“A party of trappers and others made a strong boat and manned it well with the determination of floating down the river to take beaver that they supposed lived along its banks. But they found themselves in such danger after entering the kenyon that with might and main they thrust their trembling boat ashore and succeeded in leaping upon the crags and lightening it before it was swallowed in the dashing torrent.”
They had a difficult time in getting out of the canyon, but finally, by means of ropes and by digging steps with their rifle barrels, they reached the open country and made their way back to the starting-point. This was, possibly, the expedition which was wrecked in Lodore, after Ashley’s Red Canyon trip. I have not succeeded in finding any other account that would fit that place. Arriving at Fort Davy Crockett, in Brown’s Park, he describes it as “a hollow square of one-storey log cabins, with roofs and floor of mud. Around these we found the conical skin lodges of the squaws of the white trappers who were away on their fall hunt, and also the lodges of a few Snake Indians who had preceded their tribe to this their winter haunt. Here also were the lodges of Mr. Robinson, a trader, who usually stations himself here to traffic with the Indians and white trappers. His skin lodge was his warehouse, and buffalo robes spread on the ground his counter, on which he displayed his butcher knives, hatchets, powder, lead, fish-hooks, and whiskey. In exchange for these articles he received beaver skins from trappers, money from travellers, and horses from the Indians. Thus, as one would believe, Mr. Robinson drives a very snug little business. And, indeed, when all the independent trappers are driven by the appearance of winter into this delightful retreat, and the whole Snake village, two thousand or three thousand strong, impelled by the same necessity, pitch their lodges around the fort and the dances and merrymakings of a long winter are thoroughly commenced, there is no want of customers.”
Uinta Utes, Saiar’s Home.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.
With this happy picture of frontier luxury in the trapper period I will close the scene. Unwittingly, but no less thoroughly, the trappers had accomplished a mission: they had opened the gates of the wilderness. Two-thirds of these intrepid spirits had left their bones on the field, but theirs had been the privilege of seeing the priscan glory of the wilderness.
Note.—Near the emigrant crossing of Green River, in Wyoming, early in 1849, a party bound for California discovered an old scow ferry-boat, twelve feet long and about six feet wide, with two oars. Deciding to complete their journey by water they embarked. Later they built canoes. They were: William Lewis Manly (aged 29); M. S. McMahon; Charles and Joseph Hazelrig; Richard Field; Alfred Watson; and John Rogers. Manly’s account appears entirely truthful. He tells of canyons, rapids, etc., till near the mouth of Uinta River they met the Ute chief Walker (Wakar) who explained by signs that the fury of the river below was worse than above, and all but two gave up. These two, McMahon and Field, stopped with the Utes, intending to continue. The others went to Salt Lake. Wakar (whom McMahon calls “the generous old chief”) repeated his warnings. Field lost courage, and finally McMahon also abandoned the desire. Manly’s story (first published in the Santa Clara Valley Weekly) is given in his book Death Valley in ’49. The volume was edited by the late Henry L. Brainard, head of the San Jose, California, company which, in 1894, published it. It was Mr. Brainard who secured the story from Manly for the Weekly. Mrs. Brainard says of Manly: “He was one of the dearest old men; kind, loving, gentle, as one seldom meets in this world. It was a pleasure to meet and know him. His character was unblemished.” At one place which I identify as lower Disaster Falls, Canyon of Lodore, they came to a deserted camp, “a skiff and some heavy cooking utensils, with a notice posted on an alder [box-elder] tree, saying that they had found the river route impracticable... and were about to start overland to Salt Lake.” Manly took down the signed names of this party but his diary was later lost by fire. Apparently the cooking utensils, etc., were the same we saw twenty-two years later at that place and thought were wreckage (see p. 255). Manly died February 5, 1903, and is buried at Merced, California.
CHAPTER VI.
