ROBERT VAUGHN.
Jan. 28, 1898.
JOHN LARGENT’S EARLY DAYS IN MONTANA.
Friend Vaughn: As per your request I give you the following sketch of my early days in what is now the State of Montana:
I hired out to the American Fur Company in the spring of 1862 at St. Louis, Mo., to go to Fort Benton at the head of navigation on the Missouri river. My pay was to be $19.50 per month, including board. I had a friend and companion by the name of Thomas Mitchell, who concluded to undergo the dangers and hardships of the three-thousand-mile trip and go with me. We took passage on a steamboat called the Spread Eagle and landed in Fort Benton ninety days afterwards; and I assure you these days were not spent in picnicking. The adventures had, the trials encountered, the hardships endured cannot be detailed in the limited space alloted for this sketch. I can only say that, while we took passage on the boat named above, it did not carry us all the way to Fort Benton by any means; in fact, the reverse happened; we tugged and carried it much of the distance. We stayed in Fort Benton during the remainder of the summer. There were no buildings in Benton at that time except the fort. Our time was occupied principally in repairing adobe buildings about the post. Andrew Dawson was chief in charge of affairs. Major Culbertson, who held some interest in the company, and who, with his wife, had made the trip from St. Louis with us, was here. About twenty-four white men comprised the entire force at the fort, and, as far as I could learn, it was fully half the white population of what is now known as Northern Montana. Matters and things had changed very materially since I had quit civilization in the “states,” but I soon adjusted myself to the situation.
The Indian tribes who came here to trade were North Bloods, Mountain Crows, Blackfeet and Piegans. Coffee and tea were sold to them at one dollar per pint in trade; tobacco, five to eight dollars per pound. Major George Steell, now so well known throughout Montana, and who was for several years the agent at the Blackfeet Agency, was then one of the trusted employes of the company. In the fall of 1862 he was sent to the mouth of the Musselshell river to build and superintendent afterwards a new trading post to be called Fort Andrews. Steell took me with him and was the means of having my wages raised from the before stated salary of $19.50 to $40 per month. I said Mr. Steell took me with him; this is incorrect, inasmuch as he sent me and my friend Mitchell overland with the horses while he himself and eight other men went down the river in a Mackinaw boat, carrying the goods and provisions. I remember the names of some of the men were as follows: W. R. Teasdale (Col. Spikes), James Chambers, William Oliver, Unica and John Wren; the three others I have forgotten.
In order that you may understand the hardships and privations endured by Mitchell and myself on this overland trip I will state that we were provided with a gun each. I had a muzzle-loading rifle; Mitchell had an old flintlock. In the way of provisions we had a few hardtacks and a small quantity of salt. There were no matches at that time to be had here. In place of them we used “flint rock,” a piece of steel and gun powder. We reached our destination after being out four days and five nights. A detailed description of this trip would make an interesting sketch, but let us pass on to scenes more familiar to me.
After arriving we at once went to work building the post and other winter quarters. A house was first erected to live in, then a stockade surrounding it. Our provisions and ammunition ran short during the winter, and after that we subsisted partly on wolf meat; these animals we caught with traps; other diet I think of now was corn. A lot of this had been brought there to trade with the Indians; it was all disposed of, but the mice had carried some of it into their burroughs. This we found and dug out and ground it in a coffee mill into meal and made bread of it. The mice had eaten the kernel or heart out of this corn and it was strongly impregnated with mice pepper, but the bread fitted pretty well in our hollow stomachs. The Indians were very troublesome, and great care had to be taken to preserve our lives and property. Much of my time was engaged as hunter to secure meat for the men at the post. The post was enclosed with a stockade made of logs. At one corner there was a large gate. From the time I would be sent out to hunt, a man was placed on the outside of this gate to open it at once in case I should be run in by the Indians. I have had some close calls for my life on these occasions. One day I went out in the hills to slay some buffaloes, for we needed meat. I saw a large herd feeding and started to approach them when suddenly I heard and saw the whole herd stampeding. I rode up on a hill to better view the situation. I discovered that Indians were on both sides of me and buffaloes in front of me, and all running towards me. I saw that my only chance for life was to flee ahead of the buffaloes, and spurring my horse ahead of them, I went. The Indians discovered my intentions and tried to head me off, but by this time the herd had me surrounded and the Indians could not reach me. Finally I reached a descending bluff that separated the herd and over which myself and horse tumbled, but, again with myself in the saddle and the horse on his feet I kept going, the dust that was created had the effect of hiding me from view of the Indians long enough to reach the fort and get behind the gate. The horse that I rode on this occasion was the property of Charles Carson, one of the famous Kit Carson’s family. Charles was killed some time afterwards by the Indians at Dearborn river.