Before reaching the Platte, five of Wyeth’s men deserted their companions, either from dissatisfaction with their leader, or because they had just begun to realize the hazard of the enterprise. Nat Wyeth, however, was of that stuff we so expressly name clear grit. There was no flinching about him, the Pacific was his objective, and he determined to arrive at his destination even if he marched alone. William Sublette’s party, which Wyeth had joined, encountered the vicissitudes common to a trip across the plains in that day; the only difference being that the New England men now faced these difficulties for the first time, whereas Sublette’s party was largely composed of experienced plainsmen. They followed the course of the Platte, seeing great herds of buffalo roaming at large, while they experienced the gnawings of hunger for want of fuel to cook the delicious humps, sirloins and joints, constantly paraded like the fruit of Tantalus before their greedy eyes. They found the streams turbulent and swift; the Black Hills, which the iron horse now so easily ascends, were infested with bears and rattlesnakes. Many of the party fell ill from the effects of drinking the brackish water of the Platte, Dr. Jacob Wyeth, brother of the captain and surgeon of the party, being unluckily of this number.
Sublette, a French creole, and one of the pioneers that have preceded pony-express, telegraph, stagecoach and locomotive, in their onward march, had no fears of the rivalry of the New England men, and readily took them under his protection. Besides, they swelled his numbers by the addition of a score of good rifles, no inconsiderable acquisition when his valuable caravan entered the country of the treacherous Blackfeet, the thieving Crows, or warlike Nez Perces. The united bands arrived at Pierre’s Hole, the trading rendezvous, in July, where they embraced the first opportunity for repose since leaving the white settlements.
At this place there was a further secession from Wyeth’s company, by which he was left with only eleven men, the remainder preferring to return home with Sublette. Petty grievances, a somewhat too arrogant demeanor on the part of the leader, and the conviction that the trip would prove a failure, caused these men to desert their companions when only a few hundred miles distant from the mouth of the Columbia. Before a final separation occurred, a severe battle took place between the whites and their Indian allies and the Blackfeet, by which Sublette lost seven of his own men killed and thirteen wounded. None of Wyeth’s men were injured in this fight, but a little later one of those who had separated from him was ambushed and killed by Blackfeet.
Wyeth now joined Milton Sublette, the brother of William, under whose guidance he proceeded towards Salmon River. The Bostons, as the Northwest Coast Indians formerly styled all white men, arrived at Vancouver on the twenty-ninth of October, having occupied seven months in a journey which may now be made in as many days. The expedition was a failure, indeed, so far as gain was concerned, and Wyeth’s men all left him at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort. The captain, nothing daunted, and determined to make use of his dearly bought experience, returned to the States the ensuing season. His adventures may be followed by the curious in the pleasant pages of Irving’s Captain Bonneville. Arriving at the headwaters of the Missouri, he built what is known as a bull-boat, made of buffalo skins stitched together and stretched over a slight frame, in which, with two or three half-breeds, he consigned himself to the treacherous currents and quicksands of the Big Horn. Down this stream he floated to its confluence with the Yellowstone. At Fort Union he exchanged his leather bark for a dug-out, with which he sailed, floated, or paddled down the turbid Missouri to Camp (now Fort) Leavenworth. He returned to Boston, and, having secured the means, again repaired to St. Louis, where he enlisted a second company of sixty men, with which he once more sought the old Oregon trail.
This was sixty years ago. Since then the Great American Desert, as it was called, has undergone a magical transformation. Cities of twenty thousand inhabitants exist today where Wyeth found only a dreary wilderness; from the Big Muddy to the Pacific you are scarcely ever out of sight of the smoke of the settler’s cabin. In looking at the dangers and trials to which Wyeth found himself opposed, it must be admitted that he exhibited rare traits of courage and perseverance, allied with the natural capacity of a leader. His misfortunes arose through ignorance, and, perhaps to no small extent also, from that vanity which inclines your full-blooded Yankee to believe himself capable of everything, because the word “impossible” is expunged from his vocabulary.
NOTES.
[These notes were intended to be material for the closing pages of the Quarterly, but were misplaced by the printer in the make-up.]
By the death of Elliott Coues last Christmas the history of exploration of the region west of the Mississippi lost a most active and wonderfully proficient worker. After nearly a lifetime spent in prodigious activity in scientific lines he turned his energies to collecting, annotating and editing the original records of explorers and traders of the northwest and southwest. When Doctor Coues first took up the work of editing the narratives of explorers he had attained great eminence as a writer in ornithology. His reputation for thorough scholarship in the whole field of biology was such that he was assigned the subjects of general zoology, comparative anatomy and biology in the preparation of the Century Dictionary. “His scientific writings number about one thousand titles.”
He had spent some sixteen years either as a surgeon at different army posts in the west, as far apart as Arizona and North Dakota, or as naturalist connected with different surveys. Thus he brought a unique preparation to the crowning work of his life in history. His annotations, elucidating points of geography, zoology, and ethnology, are copious and minute to a degree that quite bewilders the average reader. The first fruits of his labors in the field of history were the four volumes of his edition of Lewis and Clark in 1893, Zebulon Pike’s Expeditions followed in 1895; Henry and Thompson’s Journals in 1897; and Fowler’s Journal and Larpenteur’s Narratives—distinct works—have appeared since. He was engaged on the Diary of Francisco Garces, when he broke down last September, in Santa Fe, at the age of fifty-seven. The issue of the New York Times of March 3, speaks of the recent great increase in value of all these works. The first two are particularly scarce, and have commanded treble their original value.
Through Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor it is learned that he had expressed a warm interest in the work of the Oregon Historical Society. He would have been pleased with an honorary membership in the Society. To acknowledge in some fitting way the great service he has done the history of the Northwest would do the Society graceful credit.