By the time the third decade of the nineteenth century was fairly begun the trappers were crossing in considerable numbers from the headwaters of the Missouri and the Platte into the valley of the Colorado and the Columbia, and as early as 1824 one of the most brilliant figures of this epoch, General Ashley,[[2]] having previously organised a fur-trading company in St. Louis, then the centre of all Western commerce, had established himself in Green River Valley with a large band of expert trappers which included now famous names like Henry, Bridger, Fitzpatrick, Green, Sublet, and Beckwourth. Provo (or Provost) was already encamped in Brown’s Hole. One of Ashley’s principal camps was what they called the “rendezvous” (there were a great many French-Canadians engaged in the fur business, and hence numerous French words were in common use among the trappers of the period), just above “The Suck,” on Green River. This Suck was at the entrance to Flaming Gorge, as it has since been named. Beckwourth says of this: “The current, at a small distance from our camp, became exceedingly rapid, and drew toward the centre from each shore.” The river here narrows suddenly and attacks a high ridge. Doubling around a point to the left and then as suddenly to the right, the swift water or “Suck” slackens up in the quieter reach of Flaming Gorge. In their journeys after beaver the Ashley party had been able to go into this gorge and the two following ones, Horseshoe and Kingfisher, and had doubtless trapped in them. Here were many beaver, and Ashley drew the inference that as many existed below in the deeper canyon. Though he had discovered the dangerous character of the river he decided to build boats and set forth on the current in order to trap the canyon, the length of which he did not know and underestimated. A purpose of reaching St. Louis by this route has been attributed to Ashley, but as Hunt and others some years before understood this to be a stream on whose lower waters Spaniards lived, Ashley doubtless had the same information, and from that he would have known that it was no practicable route to St. Louis. Beckwourth, who relates the story of the trip,[[3]] makes no suggestion of any far-off destination, nor does he say they took their packs along, as they would have done if going to a commercial centre. It seems to have been purely a trapping expedition, and was probably the very first attempt to navigate Green River. They took along few provisions, expecting to find beaver plentiful to the end of the canyon, but after a few miles the beaver were absent, and, having preserved none of the meat, the party began to suffer for food. They were six days without eating, and, the high precipitous walls running ever on and on, they became disheartened, or, in Western phrase, “demoralised,” and proposed to cast lots to find which should make food for the others, a proposition which horrified Ashley, and he begged them to hold out longer, assuring them that the walls must soon break and enable them to escape. They had not expected so long a gorge. Red Canyon is twenty-five miles and, with the three above, the unbroken canyon is about thirty-five miles. Under the circumstances the canyon seemed interminable and the cliffs insurmountable. The latter grow more precipitous toward the lower end, and scaling would be a difficult feat for a man well fed and strong, though well-nigh hopeless for any weakened by lack of proper food. At last, however, an opening appeared. Here they discovered Provo encamped with an abundance of provisions, so their troubles were quickly over. The opening they had arrived at was probably Brown’s Hole. There is only one other place that might be called an opening, and this is a small park-like break on the right side of the river, not far above Brown’s Hole, formerly called Little Brown’s Hole and also Ashley Park. The Ashley men would have had a hard climb to get out of this place, and it is not probable that Provo would have climbed into it, as no beaver existed there. It seems positive, then, that Ashley came to Provo in Brown’s Hole. Thus he did not “make his perillous way through Brown’s Hole,” as one author says, because he ended his journey with the beginning of that peaceful park. They lost two of their boats and several guns in Red Canyon, and Ashley left there a mark to identify the time of his passage. He wrote his name and the date, 1825, on a large rock above a sharp fall, which was (later, 1869,) named in his honour. I saw this inscription in 1871 and made a careful copy of it, which is given here. See also the illustration of Ashley Falls on page 113. The location of it is just west of C in the words “Red Cañon” on the map, page 109. In the canyon of Lodore, at the foot of Disaster Falls, we found some wreckage in the sand, a bake-oven, tin plates, knives, etc., which Powell first saw in 1869, but these could not have belonged to Ashley’s party, for plainly Ashley did not enter Lodore at all. It was evidently from some later expedition which probably started from Brown’s Park, in the days of Fort Davy Crockett.
[2] Wm. Henry Ashley, born in Virginia, 1778; went to Missouri 1802; general of militia; elected first governor 1820; went into fur trade 1822 with Andrew Henry; elected to Congress 1831; twice re-elected; continued in office till March 4, 1837.—Chittenden.
[3] Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, edited by T. D. Bonner. Beckwourth was always called “Beckwith” in the mountains, but this was probably only a perversion of the original, though Chittenden seems to think he only assumed the former spelling on publishing his book.
Provo had plenty of horses, and Ashley and his men joined him going out to Salt Lake, where Provo had come from.
Ashley Falls, Red Canyon, Green River.
General Ashley wrote his name on a rock about half way up the picture, on the right, in 1825.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
The year following Ashley’s attempt to trap Green River was a most eventful one in the history of the Colorado. Time appeared to be ripe for great journeys. The Mexicans outside of California were more amiably inclined, and granted privileges to trappers in New Mexico. Two men who were among the first to push their way into New Mexico were James O. Pattie and his father, and the narrative of their experiences as told by the younger Pattie is one of the most thrilling and interesting books of Western adventure ever published.[[4]] They had trapped on the Gila, or “Helay,” as they called it in 1825, and the next year they went back there with a party, trapping the Gila and its tributaries with gratifying success.[[5]] Working their way down the Gila, they eventually reached its junction with what they called Red River, the Great Colorado. Following up the Colorado, probably the first white men to travel here since the time of Garces, they rode through a camp of Coco-Maricopas, who ran frightened away, and the Pattie party, passing them by as if they were mere chaff, camped four miles farther on, where they were visited by about one hundred, “all painted red in token of amity.” Farther up they entered the Mohave country. When they met some of the inhabitants they “marched directly through their village, the women and children screaming and hiding themselves in their huts.” Three miles above, the Patties camped, and a number of the Mohaves soon came to see them. They did not like the looks of the chief, who made signs that he wanted a horse as payment for the privilege of trapping in his domain. As the trappers recognised no rights on the part of the natives, they peremptorily refused, whereat the chief drew himself erect with a stern and fierce air and sent an arrow into a tree, at the same time “raising his hand to his mouth and making their peculiar yell.” The captain of the Pattie band replied by taking his gun and shooting the arrow in two. Driven out of the camp the following day, the chief shot a horse as he rode past it and was himself instantly pierced with four rifle balls.
[4] The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie, of Kentucky, etc., edited by Timothy Flint. Cincinnati, E. H. Flint, 1833. There is a copy in the Astor Library, New York.