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IV

AMERICAN EXPLORERS SERIES

Early Steamboating on Missouri River

VOL. I.

CAPTAIN JOSEPH LA BARGE.

HISTORY OF EARLY
STEAMBOAT NAVIGATION
ON THE
MISSOURI RIVER

LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
JOSEPH LA BARGE
PIONEER NAVIGATOR AND INDIAN TRADER
FOR FIFTY YEARS IDENTIFIED WITH THE COMMERCE OF THE
MISSOURI VALLEY

BY
HIRAM MARTIN CHITTENDEN
Captain Corps of Engineers, U. S. A.
Author of “American Fur Trade of the Far West,” “History
of the Yellowstone National Park,” etc.

WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.

NEW YORK
FRANCIS P. HARPER
1903

Copyright, 1903,
BY
FRANCIS P. HARPER.

Edition Limited
to 950 Copies.

TO
THE MEMORY
OF THE
Missouri River Pilot

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. I.

PREFACE.

In the summer of 1896 the author of this work, while engaged in collecting data for a history of the American Fur Trade of the Far West, met the venerable Missouri River pilot, Captain Joseph La Barge, at his home in St. Louis. In the course of several interviews he became deeply impressed with the range and accuracy of the old gentleman’s knowledge of early Western history, and asked him if he had ever taken any steps to preserve the record of his adventurous career. He replied that he had often been urged to do so, but that lack of familiarity with that kind of work had hitherto caused him to shrink from it, and he presumed he should die without ever undertaking it. Believing that his memoirs were well worth preserving, as a part of the history of the West, the author proposed to prepare them for publication if he would consent to dictate them. After some hesitation he concluded to try it, and the work was forthwith begun. Full notes were taken in the rough, and a clean copy was then submitted to Captain La Barge for revision. He went through the whole with painstaking care, and the record was left as complete as a memory of extraordinary power could make it. The intention was, at the time, to put the notes into shape for publication at once; but the Spanish-American war interfered with the author’s part of the work, and before it could be resumed Captain La Barge died.

This event led to a material change in the plan of the work, and it was decided to make it, not merely a narrative of personal experiences, but a history of steamboat navigation on the Missouri River. Very few people now have any conception of the part which this remarkable business played in the upbuilding of the West. There is no railroad system in the United States to-day whose importance to its tributary country is relatively greater than was that of the Missouri River to the trans-Mississippi territory in the first seventy-five years of the nineteenth century. The business of the fur trade, the intercourse of government agents with the Indians, the campaigns of the army throughout the valley, and the wild rush of gold-seekers to the mountains, all depended, in greater or less degree, upon the Missouri River as a line of transportation.

AN IMPORTANT BUSINESS.

It is not alone from a commercial point of view that the record of this business is an important one. From beginning to end it abounds in thrilling incident, and the life which it fostered was full of picturesque and even tragic details. The circumstances surrounding a voyage up or down the Missouri, whether by canoe, mackinaw, keelboat, or steamboat, were quite out of the line of ordinary experience. No other river in this country has a record to compare with it.

Captain La Barge’s life embraced the entire era of active boating business on the river. He saw it all—from the time when the Creole and Canadian voyageurs cordelled their keelboats up the refractory stream to the time when the railroad won its final victory over the steamboat. He was on the first boat that went to the far upper river, and he made the last through voyage from St. Louis to Fort Benton. He typified in his own career the meteoric rise and fall of that peculiar business. He grew up with it, prospered with it, and was ruined with and by it. He saw and shared the wonderful metamorphosis that came over the Missouri Valley in the space of fourscore years, and his reminiscences are a succession of living pictures taken all along the line.

HISTORICAL METHOD ADOPTED.

It is hoped that the method adopted, of weaving the story which it is here attempted to relate around the biography of its most distinguished personality, will not detract from its value as historical material. It is not the bare narration of events that gives history its true value, but those intimate pictures of human life in other times that show what people really did and the motives by which they were actuated. To this end, biography, and even fiction, possess distinct advantages over the ordinary method of historical writing.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

In the preparation of this work valuable personal aid has been received from many sources, particularly from the Hon. Phil E. Chappelle of Kansas City, Mo.; Messrs. N. P. Langford and J. B. Hubbell of St. Paul, Minn.; Hon. Wilbur F. Sanders of Helena, Mont.; and General Grenville M. Dodge of New York City.

CAPTAIN JOSEPH LA BARGE

(When a young man)

HISTORY OF
EARLY STEAMBOAT NAVIGATION
ON THE MISSOURI RIVER

CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY.

In the far-reaching operations of the French Government upon the continent of America, by which its western empire at one time embraced fully half of what is now the United States and Canada, two streams of colonization flowed inward from the sea. The course of one was along the valleys of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes to the upper Mississippi and its tributaries. That of the other was along the lower Mississippi northward from the Gulf of Mexico. The two streams met at the mouth of the Missouri, where their blended currents were deflected westward toward the unknown regions of the setting sun. Near this place of meeting there arose, more than a decade before the birth of the American Republic, a village which has now become one of the greatest cities in the western world. Here, in the early days, the Canadians from the north and the Creoles from the south, kindred in language and tradition, mingled in common pursuits and enterprises, and for many years bore an important part in the great movement which proceeded onward from this common starting-point.

Among the well-known families identified with this movement was one whose ancestral line represented both the northern and the southern blood, and was a pure type of their united quality. This was the family of Captain Joseph La Barge, the subject of the present sketch. The father of Captain La Barge was a typical representative of the French peasantry of Quebec. His mother was a Creole descendant of both the Spanish and French elements in the settlement of the Mississippi Valley.

ROBERT LABERGE.

On the paternal side the ancestors of Captain La Barge came from Normandy, France. Robert Laberge was a native of Columbière in the diocese of Bayonne, and was born in 1633. He came to America early in life and settled in the county of Montmorency, below Quebec, where he was married in 1663. He is said to have been the only person of the name who ever emigrated to America. His descendants are now of the most numerous family in the district of Beauharnois, if not in the entire province of Quebec, where it has held important positions both in Church and State. Its ramifications in the United States have likewise become very extensive. The true spelling of the name was Laberge, and this form still prevails in Quebec; but the St. Louis branch of the family has for many years spelled the name in two words, La Barge.

JOSEPH MARIE LA BARGE.

Captain La Barge was of the sixth generation from his Norman ancestors. His father, Joseph Marie La Barge, was born at Assomption, Quebec, July 4, 1787.[1] He emigrated to St. Louis about 1808, just as he was arriving of age. He traveled by the usual route, up the Ottawa River and through the intricate system of waterways in northern Ontario which leads to Georgian Bay and to Lake Huron. Thence he went by way of Mackinaw Strait and Lake Michigan to Green Bay, and along the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi, which he descended to St. Louis. He used a single birch-bark canoe all the way, with only eight miles of portaging.

The elder La Barge led a varied career in St. Louis, as did most of the pioneers in those days, when fixed callings were few and men turned their hands to whatever fell in their way. A good deal of information has survived concerning him, and all to his credit. He was evidently a man of good parts, of strict integrity, loyal in his business relations, and a bold lover of the adventurous life which characterized the early history of this new country.[2]

IMPORTANT SERVICES.

At the time when the Sac and Fox Indians were giving the government so much trouble, and endangering human life all along the upper Mississippi, La Barge senior was employed in the perilous business of carrying dispatches to Rock Island, having volunteered for this service when others refused to go. He served in the War of 1812, and was present in the battle of the River Raisin, or Frenchtown, January 22, 1813, and was there shot in the hand, losing two fingers. He also received a tomahawk wound on the head, and carried the scar through life. He became naturalized as a result of this service in the army. Although entitled to a pension under the laws of the United States, he never asked for nor received any.

La Barge married in 1813, and some two years afterward acquired a farm at Baden, a small village a few miles north of St. Louis, and now within the limits of that city. His main business here was the manufacture of charcoal, which he hauled to St. Louis for sale. He soon moved to town, where he had gained quite an extensive acquaintance, particularly among the Canadian voyageurs. Here he opened up a boarding-house, which developed into a regular hotel or tavern, with a livery attachment, at that time one of the most important in the city. It was while engaged in this business that he served the English traveler, James Stuart, already referred to.

ENGAGED IN THE FUR TRADE.

La Barge senior was, to a considerable extent, identified with the early trapping business in the Far West, and has left his name on geographical features in widely separated localities. There is a La Barge or Battle Creek, a tributary of the Missouri, which took its name from some affair with the Indians in which La Barge bore a part; but the details are apparently lost. The same is true of La Barge Creek, a tributary of Green River in Wyoming, which was named before 1830. La Barge was present in General Ashley’s disastrous fight with the Aricara Indians on the Missouri River in 1823, and was the man who cut the cable of one of the keelboats so that it might drift out of range of the fire of the Indians.[3]

DEATH OF THE ELDER LA BARGE.

La Barge senior lived to a good old age, and was sound and healthy to the last. As a remarkable evidence of this, it was long remembered by his acquaintances that he practiced in old age his favorite winter pastime of skating. His death was the result of accident. He had heard that a brother-in-law, Joseph Hortiz, was ill, and he resolved to go to see him. It was a cold wintry day, and Captain La Barge tried to dissuade him, but to no purpose. He slipped on the icy sidewalk at the corner of Olive and Fourth streets, in St. Louis, struck the curb, and received injuries from which he died two days later, January 22, 1860.

Many interesting anecdotes of the elder La Barge have come down to us, some of which are worth relating as illustrating the character of the man in different situations. One of these comes from General Harney, who was long an intimate friend of Captain La Barge. In the later years of General Harney’s life, when physical ailments prevented his leaving the house, he used to send for Captain La Barge, if the latter happened to be derelict in his visits, to come and talk over old times. On one of these occasions, not long before his death, he gave the Captain the following story:

THE CAPTAIN AND THE LIEUTENANT.

“Your father,” he said, “was the only man who ever scared me. We were ascending the Missouri River on a keelboat laden with troops and supplies, he in charge of the boat, and I, a lieutenant, on duty with the soldiers. In one place the boat had to round a sharp point, where there was an accumulation of driftwood. The current was very strong, and it required the utmost efforts of the men to stem it. When we reached the most difficult place, the Captain stimulated his men by calling out to them (in the French language), ‘Hale fort! Hale fort!’ (‘Pull hard! Pull hard!’). I didn’t understand French, but thought I detected in the Captain’s language something like the military command, ‘Halt.’ As some of the troops were on the line with the voyageurs, and as they might not understand, I thought I could help the Captain by repeating to them his command. This created some confusion, for my men began to slacken while the Captain’s were pulling harder than ever. Again he commanded, ‘Hale fort!’ and again I called to the men to halt. The situation was extremely critical when the Captain thundered a third time, ‘Hale fort!’ in a voice and manner not to be misunderstood. The men all bent to the line and finally extricated the boat from its perilous position. The Captain then came over to where I was standing and told me that if I ever dared interfere again with his management of the boat he would pitch me into the river. I knew he meant what he said, and thereafter confined myself to my military duties.”

ASSAULT AND BATTERY.

One fine morning in the early twenties a man called at the house of Mr. La Barge, who met him at the door and asked him what he wanted. The man said: “I applied to you a short time since for employment, having heard that you were hiring men for the Ashley Expedition.[4] I was refused, and I would like to know the reason.”

“Simply because you did not suit,” replied La Barge.

“I am as good a man as you are or any you have employed, and I take the liberty of telling you so,” rejoined the six-footer.

“I want no trouble,” replied La Barge, “and therefore will request you to get out, or I will be compelled to put you out.”

“Just what I want you to undertake,” was the retort. Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when La Barge seized a rawhide riding whip and started for the fellow and laid him about the back and shoulders so vigorously that the man soon gave up the contest and took to his heels.

The next morning a constable came and arrested La Barge on the charge of assault and battery, with directions to bring him at once before Esquire Garnier, Justice of the Peace.

FUN CHEAP AT FOUR DOLLARS.

“Lead the way, and I will follow,” said La Barge, taking down his rawhide and starting along with the constable. La Barge told the people he met on the way to come and see the fun. In due course the trial came off and La Barge was fined four dollars. He thanked the Justice, but handed him eight dollars, saying that the fun was cheap at that price, and he would give the fellow another dose. He then seized his whip and started for him, chasing him out into the street, where he gave him a second drubbing, to the great delight of the crowd, who stood around shouting and setting him on.

NOT A THIEF.

Another incident, which occurred late in life, exhibits the sterling integrity of the man who could withstand the temptations of wealth rather than do the smallest act of injustice. About the time that the elder La Barge was married he purchased from Joseph Morin, for the sum of twenty-five dollars, a small tract of land on Cedar Street, between Second and Third. Land was then of very little value, and transfers were often made without deed and with no more formality than in exchanging cattle or horses. In this way La Barge traded off his lot on Cedar Street to Chauvin Lebeau for a horse, with which he moved to his Baden farm, only recently purchased. Here, as already narrated, he manufactured charcoal and hauled it to town, where he sold it to Theodore Bosseron and Vilrais Papin, then the principal blacksmiths of the village. Long years afterward, when these transactions were almost forgotten, and the property had become very valuable, a lawyer presented himself to the old gentleman and asked him if he had ever owned any property on Cedar Street. La Barge replied in the affirmative and described its locality. The lawyer then asked him when and how he disposed of it. He could not at first recall, but Mrs. La Barge remembered the circumstances and related them to the lawyer, at the same time remarking to her husband that that was the way they got their horse to set themselves up on the farm with. The lawyer then assured La Barge that the title to this property was still in him, and that he could hold it against all comers, for there was absolutely no record of the conveyance in existence. The old gentleman, with a look of indignation, asked the lawyer if he took him for a thief. “I traded that land,” said he, “to Chauvin Lebeau for a horse, which was worth more to me then than the land was. I shall stand by the bargain now. If Chauvin Lebeau’s heirs have no title, tell them to come to me and I will make them a deed before I die.”

Such are some of the glimpses we still have through the mists of time of the father of Captain La Barge.

MOTHER OF CAPTAIN LA BARGE.

On the maternal side he was likewise descended from creditable ancestry. Among the early mechanics in the village of Fort de Chartres, near the mouth of the Ohio River, when to be a mechanic was to be a leading citizen, were Gabriel Dodier and Jean Baptiste Becquet, blacksmiths. The younger of these two men, Becquet, married the daughter of the other. They had three children, the eldest being a daughter, Marguerite Marianne. On the 27th of January, 1780, this daughter was married to Joseph Alvarez Hortiz, who was the son of François Alvarez and Bernada Hortiz, and was born in the town of Lienira, in the Province of Estremadura, Spain, in the year 1753. Alvarez was a private soldier in the military service of Spain, and came to St. Louis after Spanish authority had been established there in 1770. He attained the rank of sergeant, and being a man of some education, was for several years detailed as military attaché to the Governor. He finally became Secretary to the last two Spanish Governors, Trudeau and Delassus, and had charge of the public archives down to 1804. He had nine children, of whom the eighth was a daughter, of the name of Eulalie. This daughter was married to Joseph Marie La Barge in St. Louis, August 13, 1813.

HISTORIC DATA.

The parents of Captain La Barge thus represented the best traditions of French and Spanish occupancy of the Mississippi Valley. Their marriage took place after their country had become American territory, and their offspring, the subject of our present inquiries, was born an American citizen.[5]

CHAPTER II.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.

Joseph La Barge, son of Joseph Marie La Barge and Eulalie Hortiz, was born in St. Louis, October 1, 1815. He was the second child in a family of seven children, three boys and four girls, who all grew to adult years. The two brothers were Charles S., who was killed in a steamboat explosion in 1852, and John B., who dropped dead at the wheel in 1885 while making a steamboat landing at Bismarck, N. D.

INDIAN AND INFANT.

Soon after the birth of Captain La Barge the parents moved to the newly acquired farm in Baden. There is but one incident relating to the young child while living here that need detain us. Although this place was distant only six miles from where the courthouse of St. Louis now stands, it was at that time unsettled and uncleared, and Indians not infrequently roamed in the vicinity. The Sac and Fox tribes were particularly troublesome, and many were the outrages which they committed upon the isolated settlement. The incident in question occurred one day just before the father had started on his usual trip to town. He was loading his cart at some distance from the garden, where Mrs. La Barge had gone to dig some potatoes to send to her mother in the village. Housewives in those days seldom enjoyed the luxury of nurses, and Mrs. La Barge was obliged to carry her child with her into the garden. Depositing him between the rows of potatoes, she was proceeding with her work, when suddenly the house dog set up a cry of alarm. Looking up, Mrs. La Barge was horrified to see an Indian approaching. She uttered a scream and started for the house, forgetting in the suddenness of her alarm the baby in the garden. Meanwhile the father had heard the dog’s bark and his wife’s screams, and hastened to see what was the matter. His first question was about the baby, and Mrs. La Barge, more terrified than ever, rushed back to where she had left him. Fortunately the dog had held the Indian at bay, and when the father arrived, gun in hand, he beat a prompt retreat. Captain La Barge’s father often reminded him of this incident in after years, predicting that he would always escape harm from the Indians, for they had had their opportunity and had failed. In his many experiences with the Indians throughout a life spent in their country, he never suffered personal injury at their hands, and came to have faith in his father’s prediction.

Captain La Barge was not yet two years old when the first steamboat came to St. Louis, nor four when the first one entered the Missouri River. It is said that his father used to take him to the river bank to see these early boats, and that they always had a great attraction for his youthful fancy. To be a steamboat master was his ambition, and he spent much of his time as a child in drawing boats and making models, and thus unwittingly training himself for his after career.

The boy was a leader among his fellows, and an expert in all youthful games practiced at the time. In contests of skill among the boys of the village each side was anxious to secure Joe La Barge. “He could jump higher,” says one authority, “run faster, and swim farther than any other lad in the town.”

LAFAYETTE’S VISIT.

BOTH FRENCHMEN.

Among the noteworthy events of Captain La Barge’s childhood, the memory of which clung by him even in old age, was the visit of Lafayette to St. Louis in 1825. This venerable patriot, whom, next to Washington, Americans in that day delighted to honor, arrived in St. Louis on board the steamer Natchez, at 9 A. M., May 29. He was met at the wharf by a committee of leading citizens, and an address of welcome was made by the Mayor, to which Lafayette responded. He then entered a carriage with the Mayor and Mr. Auguste Chouteau and Stephen Hempstead, a soldier of the Revolution, and was driven to the house of Mr. Pierre Chouteau, Sr., which had been prepared for his reception. He was escorted by a company of light horsemen, and also by a company of uniformed boys, of whom Captain La Barge, then ten years old, was one. The Captain always remembered the venerable appearance of the General and his review of the youthful troop. He shook hands with them, indulged in the pleasant questions which age delights to ask of youth, and doubtless himself took a keen pleasure in the incident, because most of his youthful auditors could reply in his own tongue.[6]

An interesting sequel of Lafayette’s visit to St. Louis occurred in that city in 1881, on the occasion of the visit of Lafayette’s grandson with General Boulanger and party, who had come to America to attend the centennial celebration of the surrender of Yorktown. Captain La Barge was sent for, to meet the distinguished company at the Merchants’ Exchange. When introduced to the members of the party, the grandson of Lafayette came forward, and taking La Barge by both hands, looked at him a moment and said: “You have seen one whom I wish it were my lot to have seen, and that is my revered grandfather.” He cordially urged the Captain to come to his home if he should ever visit France, and in other ways showed an almost affectionate interest in this individual who had once, though but a boy, beheld the face of his distinguished ancestor.

EARLY SCHOOLING.

Captain La Barge’s schooling was necessarily very limited, for the educational facilities of St. Louis in those days were of a truly primitive order. He first went to a schoolmaster of considerable local renown, Jean Baptiste Trudeau, at the latter’s private residence on Pine Street, between Main and Second. Here he studied the common branches, all in French. He went for a time to Salmon Giddings, founder of the First Presbyterian Church, in St. Louis, and later to a more pretentious school kept by Elihu H. Shephard, an excellent teacher. At both of these schools instruction was given in English. Captain La Barge’s parents foresaw that their native tongue could not long survive in common use, and felt it to be their duty to equip their son, so far as their slender means would permit, with the language of his country. The pupil found the task a tedious one, and was a long while in mastering it. He never forgot the almost insurmountable obstacle he found in the English “th.” He used his native language in common intercourse down to nearly 1850, and retained a fluent command of it to his death. He also acquired a very perfect command of English, in which there was no trace of foreign accent, but in which the mellowing influence of the softer tongue had produced a modulation of the voice that was very pleasant to listen to.

IN COLLEGE.

In 1819 there was established in Perry County, Mo., a Catholic School, St. Mary’s College. Young La Barge was sent there at the age of twelve, and remained three years. On their way to the college himself and father traveled by the steamer Tuscumbia. It was Captain La Barge’s first ride in a kind of boat with which most of his after life was to be connected. The desire of the young man’s parents was to educate their son for the priesthood, and his course at college was shaped somewhat to that end. But the boy did not fall in with their plans, as his tastes ran in a different direction. He did not finish the course, for his career at the school was summarily cut short by a delinquency which is the only one we have to record in a life of more than fourscore years. He became involved in intrigues with young women to an extent which barred him from a further continuation of his course.

IN HARD LUCK.

Associated with him in this unfortunate episode was Edward Liguest Chouteau, a youth of about the same age as himself. The young men walked to St. Genevieve, on the Mississippi. Chouteau was without funds, and La Barge nearly so, having scarcely the amount of a single steamboat fare to St. Louis. They found the De Witt Clinton at the bank on her way up the river. La Barge told the captain of the boat the straight story of their misfortune: that they had only enough money for a single fare to St. Louis, and would have to walk unless they could make some arrangement with him. He laughed, and told them to get on board and he would see them home. This incident, in which the two young men were companions in misfortune, was not forgotten by either, and we shall have occasion to refer to it again in the course of this narrative.

After La Barge left college his father placed him in the office of John Bent, a leading lawyer of St. Louis, and one of the noted Bent brothers. He soon became disgusted with his new situation on account of his preceptor’s habit of excessive drink. He then went into a clothing store, and after remaining about a year, left that.

ATTRACTIONS OF THE FUR TRADE.

The restless ambition of the young man was now directed toward a kind of life which, in every portion of the country, has filled up the period between discovery and settlement—the business of the fur trade. At this particular time it was the only business carried on in the trans-Mississippi territory beyond the few scattering settlements along the lower Missouri. Large parties of hunters and trappers remained constantly in the wilderness, wandering all over those vast regions in quest of beaver and other fur. Each spring expeditions set out for various points in the Far West from Santa Fe to the British boundary, carrying supplies and recruits and bringing back the furs collected during the previous year. The great bulk of this business was done along the Missouri River, where trading posts were established throughout the entire valley. The annual journeys to these posts were always made by water. In the keelboat days they consumed an entire summer, but after the steamboat came they were completed by the middle of July.

CHOICE OF CAREER.

From its very nature this business was one of adventure and excitement, and particularly attractive to those who were fond of an independent and out-of-door life. We can but faintly imagine at this day how strong was the attraction for youth in this wild life. Now it is considered a great piece of good luck for a boy to get on a common surveying party in the mountains, where he may see something of the wildness of nature, and perhaps catch sight of some surviving specimens of the larger game. In those days a trip to the mountains meant adventure of the genuine sort—absence from civilization, ever-present danger from the Indians, game of all kinds in abundance, and the grandeur and beauty of nature in a region still unknown except to a very few.

Being now at the impressionable age of sixteen, young La Barge became infatuated with the tales of adventure related by those who came back every year from the distant mountains. He told his father that, for the present, his mind was made up. He would join one of the fur-trade expeditions and see something of the Indian country. This decision met a responsive chord in the adventurous nature of the father, who said he had no objection if the mother were willing. The matter was laid before her, and after much entreaty and expostulation, her consent was secured. This was in the year 1831.

CHAPTER III.
ENTERS THE FUR TRADE.

Captain La Barge did not immediately find an opportunity to visit the Indian country. The annual expeditions for the year had all gone. The Yellowstone was already far away on her historic first trip up the Missouri for the American Fur Company, and nothing was left for the impatient youth but to await a later opportunity. When the Yellowstone returned from her voyage, she was sent down the Mississippi to pass the time until the following spring in the Bayou la Fourche sugar trade. La Barge was engaged as second clerk on this voyage and found himself in constant demand as interpreter during the winter. The people of the Bayou la Fourche district spoke only French, which most of the officers of the boat did not understand. La Barge, who knew both French and English well, was of great use in carrying on the trade.

In the spring of 1832 the Yellowstone returned to St. Louis to prepare for her second voyage up the Missouri. This boat had been built as an experiment, to determine if it would be practicable to substitute steamboats for keelboats in the trade of the upper river. In the summer of 1831 she had gone as far as Fort Tecumseh, which stood on the opposite shore from the present capital of South Dakota. It was now proposed to take her as far as the mouth of the Yellowstone. The attempt was completely successful, and the voyage has ever since been considered one of the landmarks of the early history of the West.

ENTERS AMERICAN FUR COMPANY SERVICE.

Although La Barge was only in his seventeenth year he signed a contract binding himself to the service of the American Fur Company, as voyageur, engagé, or clerk, for a period of three years, at a salary of seven hundred dollars for the whole time.[7] He did not go as part of the boat’s crew, but as an employee of one of the posts. No place was specified in his engagement, but his assignment was left to the bourgeois of the different posts, who came down to the boat when it arrived, looked over the new engagés, and selected such as they thought would suit them. Young La Barge was a promising-looking lad, and did not get above Council Bluffs, where he was taken off and put to work at Cabanné’s post, a few miles above the modern city of Omaha.

BATTLE OF BAD AXE.

When the Yellowstone returned from Fort Union, John P. Cabanné, the bourgeois in charge of the post, went down to St. Louis and took La Barge with him. While waiting to return to the upper country the young engagé took temporary service on the steamboat Warrior, Captain Throckmorton, bound for the seat of the Blackhawk, or Sac and Fox, war. She was loaded with government stores for Prairie du Chien, and La Barge went along in some subordinate capacity. It happened that she arrived at the scene of the Battle of Bad Axe just as that decisive conflict was going on. Captain Throckmorton saw a number of Indians trying to make their escape by swimming the river and he fired into them, killing several. They proved to be all women, and the over-zealous captain long had reason to regret his hasty action. After this adventure the Warrior returned to St. Louis.

CABANNÉ AND LECLERC.

When Cabanné went back to his post at the Council Bluffs young La Barge went with him to commence in earnest his life in the Indian country. His initiation into the business of the fur trade was such as to leave a lasting impression on his mind. He had not been at Cabanné’s post very long when he had a lively experience of the evils of competition in that business, and of the extreme measures to which unrestrained rivalry sometimes led. Narcisse Leclerc, at one time an employee of the American Fur Company, had saved a little means, which certain parties in St. Louis eked out to a respectable sum, and he resolved to go into the trading business on his own and their account. Under the style of the Northwest Fur Company he carried on a prosperous trade in a small way for two or three seasons. The American Fur Company, jealous of all opposition, always treated these petty rivals with the utmost severity, and, if possible, crushed them by sheer force. When it could not do this it bought them out. Leclerc, who was a shrewd fellow, and as unscrupulous as any of the company’s agents, had developed staying qualities which caused the company a good deal of uneasiness. He went up the river in the autumn of 1832 with a larger outfit than ever, and the company determined that something must be done to arrest his career. The problem was left for Cabanné to solve, and he was given authority, as a last resort, to offer Leclerc outright a thousand dollars if he would not carry his trade up the river beyond a specified point.

RUDE INITIATION.

Circumstances, however, threw in Cabanné’s way what he considered a better means of dealing with Leclerc. Congress had lately passed a law prohibiting the importation of liquor into the Indian country. Cabanné found out in some way that Leclerc had smuggled a considerable quantity past the military authorities at Leavenworth. Here was his opportunity. He would stop the expedition, and confiscate the property on the ground that Leclerc was violating the law of the land. It did not seem to occur to him that the enforcement of the law is intrusted to duly constituted officials, and that he, not being one of these, could not legally do more than inform against Leclerc. He did not trouble himself about fine distinctions of that sort. Exultantly he wrote to the house in St. Louis: “Have no fear; leave the matter to me, and I will make our incapable adversary bite the dust.”

Cabanné laid his plans well for the capture of Leclerc’s outfit. As soon as the boat passed his post he organized a party under charge of Peter A. Sarpy, clerk at the post, to go and arrest Leclerc. Sarpy picked out about a dozen men, among whom was the new engagé, La Barge. They were all well armed and carried besides a small cannon. Going to a point near old Fort Lisa, where the channel of the river came in close to a high impending bank, Sarpy stationed his men there and awaited Leclerc’s arrival. At the proper time, when the voyageurs were cordelling the boat along a sandbar just opposite, scarcely a hundred yards off, he ordered Leclerc’s party to surrender or he would “blow everything out of the water.” Although Leclerc had some thirty men, they were mostly unarmed, and could make no effective resistance. They surrendered, and the whole outfit returned to Cabanné’s post, where the liquor was confiscated and the expedition broken up.

SERIOUS COMPLICA­TIONS.

This drastic measure came near proving fatal to the company’s business upon the river. Leclerc immediately returned to St. Louis, where he began suit against the company and lodged a criminal complaint against Cabanné. The matter bore a very serious aspect for a time. It was with the utmost difficulty, and with an evident resort to misrepresentation, that the company’s license was saved; and doubtless it would have been revoked but for the influence of Senator Thomas H. Benton. As it was, it cost the company a large sum of money, increased the public distrust of this powerful concern, and banished Cabanné, one of its most efficient servants, permanently from the country.

THE PAWNEES.

At Cabanné’s post La Barge was employed in the various duties of engagé, and was frequently sent out to surrounding bands of Indians with small outfits of merchandise to trade for their furs. His most interesting and valuable experience in this line was with the Pawnees, who resided on the Loup Fork of the Platte, about one hundred miles west of the Missouri. They were what are called permanent village Indians; that is, they had fixed villages made of large, strong houses, where they regularly lived; while many of the tribes, like the Sioux, Crows, and Blackfeet, lived only in tents, and were always moving from one place to another. The Pawnees, it is true, roved about a great deal on their hunting and war expeditions, but they had a fixed place of abode to which they always returned from their wanderings. Their houses were circular in form and quite large, being sometimes sixty feet in diameter, and, to judge from pictures of them, resembled in appearance, when seen from a distance, a group of oil tanks in a modern petroleum district.

Near to their villages the Pawnees cultivated extensive fields of maize or Indian corn. After the spring planting was over they generally went on long excursions to hunt buffalo, to make war, or to secure wood and other materials for the village. Their cornfields were left to shift for themselves during this period, and their enemies sometimes took advantage of this fact; but on the whole the latter were very cautious about what they did, for they knew that the wily Pawnee would learn who the robbers were and would not fail to exact full retribution. When the corn was ripe the Indians gathered it and remained in their villages a considerable part of the winter. Their business, however, compelled them at this season to make their hunts for robes and furs, which were salable only when taken during the cold weather. When the skins were brought into the villages the squaws took them, scraped them down, rubbed them with brains or pork, and otherwise manipulated them until they were soft and flexible and ready for the trade.

The custom of the traders was to send over from their posts near the old Council Bluffs one or more clerks, with a few men and the necessary merchandise, to reside in the villages until the trade was over. The clerk generally lived in the lodge of the principal chief, kept his goods there, and also such furs as were received in trade. After the season’s business was over the furs were loaded into bullboats, in which they were floated down the Loup and the Platte rivers to the Missouri. Here they were reshipped in large cargoes to St. Louis.

LA BARGE WITH THE PAWNEES.

It was on a business of this kind that young La Barge spent his first winter in the Indian country—1832–33. His party consisted of four men, who, with the merchandise, were accommodated in the lodge of the chief Big Axe. Here they settled down to genuine Indian life—not half so uninteresting and repulsive as one might be disposed to think. The business of the trade, the ceremonials, the games and gambling, and the never-failing attractions of the gentler sex, which, one may easily believe, are as potent in the wilderness as in the city, all operated to make the time pass agreeably during the long and severe winters. The huts were very comfortable, and Captain La Barge always remembered them as the coolest habitations in summer and the warmest in winter of any that he had ever occupied. He noted as a remarkable peculiarity that mosquitoes never entered them.

LEARNING PAWNEE LANGUAGE.

During his winter sojourn among the Pawnees La Barge applied himself assiduously to learning their language. The interpreter would give him words and sentences in Pawnee and he would write them down and learn them. He practically mastered the language in the course of the winter, to the great astonishment of the natives and even of the whites. To the Indians the process of writing was a great curiosity, a “big medicine,” and when they saw young La Barge write down something and then read it off, they would put their hands to their mouths in their characteristic manner of expressing wonder.

THE CROW PRISONER.

There were numerous Indian scares during the winter, and Captain La Barge fully expected to see something of Indian warfare before he left the villages, but nothing of the sort actually occurred. In the spring of 1833, before he left for the Missouri, Major John Dougherty, Indian agent residing at Bellevue, about ten miles below the modern city of Omaha, arrived at the villages for the purpose of ransoming a female prisoner of the Crow nation, who had been sentenced to be burned at the stake. He prevailed, through Big Axe, chief of the Pawnee Loups, upon having her given up on payment of the ransom. He then started back with her to Bellevue, accompanied by an escort, until at a safe distance from the villages. When about ten miles on their way they were overtaken by a Pawnee chief, Spotted Horse, who came riding up at a gallop, and when opposite the woman, shot an arrow through her heart.

When the high water of spring arrived the furs were loaded into bullboats and shipped down to the mouth of the Platte. La Barge returned to Cabanné’s, and after a short time started for St. Louis with a fleet of mackinaw boats loaded with furs. He reached St. Louis in the latter part of May, 1833.

CHAPTER IV.
CHOLERA ON THE “YELLOWSTONE.”

Before La Barge arrived in St. Louis the company had dispatched two boats to the upper river—the Yellowstone and the Assiniboine. The voyage of 1833 is particularly noteworthy as the one on which Prince Maximilian of Wied made his celebrated visit to the upper Missouri—a visit which has done more than any other one thing to preserve a true picture of those early times. The Yellowstone went only as far as Fort Pierre, whence she returned immediately, and as soon as another cargo could be shipped, started on a trip to Council Bluffs.

CHOLERA ON THE “YELLOW­STONE.”

Captain La Barge went back up the river on this second trip of the Yellowstone to return to his post. It proved to be a most trying and pathetic voyage. The cholera, which was then epidemic throughout the country, broke out with great virulence on the boat, and so many of the crew died that Captain Bennett was forced to stop at the mouth of the Kansas River until he could go back to St. Louis for a crew. His pilot and most of his sub-officers were dead, and he was compelled to leave the boat in care of young La Barge, who thus began his career as a steamboat man on the Missouri. His several voyages had given him considerable knowledge of the art of handling these boats, and he had no misgivings in being left in charge, except the fear that the cholera might take him off. It was a very trying moment. Captain Bennett, when he started back to St. Louis, cried like a child. The terrible power of the disease unstrung everyone’s nerves. Victims often died within two hours after being attacked, and no one knew when his turn would come.

Scarcely had Captain Bennett left when a new difficulty arose. The “graybacks,” as the scattered population of western Missouri were then called, having learned that the Yellowstone had cholera on board, organized themselves into a pro tempore State board of health and ordered Captain La Barge to take the boat out of the State, or they would burn her up. The engineer and firemen were dead, so Captain La Barge fired up himself, and, acting as pilot, engineer, and all, succeeded in getting the boat above the mouth of the Kansas and on the west shore of the river, outside the jurisdiction of the State of Missouri.

A FRIEND IN NEED.

The Yellowstone had a quantity of goods on board consigned to Cyprian Chouteau’s trading post, which was located some ten miles up the Kansas River. Captain Bennett had directed La Barge to turn over these goods to the consignees during his absence. Accordingly, at the first opportunity, he set off alone on foot to find the trading post and tell Mr. Chouteau to come and get his goods. When about a mile from the post he was met by a man who had been stationed there to watch for anyone coming from the Missouri. The news of the cholera was abroad and the lonely post had quarantined itself against the civilized world. The man would not permit La Barge to come nearer, and threatened to shoot him if he persisted. La Barge agreed to stay where he was if the man would return to the post and carry his message to Chouteau. This was done, and Chouteau sent back word to store the goods on the bank and leave them there. It was now too late to return to the boat that night after a fatiguing day’s work, and La Barge would have had to go supperless and coverless to sleep but for the kind offices of his old college chum and former companion in misfortune, Edward Liguest Chouteau, who happened to be at the post. Hearing of La Barge’s situation, he went to find him. He reached his friend’s bivouac about midnight and found him trying to pass the night in some comfort around a large bonfire. He brought something to eat and a large buffalo robe to sleep on, and La Barge got through the remainder of the night very well.

DISTRESS SIGNAL UNANSWERED.

While the Yellowstone was lying above the mouth of the Kansas the Assiniboine passed down on her return trip.[8] La Barge signaled for assistance, but Captain Pratt would not stop. “It was pretty hard,” observed the captain, in narrating this affair. “I never refused to answer a distress signal, even if the boat were engaged in the strongest opposition; but our two boats were in the same trade, bound to assist each other, and yet we were left there alone in the severest straits, with no idea when we should be relieved.”

BURIALS ALONG THE MISSOURI.

When asked how these grave dangers, which were more or less his portion through life, affected him, Captain La Barge replied that, if in idleness and given time to think about them, they always depressed and in a measure unnerved him; but he was generally actively engaged, and the interest in his work and the responsibility resting upon him caused him to forget the danger. Violence and death were a familiar feature of the life in which he was engaged, and to some extent he became hardened to them. Speaking of the great number of deaths along the river, the Captain shook his head reflectively as he told of the many burials that it had been his lot to make. “There is a spot just below Kansas City—I could point it out now,” he said, “where I buried eight cholera victims in one grave. I could easily name a hundred localities along the river where I have buried passengers or crew. I generally sought some elevated ground for this purpose, which the ravages of the river could not reach. The graves were marked, if at all, with wooden head-boards, for there was generally no other material at hand, and if there were, time did not permit the use of it. It will never be known, and cannot now even be conjectured, how many of these forgotten graves there are, but enough to make the shores of the Missouri River one continuous cemetery from its source to its mouth. Were every white man’s grave along that stream distinctly marked, the voyageur would never be out of sight of these pathetic reminders of futile contests with the universal enemy. But, alas! no mark remains upon any but a very few, and the names of those who are buried in them are forever wrapped in oblivion.”

After a long delay Captain Bennett returned with a crew on the steamboat Otto, Captain James Hill, an opposition boat in the service of Sublette & Campbell. This was the year when Sublette & Campbell made such a strong show of competition with the American Fur Company.[9] Sublette himself was on board the Otto at the time. As soon as Captain Bennett resumed charge of the Yellowstone the boat proceeded on her way and reached Cabanné’s post in August.

IN THE PAWNEE CORNFIELDS.

Cabanné having been expelled from the Indian country, the post had a new bourgeois, Joshua Pilcher, a man of long experience in the Indian country, and former president of the Missouri Fur Company. Late in the month of August Pilcher sent La Barge with a small outfit of goods to the Pawnee villages to buy some buffalo meat. La Barge packed his goods on five horses and set out. He found the Pawnees still absent, and as war parties of their enemies might be lurking around the vacant villages, he thought it prudent to await at a distance the return of the Indians. In the meanwhile his party ran out of provisions, and their situation was becoming serious when La Barge decided to go and get corn enough from the fields to last them until the Pawnees should return. He went with another man, and they soon loaded themselves with ears and returned to camp. This process continued successfully for several days, great pains being taken to levy tribute uniformly throughout the cornfield, so that the Indians might not detect the loss. They were not skillful enough in this, however, and finally had to pay for the corn.

STANDING OFF THE SIOUX.

On the fourth day of their foraging expeditions they were discovered by a small war party of Sioux about a mile off. They took to flight, and tried to infuse some life into their mules, but the stolid animals would not hurry. This was particularly the case with La Barge’s mule, which could scarcely be driven into a slow gallop. La Barge saw that at the rate they were going they would surely be cut off, and he told his companion, who had the best mule, to hurry to camp for help, and he would stand the Indians off with his rifle. The companion did not like to do this, but La Barge insisted. He felt comparatively safe for a short time, for he was in a perfectly open plain, where it was impossible for the Indians to approach under cover. Whenever they drew too near he would level his rifle at them and they would venture no further. In the meanwhile he kept moving on toward camp, and soon had the pleasure of seeing his companion riding up at full speed with re-enforcements.

COMPLI­MENT­ARY OFFER.

When the Pawnees returned La Barge bought a good supply of meat and took it to Cabanné’s. There he found that veteran mountaineer, Etienne Provost, who at that time probably knew the western country better than any other living man. He had just come in for the purpose of guiding Fontenelle and Drips, partners in the American Fur Company mountain service, and owners of the trading post at Bellevue, to the Bayou Salade (South Park, Colorado), where they intended to spend the winter trapping beaver. Provost heard of La Barge’s adventure and complimented him very warmly upon it. He was now an old man, but he came up to La Barge, took him by both hands, and said to him: “I am glad you did not show the white feather to those rascals. You are the kind of man for this country. I am going to ask Major Pilcher to let you go with me. I have need of such men.” La Barge was very anxious to go, filled as he was then with the thirst of youth for adventure. But Major Pilcher needed his services and would not consent. Pilcher was very kind to La Barge, even permitting him to eat at his table—a great concession, for none of the employees were allowed to eat with the bourgeois of the post unless it was so stipulated in their contract of service. Pilcher took a special pride in his young engagé, and tried to put opportunities for distinction in his way.

CHAPTER V.
FURTHER SERVICE AT CABANNÉ’S.

METEORIC SHOWER.

In November, 1833, Pilcher sent La Barge down to a small trading post at the mouth of the Nishnabotna (river where they make canoes), kept by Francis Duroins for the convenience of a local band of Indians. La Barge’s mission was to take two twenty-gallon kegs of alcohol to Duroins. He was accompanied by a half-blood Indian, and they made the trip in a canoe. The first night they encamped on Trudeau Island, about two and a half miles above the mouth of the Weeping Water River. This island was named after Zenon Trudeau, a trader, brother of the noted schoolmaster, Joseph Trudeau, and was later called Hurricane Island, from the circumstance of its having been swept by a tornado. It has since been entirely washed away. This was the night of the ever-to-be-remembered meteoric shower of 1833. La Barge was awaked from his sleep by the brilliant light, and, though not apprehensive of any impending calamity, was naturally awe-struck at the extraordinary display. The meteors were flying, as it seemed to him, in all directions, and their number and brilliancy made the night as light as day. The half-breed companion was absolutely panic-stricken, and declared that the day of doom was at hand. But he did not forget, in his fright, the divine injunction to “eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” Rolling himself up in his blanket, he besought La Barge to open the keg of alcohol and let him meet his fate as became a man in that wild and lawless country.

As nearly as La Barge could recall, the heavier part of the shower lasted about two hours. A singular incident occurred early in its duration. A deer which had become frightened at the unusual sight came bounding through the undergrowth and plunged directly into camp, coming to a dead halt scarcely six paces from where La Barge was sitting. He seized a shotgun and killed it with a load of buckshot.

THE EXPRESS.

In January, 1834, the winter express came up from St. Louis. The express was a matter of great importance in the early fur trade. It was sent from St. Louis every winter to all the posts. Usually an express started downstream from the upper posts before the arrival of that from below. They generally met at Fort Pierre, exchanged dispatches, and each made the return trip from that point. By means of the express an interchange of views was had between the house in St. Louis and the partners in the field; and the latter were able to send down statements of business, requisitions for supplies, with information as to the prospects for the ensuing season’s trade at the upper posts, and the condition of snow in the mountains. The carrying of the express was a matter of great danger and hardship. It was generally done in the dead of winter. Between Pierre and St. Louis it was carried on horseback; above Pierre on dogsleds. The packages were put up with the most scrupulous care, and were intrusted only to those in whom the company had absolute confidence. The bearers were not permitted to carry anything else, nor to do errands for others, but were required to attend to the express only. The chief danger on the long journey was from the cold, for at this season the Indians were not dangerous, being generally huddled together in their villages for the winter. The route above Bellevue was along the west shore to opposite Vermillion, where it crossed the river and remained on the east shore the rest of the way until opposite Fort Pierre.

Captain La Barge’s father brought up the express from St. Louis in the winter of 1834. He was to return from Cabanné’s post, and Pilcher was to provide for its carriage the rest of the way. A few days before his arrival a brutal murder occurred at the post. A half-breed named Pinaud, while in a state of drunkenness, shot and killed a white man named Blair. Both of the men were hunters for the post. Pilcher immediately put Pinaud in irons, to be held until he could be sent to St. Louis for trial. When the elder La Barge arrived Pilcher asked him if he would undertake to deliver the prisoner to the United States authorities in St. Louis. He agreed to try it. When ready to start he requested Pilcher to remove the irons and put Pinaud on a mule. This astonished Pilcher a good deal, but La Barge explained that the man could ride better with the free use of his limbs, which was also necessary to keep him from freezing to death. He said he could catch him if he undertook to run, for the mule was no match in speed for his horse. He would take the irons and put them on in camp.

TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE.

The prisoner was delivered in due time to the proper authorities in St. Louis, where he was held for trial. And now ensued one of those miscarriages, or rather travesties, of justice which marked the entire history of the American Fur Company on the Missouri River. Although Pinaud’s crime was a cold-blooded and causeless murder, it was nevertheless of vital importance that he be acquitted; otherwise it would bring out the fact that the Company was violating the Federal statutes by selling liquor at its posts. The company therefore took good care that none of the people from the upper country who were conversant with the facts should be in St. Louis when the trial came off. The prosecution, consequently, could produce no witnesses, and the man was acquitted.

LA BARGE CARRIES EXPRESS.

Two or three days after the elder La Barge left Cabanné’s post for St. Louis, Pilcher summoned young La Barge to him and asked him to take the express to Pierre. “There are old voyageurs here whom I can send,” he said, “but I can’t trust them. I want you to go. What do you say to it?”

“Well, Major,” La Barge replied, “I have never been as far above this post in my life, but if you have confidence in me I think I can get through.”

“I believe you will,” said the Major. “I will trust you, at any rate. Get ready and you shall have the best horse in the post.”

In fact Pilcher gave La Barge his own horse, a very fine animal. Captain La Barge made ready and set out alone in a country entirely new to him, uninhabited by white men, and now buried in the embrace of a northern winter. He took a few pounds of hard bread and a few ears of corn to parch, but for the rest subsisted on game. He followed the foot of the bluffs as far as possible, and in due time reached Fort Pierre. Fortunately, the day after his arrival the express from Fort Union came in. Exchanges were made, and after a short rest La Barge set out on his return trip. He reached Cabanné in good time. The exploit gratified Pilcher highly, and he said to La Barge, “I knew I had made no mistake.”

A MOMENTARY FRIGHT.

Captain La Barge recalled only two incidents on this trip: He saw one day, what he never saw before nor afterward, although he had heard hunters and Indians relate similar experiences, two dead elk whose horns had become interlocked in fighting, and who had died bound together in that way. While in camp one night, just above Vermillion, he had a good fire of dry cottonwood and willows, and was roasting a prairie chicken in the flame. Happening to look up, he saw four gray wolves only a little way off on the opposite side of the fire, looking steadily at him. He was almost paralyzed at the sight, but nevertheless did not leave his place, but quietly got his gun and pistols convenient for action and sat still and watched his visitors. After looking at him a few minutes, and concluding, apparently, that he was not the kind of game they were after, they withdrew.

AFTER HORSE THIEVES.

In the month of April, 1834, La Barge was sent with a party under one La Chapelle to go to the Pawnees and bring down the bullboats with the winter’s trade. They were detained several days at the Pawnee Loup village, waiting for some of the Indians to come in. During this delay a band of horse-stealing Sioux slipped into the village one stormy night, and, opening the corrals, let out some sixty head of horses and got away without waking anybody up. When the theft was discovered the following morning the chief called for volunteers to go in pursuit. Some seventy-five men started, and with them La Barge and a companion named Bercier. La Barge had never had an experience of this sort, and thought the present opportunity a good one. On the second evening after their departure they discovered the thieves and their horses encamped on the Elkhorn River. There were about fifteen of the Indians. The pursuers carefully reconnoitered the position, and next morning at daybreak attacked it, killing eleven of the Indians and capturing all of the horses. The man Bercier, who accompanied La Barge, met death at the hand of another tribe of Indians thirty-one years afterward. In 1865 he went up the Missouri with Captain La Barge to Fort Benton, and was killed by the Blackfeet on the Teton River near that post.

RATTLE­SNAKES.

On their way down the Platte from the Pawnees, on this trip, the party were greatly annoyed by rattlesnakes at the camps on shore. If they made camp before dark they carefully scoured the entire neighborhood and killed or drove off these dangerous reptiles. But they often kept on the river as long as they could see, and on such occasions could not take the usual precaution. The snakes were not pugnacious, and sought the camp only because of the warm nestling places they found there. They liked to creep into or under the blankets, and the great danger was that when the occupant of the bed awoke he might step on or otherwise hurt the snakes and cause them to strike before he was conscious of their presence. On one occasion Captain La Barge found two of these snakes under his coat, which he had folded and used for a pillow. In some places they were so numerous as to cause the Indians to move their camps. An instance of this kind occurred at Red Cloud, below what is now Chamberlain, S. D., where the site of the agency had to be changed. As late as 1883, when Captain La Barge was pilot of a boat in the service of a United States surveying party, he took some members of the party to a point near the Bijoux hills, where he remembered having seen long years before a colony of rattlesnakes. Sure enough, there they were, still as thick as in former days. The party killed 130 within a few minutes. Captain La Barge could not recall a single death from a rattlesnake bite in his whole experience on the river. He stated that swine were the best exterminators of these reptiles.

As soon as the robes had been packed into mackinaw boats at the mouth of the Platte, about the middle of May, 1834, La Barge started for St. Louis. This was the last of his service with Pilcher, for before his return the Major had left the post for some more important business in St. Louis. He had taken a great liking to the young engagé and undertook to secure him a promotion. He sent down by La Barge a letter of recommendation to Daniel Lamont, one of the partners of the upper Missouri department of the American Fur Company. Captain La Barge knew nothing of the letter at the time. It eventually found its way into the Chouteau archives, where it was discovered by the author of this work and shown to Captain La Barge sixty-two years after it was written. It read as follows:

LETTER OF RECOMMEND­ATION.

“Near the Bluffs, May 16, 1834.

“Dear Sir: The bearer of this, Joseph La Barge, wintered with me last winter, and has been faithful, active, and enterprising. He wishes to get a clerkship on the Missouri, but I have not employed him for the reason that I have no use for him, nor do I suppose that Mr. Chouteau will employ him for this post, as I have informed him that there is no use for additional clerks. La Barge writes a tolerably good hand, and if you have any place for him above, I can recommend him as a modest and good young man who has done his duty here (as an engagé) very faithfully, and I think him worthy of a better situation.

“Your friend,
“Joshua Pilcher.”

CHAPTER VI.
LAST YEAR AT CABANNÉ’S.

After a few weeks’ visit among his friends in St. Louis in the spring of 1834 La Barge started back on the steamer Diana for Cabanné’s post. Pilcher was no longer in charge, having been succeeded by Peter A. Sarpy. During his service under Sarpy La Barge had an adventure which came near cutting off his career on the river almost at its beginning. Late in the fall of the year Sarpy sent him down to Bellevue to take charge of a herd of horses which was being wintered there for the mountain expeditions of Fontenelle and Drips. There were about 150 horses in the herd, and they were kept on the east side of the river in the bottoms, where they subsisted mostly on the bark of young cottonwood trees. This kind of forage was extensively used in those days. It was an excellent food and was liked by the stock. Instances are recorded where they have taken it in preference to grain. Horses throve well upon it, and it is related that Kenneth McKenzie at Fort Union fed it exclusively to his hunting stock.

HORSE WOOD.

The method of preparing the bark for forage along the Missouri River was as follows: The trees were cut down and the trunk then cut into short logs three or four feet long. In the winter time the bark was frozen and had to be thawed out before using. To do this the logs were stood up in front of a fire and turned around gradually until the bark was warmed through. It was then peeled off with drawknives and cut up into small pieces, after which it was ready for food. It was very essential that the bark be thawed out when fed, for the sharp edges of the shavings were like knife blades if frozen, and liable to cut the throats and stomachs of the horses. Animals were occasionally lost from this cause. After the logs had been stripped of their bark they were split and piled on the river bank, forming an excellent fuel for the next season’s steamboat. Traders at the various posts were under standing instructions to gather up the “horse wood” in their vicinity and pile it on the bank of the river, where it could be reached by the boats.

INTO AN AIR HOLE.

It was while engaged in this work of caring for horses that La Barge had the adventure just alluded to. It was mid-winter, 1834–35. The Missouri was frozen deep, and a pathway led from the post at Bellevue across the river on the ice to the east bottoms, where the herd was kept. The path ran between two large airholes through the ice—one just above and the other about a hundred yards below. The weather was extremely cold, and there was every indication of an approaching blizzard. Captain La Barge wrapped himself in a blanket coat, held tight to his body by a belt, and was armed with a rifle, tomahawk, and knife. He experienced no difficulty in crossing to the east shore, for the wind was behind his back. But before he was ready to return the blizzard was on in full force; the wind came from the west obliquely across the river, and the drifting snow completely obliterated the path. La Barge nevertheless felt confident of crossing all right, for the distance was short, and he knew the way so well that he felt as if he could follow it blindfolded. In fact, that was practically his present situation, for the wind drove the snow into his face so violently that it was impossible to look ahead. Getting his bearings as well as he could, he started across on a slow run in face of the blinding storm. It would seem in any case to have been a reckless performance, considering the existence of the airholes near the path; but La Barge was not given to enlarging upon future dangers, and forged boldly ahead. For once his confidence deceived him. All of a sudden he plunged headlong into the river. He instantly realized that he was in one of the air holes—but which one? If the lower one, he was certainly lost, for the swift current had borne him under the ice before he came to the surface. If the upper hole, he might float to the lower. But did the current flow directly from one to the other, and would he be at the top at the critical instant? All these questions and many more flashed through his mind with the rapidity of thought in the presence of imminent peril. He soon rose to the surface and bumped the overlying ice. Sinking and rising again he bumped the ice a second time. The limit of endurance was almost reached, when suddenly his head emerged into the open air. Spreading out his hands, he caught the edge of the ice. He held on until he could draw his knife, which he plunged into the ice far enough to give him something to pull against, and after much severe and perilous exertion he drew himself out. He had stuck to his rifle all the time without realizing the fact, and came out as fully armed as when he went in.

MIRACULOUS ESCAPE.

But now a new peril awaited him. The storm was at its height, the cold intense, and his clothing was drenched through. The bath which he had received had not chilled him in the least, for the water was much warmer than the air outside, and his exertion would have kept him warm anyway; but out in the wind the chances were that he would freeze if he did not quickly reach a fire. Hastily recovering his bearings, he set out anew, and had the good fortune to reach the post without any further delay.

It is needless to say that the inmates of the post were slow to credit the Captain’s story, in spite of the proof afforded by his frozen clothing. Martin Dorion, one of the most respectable of the numerous family of that name, said to La Barge, “Your time hasn’t come yet. Your work remains to be done.” It was not until after he had changed his clothing and had settled down by a strong fire that the reaction from the terrible strain came; but then for a little while he felt as if he could not keep himself together.

EXPERT SWIMMER.

La Barge was an expert swimmer, having practiced the art from childhood. He learned to swim in the old Chouteau pond, which filled the hollow near where the Union Station of St. Louis now stands. It was not an uncommon feat for him in his younger days to leap from a boat when he saw an elk or deer crossing the river, outswim and catch it, hold on to it until its feet touched the bottom, and then kill it as it was ascending the bank.

In the year 1850 La Barge was making a voyage to the upper river on the steamer St. Ange. Mrs. La Barge and some other ladies were on board. One day a boy fell overboard from the forecastle. La Barge, who happened to be near, instantly leaped in and seized him, keeping him from the wheel (it was a sidewheel boat), and got him to shore before the boat could get there. A lady sitting on the deck with Mrs. La Barge asked her if she was not alarmed when her husband leaped overboard. She replied that she was not in the least; that she knew Captain La Barge’s qualities as a swimmer too well to doubt his ability to rescue the boy.

RECOVERING A YAWL.

In the summer of 1838, when La Barge was serving as pilot on the Platte, another incident occurred which illustrated his skill as a swimmer. At a point some twelve miles below Fort Leavenworth one of the guys of the yawl derrick broke, precipitating the yawl into the river. This craft was so essential to the steamboat in navigating the Missouri River that its loss would at any time be irreparable. The alarm was instantly given that the yawl was overboard. Captain La Barge was in his stateroom, but immediately hastened to the stern of the boat, where he met Captain Moore, the master. The latter said he had ordered the steamboat to the shore and would send men down the bank to try to recover the yawl. Captain La Barge replied, “I will get the yawl; send some men down to help me bring it back.” So saying, he plunged into the river, overtook the yawl, and brought it to land half a mile below the boat.

In the spring of 1835 Captain La Barge went down, as usual, with the mackinaws to St. Louis. This terminated his three years’ engagement with the company. He remained in St. Louis all summer except when absent on short river trips in the vicinity. In the fall he went up the Missouri to the Black Snake Hills (St. Joseph, Mo.), where he engaged for the winter to the trader Robidoux, who was in charge. Nothing of interest transpired, and in the spring he returned to St. Louis.

PRACTICAL APPRENTICE­SHIP.

The next four years of Captain La Barge’s life were a practical apprenticeship in the business which he was to follow as a career. They were spent almost entirely on the lower river in the various capacities of clerk, pilot, and master on different boats. Not many events of special note occurred, and the actual voyages made are now somewhat uncertain. But the experience was a useful one, and by the time it was over the Captain had won a reputation as a pilot which thereafter insured him continuous service.

LEAVES AMERICAN FUR COMPANY SERVICE.

The Captain’s first service during this time was as assistant pilot on the steamer St. Charles, but the boat was burned at Richmond landing, opposite Lexington, Mo., July 2, 1836. He then engaged as pilot on a new boat, the Kansas, and ran in the lower river the rest of the season. In the spring of 1837 he shipped as clerk on the steamboat Boonville, but this boat was wrecked on a snag early in November near the mouth of the Kansas River, and was lost with a full cargo of government freight. In the spring of 1838 he went as pilot on the Platte, a boat built during the previous winter, and the first double-engine boat that ever plied the river. He remained on this boat for two years, mainly on the lower river. He made but one trip to the far upper river, and started, in the fall of 1838, for the Bayou la Fourche, to spend the winter in the sugar trade. The boat had gone scarcely thirty miles below St. Louis when she ran upon a snag, which tore an immense hole in the bottom and caused her to sink immediately. In the spring of 1840 the Captain again entered the service of the American Fur Company as pilot of the steamer Emily, which was to make a trip to Fort Union. Before the season was over the company assigned him to work on a new steamboat, the Trapper. For some reason the Captain did not like this assignment and refused to accept it. This incensed the company, who considered him bound to serve wherever directed. Neither side would yield, and the Captain forthwith left the service of the company.

THE MORMONS.

During these four years of apprenticeship several incidents of interest occurred, some pertaining to the local history of the country and others of a purely personal character. Captain La Barge saw a good deal of the Mormons, who at this time were undergoing those persecutions in western Missouri which finally drove them from the State. They were frequently on the steamboats, and the Captain at one time or another saw nearly all the leaders, including Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, Orson Hyde, and others. Captain La Barge never liked the appearance or demeanor of Smith, and never believed in his sincerity. He thought more of Rigdon, who was a most pleasant talker and who once preached a sermon on his boat. Captain La Barge’s knowledge of the Mormons and their doings at this time led them to request him, nearly sixty years afterward (1895), to appear for them and give evidence as to their title to the land in Independence, Mo., on which their temple was built.

DANIEL BOONE.

Another incident which occurred about this time calls up one of the famous characters of American frontier history—Daniel Boone. This noted pioneer had passed most of his life in Kentucky, but when settlement began to crowd upon his primeval domain he moved westward and settled in Warren County, near St. Charles, Mo., where he died in 1820. Some years later, by agreement between the governments of Kentucky and Missouri, Boone’s remains were moved to the latter State. A committee from the Kentucky Legislature went to Missouri on the occasion of the removal and were taken up the river to Marthasville, where Boone was buried, on the steamer Kansas. Captain La Barge, who was serving on the Kansas at the time, recalled the circumstances perfectly. Many years later he was invited to go to Frankfort, Ky., to attend an anniversary celebration pertaining to Boone’s career, but was not able to accept. La Barge’s father knew Boone intimately, and La Barge himself was a warm friend of his son Nathan Boone.

CHAPTER VII.
CAPTAIN LA BARGE IN “OPPOSITION.”

The term “opposition” in the early Missouri River fur trade had a definite and specific meaning. It applied to any trading concern, great or small, individual or collective, which was doing business in competition with the American Fur Company. So powerful was this company that it never permitted any other company or trader to occupy the same field with itself except at the cost of ruinous commercial warfare. There were many attempts to compete with it, but all of them ended in failure.

The incident related in the last chapter, which led Captain La Barge to quit the company’s service, induced him to try his own luck as an opposition trader; but the result, which quickly developed, was quite like that of his many predecessors and successors in the same line. The Captain had laid by a few thousand dollars, which he put into the venture, and secured additional capital from J. B. Roy and Henry Shaw of St. Louis. The steamer Thames was chartered to convey the cargo as far as Council Bluffs, for, owing to the lateness of the season, it was not thought safe to attempt to take the boat further. An outfit of wagons was carried along, and it was expected that they would be able to purchase enough horses and oxen to haul the goods the rest of the way.

EN ROUTE TO FORT LOOKOUT.

It was late in the summer when the boat arrived at Council Bluffs. She was promptly unloaded and turned over to her owners, and the Captain immediately set about organizing his wagon train. October had come before he was finally ready to start. His plan was to reach old Fort Lookout before winter set in. He knew that that post had been abandoned, but he understood that it was still in a good enough state of preservation to winter in. At L’Eau qui Court (Niobrara River) he was compelled to abandon his wagons on account of the snow, and build sleds. He traveled the rest of the way on the frozen surface of the river.

TROUBLE BEGINNING.

Soon after leaving the Niobrara Captain La Barge had a foretaste of what he must expect from the American Fur Company, and found that he must be prepared to contend, not only with the long-established power and unscrupulous methods of that great organization, but with the petty trickery of small traders who were trying to make some headway in the country. At the Niobrara he found Narcisse Leclerc, the same whose expedition he had helped break up at Council Bluffs eight years before. The Captain knew him well as a man acquainted with the Indians and capable of rendering efficient service, but devoid of good principle and ready for any underhand action that would promote his interest. La Barge found him, with his family, entirely destitute, and, counting on his well-known hostility to the company, he thought that if he were to employ him he might depend on his loyalty. He accordingly engaged him, but later bitterly regretted it.

Soon afterward, when Captain La Barge and Leclerc had passed Handy’s old trading post, where Fort Randall later stood, they were met by a party of ten Indians and a white man by the name of Bruyère, who claimed that they were en route from Pierre to Vermillion. Leclerc cautioned La Barge not to believe them, for he was certain that they had been sent down from Pierre to spy out La Barge’s movements and break up his expedition if possible. La Barge’s experience in the Indian trade, and his strong backing in St. Louis, made his opposition a matter of much importance. It was decided that it must be gotten rid of in some way, by force if that were practicable, and if not, by purchase or competition. The party that had come down the river was evidently sent to find out what could be done.

HAPPY EFFECT OF LIQUOR.

A parley ensued and La Barge invited Bruyère and his party to go back to Handy’s old post and he would give them a feast. This was agreed to, and after reaching the post and fixing camp they were first treated to coffee and hard tack. La Barge then gave Bruyère some liquor, and asked him if he should give the Indians some. Bruyère assented, saying the Indians liked it and he could take care of them. Bruyère’s party numbered eleven in all. The Captain resolved to get them all deadly drunk and then set out, leaving some liquor to keep them drunk the longer. As the liquor began to work on Bruyère he became communicative, and openly avowed his mission, which was the same as Leclerc had sagaciously foreseen. “You treat me better than any trader ever treated me before,” he said. “I was sent here to do you harm, but now I am for you, and if any Indians attempt to harm you I will defend you.”

THE UNARMED INDIANS.

La Barge then went on to Fort Lookout without any further molestation and took possession of the abandoned buildings, intending to conduct his winter trade there. Shortly afterward he received, by the hands of an Indian, a note from the agent at Pierre, inviting him in the most polite and courteous terms to come to his post, as he had some business to propose, and particularly wanted to have a friendly visit. Here again La Barge’s suspicions were aroused. The Indian messenger, who was a brother-in-law of the agent, had come to Fort Lookout totally unarmed, a thing unheard of in the Indian country. He at once inferred that the Indian hoped to allay any fears which La Barge might have of traveling alone with him. La Barge received him kindly, said he would decide in a day or two, and asked him to wait. At the first opportunity the Captain strolled off with his gun, as if on a chicken hunt, and set out on the route by which the Indian had come. He followed the trail several miles, when he found the place where the Indian had cached his gun under a tree top. La Barge confiscated the outfit, took it to camp, and hid it. He then told the Indian that he was ready to go to Pierre, and that they would start the next morning. They accordingly set out at an early hour, intending to accomplish the journey in two days. The distance was something over sixty miles by land, though one hundred by river, for the great bend of the Missouri lay between the two places. When they reached the place where the Indian had cached his gun the latter excused himself for a moment, telling La Barge not to wait. After a while he came up, but showed no signs of what his feelings must have been. He behaved very well all the way. The first night was spent on a sandbar of the river, and Fort Pierre was reached at a good hour on the afternoon of the second day.

LA BARGE UNSOCIABLE.

The agent could not at first conceal his astonishment at seeing La Barge, but quickly recovered himself, and feigned great pleasure at the meeting, saying he was glad La Barge had gotten through safely—there were so many scoundrels around the country that one’s life was in danger, if unprotected. The agent then gave La Barge a good supper, and after it was over insisted that he must sit up all night and talk about things in St. Louis. Jacob Halsey was clerk at the time. They pressed the Captain to join them in their drinks, but without success. The agent then lost his temper, declared that La Barge was “unsociable,” and that he was insulting his host by refusing his hospitality. La Barge replied that if it was necessary to get drunk in order to be sociable he would not be sociable.

PROPOSITION FOR PURCHASE.

“I had not been in the Indian country so many years for nothing,” said Captain La Barge, when describing this affair. “I knew perfectly well the unscrupulous methods of the company, for I had been an eyewitness of them. They cared not how desperate the measure to arrive at their end if only they could escape detection, and this was a comparatively easy matter. ‘Killed by the Indians,’ and similar reports, were used to veil deeds which were too black to expose to the world. It was no uncommon thing for servants of the company who had started for St. Louis, with a statement of the amount to their credit, to be heard of no more. Knowing these things, I was confessedly distrustful of my hosts. I knew that they dared do nothing openly, for that would lead to prompt report and investigation; but if I were to join in their revels, and lose my self-control, it would be easy enough to involve me in a fray with an Indian and get rid of me in that way, or get me to sign some agreement drawn up by themselves, which should rob me of my outfit and drive me out of the country. Although a temperance man anyway, I resolved to be particularly so on this occasion, and remain absolutely sober. I knew well enough that a proposition would soon come to buy me out, and I had no intention of losing my ability to drive a good bargain.

“The expected proposition came from the agent on the morning of my second day at Pierre. It was not as liberal as I thought it ought to be, and I rejected it. Next day an express came from Lookout with serious news for me. Leclerc, without the slightest authority, had taken a third of my outfit and had gone to the Yanktonais Indians to trade. This would seriously interfere with my plan, which was to hold my outfit at Lookout until I knew what terms the company would offer. I now felt that the quicker the matter was closed up the better, and knowing the great hazard of attempting to oppose so powerful a company, I accepted the proffered terms. These were that the company should take my entire outfit at an advance of ten per cent. upon the cost to me where it was, while I was to engage myself to the company for a period of three years.

SEEKING A SHORT CUT.

“Even after this arrangement the agent subjected me to new and imminent peril, as if still hoping that he would arrive at his end by a shorter cut. Although he could just as well have instructed his trader on the Little Cheyenne to receive and receipt for the goods in Leclerc’s possession, he insisted that I should go to that post and either get the goods or make a personal transfer to the trader there. He refused me any escort, and the only thing that he would do was to lend me a horse and sled. The mission was a particularly perilous one. The Yanktonais were the most dangerous and hostile of all the Sioux tribes. They knew the value of opposition in securing them better terms in trade, and if they were to learn that my mission was to sell out to the company, they would unquestionably undertake to wreak vengeance on me. Notwithstanding the needlessness, as well as the peril, of the trip, I was compelled to go, and accordingly set out.

ZEPHYR RENCONTRE.

INDIANS INSOLENT.

“The overland distance to the mouth of the Big Cheyenne was about forty miles, and I made it in one day. Here the American Fur Company had a wintering post under charge of a man named Bouis, who had with him as interpreter a very valuable man by the name of Zephyr Rencontre.[10] Zephyr was a good friend of mine and I resolved to practice a little strategy to secure his company to the Little Cheyenne and his assistance there. When I reached the post at the Big Cheyenne, Bouis exclaimed, with a good deal of astonishment, ‘What! are you alone?’ I replied that I was, but that I had authority to take Zephyr to the Little Cheyenne camp and return. Bouis was somewhat surprised at this, but said that if such were the orders he would go. We set out at once, and as soon as we were well on the way, I laid the whole matter before Zephyr. He advised me by all means not to try to take the goods away, for such an attempt would enrage the Indians. The thing to do was to get an inventory of the goods from Leclerc, transfer it to the trader there, Paschal Cerré, get his receipt, and thus transact the whole business on paper without the knowledge of the Indians. We arrived safely at the post and proceeded at once to our business. Everything went well under Zephyr’s management for a time, but the suspicion began to spread among the Indians that I was there either to remove my goods or to sell out, and they began to assume a tone of insolence and bravado. Leclerc was probably responsible for this, for he did not relish at all the turn that things had taken. In the meanwhile I took refuge in the lodge of an Indian who was a friend of Zephyr. The latter said he would dispatch the business with all possible speed. The Indians were feasting from lodge to lodge, and Zephyr said they might try to annoy me at any time, but told me to remain right there, say nothing to them, nor resent their actions if they became troublesome. ‘I am looking out for you,’ he said, ‘and have also some of my Indian friends on guard.’ Along in the evening the Indians began to come around, evidently in very bad temper, but none of them entered the tent. They made things very uncomfortable, however, and several times I concluded that all was over. They slashed the tent with their knives, and stuck their guns through and shot into the fire, throwing the coals all over me. They were trying to anger me to the point of resistance, as Zephyr had said they would, and they came near succeeding. I could hardly stand it. It seemed certain that I should be killed, and if I failed to take off one or two of them I should die that much less satisfied. I kept control of myself, however, and presently Zephyr came to me announcing that the business was completed, the inventories receipted, and that when a young Indian should come and tell me to follow I was to get up and go. It was about midnight that the Indian appeared and beckoned me to follow. I left the tent through one of the openings which the Indians had slashed in it, and we immediately struck out at a rapid pace down the Little Cheyenne. After proceeding four or five miles I was joined by Zephyr, and the young Indian was sent back.

NIGHT MARCH.

“We then started straight across the hills for the mouth of the Big Cheyenne, some forty miles distant. It was very important to get there early the next day, lest we be cut off by the Indians. We ran a good deal of the way, but such was the severity of the weather that we almost froze. The thermometer must have reached thirty degrees below zero. On the open hills the cold was terrible, and the side of my body next to the wind became thoroughly numbed. The journey was not without decided interest, however, for we were treated to one of the most beautiful displays of the Aurora Borealis that I have ever seen.

“We reached the mouth of the Big Cheyenne a little after sunrise, and I immediately got breakfast and set out for Pierre, where I arrived about nightfall. When I reached the fort the agent could hardly believe his eyes. ‘What! are you back already?’ he said. ‘I hardly thought you would succeed in turning those goods over.’ I replied that I too was astonished that I had got out of that scrape uninjured. ‘How did you manage it?’ he asked. ‘I took Zephyr along with me.’ ‘Why, how could Bouis spare him?’ ‘By your order. Didn’t you authorize me to take him?’ ‘No, I never gave any such authority,’ said the agent, as he turned away in anger that he had been so completely outwitted.

“The next day the agent detailed James Kipp, with three or four men and a dozen Indians, to go with me to Lookout and receive the goods at that point. The Indians were wholly unnecessary, and I can explain their being sent only on the theory that the agent had not yet given up the short cut for destroying this new opposition. But Kipp was a different sort of man, and although he was sometimes compelled to do the bidding of others to save himself, he never approved of such desperate measures.

UGLY BUSINESS TERMINATED.

“When we set out Kipp was on horseback and I on foot, and he said, ‘Well, let’s see who will get to Lookout first.’ Bercier and I were the only ones who reached there that night, but I was so badly used up that it was several days before I could walk naturally. Kipp did not get in for two days. The rest of the property was then turned over and the ugly business brought to a close.”

Such was Captain La Barge’s first experience in opposing the American Fur Company; and if it resulted in a quick collapse the profitable termination to himself, and the extreme opposition of the company, showed that they did not regard his enterprise with an easy eye. The whole affair made them set a higher value on La Barge’s services and treat his opinions and rights thereafter with more consideration.

As soon as the business with the Fur Company was completed La Barge set out for Bellevue, arriving there about April 1, 1841. He at once went to the Pawnees, where he used to go seven or eight years before, and brought down the bullboats. He was glad to make this trip, for he always liked the Pawnees. Having arrived at the mouth of the Platte with the bullboats and transferred their cargo, he set out for St. Louis with the mackinaws.

MARRIAGE OF CAPTAIN LA BARGE.

PELAGIE GUERETTE.

The summer of 1842 was mostly spent on the lower river, without any incident of especial note. This year was marked, however, by a very important event in the life of Captain La Barge. On the 17th of August, 1842, he was married to Pelagie Guerette. His wife’s mother’s name was Marie Palmer, one of a noted Illinois family of that name. Her father’s name was Pierre Guerette, one of the Louisiana French, and he was born in Kaskaskia, Ill. He was a millwright and architect. He built for Auguste Chouteau one of the first grist mills run by water in St. Louis. The mill was located at the old dam which extended from Chouteau Avenue to Market Street, in the vicinity of Ninth Street. Pelagie Guerette was born January 10, 1825, and was therefore nearly ten years Captain La Barge’s junior. He had known her from childhood. She was a beautiful woman, and although not robust in health, reared a family of five boys and two girls, to adult years. She was a very sensible, noble woman, and a constant help to her husband during their married life of nearly sixty years.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE MISSOURI RIVER.

DEPARTED GLORY.

We have now followed the career of Captain La Barge through the various experiences of youth and early manhood until he is finally settled in the business of his subsequent life—the navigation of the Missouri River. It is therefore a proper time to consider the nature of that business, its features of peculiar interest, and its relation to the growth of the western country. This is the more important because it is a phase in the development of that country which has permanently passed away, and in the general mind is already buried in oblivion. Yet for fully a hundred years the history of the Missouri River was the history of the country through which it flowed. Its importance no one to-day can comprehend. Now the railroad has made accessible almost every section of the country. Then there were no railroads to speak of west of the Mississippi, nor, for that matter, any other roads worthy of mention. The river was the great, and almost the only, highway of travel and commerce. Everything was done with reference to it. Commercial posts and military garrisons were established; expeditions were undertaken, and all business operations were carried on with careful reference to this mighty stream, which descended from the distant mountains to the very heart of the continent and thence to the sea, whence the road was open to every quarter of the globe. But now its influence upon the growth of the western country has ceased to exist. The mighty river, which was once alive with steamboats and other craft, from the Great Falls to its mouth, cannot boast a single regular packet. In the most absolute sense its glory has departed, and not a trace is left to remind the modern observer of its former greatness. In the following descriptions, therefore, we hope to be serving the true purpose of history, in gathering together for preservation some interesting features of a type of our frontier life which has long since run its appointed course.

Of all the rivers on the globe the longest is the Missouri-Mississippi. On the summit of the Rocky Mountains, above the upper Red Rock Lake, some forty miles west of the Yellowstone National Park, and directly on the boundary between the States of Montana and Idaho, Jefferson Fork of the Missouri, finds its source. From this point, by a continuous water course to the Gulf of Mexico, the distance is 4221 miles. The river is formed by the confluence of three fine mountain streams which unite at a point about fifty miles south of Helena, Mont. They were named by their discoverers, Lewis and Clark, the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers, in honor of the national administration which set on foot the expedition of these explorers. Two of these streams rise in the Yellowstone National Park, and the other, as we have seen, a little distance to the westward.

THE YELLOW­STONE.

Of the many tributaries of the Missouri the most important is the Yellowstone, which rivals in size the main stream and joins it nearly eight hundred miles below the Three Forks. Like the Missouri it finds its source in and around that now famous region, where Nature has lavished without stint her most marvelous handiwork, and which the government of the United States has set apart for the common enjoyment of the people. Both the Missouri and the Yellowstone rivers, in the upper portions of their course, flow over immense cascades and rapids which have become well known among the cataracts of the globe. The Great Falls of the Missouri are located near the modern city of the same name. They comprise several cataracts and rapids, the highest perpendicular distance being 87 feet, and the total fall over 500 feet. The falls of the Yellowstone are within the National Park, the highest perpendicular distance being 310 feet, and the total descent from Yellowstone Lake to below the first cañon near Livingston, Mont., being about 3200 feet.

ALLUVIAL CHARACTER.

Upon emerging from the foothills of the mountains, both streams begin to assume that peculiar character which distinguishes them throughout the rest of their course to the sea. They flow through alluvial bottoms, built up of the detritus from the highlands and mountains, until the present bed of the river is in most places fifty to a hundred feet above the original bed in the solid rock. The usual characteristics of an alluvial river are here found in their highest development—a muddy current, freshly formed islands, sandbars innumerable, an unstable channel, and a shifting bed which is never in the same place for two years in succession.

Among the most striking phenomena of a river like the Missouri is the constant change that is going on in the location of its channel. This seems to be in some places a periodical matter. The forces of the river get to working on particular lines and push their devastations for many years in one general direction. Being finally arrested by some insurmountable obstacle, or turned, it may be, by trifling causes, they work in another direction, and invade lands which have enjoyed long immunity, and upon which the cottonwood, walnut, and cedar have attained mature growth.

A NEW “CUT OFF”

Old course of river
toward background

Old course of river
from background

A WINDING WATERWAY.

The river, in its unrestrained rambles from bluff to bluff, performs some curious freaks. It develops the most remarkable bends, varying in length from one to thirty miles, with distances across the necks but a small fraction of those around. In time these narrow necks are cut in two, and the river abandons its old course, which soon fills up near the extremities of the bends and leaves crescent-shaped lakes in the middle. This process is a never-ending one, and the channel distances along the river are in a state of never-ending change. There is one bend in the upper river, known from the earliest times as the Great Bend, which was not formed in the way just described. The course of the river here is comparatively permanent, and is evidently the same as that of the original stream bed. The distance around is nearly thirty miles, while that across is only a mile and a half. It was a regular custom with travelers, when the Indians were not too dangerous, to leave the boats at the beginning of this bend and walk across, going on board on the other side.

The existence of so many bends increased the length of the channel, but this drawback was more than offset by the reduction of the slope which made the current less strong and enabled steamboats to overcome it with greater ease. The river is like a great spiral stairway leading from the ocean to the mountains. A steamboat at Fort Benton is 2565 feet—two and one-half times the height of the Eiffel tower in Paris—above the level of the sea; yet so gentle is the slope nearly all the way that, in placid weather, the water surface resembles that of a lake. This wonderful evening-up of the slope of the river by the extreme sinuosity of its course is a fact not only interesting as a natural phenomenon, but of the utmost importance in the behavior and use of the stream.

CHANGES OF THE CHANNEL
OF THE
MISSOURI RIVER

THROUGH MONONA COUNTY, IOWA.

Present Channel Distance, 44 Miles

(Compiled by MITCHELL VINCENT, ONAWA, IOWA.)

Not only does the general course of the river have these larger windings, but in periods of low water they are multiplied many fold. When a large proportion of the river bed between its banks becomes exposed, as it does in the low-water season, the stream flows back and forth across this bed until its length is largely increased over that at high water. Here again is to be seen the wisdom of nature’s methods. In periods of high water, when it is important to move the floods rapidly down the valley, the river straightens out, shortens its length, increases its slope, and accelerates its velocity of flow.

ANNUAL TONNAGE.

Of the immense carrying power and potential energy of this stream it is difficult to form an adequate conception. It yearly carries into the Mississippi 550,000,000 tons of earth, which has been brought an average distance of not less than 500 miles. The work thus represented is equivalent to 275,000,000,000 mile-tons, or tons carried one mile. The railroads of the United States carried in the year 1901 141,000,000,000 mile-tons of freight.

BEDS OF THE OLD RIVER.

That such an exercise of power should leave its impress deep upon the country through which the river flows is not to be wondered at. Every year thousands of acres of rich bottom lands are destroyed. Forests, meadows, cultivated fields, farmhouses, and villages fall before its tremendous onslaught, and the changes that have been wrought in the topography of the valley during the past one hundred years almost defy belief.[11] To one familiar with its history, the many crescent-shaped lakes and curvilinear benches show where the river once flowed and where it may flow again. In recent years the government has seriously undertaken to set metes and bounds to the migratory habits of the stream; but it has found a most refractory subject to deal with. Even with the expenditure of vast sums of money in the construction of the most powerful dikes and improved bank protection known to engineering, it can never feel certain that its prisoner will not break its bonds at any moment and escape.

SNAGS IN THE MISSOURI RIVER

(After Maximilian)

SNAGS AND SAWYERS.

As with most of our Western streams the principal arboreal growths along the banks of the Missouri are the willow and cottonwood. The willow matures very rapidly, and well-grown forests are constantly met with in places where the river flowed but two or three years before. The cottonwood requires more time to mature, but this is afforded by those longer cycles of change in which the river passes back and forth across the bottoms. On many of the islands along the central portion of the river there were formerly extensive growths of cedar. The walnut and other trees abound to a less extent. Every year great numbers of trees that line the river bank are undermined and fall into the stream. They are borne along by the current until they become anchored in the bottom, where they remain with one end sticking up and pointing downstream, sometimes above and sometimes below the surface. These trunks or branches have always been the most formidable dangers to navigation of the river. They are called snags or sawyers, though sometimes, from the ripple or break in the surface of the water, “breaks.” It is, in fact, only by the appearance of these breaks that a submerged snag can be discovered by the pilot; and fortunately, in a rapid current, like that of the Missouri, a snag will cause such a break if it is near enough to the surface to touch the bottom of a boat. These snags were the terror of the pilot, as well they might be. The record of steamboat wrecks on the Missouri, and it is an appalling one, shows that about seventy per cent. were due to this cause.

THE MISSOURI IN WINTER.

A large portion of the river is in a latitude where it freezes over every winter. During the ice period it is indeed effectually enchained. The banks are safe for a season, and the water itself becomes comparatively clear. But as soon as the breezes of spring soften the ice the river resumes its customary wanderings, with renewed vigor after its long rest. By way of celebration of its release from its icy prison it frequently gives exhibitions of power that far surpass all its other manifestations. When the ice “breaks” and begins to “run,” it is liable to strand like a steamboat on the shallow bars. Other ice following, and finding the way obstructed, piles up on that before it. Gradually, sometimes, and sometimes rapidly, the accumulation spreads, cutting off the channel of the river, until, as often happens, it forms a veritable dam across the entire stream. These ice “gorges” develop a power that nothing can withstand, and the amount of property destroyed by them in the history of the river has been very great. There is almost nothing that can be done to break them. Dynamite explosions are resorted to, but the ice piles up so rapidly and in such vast quantities that the most powerful blast seems harmless. In the face of this appalling danger man is forced to stand a helpless spectator until the river itself accumulates sufficient force to burst through the dam. It has more than once happened that, before the dam has given way, the river has cut an entirely new channel.

ICE GORGES.

The moving of the ice, even when not accompanied by serious blockades, is always an impressive sight. Usually the warm weather loosens it from the shore before it begins to move, and even disintegrates it, so that it is unsafe to cross upon. The softer it becomes before it begins to run the less danger is there of its gorging. After the movement begins it continues for several days, until the vast quantities of ice stored in the river above have floated by, or melted away. During the height of the movement the crushing of innumerable ice cakes upon each other produces a continuous roar which can be heard for a long distance from the river.

To the lonely dwellers of the valley in the early times the annual “break-up” of the ice was the most welcome event of the year, for it was the knell of the long and tedious winter, and the certain harbinger of approaching spring.

ANNUAL FLOODS.

The river has two regular floods every year, one usually in April and the other in June. The first flood is short, sharp, and often very destructive. The second flood is of longer duration and carries an immensely greater quantity of water, but does less damage than the first. The April flood is due to the spring freshets along the immediate valley as the snow melts off and the first rains come. The June rise comes primarily from the melting snows in the mountains. The great and exceptional floods, however, are not due to these regular causes, but to periods of long and excessive precipitation in the lower portions of the valley.

The slope of the river in the lower half of its course is less than a foot to the mile, and the velocity of its current varies from two to ten miles per hour, depending upon the stage of the water.

BEAUTY OF THE RIVER.

From an æsthetic point of view, the Missouri River has an unenviable reputation. People who never see it except in crossing railroad bridges, from which they look down into a mass of muddy, eddying water, are liable to compare it unfavorably with other important streams. But to him who is fortunate enough to travel upon it, and study it in all its phases, it is not only an attractive stream, but one of great scenic beauty. As seen in its more placid periods, near morning or evening, when the slanting rays of the sun show the water mainly by reflection, robbing it of its muddy tinge, and replacing it by a crimson hue or silver glimmer that stretches away toward the horizon, cut off again and again by the bends of the river, but ever and anon reappearing until lost in the distance, there are few scenes in nature that appeal more strongly to the eye of the artist.

Again, in its less peaceful moods, when the persistent prairie winds blow day after day without ceasing, there is a peculiar attractiveness about the weird scene. In all directions, as far as the eye can reach, the air is filled with clouds of sand, drifting along the naked bars, and changing their forms almost as rapidly as does the water those in the bed of the river. The willows and cottonwoods bend complainingly before the blast. The river is lashed into foam, and often becomes so tempestuous that rowboats cannot live in it, while larger craft, making a virtue of necessity, lie moored to the shore until the wind has abated its fury.

PRAIRIE STORMS.

Perhaps the most frightful scenes on the river are the violent summer storms of thunder, hail, and rain, with the characteristic tornado tendencies so common in the central prairies. When these black storms gather, and the incessant lightning seems to bind the clouds to the earth, and the rolling and agitated vapors disclose the terrible play of the winds, the river man discreetly makes for shore, and loses no time in gaining the shelter of some friendly bank. The fury of these storms as they break into the valley, pouring down wind and rain with terrific violence, until the river yields up clouds of spray like the vortex of Niagara, forms one of the wildest and most sublime manifestations of the forces of nature. It cannot be truly enjoyed by an eyewitness, because of the element of danger which is present, but the impression produced upon one who is fortunate enough to pass safely through it remains ineffaceable in the memory. These storms generally come from the southwest, and it was a well-recognized rule on the river in boating days to tie up for the night on the southwest, or right shore of the river, so as to be under cover of a bank if a storm should come before day. Accidents from these storms were numerous. Boats were often torn from their moorings and driven upon the bars, where they were as good as lost. Smokestacks, hurricane deck, and pilot-house were frequently carried away and windows destroyed by the hail.

INFLUENCE OF THE WEATHER.

The condition of the weather had an influence upon the business of navigating the river which was of the highest importance, yet would never occur to one unless his attention were directed to it. The excessively uneven and broken condition of the bed of the river, filled as it was with ever-shifting sand-drifts or bars, sometimes called reefs by the river men, produced an appearance upon the surface of the water which was almost the only guide in tracing out the sinuous channel. The experienced pilot could tell from this appearance, not only where snags and other hidden obstructions were, but the outlines of submerged sandbars, and the position of the deepest water. Anything, like wind or rain or a slanting sun, which disturbed this normal appearance, disturbed the serenity of the pilot’s mind. Wind was less troublesome than rain, for it ruffled the deep water more than the shallow, and thus left some indication of the locality of each. Rain, on the other hand, reduced everything to a common appearance. The sun, when below forty-five degrees from the horizon, was exceedingly troublesome on account of the reflection from the water whenever the boat was sailing toward it.

Captain La Barge records a curious fact in regard to the appearance of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers as seen by night. He found the Missouri much easier to “read,” and always experienced a feeling of relief when he left the main stream and entered its great tributary. The Mississippi seemed black in the night, and this appearance aggravated the darkness. The Missouri, on the other hand, had a distinct whitish tinge, and it seemed, as he entered the stream, as if a faint light had been struck up along its surface.

DISCOVERY OF THE MISSOURI.

Such are some of the more striking physical characteristics of this very remarkable stream. It is not surprising that, in the early times, when it first came to be known, it produced a profound impression on the minds of explorers and drew from them expressions of wonder and awe. Marquette and Joliet, who discovered the river in 1673, were floating down the Mississippi in a comparatively clear current, when they came to a point where a mighty volume of water poured itself into the Mississippi from the west shore, carrying trees, stumps, and drift of all descriptions. It filled them with amazement, as it has every person since who has stood at the confluence of these two mighty streams, particularly when the Missouri is bringing down the great floods of spring.

We do not know when the Missouri was first entered by white men, but probably about the year 1700. The French had made sufficient progress along its course in the early years of the eighteenth century to alarm the Spaniards, who, in the year 1720, sent an expedition to destroy the Missouri Indians, the allies of the French. This expedition was itself destroyed by the Missouris, but the event caused the French to build a post some two hundred miles up the river on an island opposite the village of the Missouris. This was Fort Orleans, and was, so far as we know, the first structure erected by white men along the course of the stream.

NAME OF THE RIVER.

The name of the river comes from the tribe of Indians just mentioned, who once dwelt at its mouth, but were driven from this position by the Illinois Indians. The word means “dwelling near the mouth of the river,” and has no reference to the muddy quality of the water.

The fact that the Missouri River is longer than the entire Mississippi, and more than twice as long as that portion of the latter stream above the mouth of the Missouri, has led to the frequent observation that the name which applies to the lower course of the Mississippi should apply also to the tributary. But this would evidently not be a fitting nomenclature. The Mississippi is the trunk stream, receiving the drainage from the Alleghenies on the east and the Rockies on the west. It divides the continent into approximately symmetrical portions. This division has entered into the very life of our national development, and is so natural and convenient that the stream itself from north to south is appropriately known by a single name. The Missouri is the great tributary from the mountains on the west, as the Ohio is from the mountains on the east. The characteristics of the Missouri are so peculiarly its own that a separate name is more befitting than one divided between itself and another and very different stream.

EARLY EXPLORATION.

During the eighteenth century the French gradually extended their knowledge of the river. It is not likely that the voyageurs had ascended as far as to the Mandan villages, a short distance above the modern capital of North Dakota, when, in 1738–43, De la Verendrye crossed over from the north and struck the river at that point. But it is quite certain that at the time of the founding of St. Louis, 1764, the river was well known for a thousand miles above its mouth. From that time knowledge of it increased more rapidly, and when Lewis and Clark went up the river in 1804, they found that white men had preceded them almost to the mouth of the Yellowstone.

CHAPTER IX.
KINDS OF BOATS USED ON THE MISSOURI.

RIVER BOATS.

The swift and turbulent character of the Missouri River led to exaggerated accounts by the early explorers of the difficulty of navigating it. Such navigation was at first considered wholly out of the question except in the simplest craft. Tradition says that Gregoire Zerald Sarpy was the first to introduce keelboats on the river, but the date of this essay is not very definitely fixed. It would seem that the French must have used large boats at the time they were established at Fort Orleans. In any event the advent of the keelboat on the Missouri in connection with the fur trade could not have been long after the founding of St. Louis, and probably antedated it. Gradually these boats made their way to points farther and farther up the river, until in 1805 they were taken by Lewis and Clark to the head of navigation. A similar experience was gone through with in the case of the steamboat. It was at first thought impossible for such boats to navigate the river at all, but in 1819 the attempt was made, and the Independence entered the Missouri on either the 16th or 17th of May, and ascended the river two hundred miles. The Western Engineer, a government boat, went as far as the old Council Bluffs in the same year. From that time on steamboats remained on the river, making farther and farther advances toward the head of navigation, which was finally reached forty years after the first boat entered the river.

The principal craft which have been used on the Missouri and its tributaries are the canoe, mackinaw, bullboat, keelboat, and steamboat. The yawl, a very important boat, was not much used for independent navigation, but rather as an appurtenance to the steamboats.

* * * * *

THE CANOE.

The canoe was the simplest and most generally used of all the river craft. It was the wooden canoe, or “dugout,” and not the bark canoe which was so much used where the proper material could be found. The Missouri River canoe was generally made from the logs of the cottonwood, though frequently from the walnut, and occasionally from cedar. The cottonwood in the river bottoms attained immense size, ample for the largest canoes, for these boats rarely exceeded thirty feet in length and three and one-half in width. The ordinary length was between fifteen and twenty feet. A suitable tree having been found, it was felled and a proper length of the trunk was cut out. The exterior was straightened with the broad-ax, and reduced to a round log shorn of all roughness and irregularity. The top was then hewn off, so as to leave about two-thirds of the log. The ends were given a regular canoe model, and were sometimes turned up on bow and stern with extra pieces for purpose of ornament. The log was then carefully scooped out from the flat surface so as to leave a thin shell about two inches thick at the bottom and one at the rim. To support the sides and give strength to the craft the timber was left in place at points from four to six feet apart, making solid partitions or bulkheads. A good-sized canoe was easily built by four men in as many days. They had tools especially adapted to the work, the most important being the tille ronde, or the round adz.

These log canoes made excellent craft, strong, light, and easily managed. A full crew generally consisted of three men, two to propel and one to steer. The paddle (French aviron) was always used. A mast was occasionally placed in the center and rigged with a square sail, but this could be used only with an aft wind, for fear of capsizing the canoe.

Sometimes these boats were made with a square stern, and were then called pirogues; but this name was more frequently used where two such boats were rigidly united in parallel positions a few feet apart and completely floored over. On the floor was placed the cargo, which was protected from the weather by the use of skins. Oars were provided in the bow for rowing and a single oar in the stern between the boats for steering. Sails could be used with a quartering wind on these boats without danger of upsetting. Dubé’s ferry, on the Mississippi, one of the earliest ferries of St. Louis, used a boat of this kind.

BEAR’S OIL AND HONEY.

The principal use of the canoe was for the local business of the larger river posts. Often, however, they were used in making trips to St. Louis, even from the remotest navigable points of the main stream or its tributaries. Many such a journey has been made with a single voyageur running the gantlet of hostile tribes all the way from the mountains to the Mississippi. A common use of the canoe was for sending express messages down the river, and there are several records of their having been used to transport freight. An example of this last use was the shipment of bear’s oil, which was extensively used in St. Louis as a substitute for lard in the early days when swine were scarce and black bears plentiful. The oil was extremely penetrating, and would rapidly filter through skin receptacles. Barrels or casks not being available, the center apartment of the canoe was filled with the oil and tightly covered with a skin fastened to the sides of the boat. Honey was also transported in this way. In those days bee trees were exceedingly plentiful in the Missouri bottoms, and large quantities of honey were taken from them.