OCR Text |
Show A Recently-Published Diary Sheds New Light on Romantic Story of Fur Trade In the Rocky Mountains a Century Ago The Grand Parade of the Assembled Indians at the Fur Traders' Rendezvous in the Rocky Mountains Moun-tains in 1837. From the painting by Alfred J. Miller of Baltimore, who accompanied Sir William Drummond Stuart (or Stewart) of Murthly Castle, Scotland, to the Far West in 1837. This picture hung in Murthly Castle until about 1926 when it, and other paintings by Miller, were sold and sent to New York. It was purchased pur-chased there by E. W. Marland, then governor of Oklahoma, and presented to the Oklahoma Historical society in 1936. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) THE romantic era of the Rocky mountain fur trade of a century ago came to life again the other day and once more such frontier notables as Old Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Nathaniel J. Wyeth, Jim Beckworth, Captain Bonneville, Bonne-ville, Lucien Fontenelle and the Robidoux brothers strode across the stage of history. They appeared in a new book "Life in the Rocky Mountains A Diary of Wanderings on the Sources of the Rivers Missouri, Columbia, and Colorado, from February, 1830, to November, 1835, by W. A. Ferris, then in the Employ of the American Fur Company," edited by Paul C. Phillips and published by Fred A. Rosenstock the Old West Publishing company of Denver, Colo. "Life in the Kocky Moun- tains" is referred to in the foregoing as a "new book." Perhaps "rediscovered narrative" nar-rative" would be a more accurate ac-curate description. For after Ferris' "wanderings on the sources of the rivers etc." were over, the diary which he had carefully kept was rewritten rewrit-ten as a continuous narrative and published serially ;'n an early American magazine, he Western Literary Messenger of Buffalo, N. Y., in 1843-44. In this form it was known to a few scholars of the fur trade era but there were many gaps in the narrative because the Messenger Mes-senger ceased publication early in its career and many numbers had apparently been lost. Then Mr. Rosenstock, who had been collecting copies of this magazine, traced down the missing numbers and made them available to Mr. Phillips, who had already started work on a biography of Ferris. Later research unearthed other important material family papers, pa-pers, articles written by Ferris in his later years for the Dallas (Texas) Herald and, most important impor-tant of all, a map of the Northwest Fur Country, drawn -by Ferris about 1836. All of this material has gone into the making of this "new book" which is rated by historians as constituting one of the great "finds" in recent research re-search in the history of the West. Ferris was born in Glens Falls, N. Y., December 26, 1810, and grew up in Buffalo, to which his family had moved when he was very young. He was trained to be a surveyor but at the age of 18 he ran away from home because his mother disapproved of his smoking a pipe and scolded him severely for doing it on the street one day. Feeling the urge to "go West," he finally arrived in St. Louis in June, 1829, and entered the employ of Pierre Chouteau Jr., head of the Western department de-partment of John Jacob Astor's American Fur company. At that time three great companies com-panies were competing for the control of the fur business in the West. Into this struggle the young New Yorker was plunged when he left St. Louis with an A. F. C. company in February, 1830, and went up the Platte river, through South Pass into the Green river country. That fall they trapped the western west-ern tributaries of the Green and later moved over to the neighborhood neigh-borhood of Great Salt Lake. In 1831 Ferris was with a trapping trap-ping party on the upper Snake river and there had difficulty with a band of rival Hudson's Bay trappers. That summer he crossed the Continental Divide into the valley of the Jefferson then continued north into the valley val-ley of Clark's Fork of the Columbia. Colum-bia. The next spring Ferris returned to the Snake river country, was made a clerk and sent among the Flathead Indians with orders to bring them to the annual trappers' trap-pers' rendezvous at Pierre's Hole. He returned with the Flatheads '? in time to take part in the famous Battle of Pierre's Hole in July, 1832. That fall he was in another famous frontier fight in which his leader, William H. Vandenburgh, lost his life. Ferris tells a dramatic story of this incident how the party of seven trapjiers came upon traces of an Indian hunting party and how they cautiously approached a little grove of trees "watching each wavering twig and rustling bough, to catch a glimpse of some skulking savage." Then: Suddenly the lightning and thunder of at least twenty fusils burst upon our astonished senses from the gully, and awoke us to a startling consciousness of imminent danger, magnified beyond conception, con-ception, by the almost magical appear and, at the time he perished, under thirty years of age. Bold, daring and tearless, yet cautious, deliberate and prudent; uniting the apparent opposite qualities, of courage and coolness, a soldier and a scholar, he died universally beloved and regretted by all who knew him. Ferris had many other narrow escapes from death during the remainder re-mainder of his service with the American Fur company. Concerning Con-cerning his career in the Rockies, Phillips writes: "The five and a half years which Warren Ferris passed in the mountains had done much to broaden his experience and develop de-velop his powers. He had served under such great masters of the fur trade as Andrew Drips, Lucien Fontenelle, Joseph Robidoux, Robi-doux, and William Henry Vandenburgh; Vanden-burgh; and his acquaintance with them in the small trading and trapping parties must have been intimate. He also met Jim Bridger, Bridg-er, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Robert Campbell, Henry Fraeb, William and Milton Sublette, and other leaders of the opposition and learned of their ways and abilities. abili-ties. He knew Bonneville, Nathaniel Na-thaniel P. Wyeth, Captain John Ghant and other independent traders. Another man whom he met, and evidently greatly admired ad-mired but does not mention in his narrative, was Sir William Drummond Stuart, the famous English explorer and hunter. ft t i 1 "V THE DEATH OF VANDENBURGH From the painting by Irvin Shope, now in the Montana State University Library. A reproduction of this picture forms the frontispiece frontis-piece in "Life in the Rocky Mountains." ance of more than one hundred warriors, war-riors, erect In uncompromising enmity-1-both before and on either side of us, at the terrifying distance (since measured) meas-ured) of thirty steps. Imagination can not paint the horrid sublimity of the scene. A thousand brilliances reflected : from their guns as they were quickly 1 thrown into various positions, either to load or fire, succeeded the first volley, which was followed by a rapid succession suc-cession of shots, and the leaden messengers mes-sengers of death, whistled in our ears as they passed in unwelcome proximity. At that instant I saw three of our comrades flying, like arrows, from the place o murder. The horse of our partisan parti-san (Vandenburgh) was shot dead under him. but wilh unexampled firmness, he stepped calmly from the lifeless ani- j mal, presented his gun at the advancing , foe, and exclaimed "Boys, don't run"; at the same moment the wounded horse of a Frenchman threw his rider, and broke away towards camp. The yells of these Infernal fiends filled the air, and death appeared inevitable, when I was aroused to energy by observing about twenty Indians advancing, to close the already narrow passage, between the two lines of warriors. Dashing my spurs rowel deep Into the flank of my noble steed, at a single bound he cleared the ditch, but before he reached the ground, I was struck in the left shoulder by a ball, which nearly threw me off; by a desperate effort, however, I regained my upright position, and fled. A friend. Mr. R. C. Nelson, crossed the gully with me. but a moment after he was caUed to return. Without considering the utter impossibility of renoertng assistance to our devoted partisan, he wheeled, but at the same Instant his horse was severely wounded by two balls throuch the neck, which com pe Lied him to fly; yet he kept his eye for some moments on our friend, who seeing himself surrounded, without the possibility of escape, leveled his gun and shot down the foremost of his foes. The Indians immediately fired a volley upon him he fell they uttered a loud and shrill yell of exultation, and the noble spirit of a good and a brave man had psed away, forever. Thus fell Ym. Henry Vander.burgh. a gentleman born in Ir.tiiar.a. educated at West Point in the Military Academy. Seated with such men by the campfire, or traveling the trail with them, must have given the young man a larger view of the world as well as a better knowledge knowl-edge of the problems of how to deal with Indians". . . The care with which he made his observations, observa-tions, and the honest and vividness vivid-ness with which he portrayed them, make his narrative one of absorbing interest. It is the only source of information regarding many important events in the savage sav-age struggle for control of the fur trade.' But aside from Ferris' importance impor-tance as a first-hand chronicler of this important era in American history, he has other claims to fame. He left the mountains in the winter of 1835 and returned to his home in Buffalo to straighten straight-en out a family tangle One of his brothers had gone to Texas and the next year Warren Ferris joined him there. He became a surveyor in the service of the new Republic of Texas and it was he who made the surveys for the town which became the great city of Dallas. Next he settled down as a farm er but took no part in the Civil war both because he was over age for service and because of his crippled shoulder received in the fight with the Indians in which Vandenburgh was killed. Hi.c later years were devoted to lit erary work and he died on Feb ruary 8, 1873. |