For William Sublette, see our volume xix, Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, p. 221, note 55.—Ed.
[29] The "Yellowstone" was the first steamboat to visit the upper Missouri. McKenzie and Pierre Chouteau, Jr., convinced of the utility to the fur-trade of such a craft, persuaded the American Fur Company to secure a steamer. She was built at Louisville, Kentucky, in the winter of 1830-31, departing from St. Louis on her first voyage, April 16, 1831, with Captain B. Young as master. This season she ascended to Fort Tecumseh (near Pierre), and the following year made her initial trip to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. She had left St. Louis about a month before the arrival of Wyeth's party.—Ed.
[30] For Independence, see Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, in our volume xix, p. 189, note 34.—Ed.
[31] This appears to have been an insignificant village of somewhat sedentary Indians, probably of the Kansa tribe, near the northwestern corner of what is now Douglas County, Kansas. Joel Palmer notes it in 1845; see our volume xxx.—Ed.
[32] Thomas Livermore was a cousin of Nathaniel Wyeth, whose home was in Milford, New Hampshire. He was a minor, and his father's consent was essential that he might join the party.
Bell appears to have been insubordinate from the start, and upon his return to the East, published letters injurious to Wyeth's reputation; consult Wyeth, Oregon Expeditions, index.—Ed.
[33] For the River Platte, see our volume xiv, p. 219, note 170. The Oregon Trail from Independence led westward, south of the Kansas, crossing the latter stream near the present site of Topeka; thence up the Big and Little Blue rivers, and across country to the Platte, coming in near Grand Island.—Ed.
[34] The Territory of Missouri was formed in 1812 of all the Louisiana Purchase outside the limits of the newly-erected state of Louisiana. In 1819 Arkansas Territory was cut out, and the following year the state of Missouri. The remaining region was left with no definite organization; but by an act of 1830 it was defined as Indian Territory—south of a line drawn from Missouri River at the mouth of the Ponca, and west to the Rocky Mountains. This vast unorganized region was indefinitely called Missouri Territory, Indian Territory, Western Territory, and even (on one map of the period) Oregon Territory—although the latter name was usually confined to the region west of the Rockies, and north of Mexican bounds.—Ed.
[35] The Oregon trail touched the North Platte at Ash Creek, now an important railway junction in Deuel County, Nebraska.—Ed.
[36] Sweetwater River, a western affluent of the North Platte, rises in the Wind River Mountains, and for over a hundred miles flows almost directly east. The name is supposed to be derived from the loss at an early day of a pack-mule laden with sugar. Wyeth speaks of "crossing over" to this stream, because the trail abandoned the North Platte, which here flows through a formidable cañon, and reached the Sweetwater some miles above its mouth.—Ed.