A VISIT TO FORT BENTON.

It was in the early seventies I visited Fort Benton, the town at the head of navigation of the Missouri river. It was a busy place then, for it was in the summer and during the boating season, and the time the traders were bringing their collections of robes, pelts and furs, and shipping them, principally to Sioux City and St. Louis. Fort Benton, no doubt, is the oldest town in Montana. It was built in 1846 by Alexander Culbertson, who was at the head of a fur trading company. The buildings were occupied by this company for many years. It was two hundred and fifty feet square and built of adobe. At one time since then it was occupied by the military; parts of the walls still stand (1898).

In the volume for 1876 of the Historical Society of Montana there is a very interesting sketch of the fur traders and trading posts under the title of “Adventures on the Upper Missouri,” in which Fort Benton is spoken of. This sketch was written by the late James Stuart, after obtaining his information from the best authorities. I cannot think of anything more interesting or more appropriate at this time than to give the following extracts from Mr. Stuart’s writings:

“Fort Union was the first fort built on the Missouri river, which is above the mouth of the Yellowstone. In the summer of 1829 Kenneth McKenzie, a trader from the upper Mississippi, near where St. Paul, Minnesota, is now located, with a party of fifty men came across to the upper Missouri river looking for a good place to establish a trading post for the American Fur Company. (McKenzie was a member of that company.) They selected a site a short distance above the mouth of the Yellowstone river, on the north bank of the Missouri, and built a stockade two hundred feet square of logs, about twelve inches in diameter and twelve feet long, set perpendicularly, putting the lower end two feet in the ground, with two block-house bastions on diagonal corners of the stockade, twelve feet square and twenty feet high, pierced with loop holes. The dwelling house, warehouses and store were built inside, but not joining the stockade, leaving a space of about four feet between the walls of the buildings and the stockade. All the buildings were covered with earth, as a protection against fire by incendiary Indians. There was only one entrance to the stockade—a large double-leaved gate, about twelve feet from post to post, with a small gate three and a half by five feet long, in one of the leaves of the main gate, which was the one mostly used, the large gate being only opened occasionally when there were no Indians in the vicinity of the fort. The houses, warehouses and store were all built about the same height as the stockade. The above description, with the exception of the area enclosed by the stockade, will describe nearly all the forts built by traders on the Missouri river from St. Louis to the headwaters.

“The fort was built to trade with the Assinnaboines, who were a large tribe of Indians ranging from White Earth river, on the north side of the Missouri, to the mouth of Milk river, and north into the British possessions.

“In 1832 the first steamboat named the ‘Yellowstone,’ arrived at Fort Union. From that time, every spring, the goods were brought up by steamboats, but the robes, peltries, etc., were shipped from the fort every spring by Mackinaws to St. Louis. In the winter of 1830 McKenzie, desirous of establishing a trade with the Blackfeet and Gros Ventres (the Minatarees of Lewis and Clarke), sent a party of four men—Burger, Dacoteau, Morceau, and one other man in search of the Indians and to see if there was sufficient inducement to establish a trading post. The party started up the Missouri river with dog sleds to haul a few presents for the Indians. They followed the Missouri to the mouth of the Marias river, thence up the Marias to the mouth of Badger creek, without seeing an Indian, finding plenty of game of all kinds and plenty of beaver in all the streams running into the Missouri. Every night when they camped they hoisted the American flag, so that if they were seen by any Indians during the night they would know it was a white man’s camp; and it was very fortunate for them that they had a flag to use in that manner, for the night they camped at Badger creek they were discovered by a war party of Blackfeet who surrounded them during the night, and, as they were about firing on the camp, they discovered the flag and did not fire, but took the party prisoners. A part of the Indians wanted to kill the whites and take what the party had, but through the exertions and influence of a chief named ‘Good Woman,’ they were not molested in person or property, but went in safety to the Blackfoot camp on Belly river and stayed with the camp until spring. During the winter they explained their business, and prevailed upon about one hundred Blackfeet to go with them to Fort Union to see McKenzie. They arrived at Fort Union about the 1st of April, 1831, and McKenzie got their consent to build a trading post at the mouth of the Marias. The Indians stayed about one month, then started home to tell the news to their people. McKenzie then started James Kipp, with seventy-five men and an outfit of Indian goods, to build a fort at the mouth of the Marias river, and he had the fort completed before the winter of 1831. It was only a temporary arrangement in winter, in order to find out whether it would pay to establish a permanent post. Next spring Colonel Mitchell (afterwards colonel in Doniphan’s expedition to Mexico) built some cabins on Brule bottom to live in until a good fort could be built. The houses at the mouth of the Marias were burned after the company moved to Brule bottom. Alexander Culbertson was sent by McKenzie to relieve Mitchell and to build a picket stockade two hundred feet square on the north bank of the Missouri river, which he completed during the summer and fall of 1832. This fort was occupied for eleven years, until Fort Lewis was built by Culbertson on the south side of the Missouri river, near Pablois Island, in the summer of 1844. Fort Brule was then abandoned and burned. In 1846 Fort Lewis was abandoned, and Fort Benton was built by Culbertson, about seven miles below Fort Lewis, on the north bank of the Missouri river. It was 250 feet square, built of adobe laid upon the ground without any foundation of stone, and is now standing (1875) and occupied as a military post. The dwellings, warehouses, stores, etc., were all built of adobes. The Piegans, Blackfeet and Blood Indians, all talking the same language, claimed and occupied the country from the Missouri river to the Saskatchewan river. Prior to the building of the winter quarters at the mouth of the Marias, they had always traded with the Hudson Bay Company and the American Fur Company. The Hudson Bay Company often sent men to induce the confederated Blackfeet to go north and trade, and the Indians said they were offered large rewards to kill all the traders on the Missouri river and destroy the trading posts. McKenzie wrote to Governor Bird, the head man of the Hudson Bay Company in the north, in regard to the matter, and Bird wrote back to McKenzie, saying: ‘When you know the Blackfeet as well as I do, you will know that they do not need any inducements to commit depredations.’

“In 1832 McKenzie sent Tollock, with forty men, to build a fort at the mouth of the Big Horn river. Tollock built the fort named Van Buren, on the south side of the Yellowstone, about three miles below the mouth of the Big Horn river. It was 150 feet square, picket stockade, with two bastions on diagonal corners. In 1863 I saw the location. The pickets showed plainly that they had been burned to the ground, and several of the chimneys were not entirely fallen down. The fort was built to trade with the Mountain Crows, an insolent, treacherous tribe of Indians. They wanted the location of their trading post changed nearly every year, consequently they had four trading posts built from 1832 to 1850, viz.: Fort Cass, built by Pollock on the Yellowstone, below Fort Buren, in 1836; Fort Alexander, built by Lawender, still lower down on the Yellowstone river in 1848, and Fort Sarpey, built by Alexander Culbertson in 1850 at the mouth of the Rose Bud. Fort Sarpey was abandoned in 1853, and there have not been any trading forts built on the Yellowstone since up to the present time (1875). Kenneth McKenzie, after Lewis and Clarke, was the pioneer of the upper Missouri. He was a native of the Highlands of Scotland. When young he came in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, and started to explore the country from Hudson’s Bay to Red river to Lake Winnipeg; thence to the Lake Superior country; finally concluded to locate on the upper Mississippi. In 1822 he went to New York and got an outfit of Indian trade goods on credit and established an Indian trading post on the upper Mississippi and remained in that part of the country until 1829, when he came to Missouri and established Fort Union. He was in charge of all the Northwestern fur trade until 1839, when he resigned to enter the wholesale liquor trade at St. Louis, Mo. He resided at St. Louis until his death in 1856 or 1857. Alexander Culbertson assumed his position as fur trader in 1839.”

The town of Fort Benton was first surveyed by Colonel De Lacy in 1859. Choteau county was established by the legislature in an act approved Feb. 2, 1865, with the county seat at Fort Benton. The county was named in honor of Pierre Choteau, Jr., the president of the American Fur Company. Major George Steell, now of Dupuyer, Teton county, was one of its first county commissioners. Fort Benton was named in honor of Thomas H. Benton, United States Senator from Missouri.

In 1864 the American Fur Company sold their interests to the Northwestern Fur Company. After that many other traders erected posts throughout the territory. Those in the northern part had their headquarters at the town of Fort Benton. Many steamboats loaded with furs, pelts and robes left the wharf of this old town during the period from 1860 to 1880. At the time of the visit referred to there were many representatives of the large fur companies on their annual visit from the East to inspect the business of their respective companies. There were also Indian commissioners who had been sent by the government from Washington to close some deal with the Indians; of course all the Indian chiefs were there, besides many other Indians, “ox-drivers” (bull whackers) and steamboat hands. One day, when these Eastern visitors were in town, a pack train arrived from one of the trading posts. On the back of one of the mules was a small brass cannon (mountain howitzer); it was lashed on with the muzzle towards the rear end of the mule. The government representative seized the opportunity to show the Indians what a terrible weapon that was on the back of the mule. The animal, with his burden, was led to Front street, and a crowd of two or three hundred followed, half of which were Indians. It was decided to fire a few shots from the cannon while it was on the back of the mule at a high-cut bank that was half a mile away and across the river. A certain spot was shown to the Indians where the shot was supposed to hit, and, to strike the spot designated on the clay bank, which loomed up like some old castle, an extra heavy load was put in. Finally the man in charge of the mule stood in front of the quadruped with the rings of the bit in each hand. Now he has the business end of the mule where he wants it; another man was adjusting the cannon, and, taking aim, while the third one took a match from his vest pocket, scratched it on the hip of his pants and touched the fuse. The hissing sound of the burning fuse made the mule lay down his ears and began putting a hump in his back; next thing he whirled round and round, in spite of his manager trying to get him back to his first position. By this time everybody was going for dear life, and the mule was making the circle faster than ever, and the gun was liable to go off at any moment. There was a perfect stampede; many went over the bank into the river, others were crawling on their hands and knees, while many laid flat on the ground, broadcloth and buckskin alike—the man held to the bridle and the mule held the fort. Luckily, on account of the bend in the mule’s back, the shot struck the ground but a short distance from his heels. Many of the Indians never moved, thinking that the maneuvers of the mule were a part of the performance.

J. J. Healy (now Captain Healy, the manager of the North American Transportation and Trading Company) was there. Healy had fought Indians and assisted in arresting some of the worst desperadoes in the Northwest, who were terrorizing the country about that time. But the mule was too much for him, as he was seen going for dear life over the bank into the river. It was the first time anyone ever saw Healy “take water.”

The same cannon is now owned in Great Falls and was used to celebrate the Fourth of July, 1898. The mule could not be found.

“THE MULE AND THE MOUNTAIN HOWITZER.”

It was a common occurrence then at Fort Benton to see from six to eight steamers tied at the wharf at the same time and loaded for their return trips with robes, furs and pelts. The principal articles the traders had for traffic with the Indians were blankets, blue and scarlet cloth, calico, domestic goods, ticking, tobacco, knives, fire steel, arrow points, files, brass wire of different sizes, beads, brass tacks, wide leather belts, silver ornaments for the hair, shells, axes and hatchets. Many articles were smuggled and traded to the Indians which the law prohibited. The articles brought by the Indians for trade were elk, deer, antelope, bear, wolf, beaver, otter, fox, mink, marten, wild cat, skunk and badger skins, and principally buffalo robes. At the time when the country was literally covered with buffaloes, and before the traders were in the country to supply the Indians with guns or even steel arrow points, the Indians would move from place to place with two or three hundred lodges or tepees, with from five to seven people to the lodge. The tepees were made of tanned skins and a few small poles and so constructed that they could be taken down and put up in a few minutes.

INDIANS WITH TRAVOIS.

With the poles, that were about fifteen feet long, they would make their travois by placing a number of poles on each side of a pony and tying one end of them to the girth of the saddle from which a strap reached across the breast of the animal. Then two cross-sticks, about four feet apart, were tied to each bunch of poles and close to the horse, and on these sticks a buffalo rawhide was stretched in a basket-like manner on which a stack of robes, pelts and furs was lashed. Each family had one or more of these simple conveyances, arranged as the one to the left in the illustration. In these they would carry their small trinkets, young pappooses, and the old people that were too old to ride a pony. In this way they would move from camp to camp with perfect ease and without delay, following the great herds of buffalo. When they needed meat the chief would give orders to make “a round.” Under the direction of the war chief several hundred would turn out, some on horses, others on foot, and would quietly surround a herd of the buffaloes, and, closing up the circle, the buffaloes would run round and round in a circle, and as the outside ones would go by the Indians killed them with their arrows. The buffalo, the same as sheep, would follow the leaders, and, after getting them started in one direction, they would all follow that way. I know a place near where I used to live on Sun river where the Indians a long time ago used to surround the buffalo and run them over a precipice, and at a point where there was but room for one at a time to go in safety. The Indians would get a few to start, then close up on the big herd and rush them over the cliffs pell-mell; hundreds would be killed and many crippled, and those they would kill with the bows and arrows. They called this manner of hunting “a run.”

There are now on this spot great quantities of decayed bones, and hundreds of flint arrow points have been picked up by settlers. Professor Mortson, of this city, has in his cabinet now several hundreds of these points which he found. There is another place of this kind near St. Peter’s Mission, where these runs were made.

Now the buffaloes are extinct. Where they used to roam, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle now graze. And the Indians’ mode of living, since they are on their reservation, is entirely different. “Now” they live in houses, and the old Indian tepees made of skins cannot be found.

Until but a few years ago, the “Old Town at the head of navigation” was a great Indian trading post; her stores and warehouses were filled with Indian goods and their trade was exclusively with Indians. Today Fort Benton is a modern city with brick blocks, has a fine courthouse, public schools and churches, and many attractive homes. She has a railway depot, water works and many other modern improvements.

At the entrance of one of the main avenues of the city a steel drawbridge spans the Missouri river. And now her business houses carry the same kind and as fine goods as Eastern firms; her warehouses are filled with miners’ tools, machinery, and all kinds of agricultural implements for the trade of hundreds of thrifty farmers, who are cultivating the land which was but a short time ago the red man’s hunting ground.

Robert Vaughn.

July 11, 1898.

THEN.

NOW.

THEN.

NOW.

JOHN D. BROWN.
A NARRATIVE OF HIS EARLY EXPERIENCE IN THE WEST.

One day last December, when standing on the corner of Central avenue and Third street, Great Falls, I saw a lame old man coming towards me. Though his hair was white as snow, his cheeks were as rosy as those of a schoolboy, and, as he came to me and grasped me by the hand, he said: “Well, Mr. Vaughn, I came to town to pay my taxes, and as you have already asked me to come and stay at your house, I shall now accept the invitation and tell you the story of my early days in the West.” The old gentleman referred to was John D. Brown, one of the first pioneers in the part of the country which now comprises the state of Montana.

That evening Mr. Brown related to me the following experiences:

I left St. Paul, Minnesota, in September, 1858, in company with George Wakefield, William Fairweather and others. We had decided to go to Colville, Washington territory, crossing the Rocky mountains through the Kootenai pass in the British possessions. At Sauk Rapids we met several Frenchmen, among them being the three Mauchoirs boys, the two Besoits, Shirlepeau and Felix Odell, all Canadian Frenchmen. On the eighth of October we crossed the Mississippi river at Crow Wing among floating ice, then we made a big campfire, and slept with our feet to the fire. Bill Fairweather was my bedfellow. We awoke in the morning to find a foot of snow on top of us. After breakfast we traveled through the deep snow and were overtaken by Tom McDonald, a Scotchman, an old fur trader, and with whom we camped at Otter Tail for a few days in order to rest our animals. There were but very few settlers at Otter Tail at that time. The Frenchmen had ox teams and we had horses. We had with us a year’s supply of provisions.

The first night we camped after leaving Otter Tail the Chippewa Indians stole everything we had; then we were, of course, unable to proceed on our journey, and so we returned to McDonald’s place and remained there a week. There was a government surveying party making their headquarters there then. McDonald and the surveyors explained to the Indians that we were on our way to the Pacific coast, and the consequence was that we recovered our property; also the Indians gave us the right of way to cross their country the same as the Hudson Bay people had. Starting out again, one day we met an old half-breed carrying mail, who misdirected us as to the way we should go and, when it was time to camp, there was neither water nor fuel to be had, and a foot of snow was on the ground, and it was several degrees below zero. It was twelve o’clock at night before we found a place to camp where there was wood and water. We turned our animals out to eat rushes, which were plentiful. At daybreak the next morning, the oxen came running madly out of the timber with three moose after them, evidently the moose thinking that the oxen were of their own species. The oxen stampeded and the moose were right behind them, keeping them going through the deep snow, until all were out of sight. Two of the Frenchmen followed and were gone the entire day without having first had their breakfast, and it was about midnight when they returned with the oxen, after having followed them and the moose for at least thirty miles, and when they caught up with the outfit the moose were still with the oxen. On account of this chase it became necessary for us to stay in camp for a couple of days to allow the men and the oxen to rest themselves. Finally we arrived at Pembina, where Joe Rolette kept a trading post. He was pretty well fixed financially. After staying at Rolette’s place for a few days, we crossed the Red river on the ice, destined for Fort Geary (now Winnipeg), which was supposed to be about sixty miles from Pembina, and which place we reached about Christmas. At Fort Geary everybody spoke French, with the exception of some English soldiers stationed there.

As by that time winter had set in and the snow was getting deep, we concluded to stay there until spring. Bill Fairweather and I went to work cutting logs for a man named McDonald. We hewed the logs on four sides, for which we received fifty cents for every ten feet, running measure. We worked there until spring (1859) and made considerable money.

Early that spring Bill Sweeney, Henry Edgar, Bill Fairweather, George White, Tom Healy, and others of the party, started on their western journey by the Kootenai pass. Larry Campbell (who used to keep a store at Diamond City, in Meagher county), Jack Brash, Sandy Gibson, Jim Wandel, Bill Smith and I decided to take the Milk river route, and thence down the Blackfoot river on the Pacific side of the Rocky mountains. After arriving on the Assiniboine river, we camped there for a few days. Here we met one of the Catholic fathers, with whom we signed an agreement to raft logs down the Assiniboine river and deliver them by the middle of May. As we were all good river men, we did very well. The logs were to be used to build the Palestine Mission. At that time there was an American named John Morgan who was a trader for the American Fur company at Fort Union, and who was married to a daughter of Chief Firewind of the Assiniboine tribe. Morgan had started another trading post on the Canada side, he being an American, having come from the state of Ohio. We bought what goods we needed from him. His mother-in-law came over frequently on a visit, and, as we stopped at Morgan’s place during most of the winter, she got to know us very well, and, owing to the further fact that we were the very best of friends with Morgan, she naturally took a liking to us.

About the first of April I came to Morgan’s trading post to get a stock of provisions to use on the rafting trips. Morgan had gone to Fort Geary and the old lady was left in charge of the goods. Morgan had told her to let the American boys have anything they wanted. I remained there until Morgan returned, and during this time the old woman treated me kindly. Shortly after his return, he said to me, “Now, Mr. Brown, the old lady is going back home in a couple of days and, as you will be going that way, she might be of some service to you. It would be a good idea for you to make her a small present.” I was pretty flush with money, so I bought her a couple of dresses and a Cree war blanket for her to give to the chief, and a lot of beads and trinkets, amounting probably to twenty-five dollars for the whole outfit. In a few days she left for her home camp on the American side.

About the first of May we got through rafting and started westward. Some days we would travel but ten miles. Buffalo were plenty and we killed fat ones and dried the meat to use on our journey. On the 25th of May we espied an Assiniboine Indian coming towards us; he was on horseback. Presently we saw another, by and by another, and they kept on increasing. We had plenty of ammunition, but they were ten to our one. Well, they captured us, took us to their camp as prisoners and held a war dance over us and threatened to kill us. They stripped us of everything we had, clothing and all. Just then it happened that the old squaw to whom I made those presents was in the Indian camp, and when she saw me she ran and placed her hands upon my neck and kissed me and conducted us to the chief’s tent, which was also her own, and she cooked dinner for us. Then she brought out the articles that I had given her at Morgan’s trading post, and she held in her hand the Cree war blanket and the pipe that I gave her to hand to the chief, while at the same time she was pointing to me and telling him that I was the man that gave them. After that I was at liberty to go around the camp and out hunting, and so forth, but my companions were put in a tepee and a guard kept over them night and day. At that time we did not know whether we were in the British possessions or on the American side. We were captured close to what is known as the Widow mountain. We were kept prisoners for six weeks and shamefully treated during this time. The poor old squaw worried a great deal on account of the condition we were in. She could talk a few words of English, and she did all she could to console us by telling us that we would not be killed, and so on. I am satisfied that she was the cause of our not being murdered at the time they stripped us.

When Major Schoonover, who was Indian agent at Fort Union, heard of our being captured, he sent out his interpreter to tell Firewind and Antelope, both Assiniboine chiefs, to bring in the white prisoners to him, and that unless they did so they would get no annuities for that year. We were about two weeks getting in; we reached Fort Union on the morning of the 4th of July. We related to Major Schoonover all the facts in relation to our having been taken prisoners, and where we were from and where we were going. He took us up-stairs to his room and said, “Well, boys, this is the 4th of July.” We had lost track of the day of the month, and did not know that it was the 4th of July until then. He treated each of us to a good drink of brandy. He asked me where my home was, and I told him that my parents lived in the city of Providence, Rhode Island. He asked the others the same question. Well, Bill Smith was from Baltimore, Jim Wendall from Piclo, Nova Scotia (he was killed in 1863 by Slade, a desperado, when on a freighting trip from Cow Island; Slade was afterwards hanged in Virginia City by the vigilantes). All the others were from Canada. The only true American in the lot was Bill Smith. I was born in Ireland, being three years old when my parents came to Providence.

The major sent for all the chiefs and had a council with them, at which we were present. He told them that we were going across into Washington territory, and that he wanted them to give us the right to cross the country and not detain us again; and he further told them to bring everything that they took from us or he would have to give us goods out of their annuities. The Indians returned to us all of our property and promised not to trouble us any more. The old squaw, when we were leaving, came and shook hands with all of us and expressed gratification at our being safe. We came up the Milk river valley. At the big bend, near what is now Fort Browning, I first saw a grizzly bear. From there we came to Fort Benton and remained there until the spring of 1860.

Captain Mullan was then constructing the Mullan road from Walla Walla to Fort Benton. He wanted men to build bridges, and, as we were all good ax men, we hired out to him. Major Blake had command of several companies of recruits that came up the river to Fort Benton. They were on their way to Colville, Washington territory. The only houses I saw then between Fort Benton and Missoula were those of Johnny Grant, a half-breed who lived at Deer Lodge, and Bob Dempsey, an old discharged soldier, who lived between Gold Creek and what is now Radersburg. He had an Indian woman for a wife. That summer we built a bridge over the Blackfoot river and another over the Big Blackfoot. There were but few white people living there then. I remember Captain Higgins, Baron O’Keefe and old man Moues, who was running a kind of mill and grinding meal for the Indians, and Lou Brown, a Hudson Bay trader, who took charge of a ferry that Mullan built. There were few other white men who lived there then. We went clear through to the Coeur d’Alene; we got there in the month of September. From there we went to Wolf Lodge and crossed the St. Joe river and went down by where the city of Spokane now is; thence to Walla Walla, where we arrived on the 8th of October, 1860. There we separated, John Peterson, who was with me, working for Mullan, and I went to the Dalles in Oregon.

From there I went to the Cascade Falls on the Columbia river. That fall I voted for Stephen A. Douglas for president. When at the Cascades, I worked for the Oregon Navigation company, hewing timber for ship building, for which I received twenty-five cents per foot. At this place myself and two other men hewed a remarkable stick of timber, it being one hundred and thirty feet in length and four feet square. After the hewing was done, we sawed it lengthways into two pieces. The sawing was done by hand (whipsawing), there being no sawmills in the country at that time.

Those two huge timbers were used in the building of a steamboat that was to be operated on the upper Columbia river. I worked here until late in the spring of 1861. The following summer I went prospecting on John Day’s river. Finding nothing that would pay, I went to Walla Walla, and remained there during the winter of 1861–2. That winter there was four feet of snow on the level. It was the worst and deepest snow I ever saw in my life. Mr. Gerald, a gentleman with whom I was well acquainted, had twenty-three hundred head of beef steers near Walla Walla; he was furnishing beef for the miners in the Salmon river and the Kootenay country. At that time you could buy five and six-year-old steers in Walla Walla for seven dollars per head. Gerald had several hundred tons of hay put up to feed during the winter; hay and grass were plentiful everywhere, but, for all that, most of the live stock in that country perished from cold and deep snows. You would see those big wild steers coming up the street and eating the cards that had been thrown out of the gambling houses. Gerald told me that out of the 2,300 cattle, and after feeding all the hay, he had but sixty-three cattle in the spring. Wood went up to $80 a cord in Walla Walla, and flour $30 per hundred pounds. Steamboats could not get up and there were no animals to haul the freight. Men used to go thirty miles to Walula to get a sack of flour and packed it on their backs.

In the early part of the winter I furnished a man named Fox with six months’ provisions to go prospecting with John Peeterson on the North fork of the John Day river. In the spring of 1862 I received news from Peeterson stating that they had struck good diggings on Granite creek and for me to come at once. I went from Walla Walla to where Peeterson was. We mined there until fall and did very well, when we sold out for $1,500 to Eph Day, who at one time was the treasurer of the Oregon Navigation company. I suggested to Peeterson that we had better go next to the Fort Benton country, and we decided to do so and started on our journey. Finally we got to Gold Creek. Jack Dunn was there, keeping a store. Jim and Granville Stuart were there. I remember giving Granville the Sacramento Union and he was very glad to get it, for newspapers were very scarce in the camp. They were the men that first found gold in paying quantities in Gold creek, and, for that matter, in the state of Montana, although “Gold Tom,” an old trapper, had found a fair prospect in Gold creek before the Stuarts did. And there I met my old friend, Bill Fairweather, whom I had not seen since we parted at Fort Geary over three years before. A few weeks later I met Bill Sweeney at Bannock.

As I desired to go prospecting east of the Rocky mountain range, I left Bannock about the latter part of October, 1862, in company with John Peeterson and Thomas Thomas. On top of the main range, and where the Mullan road crosses, we met the old frontiersman, John Jacobs. He told us that Captain Fisk, in company with a lot of immigrants from Minnesota, were in camp in the Prickly Pear valley. I went to their camp, which was near to what is now called Montana Bar. James King and W. C. Gillette were there with a lot of flour; from them I bought a sack to go prospecting. With the same outfit came Jesse Cox, Jim Wiley, Albert Agnel, Jim Norton, Charles Cary, Alvin H. Wilcox, A. McNeal, James Fergus, Bob Ells, old man Olan and old man Dalton. They and others were in camp and had not decided where to go next. John Peeterson, Thomas Thomas, Jim and Bill Buchanan, Dick Merrill and I did some prospecting there that fall and got considerable gold.

Late in the fall, myself, a man named Thebeau, Nickolos Bird, and a fellow by the name of Gervais, who could talk the Flathead language, went off with the Flatheads and Pend d’Oreilles Indians to prospect the country they were going to travel through that winter. The Indians were on the way to the Musselshell country to hunt buffaloes. At this time the Flatheads and Piegans were at war with each other.

All the Indians, who numbered from eight to twelve hundred, went through what is now called Confederate gulch. We found good prospects there, but the Indians would not let us stay. It appeared that they had some kind of an understanding with the Crow Indians to go and hunt in that part of the country, but not to encourage any whites to go there, consequently we had to move whenever the Indians would move, and, by this time, they would not let us go back. We camped for several days on the little prairie at the head of Smith river, near where White Sulphur Springs, the county seat of Meagher county, now is. There the Indians had a buffalo hunt and killed many. After that we went down Shields’ river and made three camps there. During all this time the Indians were killing buffalo and drying the meat. At the mouth of Shields’ river we saw a large war party of Crows trying to capture some of the Flatheads and Pend d’Oreilles who were out hunting, and who belonged to the Indians we were with. We camped near where there was a lot of willows. Moise, the head chief of the Flatheads, came and asked me if I would fight; I said yes, and he said, “That is good.” I had a good rifle and two revolvers. Soon our Indians got together and prepared for a battle, but the Crows did not follow, and it was good for them, for the Flatheads and Pend d’Oreilles were well armed and mounted on good horses and were eager for a fight. That night they placed their horses inside the camp and put pickets out in as good way as I ever saw in my life, but the enemy did not make an attack. From there we went east of the Little Snowys. There we met a war party of Piegans coming around what is called Wolfe mountain; there were about thirty of them. They came to our camp to stop all night, and were received as friends, and they played games during the evening with the Pend d’Oreilles. About midnight the Piegans sneaked out and stampeded many of the best horses belonging to the Flatheads and Pend d’Oreilles and started away with them. Chief Moise at once blew a horn and his son beat a kind of drum; this aroused the whole camp. The Pend d’Oreilles and Flathead warriors were in an instant on their best horses and went after the Piegans and captured them all and recovered the stolen horses and brought them to camp. The Pend d’Oreilles wanted to kill the Piegan thieves, but Chief Moise said, “No, we will not kill them, though they are dogs. They came to our tepees as friends, but at the time they were deceiving us. They are dogs; they came to our camp and we treated them as friends, but they got up in the dark of the night and stole our horses. No, we will not kill them, but we will mark them.” Then he ordered his warriors to bring the Piegans to the front of his tepee. After this was done, he ordered them to take the younger bucks and cut their hair short, and to cut a piece off each ear of all the others. During the time this was being done, the Flatheads and Pend d’Oreilles stood with their bows strung, and others with rifles in their hands, ready to shoot if anyone made a move to get away. After the marking was done, the Piegans were taken outside of the camp and were told to go home as dogs and never return or they would be killed as dogs. I witnessed all this.

On Christmas eve, 1862, we were in camp at Wolfe mountain. Chief Moise invited us to his tent to eat a Christmas dinner with him. He knew that it was Christmas day and respected it as such, for he had been taught what the meaning of it was by Father De Smet. His wife cooked dinner for us. She had fried doughnuts as good as any I ever ate, and excellent yeast powder bread; we had buffalo tongue and all kinds of meats. In all my life I never enjoyed a Christmas dinner better than I did that Christmas eve of 1862 in the tepee of the Flathead chief near Wolfe mountain.

Christmas morning I went on the top of what the Indians called Heart mountain. My object was to try and look in the direction of Fort Benton, for I knew we were not far from there, as I could see the Bear Paw mountains plainly. We decided to leave the Indians and go to Fort Benton. The Flathead chief sent six Indians to escort us through. It took us two days and part of a night. The second day out we traveled on a trail where the sage hens were as thick as I ever saw turkeys in a barnyard, but the Indians would not allow us to shoot, fearing that it might draw the attention of other Indians who were hostile to all of us.

Before the Indians started back we gave them tobacco and some matches, and a fancy pipe for them to take to the chief. It was the 18th of January, 1863, when we crossed the Missouri river at Fort Benton, and the river at that time was perfectly free from ice. There were only a few days of cold weather and but little snow that winter.

About the first of March, 1863, Thebeau and I started for the upper country and got as far as Sun river the first day. Vail had charge of the government farm, which was near where we crossed the stream. After going over the hill in the Prickly Pear canyon, and while we were in camp at a little spring W. C. Gillette came along with a cayuse pack train on his way to Fort Benton to get goods for Bannock. Tom Clarey and Jim Gourley were with him. Gillette had his sacks filled with gold dust, and as the road agents were very troublesome at that time, he mistook us for desperadoes; he went by and would not stop to talk with us. From there we went to Montana Bar. By this time the immigrants had nearly all left. Albert Agnel, Alvin H. Wilcox and John Peeterson were there yet, besides a few others. John Peeterson and I sunk a shaft twenty-five feet deep on the bar and found fifty cents to the pan on bed rock. After that Peeterson and I went and surveyed a ditch (it is the same big ditch that now conveys the water from the Prickly Pear creek onto the bench land.) Our surveying apparatus was a triangle and a plumb bob which we made ourselves.

Alvin H. Wilcox, Jesse Crooks, Albert Agnel, and Jim Marston were also interested in the ditch. About the last of May I received word from Bill Sweeny of the discovery of Alder gulch and that he had staked a claim for me, and for me to come as quickly as possible, but it was pretty late in June before I could leave to go to Alder, and when I got there some one had taken possession of my claim, according to miners’ rules, and those were if the owner was not there to represent his claim it could not be held only so many days; consequently I went to work for Bill Sweeny for $14 per day. After working for Sweeny for several weeks, I decided to go back to the bar and do more prospecting. Early in the summer of 1863, I found twenty-five cents to the pan on a bar where the city of Helena is now. I filled the hole up again and built a fire on the fresh dirt to conceal the place, with the intention of going back; that was an old trick which was practiced by the prospectors. As I was interested with John Peeterson in the ditch and the mines on the bar (American bar), and as it was necessary for us to have more sluice boxes, one day I went to cut logs to make lumber. I was on the side of a mountain, when a log rolled and caught my leg between it and a stump. It was some time before I could release myself, and when I did so I found that my leg was broken, and that is why I am lame now. There was no doctor to be had. I squeezed the broken place together the best I could and wrapped it up in some bandages I made out of a pair of overalls I had. That winter (1863–4) I stopped in a little cabin. I hired a man named Talbot, who was a Baptist preacher, to cook and stay with me; I paid him twenty dollars a week for his services and companionship. All this time my leg was troubling me terribly. Knowing Father Ravalli, in whose honor Ravalli county is named (he is now dead, and peace be to his memory, for he was a good man), and hearing that he was at the Mission, near where the Ulm station on the Montana Central railroad is located, I decided to go and see him, for I knew that he was a good physician. I gave a man named Merrill all my interest in the mines to take me as far as Malcolm Clarke’s place at the head of Prickly Pear canyon; from there a man named Morgan, from Fort Benton, took me to the Mission, a distance of fifty-five miles, and he charged me two hundred and fifty dollars, which was all the money I had. Father Ravalli was not at the Mission, but Father Jurada was, he also being a good surgeon. He told me that he could break the leg over again, but it would be shorter. He operated on my leg, and by the summer of 1865 I was able to work.

In 1867 I located the ranch where I am now, and have been ever since. It is like a dream to me when I think of the old trails I traveled over, forty years ago, and, on the other hand, it is a revelation to listen to the rumbling of the heavy trains that pass to and fro on the Montana Central railroad only a few miles from my door; while, looking in another direction, I see clouds of smoke arising and hear the whistle of the locomotives of the Great Falls and Canada railroad, and looking in still another direction I see the city of Great Falls and the towering smokestacks of its great smelters. Where once were the lone trails I helped to blaze through a wilderness inhabited only by wild beasts and savage men, I now see a flourishing city, and the country around me dotted with fine homes and prosperous towns.

While looking back, my imaginary view is tinged with sadness as I realize that the old days are gone forever; nevertheless my declining years are made contented and happy by the knowledge that I have done all that I could to convert this one-time wilderness into an empire, I now lay down the rifle of the pioneer and the pick and shovel of the prospector to pass the remainder of my days in the peace and content that comes from the consciousness of having done my best to help develop this western country that it might become the abiding place of an intelligent and prosperous people. And now, in the sunset of life, as I realize that before many years I shall strike the trail that leads “over the great divide,” I rejoice that I can leave to my children a name honored by being enrolled on the scroll of Montana’s pioneers.”

Now Mr. Brown is past seventy-five years of age and lives with his family on a farm. Sun River is his postoffice. He is a well-preserved man for his age and has a remarkably good memory. What I have written here is but a fraction of that which he told me that evening of what the West was forty-two years ago. The only way to get a true early history of a country is to get such a narrative from its pioneers, and surely John D. Brown should be counted as one of the early historians of the state of Montana.

Robert Vaughn.

January 4, 1900.