The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad track substantially follows the Trail through the mountains, which here afford the wildest and most picturesquely beautiful scenery on the continent.
The Arkansas River at the fording of the Old Trail is not more than knee-deep at an ordinary stage of water, and its bottom is well paved with rounded pebbles of the primitive rock.
The overland trade between the United States and the northern provinces of Mexico seems to have had no very definite origin; having been rather the result of an accident than of any organized plan of commercial establishment.
According to the best authorities, a French creole, named La Lande, an agent of a merchant of Kaskaskia, Illinois, was the first American adventurer to enter into the uncertain channels of trade with the people of the ultramontane region of the centre of the continent. He began his adventurous journey across the vast wilderness, with no companions but the savages of the debatable land, in 1804; and following him the next year, James Pursley undertook the same pilgrimage. Neither of these pioneers in the "commerce of the prairies" returned to relate what incidents marked the passage of their marvellous expeditions. Pursley was so infatuated with the strange country he had travelled so far to reach, that he took up his abode in the quaint old town of Santa Fe where his subsequent life is lost sight of. La Lande, of a different mould, forgot to render an account of his mission to the merchant who had sent him there, and became a prosperous and wealthy man by means of money to which he had no right.
To Captain Zebulon Pike, who afterwards was made a general, is due the impetus which the trade with Santa Fe received shortly after his return to the United States. The student of American history will remember that the expedition commanded by this soldier was inaugurated in 1806; his report of the route he had taken was the incentive for commercial speculation in the direction of trade with New Mexico, but it was so handicapped by restrictions imposed by the Mexican government, that the adventurers into the precarious traffic were not only subject to a complete confiscation of their wares, but frequently imprisoned for months as spies. Under such a condition of affairs, many of the earlier expeditions, prior to 1822, resulted in disaster, and only a limited number met with an indifferent success.
It will not be inconsistent with my text if I herewith interpolate an incident connected with Pursley, the second American to cross the desert, for the purpose of trade with New Mexico, which I find in the Magazine of American History:
When Zebulon M. Pike was in Mexico, in 1807, he met,
at Santa Fe, a carpenter, Pursley by name, from Bardstown,
Kentucky, who was working at his trade. He had in a
previous year, while out hunting on the Plains, met with
a series of misfortunes, and found himself near the
mountains. The hostile Sioux drove the party into the
high ground in the rear of Pike's Peak. Near the headwaters
of the Platte River, Pursley found some gold, which he
carried in his shot-pouch for months. He was finally sent
by his companions to Santa Fe, to see if they could trade
with the Mexicans, but he chose to remain in Santa Fe
in preference to returning to his comrades. He told the
Mexicans about the gold he had found, and they tried hard
to persuade him to show them the place. They even offered
to take along a strong force of cavalry. But Pursley
refused, and his patriotic reason was that he thought the
land belonged to the United States. He told Captain Pike
that he feared they would not allow him to leave Santa Fe,
as they still hoped to learn from him where the gold was
to be found. These facts were published by Captain Pike
soon after his return east; but no one took the hint,
or the risk was too great, and thus more than a half
a century passed before those same rich fields of gold
were found and opened to the world. If Pursley had been
somewhat less patriotic, and had guided the Mexicans to
the treasures, the whole history and condition of the
western part of our continent might have been entirely
different from what it now is. That region would still
have been a part of Mexico, or Spain might have been
in possession of it, owning California; and, with the gold
that would have been poured into her coffers, would have
been the leading nation of European affairs to-day.
We can easily see how American and European history in
the nineteenth century might have been changed, if that
adventurer from Kentucky had not been a true lover of his
native country.
The adventures of Captain Ezekiel Williams along the Old Trail, in the early days of the century, tell a story of wonderful courage, endurance, and persistency. Williams was a man of great perseverance, patience, and determination of character. He set out from St. Louis in the late spring of 1807, to trap on the Upper Missouri and the waters of the Yellowstone, with a party of twenty men who had chosen him as their leader. After various exciting incidents and thrilling adventures, all of the original party, except Williams and two others, were killed by the Indians somewhere in the vicinity of the Upper Arkansas. The three survivors, not knowing where they were, separated, and Captain Williams determined to take to the stream by canoe, and trap on his way toward the settlements, while his last two companions started for the Spanish country—that is, for the region of Santa Fe. The journal of Williams, from which I shall quote freely, is to be found in The Lost Trappers, a work long out of print.[11] As the country was an unexplored region, he might be on a river that flowed into the Pacific, or he might be drifting down a stream that was an affluent to the Gulf of Mexico. He was inclined to believe that he was on the sources of the Red River. He therefore resolved to launch his canoe, and go wherever the stream might convey him, trapping on his descent, when beaver might be plenty.
The first canoe he used he made of buffalo-skins. As this kind of water conveyance soon begins to leak and rot, he made another of cottonwood, as soon as he came to timber sufficiently large, in which he embarked for a port, he knew not where.
Most of his journeyings Captain Williams performed during the hours of night, excepting when he felt it perfectly safe to travel in daylight. His usual plan was to glide along down the stream, until he came to a place where beaver signs were abundant. There he would push his little bark among the willows, where he remained concealed, excepting when he was setting his traps or visiting them in the morning. When he had taken all the beaver in one neighbourhood, he would untie his little conveyance, and glide onward and downward to try his luck in another place.