CHARLES CHOQUETTE COMING TO MONTANA IN 1843.
The following sketch, from Charles Choquette, appeared in the New York Sun in the summer of 1899. Mr. Choquette says:
“My home was in the state of Missouri, near St. Louis. One day in 1843, when I was twenty years old, I went to St. Louis, and, against the will of my parents, hired to Pierre Choteau, who was the head man of a fur trading company that operated on the upper Missouri river. A few days after signing articles with the company I was put in charge of a crew to take Mackinaw boats loaded with goods to trade with the Indians. Our destination was Fort Union, which was a trading post belonging to the company to whom I hired. The distance from St. Louis to Fort Union is about two thousand miles. As oars were of little service, the big boat had to be towed nearly all the way. First on one side and then on the other, tugging on a rope, at times up to our waists in chilly water, and at other times forcing our way through brush that grew thick on the banks of the stream. After seventy-two days of hardships and dangers, we arrived safely at Fort Union, which was near the mouth of the Yellowstone river.
“It was not long before I and others were sent out along the various streams and into the mountains to trap fur-bearing animals that were very plentiful then. Many trappers had been killed by Indians, and others were continually robbed by them. It was not until I finally married a Blackfoot woman and traveled about with the tribe that I felt reasonably safe of getting my season’s catch of furs to the company posts. For several years after I arrived at Fort Union I went with one or two companions each season up the Milk river to the Snowys or the Little Rockies, and about half of the time the Indians stole our furs. The first big catch I made was the time I met Jim Bridger, the great trapper, hunter and scout, and one of the bravest men that ever lived. Now I will tell how it happened that we met.
“In the spring of 1848 we returned to Fort Union and we had only the few beaver we caught coming down the river. We had wintered up on the Fourchette, and the Assinaboines had raised our cache. We worked around the fort all summer, hunting for the company, and finally the time came for us to start out for another season’s trapping. There were three of us—Antoine Busette, Louis La Breche and myself. All summer we had been trying to decide on the best place to go, where there would be plenty of beaver and where we would be likely to be safe from the Indians. We concluded to try the country of the Yellowstone. There were many Indians to pass—Cheyennes and Crows and Snakes—besides the chance of war parties of other tribes, but once in the mountains beyond these people who always hunted on the plains, we felt we would be safe. We played Indian ourselves and traveled nights, hiding in some good place during the daytime.
“We left the fort late in August. Each of us had a saddle horse and two pack horses. Our outfit was simple; a couple of skillets and pots, a little bedding, an Indian lodge for shelter, a couple of axes, three dozen traps, and plenty of ammunition and tobacco. Having crossed the Missouri just below the mouth of the Yellowstone, we struck out over the rolling prairie, keeping far enough back from the latter stream to head its long coulees and breaks. None of us had ever been up the Yellowstone, but we had obtained a general idea of the country from the Indians who visited the fort. On every side there were buffalo and antelopes in countless thousands, from which we could have selected a fat one for our breakfast, but there was no water, and we were as thirsty as we were hungry; so we kept wearily on towards some wooded breaks a long ways ahead, where water as well as game was sure to be found. When we got within a mile of our destination, a dozen or more horsemen suddenly rose up out of the valley and came straight at us. Our hearts sunk; it seemed as if we had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Our horses were played out; we could not retreat, and were preparing to dismount and fight the best we knew how when we discovered that the strangers were white men. We had never expected to meet anything but Indians in that wild country. On they came, a big, strong, broad shouldered, flaxened-haired, and blue-eyed man in the lead, riding as fine a saddle animal as I ever saw. They were now quite close; they came within a few paces and stopped.
“‘How?’ exclaimed the big man.
“‘How, how,’ we exclaimed, shaking hands with him in turn.
“‘Who are you?’ he asked, ‘free trappers?’
“‘No,’ I replied, ‘we belong to the Company. And you?’
“‘My name is Bridger,’ he said, ‘Jim Bridger. Maybe you’ve heard of me.’
“We had. There wasn’t a man west of the Mississippi river who did not know him or know of him, for he was the greatest hunter, trapper, and Indian fighter of us all. As we rode along with him and his men to their camp, we told of Indians we had seen the day before, and advised Bridger to move at once, as there was a big camp in the vicinity. He laughed, and just then we came to the edge of the valley, and, with a sweep of his hand, he said: ‘Does that look much like running?’
“It didn’t; around a number of small fires his band of white men—eighty in all, as we afterwards learned—were whiling away the time, smoking, cooking, cleaning guns, and mending clothes.
ALONE IN THE ROCKIES.
“‘No,’ said Bridger, as he noticed our astonishment, ‘we only move when we get ready to, and God help the Indian outfit that tries to stop us. We’ve fought our way out here and we can fight some more.’
“This was Bridger’s first trip into the Yellowstone country, he having before always trapped south of it. He told us that he left St. Louis in July and had fought his way through the country of the Sioux, the Pawnee, the Cheyenne, and the Crow, and that he intended to winter wherever he could find a good fur country. Well, we joined in with him and next day moved westward. It was on the Little Big Horn that we met him, and did not think that twenty-six years later our soldiers would be killed by the Indians there. We traveled on up the Yellowstone for a number of days until we came to the mountains, where, on a little tributary of the river, we built some cabins, got everything in shape for the winter, and then spread out over the country, each one for himself, in search of beaver and other furs. Bridger was sick nearly all winter, but kept doctoring himself with various roots he found and along towards spring recovered his health. He was unable to do any trapping himself, but his men got a big pile of fur, beaver, otter, fisher and marten, of which he owned a share. It was his intention to turn his furs over to the American Fur Company and get drafts for them on St. Louis, so when spring came we all packed up and started for the nearest post, which was Fort Cotten, situated on the Missouri river about forty miles below the Falls.
“We crossed the Yellowstone and swung up into the Musselshell country, trapping leasurely along the way, and by the time we reached the point of the Snowy mountains our animals, even the saddle horses, were so heavily loaded with furs and skins that they could carry no more. At that time of the year beaver trapping was at its best and they were so numerous that every one of us hated to quit. So we made a big cache of our furs, each one putting a tag with his name on his bundle. Three men were then sent to the fort to notify the company to come and haul in the furs, and the rest of us continued on our course, skirting the foot of the Snowy, the Judith and the Belt mountains. I never saw beaver more plentiful, and it was not long before our horses were again well laden. It was in the latter part of April that we came to the Missouri river, exactly where the city of Great Falls stands to-day. All the morning we had seen occasional Indians riding and dodging about ahead of us, and finally we came to the bank of the Missouri, opposite the mouth of Sun river and could look up that valley for quite a distance and we were not surprised to see a string of lodges scattered along the edge of the timber as far as the eye could reach. ‘Bridger,’ says I, ‘those are surely Blackfeet and we’ve got to fight them. Don’t you think we had better find a better place to camp than this unprotected flat?’
“‘No,’ he replied, ‘this is good enough for us. If they come at us here I reckon they’ll get their bellyful of trouble.’
“I said no more, and we went into camp beside the river, at the upper end of the flat on which the city is built. Night came on and the horses were all brought in, hobbled, and staked close to the river, and we made our beds in a circle about them, each one piling his furs, saddles, and whatever he had at the head of his couch as a sort of breast-work. Double guards were put on and betimes the rest of us turned in. I don’t think many of us slept much at first and the time seemed to pass slowly. At midnight the sentries were changed, Bridger himself taking a turn. It was just daylight when the air was filled with whoops, yells and the high-keyed war song of about 400 Indians, as they charged down upon us from all directions.
“‘Don’t get excited, boys, and be sure of your aim. Take it easy, now,’ Bridger hollered out.
“Well, ‘twas good advice, and we did our best, but I tell you the sight of 400 yelling, painted and feathered Indians coming down on you just as fast as their horses could run was mighty trying to one’s nerves. I guess they expected to find us asleep and to stampede our horses in the first round. But when our rifles began to crack and some of them began tumbling out of their saddles, they were more surprised than we, and they turned and wheeled off. Some of them tried to pick up their dead, but we made it too hot for them. One fellow, who had his horse shot under him as he was trying this, lit out, running, and I guess as many as a dozen bullets struck him at once. He tumbled all in a heap. They had done some shooting, too, and two of our men were dead and one wounded. Besides that, some of our horses had been shot. We could count eleven Indians lying out on the plain here and there, and some of the boys started out to scalp them, and did get the hair off several of the nearest ones. But that brought the others back again, and for a while we had another exciting time, as some of the bravest came right at us. If the rest had followed them it would have been all day with us; but they didn’t have the nerve, and of those who did attempt to close in on us few got away. One great, tall fellow had his horse shot from under him and when he struck the ground he made for Bridger, holding a wicked-looking war club in his right hand and a knife in the other. His gun was empty and he had thrown it away.
“Bridger just laughed as he saw him come, and he motioned us to let him alone. His gun was empty, too, but he had a pistol in his left. He wouldn’t use that, though. When they met the Indian aimed a blow at him with his war club, but Bridger caught it on the barrel of his rifle and it flew away off to one side. Then the Indian tried to knife him, but Bridger just punched him with his rifle barrel, so the fellow couldn’t close in, and all of a sudden he hit him square in the forehead and smashed his skull just as cool and easy as could be. We all saw this out of the tail of our eyes, you may say, for we were pretty busy on our own account for a while. But our rifles and good shooting were too much for the Indians, and we made them draw off once more, having killed a lot of them and they only one of our party. We thought then that they had got enough of it and would go away. About 10 o’clock, however, they charged once more, but they didn’t come with half the spirit they had previously shown, and in a few minutes they left us for good and recrossed the river at the ford below. That afternoon we saw them break camp and move up Sun river towards the mountains. They had left forty-seven of their number on the plains before us.”
I have known Mr. Charles Choquette for twenty-nine years. He formerly lived in the Sun river valley and was engaged in farming and stock raising there for several years. He has always been considered one of our best citizens.
The home of Mr. Choquette at the present time is in Teton county in Northern Montana at the foot of the “Rockies,” not far from the Great Northern railroad. He is still a prosperous farmer and stock raiser. He is seventy-six years old, but hale and hearty. Although having roughed it fifty-seven years in the “Rockies,” few men twenty years his junior can keep up with him in climbing mountains and riding horseback. I do not know of one white person who is as old a citizen of what is now the State of Montana as Charles Choquette.
Robert Vaughn.
Great Falls, Mont., Jan. 15, 1900.