received in the bosom of a grateful country. Thus these poor fellows are to be invalids for life, made infirm at the commencement of manhood and in the prime of their course; doomed to pa.s.s the remainder of their days in misery and want. For what is the pension?

Not sufficient to buy a man his victuals! What man would even lose the smallest of his joints for such a trifling pittance?"

The Louisiana Purchase had left a disputed boundary, which, with other things, threatened war between the United States and Spain. When Pike crossed over the Rocky Mountains to the West side, he was exploring disputed territory, though he was lost and thought he was on the Red River, instead of the Rio Grande, the former being within the limits of the Louisiana Purchase. He had pa.s.sed that River, however, above its source, and had gotten over on the Rio Grande, which territory was still claimed by Spain. Had he found the Red River, it was his intention to build rafts and follow it towards its junction with the Mississippi, landing on his way at Nachitoches in Louisiana, which is about one hundred and fifteen miles west of Natchez--that being the Military Post to which he was to report. Notice of his presence in the Mountains had reached Santa Fe, where Spanish soldiers were stationed.

The Governor sent an officer and fifty dragoons to bring him out. He was taken south to Santa Fe, going peaceably, but all the time protesting in the name of his Government at the indignity. Here he was questioned, his papers examined, and those in authority being undecided as to how to handle the matter because of its national character, they sent him far away to the south, to Chihuahua in New Spain, the headquarters of the Military Chief of Upper Mexico, where he arrived April 2d. After being detained for some days, all his papers again gone over in a vain endeavor to find something incriminating, it was determined to send him East to his destination, with an escort, his party, however, not to be permitted to accompany him, but to be sent after him.

In July, 1806, he arrived at Nachitoches, where he was warmly welcomed by his fellow officers. A little later he received a letter of thanks from the Government. He was made a Major in the Army in 1808; Lieutenant Colonel in 1809; Deputy Quartermaster-General and Colonel both, in 1812; Brigadier General in 1813. In that year he was sent by the Government on an expedition against York in Upper Canada, at the time of our second war with England. Here a magazine of the Fort exploded, a ma.s.s of stone fell on him and crushed him, and he died at the age of thirty-five. In his pocket was found a little volume containing a touching admonition to his son. He urged that he regard his honor above everything else, and that he be ready to die for his country at any time.

Lieutenant Pike had a pleasing personality, and had he lived, he would doubtless have been prominent in the affairs of the Government. He had strong features, keen kindly eyes, firm chin, high forehead, a nose that showed breeding, was clean shaven, had closely cropped hair combed straight back, and his picture somewhat resembles the portrait of Thomas Jefferson, once President of the United States. His modesty would not permit the giving of his own untarnished name to the great Peak that through the ages will proudly bear his name. The name came from a popular demand of the people, who were here at an early date, and who did away with the name of "James Peak" which Major Long gave it in honor of one of his own exploring party.

[Ill.u.s.tration: One of the Approaches to Cheyenne Mountain, Pike's Peak in the Background.]

There is a singular coincidence attached to the name of this Peak. A pike in former times was the name given to anything with a sharp point. A road with toll gates was called a pike, because the gate consisted of a pole that swung up with the small end pointing towards the sky. In olden times the name of pike, instead of peak, was given to all summits of mountains. Gradually the word pike gave way to peak, and the former finally became obsolete. So in the name of Pike's Peak, we have it so securely named, that even the highest legislation in the land could not take away from it the name of Pike. And in this towering peak and its companions, if Prof. Aga.s.siz is right, we have the first dry land that was lifted out of the great world's waste of waters. Colorado is to be congratulated that it has a monument in its midst that will forever commemorate the memory of a good man, who was intellectually, physically and morally clean and strong; who was faithful to every trust; tender in his sympathies; lofty in his ideals and character; and who loved his country so much, that he was willing to give it all he had--his life.

CHAPTER V.

THE LOST PERIOD.

As footprints on the sands of the ocean's beach are blotted out by winds and waves, so a Chapter of Colorado's History has been torn from its pages and can never be reproduced--the hunter and trapper.

Exploring parties sent out by the Government were required to make careful observations, and a minute record of all they saw. It is by this we can follow them through their wanderings amidst primeval scenes, and can picture them moving slowly over the plains, solitary or in little groups, struggling forward, often hungry, lame, sick and desolate. But there will ever remain an untold story of those early times; as it can never be written by the hands long stilled, nor ever spoken by the lips long silenced. In that buried period are blended the romance, tragedy and adventures of the hunters and trappers who frequented Colorado in the beginning of the last century. They were few in number, mostly of French extraction, with St. Louis as their home. They were a type whose like will never be seen again, for the reasons for their existing can never again be duplicated. They were Indian Traders, who went at first to the outskirts of civilization, exchanging inexpensive articles for the rich furs of the Indians. As their acquaintance grew with the natives, they crowded into the Indians' country, and following the streams, took the otter and beaver at first hand. Because of their being so few in number, they were rarely molested; then, too, they were a medium by which the natives could realize on their furs, pittance though it was.

Some of these trappers would remain out on their expeditions for several years at a time, often living with the Indians and adopting their ways. As their clothes fell to pieces from age and use, they would replenish from the primitive blanket costumes of the Indians, whom in time they came to resemble. Often they would marry Indian wives and settle down to the nomadic life of the aborigines. Sometimes there would crowd upon them such stirring memories of the experiences they had once enjoyed, that the wives and children would be left to tears and loneliness, while the trapper with his face set toward the East, with his pack on his back, would tramp to the settlements, sometimes to remain, sometimes to return. We know some of the men who visited the mountains and streams of Colorado; knowledge of their presence here has floated down to us in various ways. When Major Long came on his exploring trip in 1819, he secured as guides two French Trappers, then living with the tribe of p.a.w.nee Indians in southeastern Nebraska, who had trapped in the region of the Rocky Mountains.

James Pursley was here in 1805 and traded among the Indians; Lieutenant Pike in his report, speaks of him as the first white man who ever crossed the plains. He made the first discovery of gold in Colorado, which he found at the foot of Lincoln Mountain, doubtless at Fairplay on the Platte River, where once extensive placer diggings existed. As late as 1875, the Company operating there had a large number of Chinamen at work. The immense gra.s.s-grown gulch, wide and deep and long, at the edge of Fairplay, is the excavation out of which hundreds of thousands of dollars were taken. Colorado has done well to commemorate the name of Abraham Lincoln in one of its loftiest mountains.

A Frenchman named La Lande was sent out by an Illinois merchant in 1804, to make an investigation of the country and report. He came along the Platte Valley, crossed over to Santa Fe, where he concluded to remain. There was a party of French Trappers known to have been here about 1800 who went South into Arizona, in search of untouched territory to ply their avocation. Philip Covington in 1827 pa.s.sed up the Cache La Poudre Valley with a pack train, on his way to Green River with supplies. He returned in 1828 and established a colony of trappers at La Porte, one of the oldest settlements in Colorado, and which is located near Ft. Collins. He was in the employ of the American Fur Company.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Trapper.]

The trappers would often go alone into these vast solitudes, with pack horses to carry their supplies in, and their furs but. Sometimes they would die in their lonely retreats, and never be heard of again, only as some sign of the fate that had overtaken them would be found years later. After a time, there were wagon routes of travel along the Arkansas River, with a trading post at Fort Bent and one at Santa Fe; also up the South Platte River, with trading centers at Ft. St. Vrain and at Ft. Lupton; and up the North Platte River, with the business centering at Ft. Laramie. Sometimes trappers who were brought out in the freighting wagons in the Spring from St. Louis by the Fur-Trading Companies, would be left with supplies along the streams, and in the Fall they would be picked up and taken with their peltries back to St.

Louis.

The Astor Trail was made in 1810 through South Dakota west to the Coast. A great impetus was given to the fur business by the Lewis and Clark Exploring Party in 1804. They opened up the first Coast to Coast trail, and were the first white men to cross the Continent between the British operations on the North, and the Spanish on the South. Lewis had been President Jefferson's Private Secretary, and Captain Clark was his friend. They traveled eighty-five hundred miles, and they nationalized the fur business which grew to such proportions that years after they had opened up the line of travel, we were selling in London, alone, two million one hundred and seventy thousand furs annually. The rich peltries then were what gold and silver were later, and what grain, alfalfa, fruit, sugar beets and potatoes are now, and will be as long as water, soil, and suns.h.i.+ne blend. Buffalo and otter skins brought in the western market three dollars each; beaver skins four dollars; c.o.o.n and muskrat twenty-five cents; deer skins thirty-eight cents per pound.

The early trappers could have been of inestimable benefit to the Government, had they been called upon to help solve the perplexing Indian problems that for so many years confronted us. They knew the Indians, their languages, habits and customs; and had their knowledge and influence with the natives been utilized, we might have peaceably settled many of the difficulties that required the sacrifice of so many lives and the unnecessary expenditure of so much money.

The fur industry, however, depended upon the keen perception of an awkward, unlettered, German boy for its growth and quick development.

He came to London from Germany, with his bundle under his arm, to help in his brother's music store. John Jacob Ashdoer was his name, which by evolution became "Astor." With great frugality and unceasing industry, he saved enough in two years to pay his pa.s.sage on a sailing s.h.i.+p to America, and there was enough left of his little h.o.a.rd to buy seven flutes of his uncle, his sole stock in trade. When he reached this country, he traded one of his flutes for some furs; and that particular flute, and those particular furs, made history. It turned his attention to the fur trade, and laid the foundation for the greatest landed estate in America. With his pack on his back, he traveled among the Indian tribes of the Eastern States, and got their furs in exchange for gaudy trinkets, such as beads and ribbons. He personally took the furs to London, so as to realize the highest possible price for them and rapidly grew rich. In 1800 when he had only been in this country fifteen years, he was clearing fifty thousand dollars on a single trip of one of his sailing vessels.

It was at this time that Astor founded Astoria as a fur trading point, on the Columbia River, expecting to operate by s.h.i.+p, as well as freighting overland by the way of Ft. Laramie, and thus control the fur traffic along the tributary rivers. The destruction of Astoria by the British kept him from realizing his dream of becoming "the richest man in the world." Was.h.i.+ngton Irving and John Jacob Astor were friends, and the latter placed in Irving's hands all the records of his Company's operations, from which Irving gathered much interesting data, and many thrilling experiences from the lives of the early trappers and hunters. He wrote "Astoria" as a compliment to his friend. In this book he pictures the Rocky Mountains as having an elevation in places of twenty-five thousand feet, but frankly states that it is only conjecture, since their alt.i.tude had never been measured. The average height of the Rocky Mountains exceed that of the famous Alps, a number of the noted peaks being above thirteen thousand feet.

Some of Irving's interesting and pleasing prophecies of our country follow:

"It is a region almost as vast and trackless as the ocean, and at the time of which we treat, but little known, excepting through the vague accounts of Indian hunters. A part of their route would lay across an immense tract, stretching North and South for hundreds of miles along the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and drained by the tributaries of the Missouri and the Mississippi. This region, which resembles one of the immeasurable steppes of Asia, has not inaptly been termed 'The Great American Desert.' It spreads forth into undulating and trackless plains and desolate sandy wastes, wearisome to the eye from their extent and monotony, and which are supposed by geologists to have formed the ancient floor of the ocean, countless ages since, when its primeval waves beat against the granite bases of the Rocky Mountains.

"It is a land where no man permanently abides; for, in certain seasons of the year, there is no food, either for the hunter or his steed. The herbage is parched and withered; the brooks and streams are dried up; the buffalo, the elk and the deer have wandered to distant parts, keeping within the verge of expiring verdure, and leaving behind them a vast uninhabited solitude, seamed by ravines, the beds of former torrents, but now serving only to tantalize and increase the thirst of the traveler. Such is the nature of this immense wilderness of the far West, which apparently defies cultivation, and the habitation of civilized life * * * Here may spring up new and mongrel races * * *

Some may gradually become pastoral hordes, like those rude and migratory people, half shepherd, half warrior, who, with their flocks and herds, roam the plains of Upper Asia; but, others, it is to be apprehended, will become predatory bands, mounted on the fleet steeds of the prairies, with the open plains for their marauding ground, and the mountains for their retreats and lurking places. Here they may resemble those great hordes of the North; 'Gog and Magog with their bands,' that haunted the gloomy imaginations of the prophets, 'A great Company and a mighty host all riding upon horses, and warring upon those nations which were at rest, and dwelt peaceably, and had gotten cattle and goods.'"

CHAPTER VI.

MAJOR LONG.

[Sidenote: 1819]

Fourteen years have pa.s.sed since Lieutenant Pike sold his two little sail boats to the Osage Indians as he left the Missouri River and started on his overland journey. Within this brief period a great invention has marked the progress of the century. After years of experiments, failures and disappointments; after sinking one vessel and abandoning others; Robert Fulton has returned from his trip to France, bringing with him his steam engine with which he had perfected water navigation, and by his genius linked together all the nations of the earth, increased the wealth and commerce of the world, and won for himself enduring fame.

The next exploring party was to start in a steams.h.i.+p owned by the Government of the United States, and under the leaders.h.i.+p of Stephen Harriman Long. Born at Hopkington, New Hamps.h.i.+re, December 30, 1784, Long had graduated at Dartmouth College, and entered the corps of Engineers of the U.S. Army, in 1814; had been a professor of mathematics at the Military Academy at West Point, and had been transferred to the Topographical Engineers in 1815, with the brevet-rank of Major.

James Monroe was President, and John C. Calhoun Secretary of War, and they gave Major Long elaborate instructions as to his duty. We had owned the vast Louisiana Territory for sixteen years, and knew but little more about it than when it came into our possession. So, Long was to explore it and make a very thorough investigation of the "country between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, the Missouri and its tributaries, the Red River, the Arkansas River, and the Mississippi above the mouth of the Missouri."

On May 3, 1819, the party of nine started from the a.r.s.enal on the Allegheny River just above Pittsburgh, at which point they entered the Ohio River. Their steamer carried them down the Ohio to its junction with the Mississippi, a distance of about nine hundred miles, where they arrived May 30th. Here they turned north up the Mississippi River, about one hundred and seventy-five miles to St. Louis, which they reached June 9th. Then they steamed West up the Missouri, over the course that Pike had sailed fourteen years before, to the same point where the Osage River enters the Missouri, near the present location of Jefferson City and one hundred and thirty-three miles from the Mississippi River. The party divided; part of the number disembarked and proceeded with horses through Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, meeting those of the party who remained on the boat at Council Bluffs on September 19th. There they established their winter quarters on the banks of the Missouri, about five miles below the present City of Council Bluffs, and so named because of a Council held with the Indians by the Government at that point. In the log houses, built by Pike and his party, and with the supplies they had brought on the s.h.i.+p, the party pa.s.sed a comfortable and leisurely winter. On June 6, 1820, they started from Council Bluffs, the party then consisting of twenty men and twenty-eight horses. It is interesting to know what their pack ponies carried. Here is an invoice:

150 lbs. pork 500 lbs. biscuit 10 cannisters 300 flints 25 lbs. coffee 30 lbs. sugar 5 lbs. vermilion 2 lbs. beads 30 lbs. tobacco 2 doz. moccasin awls 1 doz. scissors 6 doz. looking gla.s.ses 1 doz. gun worms 1 doz. fire-steels 2 gross hawks bells 2 gross knives 1 gross combs 2 bu. parched corn 5 gal. whiskey Bullet pouches Powder horns Skin canoes Packing skins Canteens Forage bags Several hatchets A little salt A few trinkets Pack cards Small packing boxes for insects.

They followed along the Platte River, and stopped for a time at the junction of the North Fork of that River with the South Fork, where North Platte is now situated. Here they tell of watching the beavers cut down a cottonwood tree. They observed that when it was nearly ready to fall, one of the beavers swam out into the river and posted itself as a sentinel. As soon as it saw the tops of the branches begin to move, it gave the signal by giving the water a resounding slap with its flat tail, when every beaver scampered out of reach of the falling tree. It must have been a moonlight night when they were there, otherwise they would not have seen the beavers at work, for they reverse nature's order and sleep in the daytime, working at night.

They sleep in their houses, with their bodies in the water, and their heads resting out of the water on a stick. At twilight, a wise old mother beaver comes out and swims all around the pond or river, looking and smelling. Their sense of smell is very keen, and those who wish to observe them do so from treetops near the water. If after a careful investigation, the sentinel decides there are no man people, or wild animals around, one slap of the tail on the water is given, and out pops the nose of every beaver of the band, and all proceed with their work, exactly where it ended at sunrise. If the one on picket duty sees or hears anything that seems suspicious, three sharp resounding strokes of the tail sends every beaver in a flash to his hiding place, and nothing will tempt them out again that night. They have an instinct for making a tree fall in exactly the place where they want it, and it is used as a foundation for the numerous dams they build in the streams.

On June 30th, Long's party got their first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. Later on, when they were camped near Ft. Lupton, opposite the Peak, they gave it the name of Long, its alt.i.tude being fourteen thousand two hundred and seventy feet.

None of the party were ever near the Peak. Two of them, more courageous than the others, rode out one memorable morning, under a cloudless sky, with their faces towards the snowy range--rode away to defeat and oblivion. As morning turned to noon and they seemed no nearer to the pinnacle than when they started, they retraced their steps across the silent plain. Thus they lost an opportunity of forever linking their names to undying fame. Had they proceeded, they could have electrified a nation by writing into their report a page that would have remained undimmed to the end of time. It was theirs, had they embraced it, to have discovered Estes Park, the gorgeous setting that crowns the approach to the King of Peaks. But they turned back; back from the snow-white mountains beckoning them onward; from the purple tints that veiled the mystic summits in a mellow haze; from the lights and shadows playing over hill and dale, under a canopy of fleecy clouds.

Beautiful Estes Park! Rarest gem of all the sparkling jewels that adorn the bosom of this fair world! In you the Divine Hand has created the masterpiece of all earthly beauty! You are so freighted down with scenic blessings that the mould was broken in your formation and there can be no duplication! Glorious is your resting place under the cloudless sky, as you lie in the embraces of the soft and balmy air that envelops you! Beautiful are your gra.s.sy slopes and velvet meadows, asleep beneath the gleaming stars, awake under the mellow skies, reaching away in a panoramic view of exquisite colorings!

Faultless are Nature's highways as they wind in and out among your fir and spruce, your pine and aspen, through silvery glades and leafy dells, by rocky gorges and towering cliffs! Lovely are the azure lakes that rest against your mountain sides, reflecting in their limpid depths your rocks and trees, your lights and shades, your fleecy clouds and snow-clad peaks! How gentle is the flow of your sounding streams; how they eddy and fall; how they tumble and roar, as they hurry along to their far-away home in the sea! How grand and terrible are the awe-inspiring storms that gather in the mountains high above you, as cloud rolls upon cloud, black, dense, lowering; how the terrific peals of thunder crash from peak to peak, like the duel of artillery meeting on the field of carnage in the mighty shock of battle!

As light follows darkness, as suns.h.i.+ne comes after the rain, as peace succeeds strife, the clouds unveil, the tempest is calmed, the glory of the sun dispels the gloom, and the storm lashed pinnacles robed in eternal snow, light up under the glow of the lingering twilight. The tiny throated songsters warble their simple evening notes, ever old and forever new, rivaling the music of the streams, as they flood this paradise of parks with an ecstasy of melody. The eagle mounts skyward, rising higher and higher, in ever widening circles, standing out against the sky, then soaring away beyond the vision to his eyrie in the gaping gorge of the lofty crest.

The opalescent hues envelop the mountain rims. The fiery red, flames into a glow, melts to the softest purple, blends to the rarest gray, and in a delirium of rich colors the sun goes down in a cloud of glory. The sublimity of the scene clings like a halo around the sky-piercing summits. The day darkens, and the rosy tints of sunset fade into a flood of moonlight that mirrors the s.h.i.+ning stars in the rivers, flowing far below under the mysterious shadows of the mighty cliffs.

Long and his party followed along the Platte River by the place where Denver is located, and on to Colorado Springs, at which point some of them attempted to climb Pike's Peak, but did not succeed. Greatly to their discredit, they named that Peak for "James," one of their number, instead of for "Pike," its discoverer. The people saw to it, however, that the name thus given it, should not be permanent. The people are nearly always right. The party proceeded on to Canon City and Pueblo, and then this exploring party made a discovery; they discovered that their biscuits were running short, so they immediately started home. They had left Council Bluffs, June 6th; they knew how long five hundred pounds of biscuits would last twenty men; so they knew they were on a pleasure trip and would have to start back July 19th, just one month and thirteen days after they set out, and ten days after they reached Colorado. When we think of the faithful Pike and his loyal men, freezing, starving, persisting; think of them with worn-out cotton clothing in winter, instead of warm flannel; of making shoes out of raw buffalo hides; of persevering in the face of every obstruction, and then read Long's report of starting back in midsummer, for the want of biscuits, our admiration grows for Lieutenant Pike and his devoted party of courageous men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Buffalo Runner.]

Major Long's report to the Government was of such a discouraging nature that it r.e.t.a.r.ded the settlement of the country for nearly half a century, and it should never have been written. He was quoted in the newspapers, and people everywhere read of a "desert inhabited by savages," a sentiment that became so firmly fixed in the minds of many in the Eastern States that the prejudices of the people have only in recent years been wholly removed. He often refers in his report to the enormous herds of fat buffalo that "darken the plains." How this queer-shaped animal with its powerful front and slender hind parts originated, or where it came from, will forever remain an unsolved mystery like the beginning of the race of Indians. They were here in immense droves. Ernest Seton Thompson thinks that there were seventy millions within the compa.s.s of their range, which was from the Allegheny Mountains on the East, to Nevada on the West; and that fifty millions of them were west of the Mississippi River. He bases his estimate on the amount of acreage they grazed over, and the number of animals the pasturage would sustain. I think he is far too low in his estimate. If we a.s.sign forty feet of s.p.a.ce to each buffalo they would occupy an area, if bunched together, of but sixty-four thousand two hundred and eighty acres, or only one hundred square miles, which would be equal to a herd twenty-five miles long and four miles wide.

The Government reports give an estimate of two hundred and fifty millions killed, from 1850 to 1883.