[35] For a complete record of this event, see letter from Alfred Vaughn, Indian Agent for the Blackfeet—Report Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1859.
[36] The Tom Stevens is said to have gone to the mouth of Portage creek, within five miles of the Great Falls the same year, and one authority states that the Gallatin, either in 1866 or 1867, went nearer to the Falls than any other boat before or since. The exact point is not stated.
[37] The Blackfeet nation, as understood by the early traders and trappers, comprised four bands—the Piegans, the Bloods, the Blackfeet, and the Grosventres of the Prairies. Only the first three were really Blackfeet. The tribal affinity of the Grosventres was with the Arapahoes. In some way these two tribes had become widely separated, the Arapahoes going far to the south, and the Grosventres to the country of the Blackfeet. So far did the Grosventres adopt the language and customs of the Blackfeet that they were ordinarily considered in early times as a part of that tribe and were commonly referred to as Blackfeet. They were relentlessly hostile to the whites during the first twenty-five years after Lewis and Clark passed through their country. Next to them in point of hostility came the Blood Indians. The Piegans were the most favorably disposed of any of the Blackfeet tribes and were also the best beaver hunters, and it was with this band that trade relations were first opened.
[38] There has been a good deal of confusion about this date, and it cannot yet be considered as definitely settled. The weight of authority is as given above. Chardon had other difficulties with the Indians which may have been confused with this affair. Thus the journal of one of the inmates of the Blackfoot post (whether Fort McKenzie or Fort Chardon is uncertain) says: “February 19, 1844. Fight with the north Blackfeet, in which we killed six and wounded several others; took two children prisoners. The fruits of our victory were four scalps, twenty-two horses, 350 robes, and guns, bows, and arrows, etc.” This answers very closely to the description of the “Blackfoot Massacre” at Fort McKenzie. If it is the same, the founding of Fort Chardon was in 1844 instead of 1843.
[39] In 1864 Malcolm Clark shot and instantly killed Owen McKenzie, son of Kenneth McKenzie. The affair took place on the Nellie Rogers, American Fur Company boat, near the mouth of Milk River. McKenzie and Clark had some standing cause of dispute between them, and Clark shot his opponent while the latter was in a state of intoxication. The family of Clark have tried to screen his name from any blame in this affair, and have claimed that the deed was done in self-defense. On the river it was everywhere considered at the time a cold-blooded murder.
[40] By W. W. DeLacy, a civil engineer of high reputation, and closely identified with the early history of Montana.
[41] June 11, 1866, there were seven steamboats at one time at the levee of Fort Benton.
[42] In this sketch of Fort Benton I have drawn somewhat, for the period after 1843, from the notes of Lieutenant James H. Bradley, as published in vol. iii. Proceedings Mont. Hist. Soc. The notes were taken by dictation from Alexander Culbertson. Unfortunately, as in most cases of personal narrative, this one abounds in errors, and is controlled throughout by the desire of the narrator to magnify his own importance in the events he describes. The notes possess, however, great intrinsic value, and are an important contribution to the history of the West. Their preservation is due to the zealous forethought of an army officer who recognized the importance of collecting original data on the history of the West before its principal actors should have passed away. He did not live to prepare these notes for publication himself. They found their way to the Montana Historical Society, which, with the intelligent zeal that has always characterized that body, has given them to the public in a well-gotten-up volume of the society’s proceedings.
Lieutenant James H. Bradley was born in Sandusky, O., May 25, 1844; enlisted as a private in the 14th Ohio Volunteers, April, 1861; re-enlisted in the 45th Ohio Volunteers, June, 1862; mustered out as Sergeant, July, 1865; appointed Second Lieutenant 18th U. S. Infantry, February 23, 1866; promoted to First Lieutenant, July 9, 1866, transferred to 7th Infantry, November 28, 1871; killed in the Battle of the Big Hole by the Nez Percé Indians, August 9, 1877.
[43] “Hon. Abe Lincoln, and the Secretary of State for Illinois, Hon. O. M. Hatch, arrived in our city last evening, and are stopping at the Pacific House. The distinguished ‘sucker’ has yielded to the earnest importunities of our citizens,—without distinction of party,—and will speak upon the political issues of the day, at Concert Hall, this evening. The celebrity of the speaker will most certainly insure him a full house. Go and hear ‘Old Abe.’”—From the Council Bluffs “Weekly Nonpareil,” Saturday Morning, August 13, 1859.