OCR Text |
Show From Chicago to Salt Lake by Stage j A Perilous Journey of Thirty-Five Years Ago. Col. Alex. McClure in Inter Ocean. The progress in transcontinental travel during the present generation gener-ation makes romance pale before it. Today the tourist can enter a palace pal-ace car in Philadelphia or New York, enjoy every comfort of home, day and night, and land at the Golden Gate on the Pacific In five days. Kvery possiDie comrort is given to the traveler. trav-eler. Luxurious seats and sofas, and meals and beds, can be had with nearly near-ly as much comfort as in a first-class hotel. The railways are in perfect condition, con-dition, with superb equipment, the severe se-vere curves and heavy grades on the mountains are mastered by the immense im-mense iron horse, and a rate of speed is maintained night and day that a genera tior. ago was not thought of on the best equipped lines of that day. Xot only are several great trunk lines traversing the entire continent, but the rude shriek of the locomotive is heard in almost every Valley and on nearly every hilltop in the great mountain regions of the far west. Only a generation ago the same journey jour-ney required nearly a month when most successfully performed in the somewhat pretentious coaches of that period, which were compelled to run the gantlet of savage tribes as they traversed the trackless plains and climbed the confusing cliffs of the great mountains, with an even chance to meet the deadly road agent if the coach was laden with precious metals from the mines, and half a century ago the journey to the Pacic could be made only by bushwhacking the ox teams across the plains and mountains, requiring re-quiring a full season from spring to fall for the most fortunate to reach their destination. The only other route to the Pacific at that day was around Cape Horn, a most perilous journey in the indifferent vessels then employed, em-ployed, and requiring months to accomplish ac-complish it. The greatest civilizer of this continent conti-nent has been the locomotive. The Indian In-dian was the master of his famed hunting hunt-ing grounds in the mountains and on the plains of the west until he heard the weird song of the iron horse. The son of the forest well understood its meaning. It told him of a strange civilization that was master wherever its tread was heard, and bade him recede re-cede in terms that were inexorable. I was w ithin a few lfiiles of the location of the present city of Cheyenne in the spring of 1867,. w hen, there was not a iiauiLdiiuu jii mgiiL ill Liiclt Jiitee, dnu the Indians raided the Pacific railway engineers at or near that point, murdering mur-dering a number of them, and . only-eight only-eight months later I arrived by the mountain coach at the - new city of Cheyenne, that then had a population of over 5.000 people, and was the fast-I fast-I est of all the western towns I met in making a coach journey of 3.0.00 miles on the plains and mountains. I saw Brigham Young when the Pacific Pa-cific railway had reached only to a point some 300 miles west of Omaha, and the one thing that disturbed him was the advent of the locomotive. T spent a month in his beautiful city nestling in the valley . hard by the shadows of the snow'-capped mountains, moun-tains, with its silver rivulets traversing each side of its broad streets, and fruits and vines and flowers beautifying every Mormon home.. He-was as absolute abso-lute a ruler in Utah as the czar in Russia. Rus-sia. He had successfully defied the authority au-thority of our government in war and peace; but the day that the iron horse first sang his song in the valley of Utah dated the decline and fall of the Utah ruler. Missionaries have preached to the pioneers, ministered to them in sickness, and buried them when life's fitful fever ended, but, important as is their work, the great factors in western civilization were the rugged miners and husbandmen with their unerring un-erring rifles and the railway that followed fol-lowed them. On the 3rd of May. 1867, I left Chicago at S:13 in the morning for Omaha over the Chicago & Northwestern railway, now one of the most completely equipped lines on the continent. The rapid construction of the Union Pacific from Omaha westward compelled the hasty extension of the Chicago & Northwestern to Omaha in 1866, by throwing up a few feet of embankment On the usuallv level iVIains of western i I low a and laying the superstructure without ballast. During the winter the road . was passable, but when the spring . thaws and floods came the superstructure superstruc-ture was played with by the elements in the most fantastic fashion. The 'speed never exceeded ten miles an hour, and was often as low as six. The thirty-odd passengers received their last meal at Dennison. twenty-four hours from Chicago, and did not have an opportunity to obtain a meal during dur-ing the remainder of the journey, lasting last-ing thirty-six hours. When within fifty miles of Council Bluffs we were halted by a wreck, eight miles from the nearest station, and fifty miles i from the . nearest-point where machinery ma-chinery could be had to clear the track. We were thus detained for ten hours in cold cars and without provisions. At last the train was started and proceeded pro-ceeded to the village of Honeybrook, thirty miles distant, when another wreck called a halt for several hours. Fortunately there were a few shanties, peopled by Irish laborers, and the passengers pas-sengers were enabled to obtain some boiled eggs and bacon, which their ravenous appetites warmly welcomed. Finally the train arrived within a few-miles few-miles of Council Bluffs at 10 o'clock at night, and the train was left on the track because of the flooded and broken brok-en condition of the road. It was not until 11 o'clock the next morning that the passengers, without breakfast, were driven four mites to me ooat tnat carried them across the Missouri to Omaha after a journey of two days and a half. Now the same route is tra- versed with all the comforts of home 'at the rate of fifty miles an hour, and all the conveniences to the passengers of a first class hotel. Omaha was a revelation to me. It was the first genuine western city I had struck. It presented an unsightly-appearance, unsightly-appearance, with its rambling lines of houses, and here and there a three or four storj- permanent building, with every conceivable size and style of shanty sandwiched between them. It was my first introduction to the progressive pro-gressive western character. it h-d more carriages, sold more goods and at higher prices; dealt out town lots by the foot at greater valuations; had more hotels, better patronized, dirtier, and dearer; built more houses in a day. and rented then: for mot mono; played poker -arid keno at a higher limit, and raced horses often r and for bigher stakes, than any other city of iiii. i mi.im i iiiim ihjuji.h niLim'iii.i.iij.w ijiiw i miii.njia the same population that I had ever heard of. The Union Pacific roalroad was then completed to North Platte, a distance of 295 miles. The journey from Omaha to that point was without special interest. in-terest. Buffalo herds were often visible, vis-ible, and for nearly 100 miles not a sign of habitation was seen beyond the little shanties needed for railroad purposes. pur-poses. The pretty and curious antelope often came up within gunshot of the train, and the prairie dog, with his inseparable in-separable companion, the owl, gave us welcome. At North Platte I first made the acquaintance ac-quaintance of the mountain stage coach for a journey of -90 miles to Denver. The Indian question had become some-i some-i what serious, as they were raiding stage lines periodically, but we did not come into uncomfortably close quarters with them until we reached Julesburg, where Fort Sedgwick had nearly i,000 troops, ' under the command of Colonel Dodge. We arrived there a little aft-r sunrise and learned that seventy-five cavalrymen had just been driven in along our route westward by the Indians, In-dians, and that the telegraph lines were cut. I called upon Colonel Dolge to consider the situation, and he insisted in-sisted that the coach must not go out without a large military escort. I had learned that the men of the cleare.it judgment and safest in council were the stage drivers. They were a remarkable re-markable class. They never touched a horse except to drivew and continued to drive from fifty to sixty miles, devoting de-voting their attention exclusively to the passengers, mails and treasure in their charge, while others cared for the horses. They were paid high wae-es und chosen entlrelv because of their intelligence, courage and discretion. discre-tion. I first sought the advice of "Long John." our driver, with whom I had ridden in the boot for several hours in the morning. I told him the situation situ-ation as reported by Colonel Dodge, and said that we could have any number of troops to escort us if deemed prudent pru-dent for us to go. I have never forgotten forgot-ten the curl of disgust that spread over "Long John's" face as he answered: "An escort? Hell! we have trouble enough to take care of ourselves." When I asked his meaning he answered very coolly: "The Indians are there, but they don't want our band boxes nor trunks; they want our horses. We have nine well-armed men to protect six horses, but with fifty or 100 cavalrymen caval-rymen and a horse to every chump, the Indians would attack the cavalrymen cavalry-men for the horses and involve us in danger. If you will go with me and obey my directions I will take you safely through." There were two ladies in the party, and after a consultation they decided that "Long John's" advice should be accepted, and we started out on the same route over which seventy-five cavalrymen had been driven in by the Indians only a few hours before. The Indians were secreted in O'Fallon's bluffs, and at one point the bluffs were so close to the river that we vere compelled com-pelled to come within rifle range, but "Long John" understood the Indian, and he disposed of his nine men on the top of the coach, in the boot and inside, in-side, with their rifles pointing to the bluffs, with instructions not to fire unless un-less an Indian head was uncovered. We thus passed for nearly half a mile within with-in range of the Indians without seeing them, and the danger was over. When some miles beyond on a hill that gave us a view of the rear of the bluffs, we saw a large body of Indians that we had passed within iange of their guns. We heard a very interesting story of Indian raids while we tarried an nour to sup with Holland Godfrey, better known as "Old Wicked," the only ranchman who had saved his home from the torch and rifle of the savage as they swept the Platte in 1S66. Tho Rocky mountains nnauy cun-.e in ic. as their snow-clad tops ap;.t.:ned. Gradually their " hugs cliffs loomed up, and as Denver' w;as approach.! the immense im-mense peaks ' presented themselves in all their imperial -andeur. Denver was then a mere mining camp with a fitful population of some 4,000 or 5,000. The most pretentious building was the Pacific hotel, a simple sim-ple frame structure with only board partitions and guiltless of plaster. Everybody Ev-erybody seemed, happy and hopeful of gathering millions, as the mountains were known to be studded with precious pre-cious metals, but the obstinate gold and silver ores defied reduction by ordinary or-dinary process, and many elegantly constructed mills, with the finest machinery, ma-chinery, were abandoned because of the difficulty in mastering the ores. I remember dinir.g in a little cottage on the outskirts of the city, with Land Officer Pierce, . to meet Mr. Hill, who had jus.t arrived there, prepared, as he believed, to master the obstinate ores by a new process. Few had faith in him at the time, but he attained great success, because a multi-millionaire and a United States senator. I expected to remain two or three days in Denver, and then proceed westward to the land of the Mormons, but the Indian troubles increased in both front and rear, and I was compelled com-pelled to wait three weeks, much in the position, as to the Indians, as was Hooker's bull, fast on the fence, unable un-able to either hook in front or kick behind. After waiting until June 3 our party of seven, including Mrs. McClure, Mc-Clure, started westward to try our fortunes with the dusky sons of the forest. We were fortunate in having Mr. Perry of Missouri, an old mountaineer moun-taineer of ripe experience, who was as intelligent -and brave as he was unassuming. unas-suming. We reached Virginia Dale, non-U- mn miles westward, without in cident, where we received the disturbing disturb-ing information that the Indians had just captiired a mule team near that place, and that the Black hills, beyond our route, had many Indians on . the war path. But we passed the Black hills in safety, safe-ty, every precaution being taken by-sending by-sending out skirmish lines at any dangerous dan-gerous pass or bluff, and finally reached Cooper's creek to learn that the coach horses had just been captured cap-tured by the Indians after scalping one of the herders, and after giving our team a rest until 11 o'clock next day we started with an escort for the North Platte, a distance of sixty miles. The escort was changed at each station. sta-tion. The guards at Rock creek. Medicine Med-icine Bow, and AVagon Hound stations sta-tions had all been unsuccessfully attacked at-tacked by Indians, and at Elk Mountain Moun-tain (old Fort Hallock) - we were in-foraned in-foraned that the Indians were encamped en-camped a few miles from the bluff in strong force, and had stolen the horses there the evening before. This was regarded as the most perilous peril-ous position we had confronted, but our driver was equal to the occasion. He (said little, but whistled merrily as he carefully examined his rifle and pistols, pis-tols, and when about to take the lines he notified us that an attack was probable, prob-able, but added with emphasis: "Never scar'; never scar'; they're lightnin' w hen you scar'." He whirled the silk en cracker oi nis lasn, making n resound re-sound through the bleak and forbidding forbid-ding cliffs around us, and started the team at a gallop. Whether the road was rough or smooth the speed was never slackened, and at times the whole seven passengers were bunched in a pile in front of the coach and at other times in the rear. We finally reached the North Platte about 3 in the morning, where we supposed our Indian troubles- were ended, but our relief was brief, as the first information informa-tion we received was that the Indians were raiding the road for fifty miles westward, and that travel was suspended. sus-pended. All the good horses had been stolen by the Indians, and ten passengers . had accumulated at the station, anxious to go west. Hunting was impossible, because of the proximity of the Indians, and a movement was1 necessary, as the station sta-tion people were without food. i Two mud wagons were'. rigged up, four broken-down horses attached to each, andrve started on a bright morn- J D ing the 7th of June to cross the sum-j sum-j mit of Bridger's pass. Sao Creek was the first station, and it had not been disturbed, although the horses had been stolen. As we came near to Pine Grove, the second station. ve found it in ruins and still burning. It was surrounded sur-rounded by thickets, and we had to skirmish them before di'iving up to the station. Soon after wd stopped to lunch and feed our jaded hoies. and by the time we were ready to stir-again stir-again a blinding snowsTovei was upm us. We could not 4-.roi?.it oursel v? from the storm, as eve:-y m:;n had to keep his rifle in hand and a shar: lookout for the Indian. We nop-?.! i to find relief at Bridger's pass, but j when we came in sight of it we found it in flames. When we arrived at th-; station there were fresii tracks of the Indian ponies in tho snow. While warming ourselves at tho fire the critical criti-cal situation was carefully discussed. It was some twelve miles distant to Sulphur springs, beyond w hich the Indians In-dians were not likely to be troublesome: trouble-some: our teams were exhausted, and the pitiless snowstorm made it impossible impos-sible for anyone to see forty rods in any direction. Fortunately, we could track the Indians, who had gone toward Sulphur springs, and we were compelled to follow theni. Big Dick was our master driver, and he was entirely en-tirely equal to the occasion. He said that we would overtake the Indians, as they traveled very slowly when not pursued, and notified us when we started not to worry about the redskins, red-skins, as we would know when we were (dose to them bv the freshness of their tracks. After going some five miles Dick pulled up and said: "Fresh tracks, boys, lots of 'em. They're not half a mile ahead of us." A dozen men sprang out of the wagons with their rifles, but the serious question was what to do with the lady of the party. Mr. Perry, the grizzled mountaineer, was with us, and, like all of his class, as gentle as a mother with woman or child. He emptied out the mail bags, made a good bed of the robes and blankets, and when ready to put her into the wagon he asked whether she had arms. She had an elegant brace of pistols, and was a good shot. He examined them carefully, handed them back to her. and in a gentle but tremulous voice said: "Madam, if we are killed or captured, you will take your own life." To which she answered, "I understand." She was then covered up, mail bags thrown over her, and the men started in advance of the teams. In less than an hour we came upon them in their camp as we emerged from a canyon that brought us within short rifle range before we could see them. The moment they saw or heard us their lights went out, they mounted their ponies and started eastward down a little stream, while our course was westward. Some of the party raised their rifles the moment they saw the Indians, but Dick yelled: "No shootin', boys; no shoot in'. "We haven't lost any Injuns." He was promptly obeyed, and after leaving an entirely wornout horse by the wayside we finally reached Sulphur Springs late at night, where thirty passengers were corralled by the interruption of the stage line, and but one woman in the entire party. The Indians were in the bluffs close to the station, but there was no danger of them attacking thirty thir-ty armed men in a station house that had all the qualities of an improvised fort. Water was obtained from a spring near the bluffs and close to the station house, and when any went for water the guard covered the bluffs with their rifles. As hunting was impossible, im-possible, another movement was necessary, neces-sary, and two stages were started out westward' the next day. When we reached the top of the bluff a few- miles west of the station a number of Indians were- visible, and all of them mounted, but we had passed them in safety, and we soon breathed freely as we struck an open wide plain extending fifteen miles and our Indian troubles were ended. Having escaped from the savages, we had a delightful Sunday at Fort Bridger, where Judge Carter welcomed us with generous hospitality. After a refreshing meal and a few hours' rest we renewed our journey and at midnight mid-night crossed the Quaking Asp summit, sum-mit, 9.000 feet above the sea and the greatest altitude attained crossing the continent. I shall never forget the delightful de-lightful drive we had down Echo canyon, can-yon, a narrow valley of nearly twenty-mile.?, twenty-mile.?, where every sound is distinctly eehoed. ' It was Hank Connors' drive, the most noted of tile stage whips of the mountains, but he had been thrown off his regular beat by the general disturbance dis-turbance of the system. The horses were superb and obedient to the word as we whirled down the beautiful canyon can-yon at the rate of twelve miles an hour and finally landed at Weber station, where we had our first introduction to the Mormons. We started to climb the Wasatch range before midnight, and when near its summit had a jolly upset in six feet of drifted snow, but we were soon righted again, and after a delightful delight-ful moonlight drive through Parley's canyon we arrived at Salt Lake City and breakfasted on a profusion of excellent ex-cellent strawberries. It required eight days and nights to enable us to reach Salt Lake City from Denver, constantly threatened by the savages during half the journey and exposed to every possible discomfort, with insufficient food much of the time. Such were the experiences of those who crossed the Rocky mountains moun-tains only a generation ago; and as I recently crossed the same mountains, clear to the Paciric, with almost every comfort enjoyed in my own home, I was well prepared to appreciate the wonderful progress that has been made in the civilization of the west. I spent eight months in the mountains, enjoying enjoy-ing excellent health, and greatly enjoyed en-joyed the generous hospitality and sublime sub-lime manhood of the western pioneers. The vigilantes ruled in Colorado, Idaho Ida-ho and Montana. The courts performed their duties, but the man charged with murder, burglary, highway robbery or stock stealing w"ho was permitted to go into the hands of the civil authorities authori-ties was certain of acquittal. If guilty, the vigilantes ended his career before the jurisdiction of the civil courts attached. All knew that the -vigilantes administered admin-istered justice with the strictest impartiality, impar-tiality, and their supremacy was then a necessity to maintain order and to protect person and property. It is safe to say that in no sir.'e instance did the vigilantes of the western territories terri-tories execute an innocent person, and that is a record that could not be claimed by our most enlightened tribunals tri-bunals of the east. During my stay I crossed the Rocky Mountains six times from base to base over four different dif-ferent passes, and when finally it became be-came necessary for me to return to my home in the east. I parted from the brave pioneers of the west with pro found regrets, and have ever cherished for them the most affectionate memories. mem-ories. I then saw a civilization that has now perished on our continent, and one that has never been accorded a full measure of justice for its great work in rearing the galaxy of commonwealths common-wealths which now span the western part of our green land from the Father of Waters to the golden slopes of the Pacific. |