[158] Not quite yet—Fowler has still to pass the heads of the south fork of the Cottonwood, which he mistakes for those of the Verdigris. No head of the Verdigris flows anything like west, as he says that branch does on which he camps. All his indications set camp unmistakably at or near Thurman, Chase Co., on that branch of Thurman creek which runs westerly. This creek is joined at Matfield Green by two others, the three together composing the south fork of the Cottonwood, running N. This is a queer place to find a man on his way from Great Bend to Kansas City—but here he is!
[159] Head of Verdigris river, in Chase Co., at the distance and in the direction said from Thurman.
[160] The Verdigris itself and four of its collateral heads, named Camp, Fawn, Rock, and Moon. Fowler’s trail here crosses that of Pike, who was camped on one of these creeks Sept. 10, 1806. For the remarkable fan-shaped leash of streamlets which compose the headwaters of the Verdigris, see Pike, ed. of 1895, p. 400. Camp in vicinity of Olpe, Lyon Co.
[161] The Neosho is struck at a point between Neosho Rapids and the mouth of the Cottonwood, some 8 m. a little S. of E. from Emporia, seat of Lyon Co.
[162] Marais des Cygnes creek, continuation of Marais des Cygnes river, as the main course of the Osage river in Kansas is still called, by curious survival of the pure French phrase. This stream is struck in the vicinity of Reading, Lyon Co., nearly on the border of Osage Co.; whence Fowler proceeds about E. N. E. across Cherry creek, to camp on the divide between Marais des Cygnes creek and its Salt creek branch—somewhere between Olivet and Osage City, seat of Osage Co.
[163] Salt creek, crossed in the vicinity of Lyndon, seat of Osage Co.
[164] Dragoon creek of present nomenclature, considered by Fowler as the main Osage river. It is a large stream, about the size of the Marais des Cygnes itself, separated from the latter by Salt creek—all three of these coming together within a mile or two of each other, in the immediate vicinity of Quenemo, Osage Co., close to the border of Franklin Co. For Dragoon cr., see Pike, ed. of 1895, p. 520. Fowler is now nearing what was soon to become the regular Santa Fé caravan route from Independence, Mo., to the great bend of the Arkansaw—after having needlessly made a great bend of his own southward from that direct line of travel.
[165] Appanoose creek, a branch of the Marais des Cygnes which falls in near Ottawa, seat of Franklin Co., into which Fowler has passed from Osage Co.
“In 1812 a Captain Becknell, who had been on a trading expedition to the country of the Comanches in the summer of 1811, and had done remarkably well, determined the next season to change his objective point to Santa Fé,” says Inman, p. 38. When at or near the Caches on the Arkansaw, he left that stream and took his party across country on the Cimarron or dry route; but they were obliged to return, after suffering horribly from thirst, and follow up the Arkansaw route to Taos.
“The virtual commencement of the Santa Fé trade dates from 1822”; and in 1824 was made the first attempt to introduce wagons, etc., says Inman, p. 51. According to Gregg, a better authority, both pack animals and wagons were used 1822-25, but after that wagons only. According to Fowler’s passage above, we see that Becknell had taken wagons in 1822 if not earlier; and thus the party to which Col. Marmaduke was attached, and which reached Santa Fé with wagons in 1824, was not the first to pass through Kansas on wheels.