FRONTIER ADVENTURERS

AMERICAN EXPLORATION IN OKLAHOMA

EDITED BY

JOSEPH A. STOUT, JR.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Oklahoma Historical Society

1976

Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 76-023590

Copyright 1976 Oklahoma Historical Society Second Printing, 1982
Manufactured in the United States of America

Stout, Joseph A., Jr.

Frontier Adventurers:

American Exploration in Oklahoma

(The Oklahoma Series)

Includes index

1. Oklahoma History—1806-1853. 2. United States—Frontier History. I. Title. II. Series.

ISBN 0-941498-03-4 (pbk)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Mr. George H. Shirk, President of the Oklahoma Historical Society, and Mr. Jack Wettengel, Executive Director of the Society, for support of this publication effort. Dr. Kenny A. Franks, Editor of The Chronicles of Oklahoma, and his able assistant, Ms. Martha L. Mobley, worked long hours on this book.

I am likewise grateful for the administrative support at Oklahoma State University, for through the efforts of those persons in administration, faculty members have the opportunity to research and write. Especially, I wish to thank Dr. Odie B. Faulk, Chairman of the History Department at Oklahoma State University, whose interest in Oklahoma history has encouraged my efforts in this field. Finally, Mr. Steven K. Gragert, editorial assistant in the Will Rogers Project, has given his after-work hours to the completion of this volume. My wife, Bonnie, has read galley and offered suggestions at various stages.

Joseph A. Stout, Jr.

Stillwater

April, 1976

CONTRIBUTORS

BRAD AGNEW is Professor of History at Northeastern Oklahoma State University, Tahlequah.

BOB L. BLACKBURN is Director of Interpretation at the Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City.

STEVEN GRAGERT is Director of the Will Rogers Project at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater.

THOMAS ISERN is Assistant Professor of History at Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas.

JIMMY M. SKAGGS is Associate Professor of Economics and American Studies and Chairman of the American Studies Department at Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas.

JAMES SMALLWOOD is Assistant Professor of History at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater.

JOSEPH A. STOUT, JR., is Associate Professor of History at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater.

PHILLIP DRENNON THOMAS is Chairman of the History Department at Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas.

CARL TYSON is sales representative for Scott-Foresman Publishers. He received the Doctor of Philosophy degree is history at Oklahoma State University.

JAMES WARE is Instructor of History at Louisiana State University/Eunice.

JAMES WEST is a Doctor of Philosophy candidate in history at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Contributors

Frontier Adventurers: Early American Exploration in Oklahoma

By Joseph A. Stout, Jr.

First Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson, 1806–1807

By Bob L. Blackburn

George Champlin Sibley, 1811 and 1825–1826

By Thomas Isern

Thomas Nuttall, 1819

By Steven Gragert

Major Stephen Harriman Long, 1820

By James Smallwood

Thomas James, Hugh Glenn and Jacob Fowler, 1821–1823

By Phillip Drennon Thomas

Washington Irving, Henry Ellsworth, Albert-Alexandre de Pourtalès and Charles Latrobe, 1832

By Steven Gragert

Brigadier General Henry Leavenworth and Colonel Henry Dodge, 1834–1835

By Brad Agnew

Josiah Gregg, 1839–1840

By James West

Captain Nathan Boone, 1843

By Jimmy M. Skaggs

Captain Randolph Barnes Marcy, 1849–1852

By Carl Tyson

First Lieutenant Amiel Weeks Whipple, 1853

By James Ware

Index

By Steven M. Wear

FRONTIER ADVENTURERS: EARLY AMERICAN EXPLORATION IN OKLAHOMA

By Joseph A. Stout, Jr.

For three hundred years before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 opened the West beyond the Mississippi River to American exploration and settlement, nomadic Indians, intrepid Spanish conquistadores and enterprising French traders frequently crossed the plains, including present-day Oklahoma. In fact, the region west of the “father of waters” had long been a focal point for conflict among European nations seeking to widen the influence of their empires. Spain, France and even briefly Russia explored, settled and attempted permanent expansion in the Great Plains and far West.

Black robed Spanish friars and adventuresome leather clad soldiers began exploring much of the plains region almost immediately after Hernando Cortez led the Spanish to victory over the Aztec and other Indians of southern Mexico. By 1521 these enterprising Europeans already had begun exploring parts of Texas, and within the next twenty years Spanish explorers had traversed sections of New Mexico, Arizona and the Central Plains. Between 1541 and 1542 two Spanish expeditions entered the present states of Kansas and Oklahoma. Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and Hernando de Soto investigated the regions looking for the mythical Gran Quívira or Seven Cities of Cíbola. Later Spanish expeditions either entered or approached much of the same region.

French trappers and traders crossed the area also during the next 275 years, but French expectations of permanent conquest ended abruptly in 1762, when the Treaty of Fontainebleau provided that all the region referred to as the Louisiana Territory was to be Spanish property. The Spanish government thus nominally controlled the region until 1803. But European conflicts again soon altered ownership of this vast area. In fact, just seventeen days after France resumed administration of Louisiana in 1803 as a result of the Treaty of San Ildefonso, actually signed in 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte, aware he could not retain the lands, relinquished the entire territory to the rapidly expanding United States. Significantly, with the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, the United States nearly doubled its national lands. Boundary disputes between Spain and the United States ultimately were settled in 1819 with the signing of the Adams-Onís Treaty, deeding Florida to the young nation and establishing the southern limits of Louisiana.

Though present-day Oklahoma was acquired by the United States in 1803, Americans knew very little about the region as this early nineteenth century map clearly illustrates

Interestingly, months before the United States actually purchased the Louisiana Territory, President Thomas Jefferson had organized the first major American exploration of the region. Shortly after the purchase agreement, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led this expedition up the Missouri River and across to the Pacific coast. Their exploration did not include the Southern Plains, but set a precedent for government approved and financed exploration of the entire Louisiana Territory.

Three years after Lewis and Clark's epic journey, the United States government sanctioned the first American expedition into Oklahoma. Thereafter, many explorers, civilians and soldiers entered parts of present-day Oklahoma. Many of these men left records of their observations and experiences, and these reports offer an authentic and early glimpse of the region before white settlement. Botanists such as Thomas Nuttall and Edwin James clearly recorded their impressions of the flora and fauna of the region. Others described experiences with the indigenous and nomadic Indian tribes. Moreover, these explorers offered varied opinions about the fertility of the soil, the disposition of the Indian and the vagarity of the climate.

Some explorers ventured into the region as official representatives of the government, negotiating with the Indians, gathering information for the army or surveying boundary lines or railroad routes. A few men passed through Oklahoma on private trading expeditions or entered the area seeking business opportunities. Still others came merely as adventuresome tourists. Thus, the official and private travel accounts of these explorers revealed an exciting and virtually untold era of Oklahoma history.

FIRST LIEUTENANT JAMES B. WILKINSON, 1806–1807

By Bob L. Blackburn

In April, 1803, the United States purchased the Territory of Louisiana from France, opening a new era of American exploration and expansion in the West. The celebrated purchase more than doubled the size of the young nation, but it also posed several problems and challenges.

Foremost among these challenges was the need to define and protect the boundaries of the Louisiana Territory. To accomplish both objectives, President Thomas Jefferson needed better information about the region´s geography. With better maps showing the relation of rivers and known landmarks, he could better negotiate with the Spanish and English for peaceful settlements on the international boundaries.

Secondly, Jefferson needed to make contact with the Indian tribes in the region. With alliances and peace treaties with the tribes along the border, the United States could use them as defensive barriers to foreign expansion. With these two objectives in mind, Jefferson initiated a series of expeditions to the new territory. Because most tribes would be found near sources of water, these expeditions were dispatched along rivers.

The two principal arteries of the southern plains area were the Arkansas and Red rivers. They had been routes for trade and travel as early as 1541, when Hernando de Soto explored the region of present-day eastern Oklahoma.¹ The French, too, had sent explorations into the area; in 1719 Sieur Du Rivage attempted to establish alliances with the Indians of the Arkansas country.² In the years following the Louisiana Purchase, President Jefferson, like earlier Spanish and French leaders, saw the importance of gaining control of these two rivers. Consequently, he planned to send expeditions to explore and map the two rivers. However, with Spanish troops poised along the Red River the United States was forced to direct its earliest attention to the Arkansas River.

In June 1806 Brigadier General James Wilkinson, governor of Louisiana Territory and commanding officer of the United States Army, ordered First Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike to lead an expedition from St. Louis up the Missouri River to the Osage villages. The expedition would proceed west and south until it reached the Great Bend of the Arkansas River in present-day central Kansas. The expeditionary force then would separate, Pike taking the main group up the Arkansas to its source. First Lieutenant James Biddle Wilkinson, son of the governor, would lead the remainder of the party down the Arkansas to the Mississippi through present-day central Kansas, northeastern Oklahoma and central Arkansas.³ On this journey he was ordered to record topographical features, determine the navigability of the river and promote good relations with the Indians. Wilkinson's activities in present-day Oklahoma established American military control of the strategic area and laid the foundation for its development by the United States. For Oklahoma history three aspects of Wilkinson's efforts are important: descent of the Arkansas River; the factors necessitating the journey; and the specific route and results of the expedition.

First Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike, the overall commander of the first American expedition into Oklahoma

Lieutenant Wilkinson's command of the expedition was due more to his father's position rather than his own abilities. He was not well suited for the rigors and hazards of western travel, but his father had high aspirations for his second son's military career.⁴ Lieutenant Wilkinson's mediocre abilities surfaced months before the expedition. In October 1805 his father ordered him to explore the Missouri River and establish a fort at the mouth of the Platte River. Two months before, First Lieutenant Pike had been sent on a similar mission up the Mississippi River, and had succeeded despite extreme difficulties, proving his unusual capabilities and dependability. However, Wilkinson had failed to complete his mission. About 300 miles up the Missouri River his expedition had clashed with a band of Indians, resulting in the death of one soldier. Wilkinson was unable to rally his force, and therefore his men became discouraged and demanded to return to the safety of St. Louis.⁵

General Wilkinson recognized his son's failings, and entrusted the important Southwest expedition to Pike. He left the relatively unimportant expedition down the Arkansas to his son. In a letter to Pike before the departure of the Southwest expedition, the general described his sentiments, “My Son has the foundation of a good constitution but it must be tempered by degrees—do not push him beyond his capacities in hardship to[o] suddenly. He will I hope attempt any thing but let the stuff be hardened by degrees.”⁶ Apparently, he anticipated no complications internationally or otherwise for his son's venture on the Arkansas River. Yet, the expedition had not been created to enhance his son's fame as an explorer.

There were several important reasons for an exploration of the Arkansas River region, especially the area that in one hundred years would be included in present-day Oklahoma. Wilkinson's expedition was primarily geographical and topographical.⁷ He was ordered to gather information about the boundary between Louisiana and Spanish territory. Moreover, he was to pacify the Osages and gain their alliance and trade. Finally, he was to find the quickest route to Santa Fe, New Mexico hopefully via the Arkansas River.

General Wilkinson was aware that President Jefferson wanted the new American possession of Louisiana explored thoroughly. Information concerning the southern boundary was especially incomplete. Jefferson claimed the Rio Grande as the southern boundary; Spain demanded the line be drawn along the Arroyo Hondo, a point beginning just a few miles west of Natchitoches, Louisiana.⁸ As early as March 1804 Jefferson had outlined far-reaching plans for establishing American claim to the southern plains. His primary objective was to provide a map of Louisiana Territory which would be correct in its contours and rivers; with such a map, he would be in a knowledgeable position to negotiate the boundary.⁹ Jefferson specified that an expedition should explore the full lengths of the Arkansas and Red rivers.¹⁰

Two earlier expeditions had attempted to accomplish these goals. William Dunbar and George Hunter led one in October 1804, and Thomas Freeman guided another in April 1806. Both had the primary purpose of gathering data along the Red River relative to the boundary. However, the Dunbar-Hunter expedition did not reach present-day Oklahoma, and Spanish troops intercepted Freeman's expedition near present-day Foreman in Southwestern Arkansas. Yet, Freeman's venture was the deepest American penetration into the Southwest before Lieutenant Wilkinson's arrival.¹¹

Indians too had provided obstacles to exploring and mapping the region, for as early as the mid-1770s Osages had begun robbing and murdering white trappers on the lower Arkansas River. By the 1780s Spanish officials recognized the Osages as the most disruptive force in Louisiana.¹² As late as 1805 Jefferson expressed fears that the Osages were still a barrier to any exploration on the Arkansas River.¹³ General Wilkinson was aware Jefferson wanted the Indian problem resolved, and he was anxious to please his superior. He probably had the pacification of the Osages in mind when he ordered his son to descend the Arkansas.

Another reason for Lieutenant Wilkinson's expedition was to determine a short route to Santa Fe. His father's biographer, James R. Jacobs, stated that the general wanted to open the quickest route to the Mexican outpost for his own personal gain.¹⁴ Probably more important to General Wilkinson was the threat of war with Spain. In that event the United States Army would need the best possible maps of the region—a perusal of General Wilkinson's memoirs proves he actually expected war with Spain in 1806.¹⁵ In a letter to Secretary of War Henry Dearborn, he had described the Arkansas as the surest navigable route to New Mexico. In this letter of September 8, 1805, he even specified in the event of war the number of men and weapons to be transported along the river.¹⁶ In his mind, the exploration of the Arkansas was crucial to national defense.

As a result of these reasons for exploring the lower Arkansas, General Wilkinson organized the Pike expedition of 1806. On July 15 Pike, Lieutenant Wilkinson, a surgeon, an interpreter, twenty-one soldiers and fifty-one Osage Indians left St. Louis. In the orders concerning the proposed journey down the Arkansas, General Wilkinson directed his son to locate tributary streams, to note the type of soil and timber and to determine the course and distances of the river.¹⁷ In addition to these directives, young Wilkinson was to follow the general orders of Pike's expedition, including: remarks on geography, natural history and population, and to befriend the Indian tribes, particularly the Osages.¹⁸

From St. Louis, Pike and his men ascended the Missouri River to the Osage River, where they abandoned their boats and purchased horses from Indians. From here the expedition moved west until it reached Pawnee Indian country along the Republican River. In spite of a brief confrontation with the Pawnees and a warning from the Spanish to turn back, Pike continued south into central Kansas, reaching the Arkansas River near present-day Larned. Here, in accordance with his orders, Pike organized an eight man party under the command of Lieutenant Wilkinson. The detachment included Sergeant Joseph Ballinger, Privates John Boley, Samuel Bradley, Solomon Huddleston, John Wilson and two Osage scouts.¹⁹ All were capable hunters and outdoorsmen, especially Ballinger, who General Wilkinson purposely had sent to watch over his son.²⁰ Pike, probably having similar doubts about Lieutenant Wilkinson's abilities, sent his most capable hunters to assure a supply of meat.²¹ Moreover, Pike was certain that the expedition need not run short of meat, for he had seen herds of buffalo, elk and deer along the banks of the Arkansas. He believed there were enough of the shaggy beasts to feed all the Indians in the United States for at least a century.²²

Brigadier General James Wilkinson, who had misgivings about his son's ability to lead an exploring party into the American West

Lieutenant Pike and General Wilkinson were not alone in their fears for the younger Wilkinson's adventure, for while the lieutenant considered his task relatively simple, he recognized the potential hazards. Dunbar-Hunter's expedition had reported that a hunter with forty years experience on the Washita River had described the Arkansas River as long and bordered by lofty open forests of easy access—ideal conditions for river travel.²³ Pike suggested that Wilkinson might encounter low water as the only possible obstacle to his descent.²⁴ The central plains region had an annual rainfall of twenty-five or thirty inches, falling predominantly in the summer, and would provide sufficient water for transportation. As the expedition moved east, the rainfall would increase, reaching about forty-five or fifty inches a year near the eastern border of present-day Oklahoma.²⁵

In Lieutenant Wilkinson's opinion another hindrance was a shortage of supplies and equipment. In a letter to his father he complained that his expedition was started with insufficient stores, ammunition, boats and men. Moreover, he was apprehensive about having to pass through the hunting grounds of the Pawnee, who he considered the most feared Indians in the region.²⁶ Pike had not been responsible for the dearth of supplies, for he had given Wilkinson nineteen pounds of powder, thirty-nine pounds lead and ball, six of the most capable hunters and more than enough dried meat. Pike retained thirty-five pounds of powder and forty pounds of lead for his larger force.²⁷ Even if Wilkinson ran short of supplies, Pike anticipated an encounter with French trappers or friendly Indians, and from these frontiersmen the expedition could procure more supplies.

Pike believed that French hunters in the area would guide Wilkinson to the villages of the Grand Osages within two weeks.²⁸ Actually, it would take Wilkinson, unaided by French frontiersmen, fifty-four days to reach the Osage settlements. Not foreseeing this extended journey, Wilkinson and his band of seven cast off at 10:00 a.m. on October 28, 1806, in good spirits and determined to forge ahead.²⁹

Their high hopes and expectations were deflated immediately. Within 100 yards of the separation from Pike's group, their two canoes ran into shallow river bed. The men were forced to drag the canoes and supplies over sand and ice. Due to these hardships the men covered only five miles before darkness halted them. Two days later, Wilkinson saw no alternative except to abandon the canoes and supplies and continue overland. Each man, taking only his guns, buffalo robe and a few cups of corn, continued the trek with a “light and cheerful heart.”³⁰

The men followed the Arkansas River which predominantly was bordered with flat, smooth-surfaced grassy plains enriched by a deep covering of fertile soil. Traveling on foot the expedition reached a point approximately ten miles south of present-day Wichita, Kansas, on November 15. There Wilkinson and his fatigued men found trees large enough to be split out for canoes. Ten days later the navigation of the river was resumed. However, the canoes again grounded, requiring the men to stand ankle deep in freezing water while pulling their boats over sand and ice. In addition to these difficulties, the canoe carrying their entire supply of meat and ammunition overturned with all contents lost. Without food or the means to hunt, the expedition seemed in desperate trouble; moreover, the men were in the country of the unfriendly Pawnees.³¹

In spite of the danger of starvation and Indian attack, the party pushed onward, reaching a point just north of the present Oklahoma-Kansas border. There, near the mouth of Grouse Creek, Wilkinson met a hunting party of friendly Osages. The Indians insisted that the lieutenant and his men remain in their camp while the warriors killed them a fresh supply of meat, for two years earlier, Wilkinson had befriended a group of Osage chiefs who had traveled to Washington, D.C. One of the chiefs, Tuttasuggy, was ill in a camp about twenty miles to the south, and the tribe requested Wilkinson's assistance. In accordance with orders to befriend the Osages, he complied with their request and traveled by mule overland to the village, slightly north of present-day Ponca City, Oklahoma. This short trek on November 30 marked the first American entrance into the recently purchased land later to become Indian Territory.³²

The next day Wilkinson and his men resumed their descent of the Arkansas. The travel became slower and more dangerous, for ice floes choked the river, ending all possible navigation on December 3. Wilkinson was then near the mouth of the Neskalonska, or Salt Fork River, south of present-day Ponca City. For three days the party waited for the Arkansas to flow freely again; meanwhile Wilkinson explored the area. In his journal he noted that the Grand and Little Osages had fall hunting camps on this river. Significantly, he devoted his most detailed journal entries to notes about Indians and the locations of their camps. This further supported the supposition that General Wilkinson wanted both information about the Indians for President Jefferson and the tribes’ location in case of war with Spain.

The next four days of travel between present-day Ponca City and Sand Springs was a series of hardships and disasters due to inclement weather. The temperature fell below freezing, and the ice-choked river forced the men to axe their way along while wading in the frigid water. Conditions worsened as a fierce snow storm began. One of the canoes ran aground and capsized. This stage of the journey proved to be the most difficult of the entire expedition; but eventually the party emerged safely from the ice block, although several men had suffered frost bite and extreme exhaustion.

After another four days the weary men reached the mouth of the Cimarron River, which Wilkinson called the Grand Saline, or Newsewketonga. While the party halted for a rest, some of the men explored the river, a major tributary of the Arkansas. In his journal Wilkinson gave no further record of his progress for the next ten days, an indication he was either too tired to keep records, or too bored with the trip to remain watchful. He only reported that he ventured up the Cimarron for two days. This would have put him in the vicinity of present-day Mannford, about twenty miles up the Cimarron from the Arkansas. He probably got no farther because he did not mention House Creek, the only large stream entering the Cimarron above Mannford. While in the vicinity, the expedition happened upon a broad prairie along the Arkansas River which was encrusted with salt. Wilkinson noted that the Osages collected the salt by scraping it off the grass into wooden trenchers with turkey wings.

Wilkinson did not make another detailed journal entry until he arrived at the Three Forks area on December 23. During this time, the expedition was on the fringe of the Ozark plateau, known as the interior highlands. The area was marked by denser tree growth, more rainfall and easier navigation of the river.³³ This stage of the journey passed the present-day sites of Tulsa, Bixby, Haskell and Taft. Wilkinson must have been relatively unbothered by problems considering the absence of journal entries.

On December 23 the group found the wintering camp of the Arkansas Osage at Three Forks. The area where the Arkansas, Verdigris and Grand rivers converge within a quarter of a mile, was a key position on the Arkansas River above the Mississippi because of the large number of Indians living nearby. The Indians were there because of the many fur-bearing animals along the three rivers, and because the streams usually provided an excellent transportation system. The site later would be important as a port city for steam ships on the Arkansas; Muskogee eventually developed where the three rivers converge. However, in 1806 it was the site of the camp of Cashesegra, or “Big Track,” chief of the Arkansas Osages. It had been one of General Wilkinson's main goals that his son should reach this village and establish friendly relations. The Indians offered economic benefits to the United States as well as to General Wilkinson, for the Osage fur and skin trade in the Three Forks area was substantial. As early as 1725 the tribes along the Arkansas were sending a thousand deer skins annually to French traders.³⁴ Through the years the fur trade continued to be important, for the river region abounded with fur-bearing animals.³⁵

Efforts of white traders to monopolize the commerce with the Osages had caused a division in the tribe in 1802. Until that year a Frenchman, Pierre Chouteau, monopolized the trade with the Osages, most of whom resided in southern Missouri. In 1802 the Spanish government in New Orleans transferred this monopoly to a Spaniard, Manuel Lisa; nevertheless, Chouteau still retained his trading privileges on the Arkansas River. Thus, to continue his trade with the Osages, he persuaded 2,000 of them to relocate on the Arkansas.³⁶ When Chouteau initiated this move, the chief of the Osages, Pawhuska, refused to lead the relocation. Chouteau found a new supporter, Cashesegra, who guided his followers to the Three Forks area. This band of the Osage tribe became known as the Arkansas Osages, or the Santsukhdi. They soon were so prosperous that they became the most important segment of the tribe.³⁷

An early French map showing the route taken by Pike during his exploration of the West

It was this group of Osages with whom Lieutenant Wilkinson made an alliance. On December 23 his expedition entered Cashesegra's camp, and Wilkinson, eager to establish an alliance, delivered a presidential message of friendship extolling the virtues of an alliance with the “Great White Father.” Cashesegra, just as eager to reap the economic benefits of an alliance with his new white overlords, offered a section of land between the Verdigris and Grand rivers to be used as the location of a factory, or trading post. Wilkinson recommended the generous gesture to his superiors, for a fort at this location would benefit the United States in several ways. It would afford the possibility to exploit the fur trade, much of which was presently going to the Spanish. It would help control the potentially hostile Osages who could become an obstacle to the movement of American troops and arms in the event of war with Spain. Wilkinson noted that such a fort would maintain peace between the Plains Indians, who might possibly be moved west of the Mississippi River at a future date. One of the principal reasons for the construction of Fort Gibson in this area in 1823 was to prevent just such a war between the Osages and the Cherokees, who had begun moving into the area by 1808.³⁸

While in the Osages’ wintering camp at the Three Forks, Wilkinson wrote that the main Arkansas Osage village was about sixty miles up the Verdigris River. He did not mention the village again; therefore, it cannot be discerned whether or not he actually visited it. Using present-day landmarks, the village would have been about seven or eight miles due south of Claremore and six or seven miles east of Catoosa, on a bend of the Verdigris where Panther Creek enters from the north.

After leaving Cashesegra's camp the expedition descended the Arkansas River more rapidly. The band of men entered the Ouachita highlands, marked by more hills and a rapidly declining elevation.³⁹ They soon passed Webber's Falls which Wilkinson described as being seven feet perpendicular. On December 29 the men met James McFarlane, the first white man they had seen in two months. He was a trapper from the area of the Poteau River, along the future border of Arkansas and Oklahoma.⁴⁰

The expedition soon concluded its travel on the section of the Arkansas River in present-day Oklahoma. Wilkinson, probably anxious to return to the comforts of home, related little additional information about his progress in Oklahoma except to mention the Canadian and Illinois rivers. During this period of the descent the expedition passed several landmarks not mentioned in Wilkinson's journal. After passing the Canadian River, the men crossed two major creeks, the Sallisaw and Sans Bois; neither were mentioned in his journal. The region was less flat, with several small hills over 750 feet in elevation within view of the river. On December 31, 1806, the expedition passed the Poteau River and crossed the future Oklahoma-Arkansas boundary. From there the men gradually became aware of the increasing presence of white civilization. On January 9, 1807, Wilkinson's expedition reached the settlement of the Arkansas Post, near the mouth of that river; this ended the seventy-four day expedition of the lower Arkansas.

For Wilkinson the expedition did not prove to be a stepping-stone for his career as an explorer. On the contrary, the trip shortened his stay in the military. The hardships of the journey wrecked his health, leaving him with a mild nervous condition. In 1810 he was forced to reject an offer to lead another expedition because of a “lingering nervous disease.”⁴¹ Although the journey was not a personal success for Wilkinson, the goals of the expedition were fulfilled. Questions about the navigability of the Arkansas River were answered. Much to Wilkinson's chagrin he reported that above the Three Forks area the water level of the river was not dependable, necessitating an overland portage during the winter months at least. An alliance with the Osages also had been affirmed, resulting in their offer of land for the establishment of a fort. United States Army officials learned that the Osages along the Arkansas would not impede the movement of American troops in case of war with Spain. Even if they would pose a threat, the knowledge of the locations of Indian camps and villages would allow for evasive action or the means for direct attack. The alliance with the Osages, which was necessary to control the unsettled area, helped secure American claims to the Southwest. Within two years of Wilkinson's meeting with the Osages, the tribe began surrendering its lands to the expanding American nation. The expedition furnished a valuable description of the geographical and topographical features of the rich land which eventually became northeastern Oklahoma. The success of this initial American entry into Oklahoma helped stimulate the westering spirit of a restless nation on the move, a page in the conquest of a land that would take the American nation to the Pacific Coast.

¹ Herbert E. Bolton, Spanish Borderlands (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921), p. 68.

² Anna Lewis, Along the Arkansas (Dallas: The Southwest Press, 1932), pp. 34–35.

³ Brigadier General James Wilkinson to Major Zebulon Pike, June 24, 1806, Donald Jackson, ed. The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike (2 vols., Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), Vol. I, pp. 286–287.

⁴ William Eugene Hollon, The Lost Pathfinder, Zebulon Montgomery Pike (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1949), p. 48; James Ripley Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior, Major-General James Wilkinson (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938), p. 213, 198.

⁵ Ibid., pp. 223–224.

⁶ Wilkinson to Pike, July 18, 1806, Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Vol. II, p. 119.

⁷ Thomas Nuttall, “Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory During the Year 1819,” Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846 (32 vols., Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1904–1907), Vol. XIII, p. 12.

⁸ Joseph A. Stout, Jr. and Odie B. Faulk, A Short History of the American West (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), p. 91.

⁹ Dumas Malone, ed., Jefferson the President, Second Term, 1805–1809 (8 vols., Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1974), Vol. II, p. 193.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 192.

¹¹ William H. Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the American West, 1803–1863 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), pp. 34–36.

¹² Garrick A. Bailey, “Osage Economic and Territorial Change, 1805–1809,” Master of Arts Thesis, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, 1968, pp. 50–51.

¹³ Malone, Jefferson the President, Second Term, 1805–1809, Vol. V, p. 195.

¹⁴ Jackson, ed., The Journal of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Vol. II, pp. 219–220.

¹⁵ General James Wilkinson, Memoirs of My Own Times (Philadelphia: Abraham Small, 1816; reprinted, 3 vols., New York: AMS Press Inc., 1973), Vol. II, p. 308.

¹⁶ Wilkinson to Secretary of State Henry Dearborn, September 8, 1805, Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Vol. II, p. 101.

¹⁷ Wilkinson to Pike, June 24, 1806, ibid., Vol. I, p. 287.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Zebulon Montgomery Pike, “Journal of the Western Expedition,” ibid., p. 340.

²⁰ Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 154–155.

²¹ Pike to General Wilkinson, October 24, 1806, ibid., p. 156.

²² Zebulon Montgomery Pike, “Pike's Dissertation on Louisiana,” ibid., p. 25.

²³ Stephen H. Hart and Archer Butler Hulbert, eds., Zebulon Pike's Arkansas Journal (Denver: The Denver Public Library, 1932), pp. xxxii–xxxiii.

²⁴ Pike to General Wilkinson, October 24, 1806, Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Vol. II, pp. 155–156.

²⁵ E. W. Gilbert, The Exploration of Western America, 1800–1850: An Historical Geography (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1933), p. 40.

²⁶ James B. Wilkinson to James Wilkinson, October 28, 1806, Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Vol. II, p. 161.

²⁷ Wilkinson to Pike, October 26, 1806, Hart and Hulbert, eds., Zebulon Pike's Arkansas Journal, p. 110.

²⁸ Ibid., p. 88.

²⁹ Pike to General Wilkinson, October 24, 1806, Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Vol. II, p. 156.

³⁰ Ibid., p. 10. The day by day account of the expedition can be found in Lieutenant Wilkinson's short journal in Vol. II, pp. 3–19, in Jackson's edition. All reference to the expedition's progress, except where noted, will be found in his journal.

³¹ Gilbert, The Exploration of Western America, 1800–1850: An Historical Geography, p. 29.

³² Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Vol. II, p. 11.

³³ Gilbert, The Exploration of Western America, 1800–1850: An Historical Geography, p. 30.

³⁴ Lewis, Along the Arkansas, p. 86.

³⁵ Bailey, “Osage Economic and Territorial Change, 1673–1839,” p. 34.

³⁶ Grant Foreman, “The Three Forks of the Arkansas,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. II, No. 1 (March, 1924), p. 37; Bailey, “Osage Economic and Territorial Change, 1673–1839,” p. 34.

³⁷ Frederick Webb Hodge, Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (New York: Pageant Books, 1960), p. 156; W. David Baird, The Osage People (Phoenix: Indian Tribal Series, 1972), p. 25.

³⁸ Bailey, “Osage Economic and Territorial Change, 1673–1839,” p. 58.

³⁹ Gilbert, The Exploration of Western America, 1800–1850: An Historical Geography, p. 30.

⁴⁰ Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Vol. II, p. 17.

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 18.

GEORGE CHAMPLIN SIBLEY, 1811 AND 1825–1826

By Thomas Isern

In the spring of 1816 the famous frontiersman Daniel Boone, rotund but still spry at the age of eighty-two, arrived at Fort Osage, Missouri Territory, on his way up the Missouri River to the Platte River country to hunt buffalo on the plains. George Champlin Sibley, Indian factor or government trader at the post, extended hospitality to Boone. A more unlikely pair would have been hard to find—Boone bedecked in his buckskins and the fastidious, forty-six-year-old Sibley arrayed in his usual stylish coat and black silk vest. But Boone listened attentively as Sibley described an expedition he had made five years earlier to investigate unusual saline deposits in present northwest Oklahoma. Boone resolved someday to visit the so-called salt mountains, but death thwarted his ambition a few years later. Sibley, meanwhile, made another major excursion on the plains and through the present Oklahoma panhandle in 1825–1826 to survey the Santa Fe Trail in accordance with an act of Congress. The pioneering exploits of Sibley never rivaled those of Boone; nevertheless, Sibley carried back from his explorations information that focused the attention of Americans on the distinctive geography of the plains region, especially the area of present-day Oklahoma. Sibley also played an important role in the process by which the United States secured from Spain the disputed region of the southern plains, and eventually the entire Spanish Southwest.¹

George Sibley was born in 1782 in Massachusetts. He was the son of Dr. John and Elizabeth Sibley and the grandson of well-known Congregational clergyman Samuel Hopkins. In 1784 John Sibley went to North Carolina to edit the Fayetteville Gazette, leaving his wife and his two sons, George and Samuel, to live with Reverend Hopkins. In 1788 the family joined John Sibley in Fayetteville, but two years later Elizabeth Sibley died. In ensuing years George Sibley attended two academies in North Carolina, then in 1800 became an apprentice in a countinghouse.²

John Sibley proved to be a major influence on George Sibley, though usually separated from him. He was a Jeffersonian Republican; so was his son. John Sibley in 1802 emigrated to Louisiana, became a correspondent and agent of President Thomas Jefferson, and in 1803 explored the lower Red River to gather information on the Indian tribes there for Jefferson. He settled in Natchitoches, Louisiana, near the border of Spanish East Texas, and in 1805 became Indian agent there. Likewise George Sibley came to the frontier and entered government service, in a position secured for him by his father's influence. In 1805 he became an assistant at the government factory, or Indian trading house, at Fort Bellefontaine, near St. Louis. In 1808 he received an assignment to establish a new factory for the Great and Little Osage Indians. This factory, completed in 1810 and located above the mouth of the Osage River on the south bank of the Missouri River, he christened Fort Osage. By then Sibley was both factor and agent to the Osages, but he lived in a leisurely style—taking breakfast each morning at nine.³

John Sibley also imparted to his son an attitude of ardent western expansionism. As Indian agent at Natchitoches, John Sibley worked to win the allegiance of the Indian tribes of East Texas away from the Spanish, in case war should occur between the United States and Spain. He also aided various filibustering schemes by private American citizens to seize Spanish Texas, especially after a revolution which broke out in Mexico spread into Texas in 1811. John Sibley wanted the United States to exploit the fluid situation by making territorial gains; “there are no fixed boundaries,” he declared.⁴ To the north at peaceful Fort Osage, George Sibley developed similar imperial ambitions, from association not only with his father but also with other adventurous men. George Sibley's future father-in-law, Rufus Easton of St. Louis, was accused widely of collusion in the western conspiracy of Aaron Burr and Brigadier General James Wilkinson. On his way from Washington, D.C. to establish Fort Osage in 1808, Sibley also met Major Zebulon Montgomery Pike in Philadelphia, where the two no doubt discussed Pike's recent, mysterious expedition to the Spanish provinces of the Southwest. Finally, in 1809 Dr. John Robinson became Indian agent at Fort Osage, and the bachelor Sibley boarded with Robinson and his wife from their arrival until their departure in early 1810. Robinson had accompanied Pike west in 1806 as surgeon for his party. For vague reasons, probably espionage, Robinson had preceded Pike to Santa Fe, had been arrested and sent to Chihuahua, Mexico, and then had returned to Natchitoches. After leaving Fort Osage, Robinson participated in several filibuster attempts in Spanish Texas.⁵

Inspired by such zealots, Sibley hoped someday to aid in the seizure of the Spanish Southwest by the United States. In January of 1809 he wrote to Samuel Sibley and expressed the hope that war would result from recent deteriorations in relations with England, and that Spain would join the fight on the side of England. In such a case, he thought, “it is likely that this [Fort Osage] will be a rallying post from whence to attack Santa Fe, we could March there and seize their Rich Mines in less than 20 days. And I have no doubt if we have a war but seize them we shall.” He added cautiously, “On this subject I could greatly enlarge but the time has not yet arrived (tho’ it approaches fast) for the consideration thereof.”⁶ Moreover, two days after John Sibley wrote that the boundaries of Louisiana and Texas were unfixed, George Sibley wrote to his brother that he would refrain from speculation on political subjects because they would be “uninteresting.” But the real reason for reticence was “the great uncertainty of this letter ever finding you.”⁷ George Sibley evidently had thoughts which he refused to trust to the mails.

Such thoughts prompted Sibley in 1811 to conduct a semi-official reconnaissance on the plains. Sibley had instructions from his superior officer in St. Louis, William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Missouri Territory, to make peace among warring Plains Indian tribes and to win their favor for the United States. Sibley no doubt considered his mission to the Indians important diplomacy prior to an expected war with England and Spain. However, Sibley paid his own expenses for the jaunt. He may have had unofficially, more exalted plans, perhaps a scouting mission to determine the sympathies of the Indians in case of an attempt by the United States or by private citizens to seize Spanish territory.⁸

Such geo-political motives were important in bringing about the expedition, and implied an imperial struggle over the area constituting modern Oklahoma. But it was scientific curiosity rather than territorial ambitions that eventually brought Sibley within the present boundaries of Oklahoma. He had heard tales of a mountain of salt somewhere on the plains, as well as reports from Indians regarding peculiar saline deposits south of the Arkansas River. Sibley, who had carried a treatise on minerology with him to Fort Osage, wanted to investigate.

George Champlin Sibley, who led expeditions into Oklahoma to examine the Great Salt Plains and later to survey the Santa Fe Trail

At least as early as January of 1811, Sibley began planning his tour through the Indian country. Two renowned western tourists, each traveling with fur-trading expeditions up the Missouri, visited Sibley at Fort Osage and learned of his plans. In early April Sibley invited young botanist John Bradbury to accompany him to the salines, but Bradbury declined because he already had committed himself to travel up the Missouri River with another party. The other traveler, Henry Marie Brackenridge, met Sibley at the fort later in the month and was informed of Sibley's planned excursion, but he also continued up the Missouri.⁹

On May 11, 1811, Sibley left Fort Osage with seven companions: James Henderson, his Irish servant; a French interpreter; and five Osage Indians, including formidable war chief Sans Oreille, so called because he seemed to be without ears whenever more peaceful Osages tried to dissuade him from making war. The party traveled southwest along the traditional Osage hunting trace and on the next day overtook sixty families of the Little Osage tribe on their way southwest to hunt buffalo. Seventy-five miles from Fort Osage, by Sibley's always-too-conservative calculations, Sibley and fourteen companions—Henderson, two interpreters and eleven Osages—turned northwest, while the rest of the band continued southwest toward the buffalo country.¹⁰

Sibley's destination was the village of the Kansa Indians. The village was on the north bank of the Kansas River, a few hundred yards below its juncture with the Big Blue River, which Sibley mistakenly called the Republican. A delegation of about 100 Kansa warriors met him and escorted him into their town of 125 lodges on May 19. In spite of fears by Sans Oreille that the Kansas intended treachery, Sibley found them quite friendly. In a council on May 21 at the lodge of head chief Shone-ge-ne-gare, the Kansas agreed to refrain from attacks on white hunters and traders and on their Indian neighbors. A group of men from the town agreed to accompany Sibley to his next destination, the Pawnee Republican village.¹¹

On May 22 Sibley, Henderson, two interpreters, nine Osages and seven Kansas departed for the Pawnee town, which Sibley estimated lay 120 miles northwest. This was on the Loup Fork of the Platte River. On May 28 Che-ri-ta-rich, grand chief of the Pawnees, and 200 braves splashed through the Loup and conducted Sibley into their village. Three bands of Pawnees lived there, having moved north from their former home on the Republican River to escape raids by the Kansas. Including another branch of the tribe that lived ten miles upriver, Sibley computed that the Pawnees of the Loup Fork mustered over 1,000 “fighting men.”¹²

Sibley was disconcerted to find a strong Spanish influence among the Pawnees. Che-ri-ta-rich recounted to Sibley that five years earlier a large Spanish force from Santa Fe, New Mexico had visited his people on the Republican River and had instructed them to stop the westward advance of the explorer Zebulon Montgomery Pike if he should visit their village. Pike had arrived soon after the Spaniards’ departure, but had defied warnings from Che-ri-ta-rich to turn back. The Pawnee chief, impressed by Pike's bravery, had allowed him to continue toward New Mexico unmolested. But in succeeding years the old chief, whom Sibley thought “of very good sense, and far superior in point of talents, to any Indian chief of my acquaintance,” was “much courted by the governor of Santa Fe.”¹³ Che-ri-ta-rich possessed numerous Spanish medals and flags, as well as letters from the governors of Santa Fe and Baton Rouge which Sibley said were “expressive of their satisfaction of his loyalty and adherence to the Spanish government.”¹⁴ Sibley acted to combat this Spanish threat. He noted the name of a French spy in the employ of the Spanish to report it to Superintendent Clark. He invited Che-ri-ta-rich to visit Clark in St. Louis. Finally, at a council on May 31, Sibley worked out an apparent peace between the Pawnees and the Kansas. He also cautioned the Pawnees that “they had no other father and protector among white people than the president,” and distributed medals and flags among them.¹⁵ Sibley considered the political aspect of his mission completed and the interests of the United States on the plains safeguarded.

Thus, free to satiate his scientific curiosity, on June 4 Sibley departed toward the renowned salines of present northwest Oklahoma. He traveled southeast for a week, seventy-five miles he thought, and again found the mobile Little Osage hunting camp. The camp was situated on the Arkansas River between the sites of the present cities of Hutchinson and Wichita, Kansas. Sibley estimated that he had traveled an additional thirty miles southwest with the Little Osages, when they encountered some Indians of the Chanier band of Osages. They told Sibley that the camps of the Great Osages and the Chanier Osages were nearby. The explorer decided to visit them, and on June 21 with eight companions—Henderson, an interpreter and six Osages—he rode southeast to the Big Osage camp of Chief White Hair. He spent the night there, then rode southeast to the hunting camp of the Chaniers on the next day. Clermont, chief of the Chaniers, expressed a desire to improve relations with the United States, so Sibley presented him with an American flag, even though the Chaniers lived outside the jurisdiction of either Sibley or Clark. Thus did Sibley carry his diplomacy into present-day Oklahoma, for on June 21 or 22, 1811, he had crossed the modern state boundary. The Chaniers’ camp was in the vicinity of present-day Blackwell. Sibley described these hunting grounds as “abounding in game,” with buffalo always plentiful; moreover, “the climate is salubrious and pleasant, the soil fertile and fruitful.”¹⁶

On June 23 Sibley struck due west toward the salines. He planned first to visit what he called the “Grand Saline,” now known as the Great Salt Plains, a few miles east of present-day Cherokee. Sibley and his companions rode for what he estimated as thirty-two miles across broken prairie and rapid, red-running rivulets. They found the streams now named Deer Creek, Polecat Creek, Pond Creek and Crooked Creek swollen from recent rains. They camped for the night under an elm tree on Sand Creek, somewhat southwest of present Medford. Here the nature of the soil changed from red clay to sand. On the next morning the adventurers proceeded through low, bleak sand hills sprinkled with short plum bushes, from which they enjoyed numerous red fruits. They crossed the Salt Fork of the Arkansas, known to the Osages as the Nescatunga, and several small clear brooks. Finally they topped a sand hill from which Sibley peered westward and first viewed the white, shining Grand Saline. The hill on which he stood was two miles north or three miles northeast of present-day Jet. The explorers crossed two or three miles of intervening prairie, passed through a skirt of cottonwood trees, and came to a peculiar river. This stream, known to later settlers as the “Bayou” or the “Outlet” of the Great Salt Plains, ran in several wide but shallow channels separated by sandbars. Its water was red and salty, its bottom a quaggy mire. Sibley and his compatriots crossed the stream and entered onto the Grand Saline, a plain of reddish sand. Particles of sleet-like salt covered the sandy plain, which Sibley estimated was at least thirty miles in circumference.¹⁷

The salt crust on the plain fascinated Sibley. He described it as “the thickness of a thick wafer” in most places, often thicker. This coating had formed quite quickly, as heavy rains had inundated the plain only two days earlier. The salt crust, an enigma to Sibley, was the product of capillary action and evaporation. The red sand was saturated with salt water, which was drawn to the surface by capillary action. The sun then evaporated the water and left the salt encrustation. Sibley questioned his Osage guides, who often had visited the place, about the nature of the salt deposits under varying weather conditions. They informed him that after a period of dry weather the flats accumulated a crust of white, pure salt, two to six inches thick and resembling a great field of snow. Immediately following an inundation of the area, great quantities of “mush salt” accumulated in mounds and furrows, washed into ruddy piles by the water's action. Sibley saw “many thousands of bushels” of this substance. The white surface of the plain had the effect of “looming” objects observed upon it, or making them appear closer than they actually were. A buffalo chase by Sibley and an Osage youth named Mo-no-soo-gee illustrated this effect. Six or eight hundred buffaloes were wandering about the salt plain, and the two hunters gave chase after a herd of thirty or forty. Sibley thought that he would overtake the beasts within 500 yards. But the chase lasted more than a mile, even though Sibley was mounted on a fine white horse given him by the Pawnee chief Che-ri-ta-rich. As the hoofs of the pale horse churned up a red-and-white spray, Sibley fired his two pistols, but with little effect. Mono-soo-gee then dispatched two buffaloes with two arrows. In spite of his failure in the chase, Sibley predicted that the Grand Saline would become a mecca for eastern sportsmen, who would pursue the buffalo that came there in pursuit of salt.¹⁸

Danger made further examination of the Grand Saline cursory. Sibley intended to spend several days in the area, but his Osage scouts reported hostile Comanches, whom they called Padoucas, in the hills nearby. On the advice of Sans Oreille, Sibley started northwest for the Little Osage camp, which by this time had been moved farther to the west. Late in the afternoon the party crossed the Salt Fork, rode about twelve miles and camped. The following day they traveled what Sibley estimated as twenty-eight miles and found the Little Osage camp on a beautiful clear creek. This probably was Medicine Lodge Creek in present Barber County, Kansas. The camp's 1,000 inhabitants were enjoying a pleasant summer's hunt, well supplied with buffalo meat.¹⁹

Sibley planned next to explore what he called the “Rock Saline,” a saline deposit that he thought might be the basis for tales of a salt mountain. The Rock Saline, now known as the Big Salt Plain, was located where Buffalo Creek joined the Cimarron River from the west, some eight miles west of modern Freedom, Oklahoma. On July 27 ninety Osages under the leadership of a prominent warrior named Wau-be-soon-je set out southwest on foot toward the Rock Saline. These men were Sibley's escort for protection from the Comanches. On the next day Sibley, an interpreter and Sans Oreille overtook them at a prearranged meeting place. Then they traveled southwest through the gypsum hills region of present southwest Kansas and northwest Oklahoma. The stark beauty of these hills impressed Sibley. He wondered at high bluffs of red clay capped with masses of white gypsum, which reminded him of “the magnificent ruins of some ancient city.”²⁰ Passing through one white-and-red-rimmed canyon, Sibley and the Osages were mummed by a strange reverence of the place and traveled along without speaking a word. By this time the lush grasses of the northern gypsum hills had given way to the sagebrush of the southern gypsum hills. On June 30 the explorers found a herd of perhaps 30,000 buffaloes gathering in a small valley to water at a creek on the valley floor. As the buffaloes fled, the rumble of their many hoofs reverberated from steep canyon walls like thunder. Rattling gunfire augmented the sounds of hoofbeats as the intruders killed twenty-seven of the animals, while two Indians were injured in the stampede.²¹

It was along the Nesaketonga or Grand Saline, in present-day north-central Oklahoma, that Sibley examined the Great Salt Plains

After what Sibley guessed was sixty miles of travel through this picturesque region, the party looked down from rugged hills into the broad valley of the Cimarron River and saw the Rock Saline shimmering before them. Sibley described this saline as a plain of red sand and salt crust in the riverbed, resembling the Grand Saline except that it was only some 500 acres in extent. Actually, its size was closer to 5,000 acres. Buffalo Creek intersected the plain on the south side of the river. Bounding the flats along the southwest bank of the river were high bluffs capped with gypsum, in which great numbers of swallows nested, and through which Buffalo Creek cut a passage. Salt springs issued from the hills and flowed over the flat ground. From the base of a bluff near Buffalo Creek trickled four springs entirely saturated with salt. When Sibley visited the site, recent rains had washed away all large accumulations of salt. But the Osages told him that after a prolonged period of dry weather the crust on the plain became five to eight inches thick, and volcano-like cones of salt formed around the mouths of the salt springs. Near one of these springs, Sibley used a tomahawk to chop out a fifteen-inch cube of pure white salt and dug out a number of egg-sized lumps.²²

Again Sibley had to cut short his investigation. Osage scouts reported hundreds of Comanches in the area, and the Osages went out in hopes of taking scalps. Sibley, after trying to dissuade them, returned to the last night's camp. The Osages soon rejoined him, and they returned to the Little Osage camp on Medicine Lodge Creek, arriving there on July 3. Two days later Sibley began a homeward march to Fort Osage, which he thought lay some 260 miles to the northeast. Probably he followed the Osage hunting trace. Sibley made little note of events during this trip, except that it was thoroughly disagreeable. Green flies proved so tormenting that Sibley's prize white horse became unmanageable, broke its tether, ran into a bog and was lost. Still mourning the loss of the animal, Sibley arrived again at Fort Osage on July 11, having been absent two months.²³

Sibley freely shared knowledge of his explorations. On July 27, 1811, Bradbury and Brackenridge arrived by boat from the upper Missouri at Fort Osage, conversed with the Osage factor and examined his salt specimens. Both later included extracts from Sibley's journal in published works about their travels, thus disseminating descriptions of the salt plains eastward. Sibley already had written Clark a brief description of his trip, and he followed this with a more detailed account. Clark released this report to the St. Louis, Missouri, Louisiana Gazette for publication. Sibley also chronicled his expedition in a letter to his father on August 18, 1811. In November he left Fort Osage and visited his father in Natchitoches, and also conferred there with Zebulon Pike. Their conversations must have turned to the geo-political significance of Sibley's recent expedition. George Sibley then went to Washington, D.C. on unstated business. Considering the nature of Sibley's explorations and the danger at the time of war with England, Sibley's business in Washington must have concerned the international status of the frontier.²⁴

Years later Sibley continued to write of the wonders he had seen on the plains. In late July 1814 he complied with a request from William Rector, a prominent surveyor in St. Louis, by providing a description of the salines south of the Arkansas. He also suggested to Rector that rock salt could be hauled by wagon from the Grand Saline to the Arkansas River and carried by keelboat to market. Other men from Missouri also were interested in the commercial value of Sibley's discoveries, especially the residents of Howard County, Missouri. Located in Howard County was Boone's Lick, a group of saline springs used for salt-making. Sibley's accounts of masses of salt were of great interest to people there, and one of them, David Woods, even called the matter to the attention of President James Monroe in 1817. He wrote to Monroe a description of the western salines, but confused Sibley's Grand Saline with salt deposits located in present central Kansas. He called upon the President to treat with the Indians for rights to the salines. The salt thus acquired would be of great value to the residents of the frontier, he said, and should be prevented from falling into the hands of some monopolist. He thought the salt would be especially valuable as an item of trade in case commerce should be opened with New Mexico.²⁵

Sibley's expedition of 1811 stimulated further exploration of present-day Oklahoma. Nathan Boone, the son of Daniel Boone, had spent several years following 1806 making salt at Boone's Lick, which was named for him. Boone was a commander of dragoons at Fort Gibson in the Cherokee Nation. It was probably at his suggestion that Brigadier General Zachary Taylor ordered him to inspect the salines that Sibley had visited. Boone in 1843 visited both the Grand Saline, which he called the Great Salt Plain, and the Rock Saline, which he called the Rock Salt. Josiah Gregg, who in 1839 crossed present-day Oklahoma on a trading expedition to Santa Fe, also was aware of Sibley's explorations. He later incorporated descriptions of the salines by Sibley and by Boone into his classic history of the Santa Fe trade, Commerce of the Prairies.²⁶

Sibley's predictions as to the commercial worth of the salines never were fully realized. The Grand Saline and the Rock Saline became part of the Cherokee reserve, and well-known to cattlemen who grazed their herds there. Neither, however, was exploited for more than local purposes. The railroad which penetrated Indian Territory in the 1870s, instead of stimulating the export of salt from the salines, terminated such industry. It became cheaper to import salt from mines in central Kansas than to gather it from the salines. Only local farmers and ranchers came to the salines during the territorial and early statehood period of Oklahoma. They carved up the salt crusts of the Great Salt Plains and the Big Salt Plain with pitchforks and peat spades and hauled it off in wagons for their livestock. Significant commercial exploitation of the salt resources of northwest Oklahoma began only when an entrepreneur named Ezra Blackmon went into the salt business on the Big Salt Plain in 1924. As for Sibley's prediction that eastern sportsmen would flock to the Grand Saline to hunt, it came true in an unforeseen manner. In 1941 the Army Corps of Engineers completed construction of the Great Salt Plains Dam, and the Great Salt Plains Reservoir inundated the eastern portion of the Great Salt Plains. The whole area became the Great Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge, and in subsequent years provided some of the best waterfowl hunting in Oklahoma.²⁷

The War of 1812 fulfilled none of Sibley's hopes for territorial expansion. Instead, the army ordered Fort Osage abandoned during the conflict. In the fall of 1815 Sibley returned to reopen the post, accompanied by his fifteen-year-old bride, Mary Easton of St. Louis. In 1822 the United States Congress abolished the factory system and put Sibley out of a job. He already had bought land near Fort Osage for farming and for speculation, but his lack of success in these investments plunged him heavily into debt. In 1825 he heard that government service again awaited him, and he welcomed the news.²⁸

During the 1820s Americans, starting with an initial successful trading expedition by William Becknell in 1821, had developed a healthy commerce between Missouri and New Mexico via the Santa Fe Trail. This trading route crossed the northwest corner of the present Oklahoma panhandle. The Missouri delegation in Congress, especially Senator Thomas Hart Benton, called the attention of Congress to the trade and requested measures to aid it. In early 1825 the efforts of Benton secured passage of a bill which appropriated $30,000 for the survey and marking of the road to Santa Fe. The President was to appoint commissioners to conduct the survey. First the commissioners were to treat with the Kansa and Osage Indians for right-of-way on the route. Then they were to mark the road as far as its crossing of the Arkansas River, where it entered Mexican territory. Providing he could secure the permission of the Mexican government, the President could authorize the commissioners to mark the road all the way to Santa Fe.²⁹

President John Quincy Adams appointed three survey commissioners: Pierre Menard, a prominent merchant from Kaskaskia, Illinois; Benjamin H. Reeves of Howard County, Missouri; and George C. Sibley. Menard declined appointment because of business commitments, and Thomas Mather, another businessman from Kaskaskia, took his place. Sibley was surprised but pleased at his appointment. He relished public service and considered it a great honor. Also, he recently had invested in the trade to New Mexico and hoped to see the commerce flourish. Like Benton, Sibley would have viewed this commercial intercourse as a prelude to American occupation of the Spanish Southwest. Finally, he hoped that the excursion would restore his declining health.³⁰

The beginning of American trade with Santa Fe in the early 1820s resulted in Sibley's second expedition across Oklahoma

The commissioners assembled their survey party at Fort Osage. As surveyor they hired Joseph C. Brown, an experienced frontier surveyor, and as secretary Archibald Gamble, who had worked with Brown before and also was Sibley's brother-in-law. In addition to a band of riflemen, the commissioners hired as interpreters and guides a number of frontiersmen whose names subsequently became famous throughout the West. Among them was William Shirley Williams, later known as “Old Bill,” a renowned mountain man; also along was Joseph Reddeford Walker, whose many later exploits included guiding the first American settlers into California.³¹

On Sunday, July 17, 1825, the survey party left Fort Osage forty men strong without Sibley, who followed in a few days with his Negro servant, Abram. On August 9 at Council Grove on the Neosho River, the commissioners met with fifty representatives of the Great and Little Osage tribes. The next day they effected an agreement by which the Indians granted Santa Fe traders rights of passage. On August 15–16 the commissioners met with the Kansa Indians on Sora Creek, now Turkey Creek in McPherson County, Kansas, and concluded a similar treaty with them. The survey then proceeded until on September 11 it arrived at a point some forty miles above the crossing of the Arkansas River.³²

Here the party stopped to rest, and the commissioners disagreed as to what course to pursue next. They had not yet received instructions from the President to continue the survey across Mexican territory, because negotiations on the subject had stalled in Mexico City. On September 20 the commissioners decided that Sibley, Brown, Williams and nine more men with two wagons would continue to Santa Fe, while Reeves, Mather, Gamble and the rest returned to Missouri. In Santa Fe Sibley would seek permission from Mexican authorities to extend the survey. All the commissioners were to return to the field the next spring if Sibley could secure such permission. This decision to split the party brought Sibley again into a part of present-day Oklahoma.³³

Sibley started for Santa Fe on September 22. He crossed the Arkansas and the dry stretch between the Arkansas and Cimarron rivers, then followed the Cimarron into present Oklahoma. On October 5 he entered the northwest corner of present Cimarron County, Oklahoma, and camped just inside the state line. For some days grass had been poor and the horses were suffering, while lack of timber left the party with only buffalo chips for fuel. That evening heavy black clouds rolled in from the west. The next morning snow covered the ground and a chill northwest wind blew. Luckily the travelers found a dry log to replace moistened buffalo chips as fuel, and thus suffered little as they lay in camp that day. The snow melted by late afternoon.³⁴

The next morning was cold and fair as the wayfarers broke camp. Up the Cimarron valley for six miles they proceeded, past a few cottonwood trees and rocky bluffs. Here Sibley described the Cimarron as “like a Mountain Stream—its water cold and clear, bed gravely [sic], current brisk.”³⁵ Next the travelers turned left out of the river valley, and after five rugged miles came to “Upper Semerone Spring,” as Sibley wrote it. This was an excellent flowing spring, hemmed in by sheer cliffs and watering a narrow valley that provided good grazing for the horses. It was a regular camping place for Santa Fe traders, located just west of present United States Highway 287. The party remained in camp through the next day because of rain and hail storms. Sibley decided that henceforth the men would walk to save the wagon teams, though he still rode his saddle horse.³⁶

Next morning the men again set out, with the horses looking half-frozen. From a high ridge Sibley looked to the west, where he could see two important trail landmarks which lay within the present state of New Mexico. These were the “Rabbit Ears” Mounds, a rock formation so named because from certain angles it looked like a rabbit's head, and Clayton Mountain, a prominent hill rising from the plain. Sibley wrote that Clayton Mountain was “covered with snow, & looks to me more like a White Cloud than a Mountain.”³⁷ The Cimarron River stretched away to the west as far as he could see. The men pointed the wagon tongues toward the Rabbit Ears and proceeded through sand hills and up a creek bed to another spring some eight miles from Upper Cimarron Spring.³⁸

On October 10 the travelers crossed and briefly followed a branch of Cold Springs Creek through rough country, left it for two miles and came to a branch of Carrizo Creek, several miles northwest of present Wheeless, Oklahoma. From atop a ridge there they saw a broad valley to their right, where they found a pond of water and good grass, and camped. The horses were growing weaker, but the next morning Sibley's men broke camp and left the confines of present-day Oklahoma. They camped for the night on the North Canadian River, which Sibley called Louse Creek.³⁹

From there the party struggled on and reached Taos, New Mexico, on October 30. On November 27 after settling the men in Taos, Sibley and Brown left for Santa Fe to lobby for permission to complete their survey. Meanwhile they corresponded with Joel Poinsett, American ambassador in Mexico City, to follow developments on the issue there. No response came from the Mexican government for several months.⁴⁰

Finally on June 19, 1826, Sibley, who by then had returned to Taos, received a letter from Governor Antonio Narbona of New Mexico granting him permission to survey from Santa Fe to the Arkansas River, but prohibiting the erection of any trail markers. Sibley then awaited the arrival of the other two commissioners, Reeves and Mather, not knowing that because of the long recalcitrance of the Mexican government they had given up hope of completing the survey. Finally on August 24, Sibley, Brown and the rest of the men set out to finish the project. No detailed record of their work survived except for Brown's field notes. These contained descriptions of trail sites and landmarks throughout the distance surveyed, including the segment of the trail through the present Oklahoma Panhandle.⁴¹

Brown wrote his notes as directions to traders going toward Santa Fe. Just south of the present Oklahoma border, travelers on the trail came to the first timber along the route for many miles as they approached Upper Spring. Wood and water were available there, but little grass. Wild grapes were plentiful in season. From the next hill the Rabbit Ears were visible to the southeast, and they were a directional guide for trail travelers. However, pilgrims bore to the right temporarily and followed a branch of Cold Springs Creek in order to avoid some sharp hills. After eleven miles caravans came to Mire Spring, as Brown called it, which may have been what Santa Fe traders called Clear Creek Spring. From there they continued toward the Rabbit Ears and crossed out of present Oklahoma prior to reaching Louse Creek, or the North Canadian River.⁴²

Sibley and Brown completed the survey to the Arkansas River and returned to Fort Osage, arriving on October 12, 1826. Sibley never again returned to the area of present-day Oklahoma, although in 1827 he returned to the Santa Fe Trail to correct inadequacies in the eastern portion of the survey and to erect earth trail markers. Sibley eventually wrote the final report of the survey commissioners which on October 27, 1827, was signed by Reeves and Mather and sent to Secretary of War James Barbour.⁴³

The survey proved of little lasting significance, except as a political coup for Senator Benton—“a bugbear adopted by the Colonel to catch gudgeons,” one critic proclaimed. The survey was unneeded at the time of its authorization, because by 1825 four years’ use of the trail had made it familiar enough to those who used it. But the survey drew national attention to the commerce with New Mexico, and familiarized the public with landmarks of the Santa Fe Trail. Sibley's journal of the survey contained one of the earliest written descriptions of the area which became the Oklahoma Panhandle.⁴⁴

When Sibley returned to Missouri after completing the last details of the survey, he faced a burden of business debts he had accumulated earlier. In 1828 he gave up his farmlands near Fort Osage and moved to a smaller estate near St. Charles, Missouri. He called this home Linden Wood. There George and Mary Sibley founded a school for young ladies which became the present Lindenwood College in St. Charles, and presided over it until George Sibley's death in 1863.⁴⁵

Certain aspects of Sibley's character were obvious during his explorations. One was the sense of inquisitiveness that spurred him on, whether he was seeking salt specimens from a saline spring or the best route for a wagon to follow to Santa Fe. Another was the dogged determination which made him stay and complete the Santa Fe Trail survey when the other commissioners wearied. Finally there was the patriotic spirit which led Sibley to try to promote his country's territorial and commercial interests. On the other hand, Sibley was something of a loner and must have been a disagreeable man to work with. He always traveled with a valet, and probably never had good rapport with his associates. Though a resident and publicist of the frontier, Sibley never really became a frontiersman.

Western expansionism was a persistent theme in Sibley's career as an explorer. Both his expedition of 1811 and his trail survey of 1825–1826 were American outreaches toward the Spanish Southwest. They illustrated that the region of the southern plains which became Oklahoma often was the center of international territorial rivalries. Perhaps in 1847, when Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny and the Army of the West marched from Missouri to conquer New Mexico, Sibley felt repaid for his efforts in behalf of the road on which they trod.

Sibley made a large contribution to knowledge and attitudes about the southern plains region, especially present-day Oklahoma. His was the first written description of present Oklahoma to be made available to the American public. His graphic depictions of the salt plains, and to a lesser extent of Indian tribes, received wide dissemination and sparked further explorations. Sibley wrote about the plains in a way that differed from other explorers, who often characterized the region as a “Great American Desert.” Sibley knew all the hardships of the plains, yet to him they were still a place of wonder and fascination. He also pointed out economic possibilities in the form of rich soil, abundant game, valuable minerals and trading opportunities. Thus Sibley was the first explorer to convey a favorable image of the area of present-day Oklahoma to the American public.

¹ Kate L. Gregg, “The History of Fort Osage,” Missouri Historical Review, Vol. XXXIV, No. 4 (July, 1940), p. 458; Charles Thomas Jones, Jr., “George Champlin Sibley: The Prairie Puritan (1782–1863),” Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, 1969, pp. 130–131.

² Ibid., pp. 2–21.

³ Ibid., pp. 21–71; G. P. Whittington, “Dr. John Sibley of Natchitoches, 1757–1837,” Louisiana Historical Quarterly, Vol. X, No. 3 (October, 1927), pp. 469–471; Julia Kathryn Garrett, ed., “Dr. John Sibley and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier, 1803–1814,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. XLV, No. 3 (Fall, 1941), pp. 286–289.

⁴ Ibid., Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. XLVIII, No. 4 (April, 1945), p. 549.

⁵ Ibid., Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. XLV, pp. 288–291; Clarence Edwin Carter, ed., Territorial Papers of the United States (27 vols., Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1934–1969), “Territory of Louisiana, 1806–1814,” Vol. XIV, pp. 603–605; Jones, “George Champlin Sibley: The Prairie Puritan (1782–1863),” pp. 46, 65; Harold A. Bierck, “Dr. John Hamilton Robinson,” Louisiana Historical Quarterly, Vol. XXV, No. 3 (July, 1942), pp. 645–656.

⁶ George C. Sibley to Samuel H. Sibley, January 18, 1809, Library, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Missouri.

⁷ George C. Sibley to Samuel H. Sibley, February 12, 1811, ibid.

⁸ Jones, “George Champlin Sibley: Prairie Puritan (1782–1863),” pp. 86–87.

⁹ Ibid., p. 86; John Bradbury, “Travels in the Interior of America,” Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846 (32 vols., Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1904–1907), Vol. V, p. 66; Henry Marie Brackenridge, “Journal of a Voyage up the Missouri,” ibid., Vol. VI, p. 61.

¹⁰ Jones, “George Champlin Sibley: Prairie Puritan (1782–1863),” p. 87; Louisiana Gazette (St. Louis, Missouri), May 16, 1812.

¹¹ Ibid., May 16, 1812; George R. Brooks, ed., “George C. Sibley's Journal of a Trip to the Salines in 1811,” Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society, Vol. LIX (April, 1965), pp. 172–178.

¹² Louisiana Gazette, May 16, 1812; Brooks, “George C. Sibley's Journal of a Trip to the Salines in 1811,” Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society, Vol. LIX, pp. 178–180.

¹³ Louisiana Gazette, May 16, 1812.

¹⁴ Ibid., May 16, 1812.

¹⁵ Ibid., May 16, 1812.

¹⁶ Ibid., May 23, 1812; Brooks, “George C. Sibley's Journal of a Trip to the Salines in 1811,” Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society, Vol. LIX, pp. 189–192.

¹⁷ Ibid., pp. 192–194; “Extracts from the Diary of Major Sibley,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. V, No. 2 (June, 1927), pp. 212–214.

¹⁸ Brooks, “George C. Sibley's Journal of a Trip to the Salines in 1811,” Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society, Vol. LIX, pp. 194–197.

¹⁹ Ibid., pp. 197–199.

²⁰ Ibid., p. 203.

²¹ Ibid., pp. 199–205.

²² Ibid., pp. 200–202.

²³ Ibid., pp. 202–207.

²⁴ Bradbury, “Travels in the Interior of America,” Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, Vol. V, pp. 190–194; Brackenridge, “Journal of a Voyage up the Missouri,” ibid., Vol. VI, pp. 151, 153n; George C. Sibley to General William Clark, July 22, 1811, Library, Missouri Historical Society; Brooks, “George C. Sibley's Journal of a Trip to the Salines in 1811,” Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society, Vol. LIX, pp. 188, 188n; Jones, “George Champlin Sibley: Prairie Puritan (1782–1863),” pp. 101–102.

²⁵ George C. Sibley to Colonel William Rector, July 29, 1814, Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Carter, Territorial Papers of the United States, “Territory of Louisiana-Missouri, 1815–1821,” Vol. XV, pp. 284–286.

²⁶ Carolyn Thomas Foreman, “Nathan Boone: Trapper, Manufacturer, Surveyor, Militiaman, Legislator, Ranger and Dragoon,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XIX, No. 4 (December, 1941), pp. 322–347; and W. Julian Fessler, ed., “Captain Nathan Boone's Report,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. VII, No. 1 (March, 1929), pp. 58–105; Josiah Gregg, “Commerce of the Prairies,” 2 parts, Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846 (32 vols., Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1904–1907), Pt. 2, Vol. XX, pp. 243–247.

²⁷ Grant Foreman, “Salt Works in Early Oklahoma,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. X, No. 4 (December, 1932), p. 499; Jeff Holladay, “Ol’ Salty Blackmon Says Luck Sent Him to the Salt Mines,” Oklahoma's Orbit: The Magazine of the Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City), November 9, 1975, pp. 4–7; “Great Salt Plains Dam and Reservoir, Oklahoma,” pamphlet by United States Corps of Engineers, July, 1970.

²⁸ Jones, “George Champlin Sibley: Prairie Puritan (1782–1863),” pp. 107–128, 163–164, 176.

²⁹ United States Congress, Register of Debates in Congress (Washington: Gates and Seaton, 1825), pp. 341–348, 355–361.

³⁰ Kate L. Gregg, ed., The Road to Santa Fe: The Journal and Diaries of George Champlin Sibley (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968), pp. 8–10; Jones, “George Champlin Sibley: Prairie Puritan (1782–1863),” p. 188.

³¹ Gregg, The Road to Santa Fe: The Journal and Diaries of George Champlin Sibley, pp. 16–32.

³² Ibid., pp. 54–78; United States Congress, American State Papers, Indian Affairs (2 vols., Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1834), Vol. II, pp. 610–611.

³³ Gregg, The Road to Santa Fe: The Journal and Diaries of George Champlin Sibley, pp. 78–83.

³⁴ Ibid., pp. 84–93.

³⁵ Ibid., p. 93.

³⁶ Ibid., pp. 93–94.

³⁷ Ibid., p. 94.

³⁸ Ibid., pp. 94–95.

³⁹ Ibid., pp. 95–98.

⁴⁰ Ibid., pp. 98–118, 137–160; Frederick A. Culmer, “Marking the Santa Fe Trail,” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. IX, No. 1 (January, 1934), pp. 84–86; William R. Manning, “Diplomacy Concerning the Santa Fe Road,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. I, No. 4 (March, 1915), pp. 525–528.

⁴¹ Gregg, The Road to Santa Fe, p. 43; Culmer, “Marking the Santa Fe Trail,” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. IX, pp. 83–87; Manning, “Diplomacy Concerning the Santa Fe Road,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. I, p. 528.

⁴² Joseph C. Brown, “Field Notes, United States Surveying Expedition, 1825–1827,” Eighteenth Biennial Report of the Board of Directors of the Kansas State Historical Society (Topeka: Kansas State Printing Office, 1913), pp. 122–123.

⁴³ Gregg, The Road to Santa Fe, The Journal and Diaries of George Champlin Sibley, pp. 44, 197–211.

⁴⁴ Missouri Republican (St. Louis, Missouri), March 16, 1826.

⁴⁵ Jones, “George Champlin Sibley: Prairie Puritan (1782–1863),” pp. 212–316.

THOMAS NUTTALL, 1819

By Steven Gragert

The first flowers of spring already were in full bloom in the lower Arkansas River country. It was early February 1819 and the fragrance of flowering wild onions and the brilliance of springbeauties and bluets gave promise of a full season. Walking across the prairie of eastern Arkansas, Thomas Nuttall marvelled at nature's premature crowning of spring. For four long winter months the young naturalist had descended the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. He had braved the winter cold of Illinois, river pirates in Missouri and the snags and sawyers of the Mississippi River. When finally he reached the mouth of the Arkansas River in the spring of 1819, Nuttall was full of new hope and anticipation. As he gazed upon the country which lay before him, the emergence of the new season spurred his eagerness to venture west.¹

Thomas Nuttall had made other botanical excursions in the United States, but none equalled in length and importance the one he embarked upon in 1819. Financed by fellow members of the American Philosophical Society, the thirty-two year old self-taught botanist was in the Arkansas country to study and catalog the flora and fauna and make other scientific observations. Nuttall established his botanical reputation with the publication of his Genera of North American Plants in 1818.² Critically acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic, these two volumes comprised the first American botanical work of importance. Yet, Nuttall was not content with this success. He yearned for the opportunity to explore further and add to the knowledge of American plant life. To Nuttall the Southwest beckoned as a paradise of unknown species. His expedition in the area, including a large part of present-day Oklahoma, was the first such exploration by a professional botanist. The records and collections he left have formed the basis for the study of botany in Oklahoma and the Southwest.³

Thomas Nuttall, who made a botanical excursion through present-day Oklahoma in 1819

In late January 1819 Nuttall arrived at the Arkansas Post with a local trader. The French had established the little settlement a few miles above the mouth of the river over a century earlier. Yet, the civilized tastes of the traveler from the East found the surroundings unsatisfactory. Nuttall surveyed the destitution of the place and quickly attributed the cause to the laziness and ignorance of its French-Canadian inhabitants.⁴

Nevertheless, aware of his immediate purpose, Nuttall diligently noted the plants which abounded in the area. Recent heavy rains and mild weather had quickened the appearance of some medicinal vegetation, a few scattered flowers and the buds of various trees. He was amazed at the absence of vegetation of parallel latitudes, for he did not find any palmettos, evergreens or even the olives of the Mediterranean. He surmised that the climate of Arkansas was greatly influenced by over-extended arctic winters and, thus, the region was less temperate than that of parallel southern France.⁵

Although the vegetation of Arkansas was his immediate concern, Nuttall also was conscious of the Indian presence. During his previous excursions the naturalist had encountered and studied the Menominee, Sioux, Shawnee and other tribes. Throughout his voyage of 1818 down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, he had recorded eagerly stories of local Indian mounds, often suspending his journey to examine them. After his arrival in the Arkansas country Nuttall's interest remained high. Within a few days he visited an accumulation of Indian burial mounds scattered about the prairie and uncovered an assortment of bones, weapons, utensils and broken pots. While recording the findings in his journal, he also expounded on the history of the prominent local tribe, the Quapaws. As he proceeded West, Nuttall evinced considerable interest in the neighboring tribes.⁶

After a month near the Arkansas Post, Nuttall eagerly ascended the river to the Cadron, his next major layover. For this trip he joined a company of rivermen, in spite of his distaste for their attraction to whiskey. Against a swift current the party proceeded westward. Treacherous sand bars and swarms of mosquitoes vexed the travellers, yet blossoming peach trees, flowering redbuds and the warm hospitality of scattered settlers along the river tempered the journey. On March 4 Nuttall was elated by his first taste of milk and butter since he had arrived in the Arkansas country. While one of the local inhabitants so graciously attended him, he was able to meet Ha-kat-ton, principal chief of the Quapaw. Ha-kat-ton proudly showed Nuttall a copy of a treaty of cession made the preceding fall. The botanist carefully noted the extent of the ceded territory which he calculated to be more than 60,000 square miles. He also learned of the “trifling sum” of $4,000 which the Quapaw received outright and the annuity of a mere $1,000 in goods. Stunned, Nuttall recorded the impressions of his first encounter with the results of American Indian diplomacy: “Such are the negotiating conquests of the American republic, made almost without the expense of either blood or treasure!”⁷

A few days later, March 9, the young explorer left his often-inebriated traveling companions and joined a more industrious and serious-minded trader named Drope who was bound for Fort Smith. Nuttall continued to note the emergence of spring in the prairies and woods bordering the Arkansas. He was consistently enthusiastic about the richness and superior quality of the soil and the healthy climate. His earlier amazement at the premature appearance of spring continued. A local species of the june grape, so named because of its ripening in that month, was nearly in bloom, and buttercups displayed their bright yellow petals.⁸

For the next eleven days Nuttall and his new companion battled the currents and an occasional northwest wind before reaching a tiny settlement at the Little Rock. A few miles below, the travelers had passed the road which connected St. Louis, Missouri with the thermal springs of the Ouachita—the Hot Springs—and Natchitoches, Louisiana. Nuttall remained impressed with the considerable fertility of the region and the healthiness of the climate. He noted the continued emigration into the area as testimony to his observations.⁹

On March 27 Nuttall and Drope were forty miles above the Little Rock at the Cadron settlement. Ambitious promoters had planned a town for the site, but Nuttall cynically termed the town plot “imaginary.” He noted the presence of only one resident, John McElmurray, and the absence of sufficient level ground. Nonetheless, the botanist explored the nearby hills where he found several new plants including the roundheaded prairie-clover and a new species of wild rhubarb. He also noted evidence of Cactus ferox, a cactus which previously had been found only on the arid plains of the Missouri River. Nuttall believed the presence of the abundantly spiney local variety suggested the proximity of the Mexican desert. Accordingly, less optimistic impressions began to offset his early glowing reports on the fertility of the country. Though he described the countryside as inferior for cultivation, he expressed some hope for its potential for grazing. “Ages must elapse,” he observed, “before this kind of land will be worth purchasing at any price.”¹⁰

When not assessing the quality of the land, Nuttall reflected on the local inhabitants and their primitive society. The Anglo-Philadelphian suspected the isolation of the few settlements contributed to the barbarism and ignorance of the people. He was appalled by their propensity to gamble and drink; and he feared the uneducated youth were growing up in mental darkness. Nonetheless, Nuttall confidently predicted that the progressive tide of population toward the West eventually would remove the barriers to civilization.¹¹

Such frontier settlements as Cadron—located about forty miles above Little Rock on the Arkansas River—made very little impression on Nuttall

In early April Nuttall and his trader companion left the cursory town plot of Cadron and resumed their journey up the Arkansas River. While Drope conducted business among the farms along the river, Nuttall pursued his scientific studies. He discovered additional cacti and the Plantago gnaphaloides, or Indian wheat, scattered abundantly over the sandy plains. Climbing the surrounding hills and walking the prairies, he documented other new species of indigenous vegetation.¹²

At the Dardenelle settlement, several miles within the boundaries of the Cherokee land reserve, Drope decided to go no further up the river. However, Nuttall was still 120 miles below Fort Smith which had been his next objective. From April 9 to 20 the scientist-explorer visited at the home of Walter Webber, a chief of the Cherokee, and while he awaited further transportation, renewed an old acquaintance with Reuben Lewis, Cherokee agent and brother of Meriwether Lewis. Nuttall satiated his enthusiasm for any information about the Cherokee through lengthy conversations with the cooperative agent.¹³

Engaging the services of two Frenchmen and their canoe, Nuttall finally arrived at Fort Smith on April 24. He wrote to a patron in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that “mountains as considerable as those of the Allighanys [sic] and of the very same structure traverse the country of the Arkansa from the Little Rock to this place.”¹⁴ Although Major William Bradford, the garrison commander, cordially received him, Nuttall soon discovered his status was in doubt; being a civilian without credentials from the Secretary of State threatened his chances of continuing west. The young explorer finally resolved the difficulty when he apprised the major of recent regulations empowering garrison commanders optionally to extend the necessary papers. Elated at his successful dealings with the military bureaucracy, Nuttall decided to spend a few weeks at the post, making it the depot for his collections.¹⁵

As a result, Nuttall spent his most satisfactory hours while at Fort Smith in the companionship of Dr. Thomas Russell, the post surgeon. A native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Russell's intelligent conversations were a relief to Nuttall after months spent among the uneducated frontiersmen of Arkansas. The botanist and the physician took several excursions through the countryside, where in a few weeks Nuttall collected about a hundred new herbs.¹⁶ The beautiful blue of the prairie iris and ultramarine brilliance of the azure lock-spur thrilled the travelers. Spending a night in the midst of nearby Cedar Prairie, Nuttall and his companion relaxed to the music of the frogs and the serenading of the whippoorwills. The melodius chorus of thousands of birds ushered in the next dawn. The few weeks at Fort Smith in the companionship of Dr. Russell proved to be the most pleasant for Nuttall during his Southwestern explorations. Unfortunately, Russell died from fever in the late summer of 1819, but the name of the faithful friend and “sincere admirer of the simple beauties of the field of nature” was remembered in Nuttall's Monarda russeliana.¹⁷

On the morning of May 16, 1819, Major Bradford and a small company of soldiers left Fort Smith for the confluence of the Kiamichi and Red rivers to order white settlers off Indian land.¹⁸ The major invited Nuttall to accompany the expedition; thus the explorer had his first opportunity to view a large tract of country in the present state of Oklahoma. Traveling up the Poteau River the party crossed the rocky and wooded Winding Stair Mountains in order to reach the headwaters of the Kiamichi.¹⁹ Never neglecting his responsibilities, Nuttall continually discovered new vegetation, including a shrub which he identified as allied to the leafflower.²⁰

As the party approached the junction of the three principal branches of the Kiamichi, Nuttall's attention turned to a guide of the Osage—a solitary tree trimmed like a “broom” atop the most prominent summit. The trek became more difficult as the party proceeded through pathless thickets and treacherous ravines and over dreary and rocky pine hills. The men found plenty of bison and deer for food, but they also were bothered by annoying wood ticks. In spite of such hardships, Nuttall busily employed his free time collecting new plants which abounded in the botanically unexplored region.²¹

On May 20 Major Bradford and his party reached William Styles’ farm, the first of the settlements along the Red River; there they had the pleasure of enjoying their first breakfast of milk and butter since leaving the garrison. Styles had arrived in the area during the previous winter accompanied by his wife, their six children and his mother-in-law, whom Nuttall, amazed, described as “blind, and 90 years of age!”²² After breakfast, Major Bradford and his troops commenced the unpleasant task of ejecting the white settlers from their homes in compliance with the officer's instructions. Nuttall sympathetically noted the complaints of the ill-prepared people as they received the news. Nevertheless, the naturalist understood the justice and propriety of the removal. “Would it had always been the liberal policy of the Europeans,” he exclaimed, “to act with becoming justice, and to reciprocate the law of nations with the unfortunate natives!”²³

The party remained on the Red River for three days while Bradford spread his unwelcome message and Nuttall pursued his explorations. On the morning of May 26 the company made preparations for the return journey which was to start from Styles’ home early the following day. Taking advantage of the extra time, Nuttall delayed about two hours to make additional collections and never again overtook the major's party. Attempting to effect a rendezvous, the scientist followed the wrong trail before he realized he was seven miles out of the way. A settler provided directions and Nuttall was within four miles of Styles’ settlement when darkness overtook him. The lost traveler found shelter for the night at a nearby house, where he was finally convinced by the owner that the path was difficult to follow in the light much less the dark.²⁴

The next morning Nuttall suffered further delay, spending hours trying to locate his wandering horse. When he finally arrived at the major's camp he was discouraged to find it deserted. Deciding not to follow the party, Nuttall turned his attention to the botanical treasures of the countryside. Fields of yellow coneflowers bordered by the snow-white flowers of the coriander were in abundance. On one excursion to collect additional species among those “delightful prairies,” Nuttall thrilled at “the inimitable notes of the mockingbird” which he described as “the most wild, varied, and pathetic that ever [he] had heard from any thing less than human.”²⁵

A few days later Nuttall located three traveling companions, and on June 14, 1819, the small party departed for Fort Smith. Once on the trail however, Nuttall discovered that his companions knew less of the country than he. The leader of the group insisted on traveling further west than necessary to avoid the mountains. However, the men quickly learned that they had passed and repassed many of the same ridges. For a week Nuttall arduously journeyed with his fellow travellers before they finally regained the relative comforts of Fort Smith. In spite of hardships, the trip had been botanically productive, for Nuttall returned with an abundance of new herbaceous specimens to add to his growing collection.²⁶

Nuttall remained at the garrison until July 6, when he obtained passage on the boat of a trader named Bogie, heading for the trading posts at the confluence of the Verdigris River, sixty miles above Fort Smith. The party proceeded slowly, going only ten miles before making its first camp below the Skin Bayou. The lazy voyage afforded Nuttall time to discover a few new plants growing in the sand beaches and to observe the river land which he pronounced of good quality. On the morning of July 10 the trading party passed the mouth of the Sallisaw River where Nuttall found the first evidence of the hazel and the American raspberry in the Arkansas country.²⁷

The next morning the group resumed its ascent of the Arkansas, soon passing the outlet of the Canadian River's red and muddy waters. A few miles beyond they encountered the clear waters of the Illinois River. The negotiation of Webber's Falls, at this time a cascade of two or three feet, temporarily delayed their journey. However, by the morning of the thirteenth, the party was again on its way, finally entering the clear waters of the Verdigris River the next afternoon, and then proceeding to Bogie's and Nathaniel Pryor's trading houses.²⁸

During the next several days, Nuttall, alone or with a companion, wandered over the prairies between the Verdigris and the Grand rivers, which entered the Arkansas River about one-quarter mile to the east. The fertility of the soil was made obvious by the abundance of prairie weeds and the elevation of the land promised protection from inundation. Nuttall also visited the rapids of the Verdigris situated a few miles above the river's mouth. He correctly observed that if a settlement ever were made at the confluence of the Verdigris and Grand rivers the rapids of those streams would afford sound and convenient locations for industry.²⁹

On July 17 Nuttall ascended the Grand River with two male companions. He intended to visit the salt works fifty miles above the river's mouth. While examining some cliffs the next day, he found a simple-leaved sumac very similar to a species found in the gardens of England. That evening the trio arrived at a productive farm two miles below the saline, and the following morning Nuttall and the settler walked to the salt springs which lay idle due to the owner's murder by his partner and two accomplices. Though Nuttall expressed remorse over the tragic incident, he was relieved when he realized that he had refused to hire one of the thieves as a guide only a month before the incident.³⁰

Though Nuttall was fascinated by the flora and fauna of the American West—such as this panoramic view which appeared in his Journal—his desire to view the country nearly cost him his life

Nuttall was fascinated by the stories of the Rocky Mountains and was determined to visit the region. He planned to avoid the meanderings of the Arkansas River by following the less circuitous course of the Cimarron River, which flowed into the former ninety miles above the Verdigris. On August 11 Nuttall departed the Verdigris trading houses in the company of an experienced trader and trapper named Lee. In order to save time and effort, the explorers cut across the prairie south of the Arkansas. However, it was late summer, and the brooks in the region had gone dry long before. Beaten by the oppressive heat, Nuttall carelessly drank some stagnant water which quickly induced such nausea that he found it difficult to remain astride his horse. Wretchedly sick and their horses tormented by greenblow flies, Nuttall and his companion also feared meeting the numerous Osage Indians in the area.³¹

By the third day Nuttall's enthusiasm for the venture was diminishing. His concern with the heat, the paucity of water, the annoyance of the flies and the threat of the Indians precluded much scientific endeavour. His few recorded observations of the land included “monotonous” and “destitute” reflecting his personal misery as well as the conditions of the countryside. Lee and Nuttall slowly followed the Little North Fork—or Deep Fork—of the Canadian River northwestward, encamping on the banks of the river on the night of August 13.³²

The next five days brought no relief to the men. They remained encamped in order to rest the horses, which were suffering from wounds infested with maggots. Nearly delirious, Nuttall suffered a setback when a fever raged through his body. The thin forests afforded little relief from the burning fever and the afternoon summer temperatures. As the horses recuperated and Nuttall struggled against his fever, Lee occupied his time profitably trapping for beaver. When the trapper suggested the propriety of returning to the Verdigris, the enfeebled botanist at first adamantly rejected the idea, but soon swallowed his ambitions. A decision reached, the two men then turned their thoughts to regaining the Verdigris.³³

The weary companions moved cautiously over the prairies toward the Cimarron River hoping to descend that river. While Lee trapped, Nuttall tried to regain his strength. Hampered because they had only one good horse, the distressed explorers carefully avoided attracting the attention of Indians. For days the men almost starved which compounded the miseries of Nuttall's debility, delirium and despondence. Botanical observations were sacrificed as the men became increasingly concerned about their lives.³⁴

After reaching the Cimarron River on September 4, Lee and Nuttall cautiously followed its arduous course to the Arkansas. Lee's weak horse soon mired in the quicksand, forcing the trapper to construct a crude canoe to transport his supplies. With Lee on the river and Nuttall riding along the sandbars, the two men resumed their descent of the Cimarron. Nuttall slowly began to regain his appetite, though he still craved fresh water. With the slight improvement in his health, the botanist stubbornly resumed his scientific observations, noting several new species of vegetation.³⁵

At midday on September 9 the men arrived at the confluence of the Cimarron and Arkansas rivers and relished the taste of fresh water. Their anxieties quickly returned for they began to encounter evidence of nearby Osage villages. Carefully the two travelers once again began their descent to the Verdigris. As he reflected on his misery and the environment, Nuttall gave vent to his anger at “the inhospitality of this pathless desert.”³⁶

On September 11 their long-dreaded encounter with the Osages finally occurred. As they moved along the river, they were confronted suddenly by two or three Osage families. While some attempted to ground the canoe, others pilfered the explorers’ baggage. Nuttall and Lee succeeded in out-maneuvering the Indians only to encounter another Osage who demanded Nuttall's horse. The surrender of a blanket finally satisfied the Indian, and the botanist hurried to catch Lee.³⁷

The travelers unmercifully pushed on wary of more violent assaults, and anxious to end the nightmarish journey. Not stopping for the night, they continued during a tremendous thunderstorm. Threatened by the perils of quicksand and darkness, and almost ready to perish from the wet and cold, Nuttall persuaded Lee to leave him some scraps of dried meat and the means of fire and to continue to the Verdigris River unhindered. The next morning, September 14, Nuttall, partially revived, left the sandbars of the river and struck out across the prairie. By darkness he had located the Verdigris. He expended considerable effort in covering the last miles and finally arrived within the welcome confines of Bogie's settlement the evening of the fifteenth.³⁸

Nuttall remained seven days at the Verdigris trading houses, further weakened by fever and delirium. The dreadful memories of the previous weeks fed the horrors of his mind. Though his limbs were afflicted with violent and frequent spasms, and his body was generally enfeebled, he took the first opportunity and left the Verdigris for Fort Smith. On September 25 Nuttall arrived at the garrison.³⁹

The disappointed explorer remained at Fort Smith until the sixteenth of October. His sickness and extreme debility deprived him of the considerable pleasure of excursions through the countryside. While at the post, Nuttall became aware of the demise of his friend, Dr. Russell, and deaths of several other prominent individuals from the prevalent fever. After carefully packing his immense specimen collection, Nuttall began the descent of the Arkansas River in early November. He saw several newly-established settlements, and occasionally he discovered additional plant specimens and rock formations which he had previously overlooked. He finally bid farewell to the Arkansas country on November 9, 1819. From the mouth of the Arkansas River, the returning explorer descended the Mississippi and relaxed in New Orleans, Louisiana before he finally arrived in Philadelphia the following spring.⁴⁰

Nuttall arrived in the East a year before the return of Major Stephen H. Long, who in 1820, had led an official army expedition through the Southwest, including much of the territory traversed by Nuttall. With the encouragement of his patrons, Nuttall soon wrote an account of his journeys which was published in November 1821. His conclusions on the inconsistent fertility of Southwestern soil differed little from Major Long's report. Yet, the latter document, because it was official, received wider circulation. Inexplicably, the publication of Nuttall's botanical collections did not immediately follow issuance of his journal. Except for a few professional papers delivered at Philadelphia and other records, Nuttall offered no presentation of his collections from the Southwest until 1834. In that year the botanist presented a paper, “Collections towards a Flora of the Territory of Arkansa,” at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society. More Southwestern species appeared in later papers, which with earlier records proved valuable in the study of Southwestern and Oklahoma's plants and animals. Nuttall also left detailed information about the social and cultural life of several Indian tribes in the Arkansas country. Though he was disillusioned and bitter about his failure to reach the Rockies, Nuttall's documentation of the genera of the Southwest proved to be the monumental achievement of his journey.⁴¹

¹ Thomas Nuttall, “A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory During the Year 1819,” Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846 (32 vols., Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1904–1907), Vol. XIII, pp. 96–110.

² Thomas Nuttall, The Genera of North American Plants and a Catalogue of the Species to the Year 1817 (2 vols., Philadelphia: D. Heartt, 1818; reprint ed., New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1917), pp. xx–xxii; for a more complete treatment of the botanist, see Jeannette Graustein, Thomas Nuttall, Naturalist: Explorations in America, 1808–1841 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 3.

³ Ibid., pp. 1, 131.

⁴ Nuttall, “A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory During the Year 1819,” Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, Vol. XIII, p. 109.

⁵ Ibid., pp. 109–110.

⁶ Ibid., pp. 115–116.

⁷ Ibid., pp. 128–132.

⁸ Ibid., pp. 136–138.

⁹ Ibid., pp. 138–147.

¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 156–161.

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 161–162.

¹² Ibid., pp. 169–174.

¹³ Ibid., pp. 180–193.

¹⁴ Thomas Nuttall to Zaccheus Collins, May 12, 1819, Graustein, Thomas Nuttall, Naturalist: Explorations in America, 1808–1841, pp. 141–142.

¹⁵ Nuttall, “A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory During the Year 1819,” Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, Vol. XIII, pp. 193–198.

¹⁶ Graustein, Thomas Nuttall, Naturalist: Explorations in America, 1808–1841, p. 142.

¹⁷ Nuttall, “A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory During the Year 1819,” Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, Vol. XIII, pp. 199–206.

¹⁸ In June, 1819 Major General Andrew Jackson, commanding officer of the Southern Division of the United States Army, ordered Major William Bradford to remove all white settlers found west of a line drawn from the sources of the Kiamichi to the Poteau River, United States Congress, American State Papers, Indian Affairs (2 vols., Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), Vol. II, p. 557.

¹⁹ Nuttall identified these mountains as part of the Mazern (or Masserne) range after the work of William Darby, Pennsylvanian geographer and surveyor (1775–1854), Nuttall, “A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory During the Year 1819,” Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, Vol. XIII, p. 209.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Ibid., pp. 210–213.

²² Ibid., p. 214.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Ibid., pp. 213–217.

²⁵ Ibid., pp. 218–221.

²⁶ Ibid., pp. 221–227.

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 227–231.

²⁸ Ibid., pp. 232–234.

²⁹ Ibid., pp. 234–236.

³⁰ Ibid., pp. 241–244.

³¹ Ibid., pp. 263–264.

³² Ibid., p. 266.

³³ Ibid., pp. 266–267.

³⁴ Ibid., pp. 268–271.

³⁵ Ibid., pp. 272–273.

³⁶ Ibid., pp. 273–274.

³⁷ Ibid., pp. 274–275.

³⁸ Ibid., pp. 275–277.

³⁹ Ibid., p. 270.

⁴⁰ Ibid., pp. 279–318; Graustein, Thomas Nuttall, Naturalist: Explorations in America, 1808–1841, p. 152.

⁴¹ Ibid., pp. 153–157, 288.

MAJOR STEPHEN HARRIMAN LONG, 1820

By James Smallwood

The exploits of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, William Dunbar and George Hunter, Thomas Freeman and Zebulon Montgomery Pike and others had by 1810 passed into history. Early expeditions led by those men would become legendary. The War of 1812 halted exploration of the Great West, but after that conflict, the pathfinders resumed their conquests. And like those men mentioned above, Major Stephen Harriman Long would make his contribution to the course of westward expansion. A graduate of Dartmouth, a one-time mathematics instructor at the United States Military Academy and one of the first members of the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, Long inaugurated his postwar career by establishing for the War Department Fort Snelling in Minnesota and Fort Smith in Arkansas.¹ Later, he commanded the scientific contingent on the abortive Yellowstone Expedition of 1819 which failed when steamboats carrying troops and supplies broke down. Then while at Engineer Cantonment at Council Bluffs, Iowa, Long received instructions from the Department of War which ordered him to explore the headwaters of the Platte, Arkansas and Red rivers. Thus began what has been called the “amusing spectacle” of the “collective misadventures” of the Long Expedition of 1820.²

Historians have not been kind to the Long Expedition. Hiram Chittenden called it “an unqualified failure if not a huge fiasco.”³ Walter Prescott Webb in the Great Plains and Ray Allen Billington in Westward Expansion pointed out that Long retarded the process of western settlement because he labeled the Great Plains as a Great American Desert.⁴ Not only did the expedition fail in its mission, but also much of its value to science was destroyed when three men deserted the party and took many of the explorers’ notebooks and journals. Writing at a later date than Chittenden, Webb, Billington and others, William Goetzmann was more sympathetic, stressing the accomplishments of the expedition. Long's map, for example, revealed the complexity of the river systems of the southwestern plains region. And for the first time a team of scientists surveyed the plains in realistic terms. Moreover, Goetzmann maintained that Long—like the earlier explorer Pike—might not have been far wrong in calling much of the region he traversed a desert. Given the technology of the times, actual settlement of the area would indeed have been extremely difficult.⁵

Even though Major Stephen H. Long's expedition into Oklahoma was called “an unqualified failure” by some, it did add to the knowledge of the area as this map based on his survey illustrates

Whether the Long Expedition is viewed in terms of its relative successes or its overall failure, it is certain that Stephen Long should be remembered as one of the most important explorers of present-day Oklahoma. In Oklahoma the expedition made noteworthy contributions to history. The two-pronged contingent of men led by Long and his subordinate, Captain John R. Bell, became the first to traverse the width of the state. The journals which survived provided details on the flora and fauna of the area and, importantly, helped cartographers set demarcation lines between timber country and the so-called Great American Desert. The journals thus provided useful information for future explorers and settlers.⁶

The epic trek which took the Long Expedition into Oklahoma began at Council Bluffs. After receiving his orders, Long left Engineer Cantonment on June 6, 1820, with twenty-two men, thirty-four horses and pack mules and followed the Platte River to the Rocky Mountains. After one of the contingent, the botanist Edwin James, climbed Pike's Peak, the party explored Royal Gorge, but failed to discover the sources of the Arkansas River. At the Arkansas, before moving into Oklahoma, Long divided his command. On July 24 he ordered Captain Bell to lead a contingent of men down the river to Fort Smith. Long took ten men and moved south to strike the Red River.⁷

Bell's wing of the expedition included twelve men—the captain; six other soldiers; three interpreters; Dr. Thomas Say, a zoologist; and Samuel Seymour, an artist. After contacting Kiowas, Cheyennes and Arapahoes, Bell's party entered the present-day state on August 19 at a point where the Arkansas cuts into Kay County. Near the river, the party found a field of Indian corn with watermelons hidden among the stalks. The men gorged themselves on both before leaving the area.

On good days, when rough terrain and inclement weather did not inhibit movement, the group traveled approximately twenty miles along the winding river. After moving beyond an Indian village of sixty or seventy lodges, the party reached the Salt Fork of the Arkansas on August 21. Low on potable water and food, that day the men subsisted on bread crumbs. Slowed by a summer thunderstorm, the party reached the old Pawnee reservation by August 24. Although the pace of the expedition had been stunted, hunters brought in four turkeys, and the spirits of the men began to revive as the contingent made short shrift of the feathered fowl.⁸

Securing food was not the party's only problem. By late August, the men habituated to tobacco became extremely nervous after they had exhausted their supply of that product, complaining that they were deprived of one of the necessities of life. And those who still held a ration of the substance refused to share with the more unfortunate. Personal relationships were strained, and several men were reduced to chewing leaves to abate their cravings for tobacco.⁹

On August 29 the Bell contingent struck an Indian path and broke from the river to follow it. After moving across country and crossing Hominy Creek, which chronicler Say erroneously marked as a tributary of the Arkansas, the party moved back to the river on August 31. There the expedition received a blow when three soldiers—Mordecai Nowland, Charles Myers and Peter Bernard—deserted, taking the party's best horses and most of its rations and baggage. More important, the deserters also absconded with many of the explorers’ journals and notebooks, including Say's diary and zoological notes and Second Lieutenant William H. Swift's topographical journal.¹⁰

In spite of the great loss, the remainder of the party saw their spirits once again revive on September 1 when they met the son of Clermont, chief of the Osage. After passing the peace pipe, an occurrence much appreciated by the men without tobacco, the Osage noted that Bell's hunters had on that day found game sparse and returned with only one lean fawn. Leaving the pipe and tobacco, the Indian left the encampment but later returned with a retinue of five or six warriors. A “fat buck” which they brought with them provided a feast for all at camp. The party also appreciated the intelligence gained from the warriors. Bell found that he was within a few days’ journey of Belle Point and Fort Smith.¹¹

Continuing the descent of the Arkansas, Bell reached Hugh Glenn's trading post on the Verdigris River, about a mile above its confluence with the Arkansas. Resupplied, the party moved leisurely down the great river, across the Neosho, and proceeded to the salt works which belonged to Mark and Richard Bean who had established a “nice spread” along the Illinois, about seven miles from its confluence with the Arkansas. The Beans had erected a farm house, had planted a field of Indian corn and had a stock of cattle, hogs and chickens in addition to the salt works. After a night of comfort at the Beans’ place, Bell again took up the march, crossed Vine Creek, and two days later reached safe harbor at Fort Smith.¹²

While the Bell party was winding its way through Oklahoma by way of the Arkansas, the wing of the caravan headed by Long was doing even more important work by opening virgin land. After dividing the expedition at the Arkansas, Long's contingent of eleven moved southward through Colorado and struck the Canadian River, which they mistook for the Red. Although later twists and turns of the river would cause several of the party to question the erroneous course, a chance meeting with a band of Kaskaias or Comanches on August 9 convinced most of Long's force that indeed the expedition remained on the right path. Questioning the Comanche chief Red Mouse about the river, Long was informed that he was on the Red. While this misinformation would keep the party off course, the Indians probably did not intentionally mislead the group. Many rivers in the Southwest had a red hue, and Spaniards and Mexicans called them Rio Colorado, or “Blood Red River.” The Canadian was so known, and the Kaskaias had only adopted Spanish nomenclature.¹³

On August 17 the Long Expedition crossed the One-Hundredth Meridian, moving into present-day Oklahoma north of Antelope Hills. After killing several bulls in a buffalo hunt, the caravan camped in a lush valley southwest of the Canadian where grape vines, loaded with fruit, grew so thick that the clusters looked like small rolling hills. After indulging to excess, the men slept through the rest of the hot summer afternoon. On arising the party again feasted on marrow bone, a delight the men had first discovered from the Indians whom they had encountered earlier in the journey. The next day the contingent moved eighteen miles along the Canadian before dinner. Suspicious because they had been traveling in a northerly direction which did not coincide with their ideas about the flow of the Red, the men remembered the reassuring intelligence gathered earlier from the Kaskaias. Moreover, as they moved eastward, the river turned more southerly.

On August 19 surveys of scenery and vegetation convinced Long that the expedition was finally escaping the desert. Traces of Indians became less frequent as the party reached the southeast bend of the Canadian where the woodlands grew dense. After temporarily cutting across country, the party returned to the river on August 20.¹⁴

The Cross Timber—a dense concentration of scrub oak and blackjack stretching across the central portion of Oklahoma—caused much hardship among the members of the Long expedition

By the latter part of August the men were becoming tired. New problems made them even more uncomfortable. As the party moved into timbered regions, they were increasingly bothered by gnats and ticks. Worse, the contingent could not keep meat more than one day at a time because of flies which became so thick that the men had to eat with one hand and shoo the flies with the other. Unable to keep meat, the men ran low on food, completely exhausting their supply of corn meal and salt. The caravan also remained low on potable water. The Canadian had been a “dry” river, with its water not flowing but standing in stagnant pools. To satisfy the demand for water, the men sank shallow wells in the river bed and waited for a pool to form.¹⁵

As the expedition meandered eastward, its fortunes improved somewhat. On August 21 hunters killed a black bear which was the first animal of its kind that the contingent had found since leaving the Missouri River. After a feast, all agreed that bear was better than buffalo. The further east the party went, the more plentiful the game, with bison, bear, deer, turkey and elk in abundance. And from the fertile soil sprang greater varieties of fruit which could be had for picking.¹⁶

By August 27 the Long party for sometime had been into heavily forested areas, with timber so thick that the caravan usually traveled in the river bed to save time and wear on horses which were now near exhaustion. While in the timber country, other problems arose which harrassed men and horses alike. Wood ticks became thick, and the persistent “devils” would not be dispersed by smoke or wind. And when the ticks bit man or beast, they burrowed their whole heads into the body and caused constant irritation and swelling.¹⁷

After making camp on August 29 the party lost its Spanish interpreter, Adams, who had returned to the trail to look for personal articles which he had lost. After a search for the wayward interpreter the party again took up the march, with the remaining contingent hoping that Adams could, by following the river, find his own way. After moving into the Shawnee Hills, the party reached Sand Creek by September 2. And there the amazed Long found Adams, who had suffered terrible tribulations during the five days he remained lost. Adams had had no food for five days and had been on foot for the last two. He panicked after being lost, and his first day alone, he expended all his ammunition trying to shoot turkeys. Then, following the river bed, he drove his mule so hard that it expired. His hunger added to his panic, and he tried to fish with makeshift hooks made from needles, but he did not profit from the attempt. Finally, after walking for two more days, he collapsed. Luckily for the interpreter, though he was lost, he had moved ahead of the expedition, and he had had the good sense to remain close to the river. Hence, Long discovered Adams at his camp on Sand Creek while the interpreter sat in a forlorn state, helplessly casting his weary eyes downriver and hoping for a miracle.¹⁸

After finding Adams, the party took a day's rest to allow the interpreter time to recover from his ordeal. The men noted that a profuse number of herons, cranes, ducks, pelicans and other aquatic birds watered at pools in the river bed. They became convinced that they must be near larger bodies of water.¹⁹

On September 6 the expedition moved to the falls of the Canadian, the first spot along the river that could be identified by description. Here the party paused to reflect on the journey, as if to give warning to future explorers and settlers. On ascending the river, botanist James noted that the traveler could expect “sandy water and thirsty inhospitable steppes.” He would find wooded country for fifty or sixty miles west of the falls, but little good water. Beyond, he would encounter sandy desert all the way to the base of the Rockies. The botanist concluded that “we have little apprehension of giving too unfavorable an account of this portion of the country. Though the soil is in some places fertile, the want of timber, of navigable streams, and of water for the necessities of life renders it an unfit residence for any but a nomade (sic) population. The traveler who shall at any time have traversed its desolate sands will, we think, join us in the wish that this region may forever remain the unmolested haunt of the native hunter, the bison, and the jackall.”²⁰ Similarily, Long—like Pike before him—concluded that the arid wasteland had been providentially placed to stop “ruinous diffusion” of the American population.²¹

After venting his wrath at the country his expedition had thus far traversed, Long continued his trek toward civilization. And just below the falls of the Canadian, the party found Gaines Creek, a major tributary fifty yards wide at its mouth. Its banks bloomed with cottonwood and sycamore trees; its bottoms were wide and fertile. Yet, six or eight miles further east, the party found the great North Fork River, eighty yards wide at its confluence with the Canadian. Approximately three and one-half miles below the North Fork, Long located another spot which could be easily identified. He found a natural wonder, a tremendous rock, standing in the middle of the river. Twenty-five feet high and fifty or sixty feet in diameter, with sides steep enough to prevent climbing, the rock would remain an unmistakable landmark for pioneers who would follow.²²

Below the falls of the Canadian, the expedition found the descent through the river bed impeded by rising water. Above the falls, the width of the river, 300 yards to two miles between its banks, had allowed easy marches. Below the falls, the banks narrowed to 400 yards maximum, and the once “dry” river became one of rushing torrents which forced the expedition out of its bed.²³ Two days beyond the falls, the party found a deserted canoe and quickly adopted its utility to the expedition's use. Long packed all heavy baggage on the craft and ordered two men to move ahead and guide the canoe to the settlements.²⁴

The military post at Fort Smith, Arkansas, which the Long expedition finally reached on September 13, 1820, to the “amazement to men and dog alike”

Out of camp eight or ten miles on September 10, Long made a discovery that members of the party must have been fearing for some time. The contingent arrived at the confluence of the Canadian and the Arkansas, a river of much greater size which was immediately recognizable. Now confirmed was the fact that the contingent had been on the wrong river. Misled by the maps of Zebulon Pike and by misinformation given by Kaskaias,²⁵ Long was extremely disappointed and James was, in his own words, “mortified by the mistake.” Long personally considered his mission a total failure, a judgment perhaps too harsh.²⁶

With no choice but to push on to Fort Smith, the expedition continued its journey with a descent of the Arkansas. But at the confluence of the Canadian and the great river, the party had to cut through canebrake. The men worked from 11:00 a.m. until sunset but remained bogged down. Camping in a small open spot amid the cane, the party suffered a miserable night, enduring a heavy thunderstorm. The next day, September 11, the party moved through the brakes and burst into open woods. Deserting the river, Long moved north and struck the road to Fort Smith. Moving at sunrise the next morning, the contingent knew that they were near “home” when they saw Point Sucre and the Cavaniol Mountains in the east.²⁷

On September 12 the party discovered and welcomed compatriots. Long's scouts found Hugh Glenn who was on his way from Fort Smith to his trading post on the Verdigris. From Glenn the party got rations of coffee, biscuits and liquor and received news that Bell's detached contingent had safely reached the fort. With the rest of the trip uneventful, except for heavy rains which slowed movement and made more intolerable the discomfort of the men, Long reached Belle Point and Fort Smith on September 13.²⁸ The party straggled in “a source of amazement to men and dog alike.”²⁹

Ending on a note of failure because the Red River had not been explored, the Long Expedition of 1820 nevertheless made important contributions to existing knowledge about the great West. For the first time, the government had sponsored an expedition which explored the plains country in an organized, scientific fashion. Edwin James was the first competent botanist to work in the Trans-Mississippi West. The zoologist Thomas Say studied many new specimens and included his notes in the last two volumes of his later classic, American Entomology. Artist Samuel Seymour and naturalist Titian Peale contributed the first American sketches and paintings of the Rockies and of plant and animal life on the plains. James and Say made copious notes relating to Indian language and customs. And aside from his evaluation of the plains environment, Long published a new, more complete and more accurate map of the plains. Moreover, in Oklahoma the expedition penetrated virgin lands. Not only did members of both wings of the party take notes evaluating the new country and its plant and animal life, but they also sharply delineated the eastern boundaries of the “Great American Desert” while drawing attention to the lush, fertile lands of eastern Oklahoma. The expedition passed into history as a most successful failure.

¹ William H. Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), p. 59.

² Ibid., pp. 60–61.

³ Hiram Chittenden, A History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West (2 vols., Stanford, California: Academic Reprints, 1954), Vol. II, p. 570.

⁴ Walter P. Webb, The Great Plains (New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1931), p. 147; Ray A. Billington, Westward Expansion (New York: The Macmillian Company, 1949), p. 469.

⁵ Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, p. 62–64.

⁶ The expedition of 1820 actually represented Stephen H. Long's second foray into present-day Oklahoma. He first visited a portion of the state in 1817. After news of a conflict between the Osage and the Western Cherokee reached Washington, D.C., Long was ordered to the border between the two hostile tribes. There, he was to construct a fort. With a contingnt of men, Long moved up the Red River to the mouth of the Kiamichi, thence to that river's source. Then he traveled across country to the Poteau River, which he descended. When he reached the confluence of the Poteau and the Arkansas, he established Fort Smith at Belle Point. Long had thus accomplished his mission and explored a segment of southeastern Oklahoma as well. Edwin James, “Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains in the Years 1819, 1820,” 4 parts, Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846 (32 vols., Cleveland, Ohio: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1904–1907), Pt. 4, Vol. XVII, p. 83; Muriel Wright, The Story of Oklahoma (Oklahoma City: Webb Publishing Company, 1929), p. 44.

⁷ James, “Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains in the Years 1819, 1820,” Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, Pt. 4, Vol. XVII, pp. 97–99; Ibid., Pt. 2, Vol. XV, pp. 193–315; Ibid., Pt. 3, Vol. XVI, pp. 11–63.

⁸ Ibid., pp. 192, 246–253.

⁹ Ibid., pp. 259–260.

¹⁰ John R. Bell, “The Journal of Captain John R. Bell, 1820,” Harlan Fuller and LeRoy Hafen, eds., Far West and Rockies Series (10 vols., Glendale, California: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1957), Vol. VI, pp. 256–257, 279–284; James, “An Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains in the Years 1819, 1820,” Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, Pt. 4., Vol. XVI, pp. 260–265.

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 266–267.

¹² Ibid., pp. 282–291.

¹³ Ibid., pp. 63, 104–106; Ibid., Pt. 4, Vol. XVII, p. 100.

¹⁴ Ibid., pp. 142–145; Ibid., Pt. 3, Vol. XVI, pp. 133–134.

¹⁵ Ibid., pp. 145, 148; ibid., Pt. 4, Vol. XVII, pp. 101, 141.

¹⁶ Ibid., Pt. 3, Vol. XVI, pp. 146–151.

¹⁷ Ibid., pp. 152–155, 160–163.

¹⁸ Ibid., pp. 160, 166–168.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 169.

²⁰ Ibid., p. 174.

²¹ Ibid., Pt. 4, Vol. XVII, pp. 147–148.

²² Ibid., Pt. 3, Vol. XVI, pp. 174–176.

²³ Ibid., p. 176.

²⁴ Ibid., pp. 177–179.

²⁵ Ibid., Pt. 4, Vol. XVII, pp. 100–101.

²⁶ Ibid., Pt. 3, Vol. XVI, pp. 180–181.

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 181–183.

²⁸ Ibid., pp. 183–187.

²⁹ Niles Weekly Register (Baltimore, Maryland), October 28, 1820.

THOMAS JAMES, HUGH GLENN AND JACOB FOWLER, 1821–1823

By Phillip Drennon Thomas

American interest in establishing trade between New Mexico and the Mississippi Valley flourished in the early years of the nineteenth century. A few of the individuals who participated in the development of this trade also played a creative role in the early history of Oklahoma. Spanish refusal to allow foreigners to participate in the trade of New Mexico created many difficulties. Americans who, either through ignorance of Spanish law or a willingness to undergo substantial risks for significant gains, persisted in journeying to Santa Fe often found themselves residing in the prisons of Chihuahua. Tantalized by the profits that could be found in such trade, ambitious men still nourished their hopes for such commercial adventures.

Almost simultaneously in the early fall of 1821, three groups of Americans set forth across the prairies to make the dangerous overland trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Unknown to them, the Mexican Revolution of 1820 had removed the restraints of Spanish mercantilism. Led by William Becknell, Thomas James, and Hugh Glenn and Jacob Fowler each of these parties successfully reached the seventeenth century capital of New Mexico. Fortunately, a journal was kept by at least one member in each of these expeditions.¹

The accounts prepared by Thomas James and Jacob Fowler contain information that is of particular interest for the history of the region that ultimately became the state of Oklahoma. Jacob Fowler, as the chronicler of the Glenn-Fowler expedition, provides an interesting, but unfortunately very brief, account of the topography, peoples, and commercial activities in this area. Fowler's Journal is valuable not only for information of this nature but also for the rich detail which it provides on early southwestern travel revealing the expectations, dangers and daily frustrations of men who set forth to find their fortunes in these new western regions. Written in 1822, it remained unknown outside of the Fowler family until Elliott Coues edited and published it in 1898.² Prepared by a private citizen, Fowler's account is a useful companion to official government reports which began to appear after Zebulon Montgomery Pike's expeditions of 1806–1807.

Fort Smith, Arkansas, which in the 1820s was the last contact with civilization for the Thomas James, Hugh Glenn and Jacob Fowler trading expeditions until Santa Fe, New Mexico

Jacob Fowler was the oldest known participant in the three expeditions of 1821. An ardent outdoorsman, he was blessed with good health throughout his life. As one student of his life noted, “when he was eighty years old he could see to read without spectacles, all his teeth were perfect, he had not a gray hair in his head. His step was elastic, and he could walk down half the dandies in town.”³ Although there is some confusion as to when he was born, he was at least in his late fifties when he became a participant in the expedition of 1821.⁴ He spent the latter years of the eighteenth-century soldiering, scouting and hunting along the Ohio frontier. During the War of 1812, Fowler became an assistant quartermaster in the United States Army, and it was while serving in this position that he first encountered his later companion and business partner, Hugh Glenn. From 1814–1821, Fowler and Glenn were engaged in numerous joint business enterprises. Although Fowler was many years Glenn's senior, he quickly became the junior partner in their business activities. A reserved individual, Fowler's precise role in, and reasons for joining, the expedition of 1821 were never precisely stated. One would assume that an individual who had been at varying times a frontier farmer, tavern keeper, land speculator as well as a hunter, scout, boatman and government contractor would see nothing that was particularly dangerous about a trip across the prairies and over the mountains to Santa Fe. To Fowler, it probably appeared to be an interesting and gainful form of frontier employment. As a member of the party, he served both as its historian and as one of its occasional leaders. Conscientious and energetic, he never missed a daily entry in his self-ordained task of recording the activities of the twenty-one American, French, Indian, Spanish and black men who formed the party.

Many of the details of the expedition's principal figure, Hugh Glenn, are obscure; but what is known of his activities portrays him as a typical frontier entrepreneur who flirted with fortune and failure throughout his life. Born to a family of Scotch Presbyterians in Berkeley County, West Virginia in 1788, his family had wandered west to Kentucky in the spring of 1796. Seeking more opportunities in life than those of a frontier farmer, Glenn abandoned the yeoman's life and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ambitious and enterprising, Glenn pursued his advancement in a number of occupations—government supplier, store keeper and banker. In April 1816 he was elected a director of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank in Cincinnati. Early successes stimulated him into even more activity. In January 1817 he obtained a government contract to supply rations at specified western posts—including Fort Clark, St. Louis, Bellefontaine and Fort Osage. In the same month, he was chosen a director of the Cincinnati branch of the Bank of the United States in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bank director, merchant, mason and not yet thirty, Glenn was a man of growing prominence in the city of Cincinnati. Yet, his ascendancy was of short duration. In the late summer of 1818, the emerging financial crisis of the Bank of the United States in Philadelphia placed pressure upon their Cincinnati branch.⁵ Perceiving the dimensions of the approaching economic difficulties, Glenn sought to turn his assets into cash. But always the entrepreneur, he gambled even then for greater wealth and invested in the construction of a 300 ton steamboat, the Vulcan, which was to carry Cincinnati goods and produce to New Orleans, Louisiana.⁶

By the winter of 1820, Glenn's business ventures were falling apart. Claims of close to $250,000 were brought against him for his role in the collapse of the Cincinnati bank; the government charged him with debts of over $37,000 on his supply contracts; and the Vulcan's maiden trip to New Orleans was a commercial disaster.⁷ Faced by numerous court actions, and with his career in ruins, Glenn left Cincinnati to take up residence at an Indian trading post close to the mouth of the Verdigris River.⁸ Here sixty miles northwest of Fort Smith, Arkansas, Glenn spent the fall and winter of 1820 taking stock of his life and seeking, with the aid of his old acquaintance William Bradford, to prevent a war between the Osage and the Cherokee.

In August 1821 Glenn received from his friend Major Bradford, Commander of the Military Forces of the United States on the Arkansas River, “a License to trade with Indians in Amity with the United States at the following positions, viz. At the Falls of the Verdigris—at the Mouth of the Red Fork—at the Thousand Islands north side—at Pikes’ third Fork north side—and at the head of the Arkansas north side at or near the Mountains.”⁹

During the same period that Glenn was preparing for his trip upon the plains, Thomas James, an Illinois trader, was also gathering his resources for a similar endeavor. The son of Welsh Catholics from Maryland, James had sought his fortune on the frontier for a decade. In the spring of 1809 at the age of twenty-six, he had joined the first expedition of the St. Louis, Missouri Fur Company. In his narrative of his Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans (1846), he described his adventures thirty-seven years earlier when he set forth as a trapper on the Upper Missouri River.¹⁰ In addition to seeking furs, this party was also given the responsibility of returning Shahaka or “Big White,” Chief of the Mandans, to his people. Shahaka had returned to St. Louis after a visit to the “Great Father” in Washington, D.C. with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

After enduring snow blindness, experiencing attacks from grizzlies, encountering the depredations of Indians and deterioriating relations with the proprietors of the fur company—Manuel Lisa and Pierre Chouteau—James returned to St. Louis in 1810. The difficulties with the fur company were centered around the refusal of the Americans in the party to accept the rigid leadership and stern discipline which was imposed by the proprietors. James acknowledged this when he noted that much of the ill treatment we “received from them was probably owing to the reckless assertion of our independence on every occasion and at every difficulty that occurred.”¹¹

In spite of the dangers encountered during his year on the Upper Missouri, and in spite of having become a “loser to the amount of three hundred dollars by one year's trapping on the headwaters of the Missouri,” those twelve months were one of the cardinal events of his life.¹² His trapping equipment had been purchased from the famous mountain man John Colter, and he had heard from Colter's lips the story of his famous escape in 1808 from the Blackfeet.¹³ He had observed a people whose nobility he could praise. In prose which is strikingly reminiscent of George Catlin's comments upon a similar theme, James lamented upon the changes which the encroachment of white civilization had brought to the Indians he had traveled among in 1809. He stated that:¹⁴

The white man and his fire water have sadly demoralized them, thinned their numbers, and will soon sink them into oblivion. They are no longer the proud, haughty, simple minded warriors and orators that I found so many of them to be in 1809–1810. Sunk in poverty and intemperance, they are fast dwindling away.

Upon his return to civilization, James married, bought a keelboat and traded between St. Louis and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1815 he opened a store and rebuilt a watermill near Harrisonville, Illinois. By 1819 the depression which was affecting many western communities encouraged James to seek a method of improving his situation. “I struggled on through the years 1819–1820 with the certain prospect of bankruptcy before my face,” he remarked, “amid the clamor of creditors, and without the hope of extricating myself from impending ruin.”¹⁵ Trade with the Indians on the road to Santa Fe seemed to offer hope.

Thomas James, who hoped to open a route across Oklahoma to Santa Fe

James was also encouraged to undertake such a venture by a business partner, John McKnight, who wished to seek the release of his brother from a Mexican prison. Robert McKnight had been imprisoned by the Spanish since his seizure in 1812 as a foreign trader.¹⁶ With between $10,000 and $12,000 in trade goods and eleven men “eager for excitement and adventure” James set forth from St. Louis on May 10, 1821.¹⁷ Descending the Mississippi River to the mouth of the Arkansas, the men then journeyed up that river through the land of the Quapaws to Little Rock where they “procured a license to trade with all the Indian tribes on the Arkansas and its tributaries from Secretary Charles Crittenden, Governor [James] Miller being out of the Territory.”¹⁸ James then posted a bond of $3,000 as security to observe the laws of the United States while engaged in western commerce with the Indians.¹⁹ The later losses which he endured in this trade made him particularly sensitive about the government's responsibility to him. He declared:²⁰

It always appeared to me that I was entitled to indemnity from my country for the robberies which I suffered from the Indians. My losses in this way were tremendous and have weighed me down to the earth from that day to this, the best portion of my life; but not one cent have I ever been able to obtain from the justice of Congress, whose laws I was bound to obey, whose license from the hands of a government officer I carried with me, and who by every rule of justice was bound to protect me in a business which it authorized by license and regulated by heavy penalties.

Continuing up the Arkansas, the men passed through the territory of the Cherokees “whose farms and log-houses made a fine appearance on the banks of the river, and would compare favorably with those of any western state.”²¹ At Fort Smith, Major William Bradford examined their license and gave his approval to their adventure.²² Passing through the Osage country, they followed the Arkansas past the mouth of the Verdigris River, and the future location of Fort Gibson, until they reached the mouth of the Cimarron River.²³ They then moved up this river for approximately thirty miles.

Wishing to trade with the Osage, the men visited an Osage village located on the west side of the Verdigris in what is now Mayes County, Oklahoma.²⁴ On the way to the village, they met Nathaniel Pryor who had served as “a Sergeant in Lewis and Clark's expedition, and a captain at the battle of New Orleans.”²⁵ Interested in taking the Federal government to task, James commented upon Pryor's predicament:²⁶

On the reduction of the army after the war [War of 1812] he was discharged to make way for some parlor soldier and sunshine patriot, and turned out in his old age upon the ‘world's wide common.’ I found him here among the Osages, with whom he had taken refuge from his country's ingratitude and was living as one of their tribe, where he may yet be unless death has discharged the debt his country owed him.

In Pryor's company they reached the Osage village, and there encountered Major Bradford, Hugh Glenn and his party of twenty men who were on “their way to the Spanish country,” and Captain Barbour, “an Indian trader from the mouth of the Verdigris, and formerly of Pittsburgh.”²⁷

James suggested that the Glenn party join the James-McKnight contingent for the trek to Santa Fe. Glenn, for reasons which are not stated, opposed, what in view of the obvious dangers to be confronted upon the plains, appeared to be a reasonable proposal. James recorded the incident simply, “I proposed to Glenn, whom I shall have to mention unfavorably hereafter, to travel in company to the Spanish country; but he appearing averse to the arrangement, I did not urge it upon him.”²⁸

After purchasing twenty-three horses from the Osage and caching some of their “heaviest and least portable goods near the Arkansas,” directed by the Indians they set forth on a westward march towards the “Salt Plains and Shining Mountains.”²⁹ Approximately eleven days after leaving the Osage, the men reached the Cimarron River. Proceeding along the river, they observed abundant salt deposits. Reaching the Shining Mountains, James described them as “one of the greatest curiosities in our country.”³⁰ They marveled at the semi-transparent rocks which they found upon the tops of the 300 buttes which comprise the Shining Mountains.

Titled “Indian Alarm on the Cimarron River,” this sketch illustrates the great danger of Indian attack to the Santa Fe bound caravan

Moving further west, the grass became thinner and shorter. Prickly pear cactus became a constant feature of the landscape. As they entered the realm of the Comanche, buffalo became more numerous. Their first meeting with the Comanche set the pattern for later encounters. Told by an interpreter that they had met a war party, James and his men were coerced into presenting the Comanches with $3,000 worth of “gifts.” Although the narrative is unclear, they now seem to be west of the Cimarron and near the North Canadian River.³¹ Their difficulties with the Comanches increased. Taken to one of their villages, they were caught up in the rivalry between two chiefs. For four days they distributed gifts and heard increasingly heated threats against their lives. James records it tersely, “Thus we stood, eleven against two thousand, with death staring us in the face.”³² The situation was critical, but with a timing that would have rivaled the best efforts of later screen writers, six horsemen “riding at full speed” appeared from the southwest crying in Spanish “save them, save them.”³³ A Spanish officer then rushed into their “arms, exclaiming: ‘Thank God we are in time; you are all safe and unhurt.’ He said that he had heard of our danger by accident that morning, and [had] ridden twenty miles to save us.”³⁴ With this the Oklahoma phase of James’ expedition of 1821 ended.

With the aid of the Spanish forces, the party set forth for Santa Fe reaching that city on December 1, 1821.³⁵ Utilizing some historical license, James contended that he had “commanded the fourth expedition to Santa Fe from the United States, and the first that was made after the Mexican Revolution and the declaration of independence from Spain, and I was the first American that ever visited the country and escaped a prison while there.”³⁶ Perhaps his memory fails him here, for William Becknell had arrived in Santa Fe on November 16, 1821; in a village of around 2,000, it would have been surprising if James had not heard of Becknell's arrival. Complicating this question, Becknell's account does not mention James’ presence in Santa Fe.³⁷

In Santa Fe during the celebration of the first Mexican Independence day, James freely offered them advice on how the event should be honored and helped erect a seventy foot liberty pole. Yet, their display of “carousing and revelry” and “reckless dissipation and profligacy” on this occasion convinced him “that the republicans of New Mexico were unfit to govern themselves or anybody else.”³⁸ James’ view of the Spanish clearly was tempered by his failure to develop a favorable trade with them.³⁹ His impression of those whom he termed the “Mexican Indians” was more favorable. “They are a nobler race of people than their masters, the descendants of the conquerors; more courageous and more generous; more faithful to their word and more ingenuous and intellectual than the Spaniards.”⁴⁰

One goal of the expedition was accomplished. The imprisoned brother of John McKnight was returned safely from Durango, Mexico. With little prospect for trade, James sold his goods at cost in the spring of 1822 and prepared for his return home.

With the dangers of the trail convincing both Glenn and James of the wisdom of joining forces for the return trip to St. Louis, both parties left Taos together on June 1, 1822. While their precise route is difficult to follow, it is clearly apparent that they moved out of New Mexico into Colorado by a northeasterly course. Moving away from the mountains, they encountered a large party of Pawnees. Reaching the Arkansas River, they followed its course to the Great Bend region. There the parties separated.

Glenn's party wandered somewhat erratically through central Kansas towards Fort Osage.⁴¹ James and his men followed the Arkansas River until it began to drop south towards Oklahoma. Shortly after their separation and while crossing the Arkansas, a trunk containing James’ journal fell into the river “and some rhubarb dissolving, became mixed with my shirts, journal, invoice, and other papers in the trunk and entirely destroyed them.”⁴² Lest readers of his account doubt the validity of his rendition, he assured them that his memory was “always very retentive of events and incidents” and that it enabled him “to supply this loss with sufficient accuracy.”⁴³ While in Kansas, James met Auguste Pierre Chouteau and a party of French men who were trading with the Osage. Auguste was the son of James’ former employer on the Upper Missouri, Pierre Chouteau; but this time James received considerate treatment from a member of that family. He was treated “like a brother.”⁴⁴ Auguste played a prominent role in the Indian trade and his knowledge of their customs was profound. Shortly before his meetings with James’ party, he had successfully persuaded the Osage to cease their attacks upon Becknell's party. Unfortunately, such protection for James’ party was not obtained.

Daily coming closer to civilization, James and his men began to relax their security. Believing that they were free from further Indian depredations, they failed to post their guard one evening. The Osage stole thirty-eight of their best horses and mules and thus insured that the trip to Santa Fe would be a financial disaster. Arriving home in late July of 1822, the joys of being within the embraces of his family were short lived. Creditors swarmed around him “like bees, and were as calamorous as a drove of hungry wolves.”⁴⁵ Of the $10,000 or $12,000 worth of trade goods with which he had optimistically begun his journey a year earlier, he returned home with items worth less than $2,500.⁴⁶ Mournfully, he recited, “the way was dark before me and I found more real trouble and corroding care in getting out of debt than I experienced among the savages.”⁴⁷

After viewing scenes such as this along the North Canadian River, James accurately predicted that the region would “make as fine a farming country as any in the Union”

Still faced with debt, James once more turned to the southwest as a region where he could extricate himself from his fiscal misfortunes. With John McKnight's aid another expedition was planned to trade among the Comanches. Obtaining $5,500 worth of trade items on credit, James and McKnight set forth in the fall of 1822. Rendezvousing on the Arkansas River four miles above the mouth of the Canadian, they began to follow that river west in February of 1823. Passing through the central portions of Oklahoma, James was impressed by the fertility of the bottomland of the Canadian describing it as the “best farming country I had ever seen” and a land whose soil was “extremely fertile, judging from the heavy grass of the prairies and the large and valuable timber of the woods which were composed of walnut, ash, hackberry, spice, paupaw, and oaks of a very heavy growth and of every species.”⁴⁸ Near the future site of Oklahoma City, they reached the North Canadian River and began to move northwesterly along its courses. James accurately predicted that the region through which they were then passing would “in a few years teem with a dense population” whose prairies and woodland would “make as fine a farming country as any in the Union.”⁴⁹ As they continued west they moved beyond the northern reaches of the Cross Timbers, they entered a “region designated on the maps as the Great American Desert.”⁵⁰

Establishing trading relations with the Comanches was difficult. John McKnight, James’ close companion and partner of many years, was slain by the Comanches. But after James became the brother of a Comanche chief, who he believed was responsible for McKnight's death and from whose hands he himself had “twice narrowly escaped a bloody death,” trade began. After acquiring three hundred and twenty-three horses and mules from the Comanches, James was confident that at last he would profit from one of his trading ventures. Disaster struck. One hundred horses were lost when the herd was stampeded by a small herd of buffalo. Other horses were lost while they were fleeing from Caddo warriors; and still more horses died from horseflies and disease. His herd was reduced to seventy-one horses and mules. By the time he returned home, the vicissitudes of travel had further reduced his herd to five horses—the same number with which he had begun his travels a year earlier.⁵¹

While failing economically in these early endeavors, James still took pride in having participated in the early development of the area. James claimed, and perhaps not accurately, that he “was the first American that ever went among the Comanches for the purpose of trading” admitting that “in every respect, pecunarily and otherwise, this was a most unfortunate venture. I lost by it my best and dearest friend, John McKnight, and all the money I had invested in it with the vain hope of being thereby set free from debt and made an independent man.”⁵²

James spent the next twenty years of his life seeking to become an “independent man” by discharging the debts of his two previous expeditions upon the prairies. Believing in the possibilities of such trade, he maintained that “were it not for advancing age I should repeat the adventures, not withstanding their unfortunate issues heretofore.”⁵³ His later years in Illinois were graced by public recognition. In 1825 he was elected a general in the First Division of the Militia of Illinois and a representative of the state legislature. Two years later, he became Postmaster of Monroe County, Illinois. He held this position until his death in 1847.

While James’ narrative is a polished account of select features in the early history of Oklahoma, Jacob Fowler's Journal is a more stylistically awkward, cryptic and less revealing document. Nevertheless, it does contain material of interest for the history of this area. The entries which pertain to the Glenn-Fowler expedition in Oklahoma cover approximately a one month period from September 6, 1821, to October 4, 1821. Setting forth from Fort Smith, Arkansas they spent the night of September 7 at “Beens Salt Workes” where they observed the transformation of fifty-five gallons of brine into a bushel of salt.⁵⁴ This salt work had been established by Mark and Richard H. Bean on Salt Creek, a minor tributary of the Illinois River in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma.⁵⁵ In 1819, two years after its foundation, Major Bradford persuaded the Beans to supply salt for Fort Smith's garrison. From the salt works they proceeded to Glenn's trading post on the Verdigris. This was a site frequently visited by travelers in Oklahoma. Stephen H. Long and Thomas Nuttall were among the early visitors to this trading post.

Glenn's party remained there while they prepared their equipment and collected supplies for their trip. Leaving the trading post, they reached an Osage village on September 29, 1821, which was located near the present city of Claremore, Oklahoma. Fowler was struck by the beauty of the region. “Heare [sic] is one of the most delight full peace of Cuntry I Have Ever Seen—of Rich lime stone land mixed with Wood lands the Pirarie is more Exstensive than Woods.”⁵⁶ The village was deserted, for the Osage were on their fall buffalo hunt. After caching “32 Bever [sic] traps 2 Cases of tobacco and fifty pounds of Brass Wier [sic],” near the confluence of Rabb's Creek and the Caney River, they traveled west and north.⁵⁷ By October 4, they had crossed the present-day Kansas-Oklahoma border. They camped that evening in Cowley County, Kansas. Reaching the Arkansas River, they followed that river's course west into Colorado. By November 13, they were in sight of the famous Spanish Peaks those mountains which are first seen by travelers to southeastern Colorado. Tragedy struck on that day. A member of the party was slain by a “White Bare, [sic].”⁵⁸ This aged grizzly was then killed, and members of the party considered dining upon the bear until they skinned it and “found the Smell of a polecat so Strong that We cold [sic] not Eat the meat.”⁵⁹

This map illustrates the routes taken across Oklahoma by Americans during the first period of exploration in the region. After the Thomas James, Hugh Glenn and Jacob Fowler expeditions, it was a decade before American explorers once again entered present-day Oklahoma (adapted from John W. Morris and Edwin C. McReynolds, Historical Atlas of Oklahoma, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, map 15)

Danger from Indian attacks increased as they met Indians in increasingly large numbers. At one encampment, Fowler numbered over 400 lodges which included the “following nations—Ietans [Comanches]—Arrapohoes [Arapaho]—Kiowa—Padduce [Padouca]—Cheans [Cheyenne]—Snakes—the Ietan the most numerous and the most Disperete [sic] the Arrapohoes [sic] the Best and the most Sivvel [sic] to the White men Habits.”⁶⁰ Trade with the Indians went slowly as they had little that Glenn's party wanted. Glenn did not want horses, and the Indians had few beaver pelts. “We have found amongest them about 20 Bever only the Early Habits of those Indians Precludes them from making Bever Hunters as the Cuntry [sic] Which the In Habet [sic] Contains but few—and the Indians Hunt the Buffelow.”⁶¹

Two Spanish officers reached Glenn's camp on December 29, 1821, and informed them that the Mexican revolutionary forces under Augustín de Iturbide had cast off Spanish rule. Four days later, Glenn and four of his men “Set out in the morning to Cross the mountains to Santafee.[sic]”⁶² Fowler and the majority of the party remained in the San Luis Valley of Colorado until they received word from Glenn that it was safe to proceed to Santa Fe. Such news arrived on January 28, and on the following day the balance of the party “Set out in the morning for the Spanish Settlement” rejoicing in the knowledge “that the mackeson [Mexican] provence Has de Clared [sic] Independence of the mother Cuntry [sic] and is desirous of a traid [sic] With the people of the united states.”⁶³

After spending several weeks visiting Santa Fe and Taos, they began to trap the waters along the Rio Grande. By early summer their trapping was over, and they joined with Thomas James’ party for the return to St. Louis. Separating from James’ forces on the Arkansas, the Glenn-Fowler contingent reached St. Louis in mid-July, 1822. Their venture was more profitable than that of James. The records of the American Fur Company indicate that they returned with over 1,100 pounds of fur for which they received $4,499.⁶⁴

This small profit did not enable Glenn to escape the demands of his Cincinnati creditors. His career as a successful business man was over. Although his later years are difficult to trace, he may have once more become a trader among the Indians of Missouri and Kansas.

The principal legacy of the James-McKnight and the Glenn-Fowler expeditions was the stimulus they gave to other ambitious men to join in the trade to Santa Fe. The accounts of both expeditions present a perceptive description of the activities of some of the initial traders and trappers in this area, and the history of the western states which is described within their pages is made the richer by their existence.

¹ For a more detailed survey of the specific activities of each of these early expeditions to Santa Fe, one should consult the account prepared by William Becknell's brother in “The Journals of Capt. Thomas Becknell, from Boone's Lick to Santa Fe, and from Santa Cruz to Green River,” Missouri Historical Review, Vol. IV, No. 2 (January, 1910), pp. 65–84; Thomas James, Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans, Milo Milton Quaife, ed. (Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1953); and Jacob Fowler, The Journal of Jacob Fowler, Elliott Coues, ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970).

² The original of this manuscript journal is deposited at the library of the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Elliott Coues examined the Journal when it was in the possession of Colonel R. T. Durrett of Louisville, Kentucky in 1897. Coues published his edition of the work in 1898, seventy-six years after the work had been written. During this three-quarters of a century, the Journal had been in the possession of various members of the Fowler family. For a more detailed discussion of the provenance of this narrative, please see the Preface and Introduction to the edition of Fowler's Journal cited previously.

³ Harry R. Stevens, “A Company of Hands and Traders: Origins of the Glenn-Fowler Expedition of 1821–1822,” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. XLVI, No. 2 (July, 1971), p. 207.

⁴ Raymond W. Settle, “Jacob Fowler,” in The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, LeRoy R. Hafen, ed. (9 vols., Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1966), Vol. III, p. 119, indicates that Fowler lived from 1764–1849. Stevens, “Glenn-Fowler Expedition,” page 205, states that Fowler was from fifty-seven to sixty-one years old when he became a partner in Glenn's 1821 expedition.

⁵ Harry R. Stevens, “Hugh Glenn,” LeRoy R. Hafen, ed., The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West (9 vols., Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1965), Vol. II, p. 165; Stevens, “A Company of Hands and Traders: Origins of the Glenn-Fowler Expedition of 1821–1822,” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. XLVI, pp. 193–194.

⁶ Stevens, “Hugh Glenn,” Hafen, ed., The Mountain Men and Fur Trade of the Far West, Vol. II, p. 165.

⁷ Ibid., p. 167; Stevens, “A Company of Hands and Traders: Origins of the Glenn-Fowler Expedition of 1821–1822,” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. XLVI, p. 199.

⁸ Ibid., p. 203; Stevens, “Hugh Glenn,” Hafen, ed., The Mountain Men and Fur Trade of the Far West, Vol. II, p. 169.

⁹ Stevens, “A Company of Hands and Traders: Origins of the Glenn-Fowler Expedition of 1820–1821,” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. XLVI, p. 182.

¹⁰ James’ work is a much more polished account than that of Fowler's. James was aided in the composition of his work, according to John F. Snyder, by an Illinois lawyer, Nathaniel Niles. Niles was interested in literature and had edited the Belleville, Illinois newspaper, and it is the result of his labors which gives James’ works its flowing literary style. Shortly after the publication of the work in 1846, it was attacked by several newspapers, perhaps for the unflattering comments it made about missionaries among the Indians and the proprietors of the St. Louis, Missouri Fur Company. The next edition of this work appeared in 1916 when Judge William B. Douglas published his edition for the Missouri Historical Society. For more information on this subject, please see the “Historical Introduction,” in James, Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans, Quaife, ed., pp. xv–xxxvi.

¹¹ Ibid., p. 22.

¹² Ibid., p. 99.

¹³ Ibid., pp. 52–64, 99. James failed to satisfy his financial obligations to Colter, and in 1814, James was sued by Colter's administrator for failing to honor a note for $140 given to Colter by James on October 7, 1809.

¹⁴ Ibid., pp. 93–94.

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 101; Frederick E. Voelker, “Thomas James,” The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, LeRoy R. Hafen, ed. (9 vols., Glendale: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1965), Vol. I, p. 158, indicates that “despite James's statement that in 1819 and 1820 he faced bankruptcy, his 1820 business accounts do not reflect so desperate a condition.”

¹⁶ James, Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans, Quaife, ed., pp. 158–159. Here, James’ memory betrays him, for he gives the date of 1810 for the imprisonment of Robert McKnight when the correct date is 1812.

¹⁷ Ibid., pp. 105–106, 211. Again, there is confusion in the text over details. James originally indicates that he began with “goods to the value of $10,00,” but when he laments over the failure of the expedition he refers to a stock of $12,000.

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 111.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 112.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Ibid., p. 113.

²² Ibid., p. 114.

²³ Ibid., p. 116. James initially calls this river the Salt Fork, but three pages later he acknowledges that it “is set down on the latest maps as the Cimarron River,” p. 119.

²⁴ Ibid., p. 117.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 116.

²⁷ Ibid., p. 118.

²⁸ Ibid., pp. 117–118. James becomes very disenchanted with Hugh Glenn, and as his narrative proceeds he accuses him of failing to honor his debts, pp. 174–175; of accepting Catholicism because it was profitable for him to do so—“He changed his religion more rapidly than his clothes, and made each change a profitable speculation to himself,” p. 182; and of cowardice and hypocrisy, pp. 187–194.

²⁹ Ibid., p. 119. The exact route now becomes difficult to follow in the text.

³⁰ Ibid., pp. 119–120. The transparent rocks which James and his men examined at the Shining Mountains west of Orienta in Major County, Oklahoma were gypsum crystals.

³¹ Ibid., p. 125. Again, the text is confused and it is difficult to know precisely how close they were to the North Canadian River, or the Beaver River. This river was probably still to their west.

³² Ibid., p. 132.

³³ Ibid., p. 134.

³⁴ Ibid.

³⁵ Ibid., p. 149–178. James’ remarks upon New Mexico immediately after independence, while biased, are important for being one of the earliest reports by an American on the newly free region.

³⁶ Ibid., p. 105.

³⁷ Becknell left for home on December 13, 1821 from San Miguel, New Mexico. Why neither acknowledged the other's presence in New Mexico is still unexplained.

³⁸ James, Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans, Quaife, ed., p. 156.

³⁹ Ibid., pp. 167, 173–176. Petulantly, James remarked that when he bade adieu to the capitol of New Mexico on June 1, 1822 he “was perfectly content never to repeat” his “visit to it or any other part of the country,” p. 178.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 158.

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 126.

⁴² Ibid., p. 194.

⁴³ Ibid., pp. 196–197.

⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 199.

⁴⁵ Ibid., p. 211.

⁴⁶ Ibid.

⁴⁷ Ibid.

⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 215.

⁴⁹ Ibid., p. 217.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ Ibid., p. 263.

⁵² Ibid., p. 264.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 276.

⁵⁴ Fowler, The Journal of Jacob Fowler, Coues, ed., p. 15. More detailed information on the Bean family and the salt works may be found in Carolyn Thomas Foreman, “The Bean Family,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXXII, No. 3 (Autumn, 1954), pp. 308–325.

⁵⁵ Fowler, The Journal of Jacob Fowler, Coues, ed., p. 15. A careful annotated edition of the section of Fowler's Journal which refers to Oklahoma may be examined in Julian W. Fessler, “Jacob Fowler's Journal: Oklahoma Section,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. VIII, No. 2 (June, 1930), pp. 181–188.

⁵⁶ Fowler, The Journal of Jacob Fowler, Coues, ed., p. 22.

⁵⁷ Ibid., p. 23.

⁵⁸ Ibid., p. 47. Coues maintains that Lewis Dawson who was slain by the grizzly bear received the dubious honor of becoming the first known American to be buried in Colorado soil, p. 10.

⁵⁹ Ibid., p. 49.

⁶⁰ Ibid., p. 58.

⁶¹ Ibid.

⁶² Ibid., p. 71.

⁶³ Ibid., p. 83.

⁶⁴ Stevens, “Hugh Glenn,” Hafen, ed., The Mountain Men and Fur Trade of the Far West, Vol. II, p. 173.

WASHINGTON IRVING, HENRY ELLSWORTH, ALBERT-ALEXANDRE DE POURTALES AND CHARLES LATROBE, 1832

By Steven Gragert

In the fall of 1832 the Indian country was a cauldron of turmoil. The removal of several thousand eastern tribesmen to the hunting grounds of the Plains Indians had brought on a clash of cultures and interests. Boundary lines negotiated with the United States government often overlapped, causing increased disturbances between the newly arrived tribes as they contested for the most fertile soil. Ultimately, these clashes injured American traders and travelers. On October 10 an expedition of American Mounted Rangers was sent from Fort Gibson in the Cherokee Nation to contact the hostile Indians and end the depredations. The result of the mission is of minor historical importance, for the Rangers encountered few Indians and the disturbances on the prairies continued. More significantly, the accounts of that expedition left by four civilians who accompanied it—Washington Irving, American author; Henry Ellsworth, New England businessman; Albert-Alexandre de Pourtalès, Swiss nobleman; and Charles Latrobe, English educator—provide a unique, revealing and internationally flavored story of the experiences of early travelers through the region that is now the state of Oklahoma.¹

The four civilians had met a few months before in the East. Irving had recently returned from several years in Europe studying, writing and traveling. His success as a writer had won him a wide reputation and much honor, but at fifty-one years old, he had become anxious to return to his native New York. On the voyage to the United States, he encountered and befriended Count Pourtalès and Latrobe. The Count's parents had sent the spirited nineteen year old aristocrat abroad to travel; his family had hired Latrobe as a companion, tutor and chaperone. Upon their arrival in New York City, the three men eagerly set out to see America. Leisurely, they toured through New York state and New England, but a chance meeting with Henry Ellsworth at Buffalo, New York altered their direction. President Andrew Jackson had commissioned Ellsworth to visit, study and report on conditions in the Indian country. While traveling westward Ellsworth met Irving, Pourtalès and Latrobe and invited them to join him. Latrobe remarked, “it was now hurra! for the Far West!”²

Washington Irving (left) and Albert-Alexandre de Pourtalès (right), who visited Oklahoma in 1832 during their great adventure in the West

By power of steam and horse the men crossed the eastern half of the United States and arrived at St. Louis, Missouri on September 13. From that city, Irving and his companions traveled overland through the Missouri countryside to the bustling frontier town of Independence. They remained there only briefly, for on September 27 the group left what Pourtalès conceived as the “last European village” to begin the 300 mile trek to Indian Territory. Auguste Pierre Chouteau guided the men toward his trading post on the Verdigris River, four miles west of Fort Gibson. Chouteau, agent to the Osages, had great influence with that tribe and considerable frontier experience. He proved valuable to the other travelers as an important source of information on hunting and camping.³

Irving's journals, from which he wrote his A Tour on the Prairies, richly detailed this stage of the journey. The men traveled by horse and wagon, and were accompanied by a handful of servants, an escort of Osages, a pack of dogs and Tonish, “the squire, the groom, the cook, the tent man, in a word, the factotum.” The small French creole was “a kind of Gil Blas of the frontier, who had passed a scrambling life, sometimes among white men, sometimes among Indians.”⁴

On October 6 the band of travelers reached the Grand River in present-day Mayes County, Oklahoma. There they visited Reverend William Requa, missionary to the Osages, at his settlement a few miles above Fort Gibson and near Chouteau's trading houses. At Chouteau's settlement the travelers parted; Irving and Ellsworth pushed on to the fort and Pourtalès and Latrobe remained to prepare for an anticipated journey westward. As Irving and the Commissioner approached Fort Gibson, Ellsworth was struck by the scene before him, for instead of an expected fortress he beheld an unimposing cluster of “numerous little log buildings.” He was distressed to learn that his two fellow Indian Commissioners, Reverend John Schermerhorn of New York and Governor Montfort Stokes of North Carolina, had not arrived. He also was angered when informed that the post commander, Colonel Matthew Arbuckle, already had dispatched a troop of rangers to negotiate with the hostile Plains Indians. As Federal Indian Commissioner Ellsworth considered it imperative that he be allowed to accompany them. He requested that Arbuckle form a small patrol to escort him to the camp of the main body. Irving, eager to venture further west, insisted that he be allowed to go also. Ellsworth solved the dilemma by appointing his traveling companion temporary secretary, as the actual secretary to the commission was not present.⁵

On October 10 Irving's party—consisting of the author, the Commissioner, Tonish, a surgeon, a new servant named Pierre Beatte and a fifteen man escort—departed the American outpost for a rugged one month journey. As they moved north toward Chouteau's trading post Pourtalès and Latrobe joined them. The Swiss had been eager to go hunting with the Osages; therefore, he had obtained pack horses at the Verdigris settlements and had engaged a servant to replace Tonish. With his animals, servant and Latrobe in tow, he had set out to find the Indians’ trail. When his party met Irving and Ellsworth, the Count informed them that he would accompany the group only part way. The next morning the travelers came to the Osages’ hunting trail, which Pourtalès boldly insisted that he was going to follow. His companions argued to the contrary, but their protests were in vain. The Count “was fixed upon the Osage trail and could not be diverted,” for he had loaded his pack animals “with shawls blanketts & presents to the squaws.” The men finally agreed that Latrobe—the faithful guardian—and Pourtalès’ servant would accompany the Swiss in his attempt to woo an Indian maiden's love.⁶

The three men's separate adventure was shortlived. Within four hours they had abandoned their dangerous undertaking and rejoined their companions. “Fortunately, they determined to rejoin us before night fall,” Irving remarked, “one night's camping out might have cost them their horses.” Two days later Irving's group found the main party of Rangers encamped in the valley of a small stream a few miles south of present-day Tulsa. The setting, an open forest, makeshift tents, a running stream and shouting voices, reminded the author of tales of Robin Hood.⁷

The Rangers which Irving's party joined were a recent addition to the United States Army. Congress had authorized a battalion of these mounted irregulars the previous summer to serve on the frontier. Six companies were formed and each consisted of four commissioned officers, fourteen noncommissioned officers and one hundred privates. Jesse Bean of Independence, Arkansas was chosen to raise one company and to report with it to Fort Gibson. It was the lively camp of this company, commanded by Captain Bean, which Irving and the others joined.⁸

As the men formed into line the following morning, Pourtalès was struck by the caravan's “absolutely warlike” appearance. Irving compared the scene to “bands of buccaneers penetrating the wilds of South America, on their plundering expeditions against the Spanish settlements.” For the next week, the long thin line of men and packhorses, often stretching for half a mile along the trail, crossed the red waters of the Arkansas River and passed steadily through present-day southeastern Pawnee, northwestern Creek and southern Payne counties. The country was agreeably pleasant to the explorers, and the weather remained seasonably mild and comfortable.⁹

Because their duties as travelers were minimal and the attractions of the march were great, the men found many diversions from the trek. Hunting was the chief thrill, for the land abounded with deer, elk, buffalo, bear and turkey. Lively competition to determine the best marksmen was often spiced with wild boasts and friendly arguments. Differences even arose between Pourtalès and Latrobe. The Englishman considered a dozen men as really good hunters and Captain Bean as the best shot. However, Pourtalès scorned “those famous American riflemen” and only with reluctance gave them portions of his own venison when they returned empty handed. His most biting comments were directed at Bean, who he variously nicknamed Huntantlers and Hornless in honor of the captain's compelling desire and consistent failure to obtain antler trophies.¹⁰

Around the several campfires at night, the Rangers engaged in their most popular evening entertainment: “swopping.” Any item the men owned was liable to be exchanged. Horses, saddles, knives, rifles, food and blankets passed from trader to trader. Latrobe particularly was bewildered by the exchanging of clothes, for he “never could be certain of an individual till [he] saw his face.” Pourtalès was annoyed as usual with the habits of the Americans. He disdained their practice of “fishing” by which they approached an individual and bothered him for the prices of everything he owned. Then as they became more intimate with their victim, they suggested trading, usually at an exchange rate which favored them.¹¹

On October 22 the expedition of soldiers and tourists forded the Cimarron River near present-day Coyle, Oklahoma. Their original complement of eighty men now was reduced, for a number of Rangers had contracted measles and had been obliged to return east. After crossing the river, the men rode south through the mire and water of a canebrake until they ascended a ridge of land. There the travelers beheld a vista of open prairie to the left and the formidable Cross Timbers to the right. Captain Bean, unaware of the Cross Timbers’ great size chose to traverse the area in order to reach the vast western prairie. For the next eight days the men cut through deep ravines and over rolling hills of post oak and black jack. Irving complained that their journey through the timbers “was like struggling through forests of cast iron.” Moreover, the season was late so the pleasantness of green foliage and running streams had given way to the monotony of a brown and arid land.¹²

Food for the first time became a critical concern. No longer were herds of deer and elk to be found lazily grazing on rich prairie grasses. Occasionally, buffalo were sighted in clearings but most attempts to chase and kill them proved futile. Hunters also found much evidence of bears, which apparently were well-fed but were wise enough to stay hidden in the woods. Each day's hunt was a special concern for everyone when success became increasingly rare. Occasionally, the men would be blessed with a meal of roasted venison, but more often they went without meat and simply foraged among the berries and plants of the land. Because the Rangers and civilians maintained separate camps, they usually sent out their own hunters. Irving's entourage was more fortunate for it included Pierre Beatte, a quiet, subtle French creole, who was a superb marksman. He rarely failed to return with a freshly slaughtered carcass of some wild animal. His success with a rifle often saved the men from hungry sleep.¹³

At noon on October 29 the men finally left the timbers and entered the prairie north of present-day Norman and within sight of the Canadian River's meandering course. After journeying a few more miles south, Captain Bean halted his force in order to prepare for the march across the gameless country. A camp was established near one of the tributaries of the Canadian River, and hunters were dispatched to procure and prepare sufficient meat for the march.¹⁴

While most of the men were engaged at the new camp, Irving, Ellsworth, Pourtalès, Latrobe and Beatte decided to explore the countryside. They had not gone far before they sighted in the distance herds of buffalo and wild horses. Beatte handed his bulky rifle to Ellsworth and wildly galloped off to lasso a horse. The thrilling sight of the dashing Frenchman stirred Irving and Pourtalès to join the chase. Soon Latrobe, unable to contain his rising emotions and “begging ten thousand pardons” of the Commissioner, spurred his horse and galloped after them. While Beatte pursued the stallions, the lure of the buffalo diverted his companions. Yelling lustily and firing wildly, the men madly galloped after one group and then another. Latrobe was the first to bring down one of the shaggy beasts. Though he admitted to some luck, he nevertheless was proud that his feat was attained “in true Indian style,” by riding and firing at full gallop.¹⁵

Killing buffalo “in true Indian style” during Irving's 1832 tour on the prairies

Meanwhile, Irving had singled out one of the herd, brought his horse in parallel and shot at close quarters. The bull fell hard, but had not been killed; it lay struggling in pain as Irving tethered his horse and approached on foot. In the course of a few moments, the character of the usually sedate writer had transformed into that of a wildly excited hunter, but the sight of the miserable animal renewed his temperate and compassionate nature. He quickly put an end to its misery with one carefully placed shot.¹⁶

While he remorsefully surveyed the scene, Irving was joined by Latrobe. The Englishman carved out the tongue of Irving's buffalo and presented it to the American as the traditional trophy of the hunt. It then occurrred to them that they had lost sight of Pourtalès. The hunters feared the Count had become lost, but the evening was approaching so they decided to return to camp; there they hoped to find him with Ellsworth and Beatte spinning stories of the chase. Upon their arrival at the bivouac, they were distressed to learn that Pourtalès neither had returned nor had been seen. Fearing for the welfare of the Count, the men fired their guns and sounded a bugle to guide their wayward companion into camp, but to their distress their efforts were not rewarded.¹⁷

There still was no sign of Pourtalès the following morning. The men quickly consumed breakfast, and volunteers searched for the Count. Irving, Latrobe, Beatte, Tonish and a dozen Rangers, all well mounted and armed, set out to find his trail. Beatte soon discovered the trail near the hunting ground of the previous day. With his quick and sharp eyes, the Frenchman distinguished Pourtalès’ prints in the herbage and soft ground. The men slowly followed this trail through prairie and ravines until they came to dry ground. Beatte now was stumped, for not a footprint could be found in any direction.¹⁸

Suddenly, a small group of deer bounded by the searchers. Almost by instinct Beatte leveled his rifle and fired. The report of the gun almost immediately was followed by a distant “halloo.” The men spurred their horses in the direction of the sound, and soon saw their lost comrade galloping toward them. A joyous reunion was held as men embraced men and greetings were shouted. Pourtalès, proud of his ability to survive in the American wilderness alone, nevertheless was glad to rejoin his companions. He was moved by their concern, particularly that of Irving who he observed had “tears in his eyes.”¹⁹

As the reunited men proceeded back to camp, Pourtalès related to them his experiences while lost on the prairies. He had become separated from his hunting companions during the pursuit of the buffalo. He had been so absorbed in the excitement of the chase, that he found himself at the front of the herd as it thundered toward him. Fortunately, the buffalo suddenly parted, leaving him in excellent position to bring down one of the beasts. He aimed, pulled the trigger and fired; but, he was not to have a trophy, for only his firing cap went off and he was out of ammunition.²⁰

It was then that he discovered that Irving and Latrobe were not in sight. In attempts to locate his companions and find the Rangers’ camp, Pourtalès progressively had become lost. He wandered about in all directions, shouting occasionally, but to no avail. Finally, as night came, he abandoned his efforts and located a prominent elm tree. To avoid scavenging animals and morning's wet grass, the Count climbed the tree and fell asleep on a sturdy limb. The next morning, he remained near his makeshift camp to avoid becoming further lost. Beatte's rifle shot had brought immediate joy to his heart and “the most powerful ‘hola’ that perhaps had ever come from [his] lungs.”²¹

The rescue party and the rescued soon rejoined the main group in camp. On the following morning, October 31, Captain Bean and Commissioner Ellsworth decided that further penetration of the Indian country would be dangerous and unnecessary. They agreed that it would be foolhardy to cross the dry western prairies during the late fall while the men were ill, their morale was low and food was scarce. Ellsworth also suspected that he was needed at Fort Gibson in his capacity as Indian Commissioner. Accordingly, the men broke camp and assembled into line for the return journey.²²

As they headed southeast the men had little idea of the distance and difficulties to be endured before they reached the welcome confines of Fort Gibson. Latrobe later reflected that “the roughest part of [their] expedition was yet before them,” for they soon left the prairies, turned eastward and reentered the Cross Timbers. Those rugged woods once again slowed the march, forcing the men to cut through the thickets and bramble “with many a tear, scratch, and grumble.”²³

Henry Ellsworth, appointed Indian Commissioner by President Andrew Jackson. It was Ellsworth who decided that further penetration of the Indian country was impossible after the expedition was swept with illness, low morale and a shortage of food

By November 2 the men left behind the hardships of the Cross Timbers and its environs and reached the open country along the North Fork of the Canadian River. The expedition forded that stream near the mouth of Turkey Creek and continued into the western part of present-day Okfuskee County. The men were exceedingly weary, the horses were near collapse and the scenery was becoming depressingly monotonous. By November 6 the camp was in desperate need of fresh meat and other provisions. “The scarcity…almost amounted to famine,” recalled Irving. “Happy was he who had a morsel of jerked meat, or even the half picked bones of a former repast.”²⁴

With great effort the men finally straggled into a frontiersman's settlement near Chouteau's trading station. Undoubtedly, the entire party was as relieved and joyous as Irving to hear the familiar farmyard sounds of “grunting swine, gobbling turkeys, [and] cackling hens….” On the evening of November 7, Irving's party left Captain Bean and the Rangers at the farm and proceeded to Chouteau's post on the Verdigris River. Irving, Pourtalès and Latrobe's stay in Indian Territory was nearly ended. They had come west eager for adventure, and now their enthusiasm was quenched. The exhausting western journey had revived memories of easier travels in the East and Europe. On November 10 Irving and Ellsworth reached Fort Gibson, and two days later the New Yorker departed that outpost aboard a steamboat bound for Little Rock, Arkansas and New Orleans, Louisiana. Later that month the Swiss and the Englishman also bid farewell to the southwestern frontier and descended the Arkansas River by canoe. Ellsworth remained in the West for two years in his capacity as Indian Commissioner.²⁵

Nothing of monumental significance resulted from the Irving expedition of 1832. No soil, rock and plant samples were collected; no boundary or railroad lines were surveyed; no trade routes were marked; and no treaties were negotiated. Yet, one can not casually dismiss the journey, for the experiences of these explorers are a revealing testimony of the lives of many who settled, traded, hunted and traveled in the Indian country. The accounts of Irving and the others are rich in vivid detail about hunting, camping and woodcraft. Their tales of skillet roasted coffee, charcoal grilled corn-cakes and pork fried fritters bring to life realistic portrayals of frontier experiences. Stories such as these provide valuable and personal glimpses of early nineteenth century life in the area that is now the state of Oklahoma.

¹ For a study of the relocation of one eastern tribe, see Muriel H. Wright, “The Removal of the Choctaws to the Indian Territory, 1830–1833,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. VI, No. 1 (June, 1928), pp. 103–128. Irving provided two records of the expedition. His A Tour on the Prairies, Joseph B. Thoburn and George C. Wells, eds. (Oklahoma City: Harlow Publishing Corporation, 1955), was drawn from his Western Journals, John F. McDermott, ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944). Ellsworth's account, Washington Irving on the Prairie, Stanley T. Williams and Barbara D. Simison, eds. (New York: American Book Company, 1937), was originally in the form of a 108 page letter to his wife. Pourtalès’ version was in the form of a short journal and six letters and was published as On the Western Tour with Washington Irving, Seymour Feiler, ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968). Latrobe's account was first published in his The Rambler in North America (2 vols., London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burside, 1836) and recently reprinted as The Rambler in Oklahoma, Muriel H. Wright and George H. Shirk, eds. (Oklahoma City: Harlow Publishing Corporation, 1955).

² Stanley T. Williams, The Life of Washington Irving (2 vols., New York: Oxford University Press, 1935), Vol. II, pp. 24–26, 37; Latrobe, The Rambler in North America, Vol. I, p. 82.

³ Pourtalès, On the Western Tour with Washington Irving, Feiler, ed., pp. 9, 11–14, 35.

⁴ Irving, Western Journals, McDermott, ed., pp. 90–110; Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, Thoburn and Wells, eds., p. 4.

⁵ Irving, Western Journals, McDermott, ed., pp. 107–110; Latrobe, The Rambler in Oklahoma, Wright and Shirk, eds., p. 28; Ellsworth, Washington Irving on the Prairie, Williams and Simison, eds., pp. 2–6.

⁶ Pourtalès, On the Western Tour with Washington Irving, Feiler, ed., pp. 14–15; Ellsworth, Washington Irving on the Prairie, Williams and Simison, eds., pp. 6–7, 10–15.

⁷ Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, Thoburn and Wells, eds., pp. 23, 31–32.

⁸ Irving, Western Journals, McDermott, ed., p. 28.

⁹ Pourtalès, On the Western Tour with Washington Irving, Feiler, ed., p. 50; Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, Thoburn and Wells, eds., pp. 43–95.

¹⁰ Latrobe, The Rambler in Oklahoma, Wright and Shirk, eds., pp. 46–47; Pourtalès, On the Western Tour with Washington Irving, Feiler, ed., pp. 51–58.

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 60–61; Latrobe, The Rambler in Oklahoma, Wright and Shirk, eds., pp. 47–48.

¹² Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, Thoburn and Wells, eds., pp. 94–97.

¹³ Latrobe, The Rambler in Oklahoma, Wright and Shirk, eds., p. 62.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 70.

¹⁵ Ibid., pp. 70–74.

¹⁶ Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, Thoburn and Wells, eds., pp. 141–143.

¹⁷ Ibid., pp. 143–147; Latrobe, The Rambler in Oklahoma, Wright and Shirk, eds., pp. 75–76.

¹⁸ Ibid., pp. 77–78; Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, Thoburn and Wells, eds., pp. 148–150.

¹⁹ Ibid., pp. 150–151; Latrobe, The Rambler in Oklahoma, Wright and Shirk, eds., p. 79; Pourtalès, On the Western Tour with Washington Irving, Feiler, ed., p. 73.

²⁰ Ibid., pp. 68–71.

²¹ Ibid., pp. 71–72.

²² Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, Thoburn and Wells, eds., pp. 156–157; Ellsworth, Washington Irving on the Prairie, Williams and Simison, eds., p. 129.

²³ Latrobe, The Rambler in Oklahoma, Wright and Shirk, eds., pp. 81–82.

²⁴ Ibid., pp. 83–84; Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, Thoburn and Wells, eds., pp. 163–169.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 171; Latrobe, The Rambler in Oklahoma, Wright and Shirk, eds., pp. 83–84; Ellsworth, Washington Irving on the Prairie, Williams and Simison, eds., pp. 145–148; Pourtalès, On the Western Tour with Washington Irving, Feiler, ed., p. 81.

BRIGADIER GENERAL HENRY LEAVENWORTH AND COLONEL HENRY DODGE, 1834–1835

By Brad Agnew

Unlike many of the early exploring parties which penetrated the southern plains, the dragoon expedition of 1834 was not primarily concerned with gathering information about the physical environment. Its mission was to explore means of improving relations with the fierce plains tribes whose raids endangered the Santa Fe trade and frustrated the government's attempts to persuade Eastern tribes to emigrate to Indian Territory. Pleas from Santa Fe traders and immigrant Indians in Indian Territory had prompted the War Department to order the army into the troubled area.¹

The tribes of the southern plains had already eluded two earlier expeditions sent to contact them. In 1832 a mounted ranger company which marched west from Fort Gibson in Indian Territory returned without even seeing a Plains Indian. The following year a larger force marched as far west as the Wichita Mountains before returning to Fort Gibson empty handed.² By 1834 the War Department had mounted a major effort to establish contact with the plains tribes. Brigadier General Henry Leavenworth was appointed commander of the Southwestern Frontier, and Colonel Henry Dodge and his recently established First Dragoon Regiment were assigned to Fort Gibson.³ Leavenworth's orders authorized him to dispatch the dragoons onto the southern plains to persuade the Indians to respect the immigrating Eastern tribes and white traders. The dragoons were also to attempt to obtain the release of a ranger private captured by the Plains Indians during the expedition of 1833.⁴

Brigadier General Henry Leavenworth (left) and Colonel Henry Dodge (right), who led the 1834 dragoon expedition to the Plains Indians. Unlike earlier expeditions, the sole purpose was to establish good relations with the plains tribes.

The dragoons were the most powerful force the United States had ever sent onto the southern plains when they marched from Fort Gibson on June 15, 1834.⁵ The regiment's officers had been handpicked and were among the finest in the army. Their caliber is best judged by their subsequent accomplishments. Dodge's second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen W. Kearny, led the Army of the West during the Mexican War. First Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, a recent West Point graduate, later served as Secretary of War of the United States and President of the Confederacy. Captain David Hunter, another young West Pointer, rose to the rank of major general during the Civil War and chaired the commission that tried the conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The expedition was not exclusively military; several civilians accompanied the dragoons including George Catlin, an artist who went to sketch and paint the Plains Indians. In addition, thirty Cherokee, Delaware, Osage and Seneca warriors served as guides and hunters and carried messages of friendship to the plains tribes. Leavenworth had obtained two Plains Indian women whom he planned to return to their tribes as a gesture of good will.⁶

Before the force reached the Canadian River, the men began to complain about the scarcity of good water. A sergeant in G Company reported, “We would travel whole days at a time without coming to any water at all [;] what we came to occationally [sic] was of the worst kind, the top all covered with green slime…perfectly muddy and unfit for use by man or horse.”⁷ Already, disease, which would plague the expedition, was extracting a heavy toll. At a camp established on the Canadian River twenty-seven men were left under the care of the dragoons’ assistant surgeon.

Marching ahead of the regiment, Leavenworth, Dodge, Catlin and several other officers were diverted by a small herd of buffalo. Shouting orders to his companions, Leavenworth galloped after a calf. The animal dodged, and the general's horse fell. When Catlin reached the downed rider, he was struggling to get to his feet. With Catlin's assistance, Leavenworth stood and promptly fainted. He recovered in time to prevent the artist from opening a vein, a standard first aid procedure. After a few hours Leavenworth rejoined the party with no apparent injuries, but Catlin later observed, “From that hour to the present, I think I have seen a decided change in the General's face; he has looked pale and feeble, and been continually troubled with a violent cough.” Several days later, Leavenworth told Catlin that “he was fearful he was badly hurt.”⁸

By the time the entire regiment had established camp at the mouth of the Washita River, Catlin reported, “nearly one-half of the command…have been thrown upon their backs, with the prevailing epidemic, a slow and distressing bilious fever.” The extent of sickness necessitated a reorganization of the regiment into six companies of forty-two enlisted men each. Racked by a burning fever and shallowness of breath Brigadier General Leavenworth abandoned his plan to lead the dragoons and ordered Dodge to proceed by forced march into the Plains Indian country. The general planned to follow in a few days with wagons and reinforcements.⁹

This George Catlin sketch portrays the first official meeting between representatives of the United States and members of the Comanche tribe

As Colonel Dodge's force proceeded almost due west across the prairies, signs of Indian activity increased. Sentinels were particularly edgy on the night of July 7 when one of them shot what he thought was an Indian creeping out of the bushes. He hit a strayed dragoon horse returning to camp. The wounded animal's cries, the shouts of the sentry and his gunfire caused momentary panic in the camp. Before the soldiers discovered the cause of the commotion, the regiment's horses stampeded and scattered across the countryside. It took a day for the dragoons to recover most of their mounts.¹⁰

The command resumed the march west on July 9 and soon encountered a small party of mounted Indians, believed to be Wichitas. A forty-man patrol displaying a white flag pursued the Indians for a few miles before losing them. The next day the regiment entered the Cross Timbers, the boundary between the Plains Indians and their eastern neighbors. The dragoons picked their way through this thicket for three days before reaching the open plains.¹¹

On July 14 the regiment had marched only half a mile when they sighted a band of about thirty Comanches. Signaling his friendly intentions, Dodge succeeded in establishing contact with the wary Indians. The colonel assured the Comanches that he was on a mission of peace on behalf of his President and accepted their offer to lead the regiment to their village located a few days’ march to the west. Dodge learned that the Comanches were allied with the Kiowas and the Wichitas. The latter were reported to have a village several days’ journey west of the Comanche camp. The Comanches promised to send for the Wichita chief so that he might participate in discussions with Dodge. With the Indians leading the way the march was resumed.¹²

The apparent friendliness of the Comanches notwithstanding, Dodge remained apprehensive. He cautioned his officers and men to remain on the alert. The colonel's fears were not realized. The Indians displayed no hostility, and the dragoons arrived without incident at the Comanche camp in two days. Their reception was cordial, but Dodge declined the Comanches’ offer to camp in their village preferring to establish camp across a creek in an area bordered on all sides by steep gullies. One of the tents pitched in the dragoons’ camp housed the hospital for the twenty-nine latest victims of the fever including Catlin, who diagnosed his malady as fever and ague.¹³

Despite the Comanches’ willingness to discuss peace, Dodge was unable to arrange negotiations because their chief was on a buffalo hunt. After waiting two days, Dodge decided to proceed to the Wichita village. When the march was resumed on July 18, the number of sick had increased to thirty-three, many of whom were litter cases. Since the route his Comanche guide selected wound through rugged mountain country, Dodge established another sick camp to enable the regiment to move more rapidly. The command, now reduced to 183 men, picked its way through the boulder-strewn valleys of the Wichita Mountains. Although the area abounded in wildlife, Dodge pushed his men forward allowing no time for foraging. Rations were almost exhausted by the time the regiment reached the level plains once again.¹⁴

As the dragoons were setting up camp in the evening of July 20, they captured an Indian male whom the Wichita woman accompanying the expedition identified as one of her relatives. He said he was returning to his village about five miles from the dragoon camp. Dodge assured the Wichita that he was on a peaceful mission and that he would like to meet with the tribal leaders. The Indian agreed to relay this message and was released. Just before the march was resumed the next day, the father of the Wichita hostage rode into the dragoon camp. His joyful reunion with his daughter was the first indication that the Wichitas intended to receive the expedition. The dragoons had proceeded a mile or two toward the Wichita village when they were met by about sixty warriors who were soon reinforced by hundreds more. The meeting was friendly, and the dragoons were invited into the camp.¹⁵

As the expedition approached the Wichita camp, it marched through cornfields enclosed by fences of brush. The sight of cultivated fields and meat drying on racks in the village greatly improved the morale of the hungry troops. The dragoons literally tore the buttons from their uniforms and took the clothes off their backs to purchase corn, melons, green pumpkins, squash, plums and horse and buffalo meat.¹⁶ Although the principal chief of the Wichitas was not in camp, a council was arranged for the next day.

The first formal negotiations between the Plains Indians and the United States began on the morning of July 22, 1834, in a thatched Wichita lodge near the Red River. During the first day's negotiations, Dodge told the Wichita council he had been sent by the Great American Captain who wanted them to send representatives to Washington to negotiate a treaty which would insure lasting peace. In return, Dodge promised that the government would give the Wichitas many presents and send traders among them. Before concluding, the colonel told his hosts he had learned they had captured a white soldier in the summer of 1833, and kidnapped a white boy the following spring. Dodge demanded return of the boy and information concerning the soldier in exchange for the Wichita woman who had accompanied the expedition.¹⁷

In the absence of their chief, the Wichita council was headed by a Waco chief who denied any knowledge of the white boy and accused the Comanches of seizing the soldier. Dodge remained adamant and restated his demand for the boy and definite information concerning the soldier. The chief conferred with his council and informed the colonel that a tribe called the Oways had killed the ranger. Dodge accepted this explanation but continued to press the chief concerning the return of the kidnapped boy. During the discussion, the dragoons found a Negro living among the Indians who said that a white boy had recently been brought into their village. After a long period of strained silence the Indians produced a white boy who identified himself as Matthew Martin, the son of an Arkansas judge whose hunting party had been attacked earlier that year. After the excitement over the return of the boy subsided, Dodge questioned the Indians concerning attacks on the Santa Fe traders. The chief disclaimed responsibility, and Dodge did not press this point.¹⁸

During the second day's talks the Comanche chief, who had been leading a hunting expedition when the dragoons visited his village, arrived at the Wichita camp. Dodge was explaining the purpose of his mission when an armed party of twenty or thirty Kiowa warriors galloped into the camp. Their menacing appearance sent the women and children scurrying for safety. The sight of Dodge's Osage guides infuriated the Kiowas who had been brutally attacked by an Osage war party the year before. The Kiowas demanded the return of a girl whom the Osages had kidnapped. While the dragoons waited nervously, Dodge completely disarmed the Kiowas by agreeing to their terms. The girl, who had accompanied the expedition, was restored to her tribe, and the next day the Kiowas accepted Dodge's invitation to send representatives to Washington.¹⁹

On the morning of July 25, the chiefs of the three tribes visited the dragoon camp and were presented with rifles and pistols. That afternoon the dragoons, accompanied by over twenty representatives of the plains tribes, began the return march. One of the Wichitas led them through a broad valley and across the open plains north of the mountains. Two days later the command reached the sick camp near the Comanche village. There the situation had not improved; one man had died, and Catlin and several others were seriously ill. Supplies at the sick camp were almost gone, and the men returning from the Wichita village had eaten most of the provisions obtained there. With game scarce in the vicinity of the sick camp, Dodge decided to march by the most direct route to the Canadian River where the Indians said great buffalo herds were grazing.²⁰

This George Catlin sketch illustrates the Wichita camp on the Red River where the first formal negotiations between the United States and the Plains Tribes were held

The colonel dispatched an express to Leavenworth with a report of his conference at the Wichita village and news of his plans to march to the Canadian. Despite his fever, General Leavenworth had pushed forward with the baggage wagons and reinforcements leaving a small detachment of the able bodied men at the Washita River camp to care for the sick. By the time Leavenworth's column reached the Cross Timbers, the general was critically ill from a combination of the fever, the fall from his horse and the hardships of the march. He died on July 21, the same day Dodge reached the Wichita village.²¹

Dodge and his command, unaware of the happenings in the supply column, broke sick camp on July 28, and marched slowly to the northeast delayed by the sick, seven of whom were on litters. Catlin reported that most of the creeks were dry and that the primary sources of water were stagnant pools “so poisonous and heavy” that horses “sucking up the dirty and poisonous draught…in some instances…fell dead in their tracks.”²² The regiment paused a few days near what is now Norman to hunt buffalo and then pushed rapidly through the Cross Timbers. The closeness of this belt of trees and undergrowth alarmed the Plains Indians and slowed progress. Abandoning horses as they collapsed, Dodge pushed the regiment forward rapidly and in the evening of August 9, reached an outpost where supplies had been stockpiled. The next day the men drew their first rations since leaving the baggage wagons.²³

A week later the regiment returned to its camp near Fort Gibson. Small parties of the sick continued to straggle into the post for several weeks. Unfortunately, the return to Fort Gibson did not provide immediate relief for the sick. Deaths continued at the rate of about four to five a day. From his room in the hospital, Catlin heard the “mournful sound of ‘Roslin Castle’ with muffled drums passing six or eight times a day under my window, to the burying grounds.” He estimated that as many as 150 had died since June and speculated that the death rate must have been equally high in the infantry regiments.²⁴

Calculated in human lives, the cost of the expedition was staggering. Dodge wrote, “Perhaps their [sic] never has been in America a campaign that operated more severely on man and horses.”²⁵ In strictly military terms the expedition was a success. Colonel Dodge accomplished his mission. Unfortunately, the awful price paid for success did not produce corresponding results. Although the expedition led directly to the signing of the first treaty with the Plains Indians, the southern plains would not be pacified for another half-century. The failure of the treaty is a part of the larger, continuing tragedy of America's relations with the Indians. It is to the credit of Colonel Henry Dodge and his men that they did not add to the tragedy. The expedition did not take the life of a single Indian. Dodge left the plains with the friendship of the tribes he encountered. Though the expedition laid a good foundation, those who came later chose not to build on it.

¹ Lewis Cass to Creek Chiefs, April 14, 1832, United States Senate, 23rd Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document 512 (Washington: Duff Green, 1833), p. 814; United States Senate, 23rd Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Document 1 (Washington: Duff Green, 1834), passim.

² Washington Irving chronicles the Ranger Expedition in his A Tour on the Prairies, John Francis McDermott, ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956); Otis E. Young, “The United States Mounted Ranger Battalion, 1832–33,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. XLI, No. 4 (December, 1954), pp. 466–469; Lieutenant Colonel James B. Many to Colonel Matthew Arbuckle, July 4, 1833, Grant Foreman Collection, Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

³ For biographical sketches of Brigadier General Henry Leavenworth and Colonel Henry Dodge see W. J. Ghent, “Henry Leavenworth,” Dictionary of American Biography, Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds. (22 vols., New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1946), Vol. XI, p. 80 and John C. Parish, “Henry Dodge,” ibid., Vol. V, pp. 348–349.

⁴ Major General Alexander Macomb to Brigadier General Henry Leavenworth, February 19, 1834, Letters Received, Fort Gibson, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

⁵ George Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians (2 vols., London: David Bogue, 1844), Vol. II, p. 45.

⁶ Thompson B. Wheelock, “Peace on the Plains,” George H. Shirk, ed., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, No. 2 (Spring, 1950), p. 50.

⁷ Hugh Evans, “The Journal of Hugh Evans, Covering the First and Second Campaigns of the United States Dragoon Regiment in 1834 and 1835,” Fred S. Perrine and Grant Foreman, eds., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. III, No. 3 (September, 1925), p. 182; Anonymous, “A Journal of Marches by the First United States Dragoons, 1834–1835,” Louis Pelzer, ed., Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. VII, No. 2 (July, 1909), p. 342.

⁸ Wheelock, “Peace on the Plains,” Shirk, ed., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII p. 11; Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. II, pp. 50–51.

⁹ Ibid., p. 49; Wheelock, “Peace on the Plains,” Shirk, ed., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, p. 14.

¹⁰ Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. II, p. 54.

¹¹ Anonymous, “A Journal of Marches by the First United States Dragoons, 1834–1835,” Pelzer, ed., Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. VII, p. 346.

¹² Ibid.; Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. II, pp. 55–56; Wheelock, “Peace on the Plains,” Shirk, ed., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, p. 17.

¹³ Ibid., p. 18; James Hildreth, The Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains (New York: Wiley and Long, 1836), p. 158.

¹⁴ Wheelock, “Peace on the Plains,” Shirk, ed., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 19–20.

¹⁵ Evans, “The Journal of Hugh Evans, Covering the First and Second Campaigns of the United States Dragoon Regiment in 1834 and 1835,” Perrine and Foreman, eds., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. III, pp. 191–192; Wheelock, “Peace on the Plains,” Shirk, ed., ibid., Vol. XXVIII, p. 22, describes the Indians and the woman's uncle; Anonymous, “A Journal of Marches by the First United States Dragoons, 1834–1835,” Pelzer, ed., Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. III, p. 354.

¹⁶ Evans, “The Journal of Hugh Evans, Covering the First and Second Campaigns of the United States Dragoon Regiment in 1834–1835,” Perrine and Foreman, eds., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. III, p. 163.

¹⁷ Wheelock, “Peace on the Plains,” Shirk, ed., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, p. 23.

¹⁸ Ibid., pp. 23–25; Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. II, p. 71.

¹⁹ Wheelock, “Peace on the Plains,” Shirk, ed., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 29–32.

²⁰ Hildreth, The Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains, p. 178; Evans, “The Journal of Hugh Evans, Covering the First and Second Campaigns of the United States Dragoon Regiment in 1834–1835,” Perrine and Foreman, eds., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. III, p. 206; Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. II, p. 72.

²¹ Wheelock, “Peace on the Plains,” Shirk, ed., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, p. 34; James D. Morrison, “Travis G. Wright and the Leavenworth Expedition in Oklahoma,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXV, No. 2 (Spring, 1947), pp. 11–12.

²² Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. II, pp. 77–79.

²³ Evans, “The Journal of Hugh Evans, Covering the First and Second Campaigns of the United States Dragoon Regiment in 1834–1835,” Perrine and Foreman, eds., The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. III, p. 211; Wheelock, “Peace on the Plains,” Shirk, ed., ibid., Vol. XXVIII, p. 35.

²⁴ Ibid., p. 37; Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. II, p. 80.

²⁵ Colonel Henry Dodge to George W. Jones, October 1, 1834, Louis Pelzer, Marches of the Dragoons in the Mississippi Valley: An Account of Marches and Activities of the First Regiment, United States Dragoons, in the Mississippi Valley between the Years 1833 and 1850 (Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1917), p. 47.

JOSIAH GREGG, 1839–1840

By James West

American trade with Santa Fe, New Mexico began legally in 1821 with Mexico's independence. Long before Mexico had won its independence from Spain, enterprising American traders had attempted to open commerce with these isolated Spaniards. In response Spanish soldiers had arrested Americans and confiscated their merchandise; therefore, few people remained willing to risk losses transporting goods to Santa Fe. However, with Mexican independence, eager entrepreneurs soon established a trail stretching from Missouri to New Mexico. The route was long and difficult, and hostile Indian tribes often hindered success. For many years United States Army troops were required to protect wagon trains as they passed through the Indian-inhabited lands. Still, many famous and daring traders profited from their efforts to reach this new market in the west, and in the process they made the Santa Fe Trail the most popular route to that northern Mexican frontier outpost. However, in 1839 and 1840, Josiah Gregg, an easterner who for years had been interested in the Mexican trade, pioneered yet a new route. From Van Buren, Arkansas, Gregg marked a trail across parts of present-day Oklahoma. His journey remains significantly more important to Oklahoma than the usual Santa Fe Trail trade, for he crossed the width of the state and kept a detailed report of his progress. Ultimately, he published the story in his widely read Commerce of the Prairies. In this work his lucid and descriptive comments accurately portray Oklahoma many years before white settlement.¹

Gregg came by his explorer's desire honestly. His ancestors had settled in Pennsylvania during the seventeenth century and for 200 years continued to migrate westward. He was born in Tennessee in 1806, but his family soon moved to Independence, Missouri, where the lad first heard the tales of the Santa Fe traders.² Books also attracted young Gregg's attention. Denied a first rate college education, he nevertheless read widely, studying mathematics and astronomy. The earnest scholar even studied medicine.³

Josiah Gregg, who pioneered a road across Oklahoma to Santa Fe

Unfortunately, throughout his life he was plagued with poor health. In 1831 he became seriously ill with what doctors called consumption or tuberculosis. Medical practice of the day prompted physicians to suggest he would die soon, and as a last resort Gregg joined a trading expedition bound for Santa Fe and a vastly different climate. His health improved during the journey and with his arrival at Santa Fe. The trip was crucial in his life, for while at the Mexican outpost, Gregg demonstrated an ability to learn languages, including sufficient Spanish to communicate with the local inhabitants.⁴ Contemporaries have described Gregg variously, but a letter published in 1894 contains the best portrayal. The author described Gregg as:⁵

about five feet ten inches in height, though from the meagreness of his figure looking somewhat taller; he had a fine head and an intellectual cast of countenance and temperament, though his mouth and the lower part of his face showed that he had enjoyed but a limited extent the refining influence of civilization. He had fine blue eyes and an honest, although not a cheerful expression, due, as I afterward learned, to chronic dyspepsia. He was withal very shy and as modest as a schoolgirl.

Between 1831 and 1840 Gregg actually crossed the prairies four times. Each crossing brought new adventures, but the expedition of 1839–1840 across present-day Oklahoma was the most exciting and important. Gregg's route, a new one to Santa Fe, also provided a major route to the gold fields of California in 1849.⁶ Significantly, Gregg's expedition of 1839–1840 was the result of a French blockade of Mexican ports.⁷ In 1838 the French government had sent its fleet to Mexico to force payment of 600,000 pesos in reparation for the sacking of the Parian Market in Mexico City in 1828; the ensuing brief war has been dubbed the “Pastry War,” and had scant international importance. However, Gregg closely had watched the Mexican blockade and its effect, and he decided early in 1839 that with the major Mexican port of Vera Cruz closed to ship traffic, great opportunity existed for supplying the Mexican frontier outposts with badly needed supplies. Once outfitted and ready to leave on his trip to Santa Fe, Gregg decided that he must move quickly along a southern route to Mexican territory. Hence, he headed across Indian Territory. Moreover, to be near a source of drinking water, Gregg led his men along the banks of the Canadian River.⁸

Gregg's expedition was comprised of thirty-four men from seven nations. Gregg remarked that this assortment of nationalities “produced at times a very respectable jumble of discordant sounds.”⁹ The caravan consisted of sixteen wagons—two swivel guns mounted on one set of wheels provided protection. Even though these guns were of relatively small calibre, one and one-quarter inches, they were reputed to be capable of firing accurately one mile.¹⁰

Prior to departure the United States government had agreed to provide the expedition with an escort of dragoons through American territory. However, Colonel Mathew Arbuckle, the commander of Fort Gibson, Cherokee Nation, informed the party that because of unexpected problems among nearby Cherokees, the escort would not be available. Although the news dampened Gregg's spirits, he decided that the caravan would venture alone into the wilderness.¹¹

Equipped with $25,000 in choice trading goods, the merchants left Van Buren on April 21, 1839. The group made little progress during the first eight days and did not cross the Arkansas River until April 28, when they forded the river just north of the mouth of the Canadian River, near present-day Webber's Falls. A few miles beyond the falls the expedition temporarily stalled, for one of the teamsters Gregg had hired was seized by a Cherokee shopkeeper to whom he was indebted. The unfortunate man returned with his creditor to face trial. Gregg later discovered that he had been found guilty, and had taken the “benefit” of a Cherokee bankrupt law which allowed him to take one lash with a whip for each dollar owed.¹²

On May 2 the caravan crossed the North Fork of the Canadian River near present-day Eufaula. As the travelers proceeded westward, they passed through North Fork Town, a small village of Creek Indians and American traders. Gregg's party soon reached the area of present-day Asher in Pottawatomie County on the edge of the famed Cross Timbers, a belt of dense woods which separated the eastern prairie from the arid western plains.¹³ Although previous travelers had written numerous descriptions of this area, none surpassed Gregg's:¹⁴

This sketch of Josiah Gregg's party in camp while en route to Santa Fe shows both the swivel guns and the military escort which were used for protection from the Plains Indians

They may be considered as the ‘fringe’ of the great prairies, being a continuous brushy strip, composed of various kinds of undergrowth; such as black-jacks, post-oaks, and in some places hickory, elm, etc., intermixed with a very diminutive dwarf oak, called by the hunters ‘shin-oak’…The underwood is so matted in many places with grape-vines, green-briars, etc., as to form almost impenetrable ‘roughs,’ which serve as hiding-places for wild beasts, as well as wild Indians….

After the party entered the Cross Timbers, forty dragoons under the command of Second Lieutenant James M. Bowman joined the expedition with the intention of escorting them as far as the Mexican-American border. The arrival of the troopers greatly buoyed the spirits of the travelers. That evening the expedition halted at a place Gregg called Camp Holmes, but which commonly was known as Camp Mason. Four years earlier it had been the site of a meeting between federal peace commissioners and a group of Comanche and Wichita Indians. Moreover, in 1836, Auguste Pierre Chouteau, a prominent trader in the area until his death two years later, had erected a small trading fort upon the same spot near present-day Purcell.¹⁵

The terrain betwen the Arkansas River and Camp Holmes, “presented an unbroken succession of grassy plains and fertile glades, intersected here and there with woody belts and numerous rivulets, most of which, however, are generally dry except during the rainy season.”¹⁶ Although the expedition had crossed this region on a passable wagon road, this stretch of the trail gave Gregg more difficulties than the remainder of the journey. Numerous steep ascents, miry ravines and treacherous passes hindered the progress of the expedition.¹⁷

After leaving Camp Holmes on May 18, the expedition continued across a region unknown to Gregg or his men. For the next 500 miles the caravan had neither pilot nor road to guide it; instead, it depended entirely upon compass, sextant and knowledge of the geographical location of Santa Fe. As Gregg remarked, “This was emphatically a pioneer trip; such a one also as had, perhaps, never before been undertaken….”¹⁸

Following the Canadian River, the adventurers traveled northwest along a ridge separating the Canadian and the North Fork. In this fashion the expedition crossed parts of present-day Cleveland, Oklahoma, Canadian and Blaine counties. After traveling approximately eighty miles Gregg happened upon a beautiful prairie vale located between present-day Geary and Greenfield in Blaine County. He named it Spring Valley because of the numerous spring-fed brooks. The excited travelers found an abundance of perch and trout in the “limpid pools” of the “gurgling rivulets.” The valley was cloaked in rich vegetation because of the “dark and mellow” soil. Gregg speculated that he would find few such valleys suitable for cultivation further west, due to the aridness and poor soil of the high plains.¹⁹

After leaving Spring Valley the expedition continued its northwestward march. Gregg discovered that he had gone too far north, thus his caravan turned south, crossing a ridge of timber. Here the travelers discovered, “a multitude of gravelly, bright-flowing streams, with rich bottoms, lined all along with stately white oak, black-walnut, mulberry, and other similar growths….”²⁰ The party experienced few difficulties and continued marching between the Canadian River and the timbered ridge. As the wagon train traveled westward, the men saw few buffalo; nevertheless, they feasted on an abundance of smaller game, including deer, wild turkey, partridge and grouse. By May 30 the explorers reached the northern bend of the Canadian near present-day Taloga, and encountered once again a vast expanse of prairie. The group then marched westward across present-day central Dewey and Ellis counties.²¹ The expedition entered a line of gypsum hills, and discovered, “a region that abounded in gypsum, from the finest quality down to ordinary plaster.”²²

On the night of May 31 the party encamped along a stream which Gregg named Gypsum Creek, possibly present-day Persimmon Creek located near Richmond in Woodward County. Gregg determined the latitude to be 36° 10′, which was the most northern point that the caravan traveled. The following day the wagon train continued south through a region dominated by nearly barren sandy hills, with little evidence of water. Vegetation was scant except for the abundance of shin-oaks and dwarf plum bushes which Gregg described in his journals:²³

These singular-looking plants (undistinguishable at a distance from the grass of the prairies) were heavily laden with acorns and plums, which, when ripe, are of considerable size, although the trunks of either were seldom thicker than oak-straws, and frequently not a foot high.

The scarcity of water in the area briefly alarmed the men, but fortunately Gregg discovered a pool where the party replenished its exhausted supply.²⁴

The expedition continued southwestward, encountering herds of buffalo and antelope. The men occasionally saw wild mustangs which Gregg observed would “now and then sweep across the naked country, or come curvetting and capering in the vicinity of our little caravan….”²⁵ However, the animal which most captivated the attention of the travelers was the prairie dog. And as the expedition encountered numerous “dog towns,” dog hunting became a great sport.²⁶

By June 5 Gregg's party again approached firm, rolling prairie. Gregg determined the latitude to be near the international boundary between the United States and Mexico—the caravan had left present-day Oklahoma. Although Gregg's party still had more than 400 miles to travel before reaching Santa Fe, its departure from Indian Territory ended the most difficult part of its journey.²⁷

The expedition spent more than seven months on Mexican soil and began its return trip on February 25, 1840. The caravan included forty-seven men, twenty-eight wagons, in addition to the two small cannons. Seeking a better and shorter route, Gregg chose to return along the south bank of the Canadian River. Thus, the expedition crossed over 400 miles of entirely new country before reentering American territory.²⁸

In the third week of March 1840, the caravan reached the boundary of Indian Territory. Gregg was relieved when he led his men back on American soil. His first sighting of the United States was a view of the Boundary Mountains, which today are known as the Antelope Hills, located in the northern part of Roger Mills County. The travelers encountered sandy terrain while crossing present-day Roger Mills and Dewey counties. Fortunately, this did not hinder the wagons because the high tough grass which covered this sandy expanse allowed them to pass along the ground surface without difficulty.

However, the grass was a serious fire hazard. Gregg recorded in his diary that, “We have been molested by tall dry grass for some days; but always found spots of short grass to encamp in; but this evening we were compelled to pitch our camp in this dry grass.”²⁹ Although the party was warned repeatedly, a serious prairie fire threatened their camp on the evening of March 26. Fortunately, the expedition suffered no damages.

Near present Rock Mary in Dewey County, Gregg sighted the Teton Mounds which he had viewed from the north side of the Canadian River the previous summer. Using these as landmarks, the caravan steered a direct course for the river. Before crossing the Canadian, the party encamped on Cedar Branch, a tributary. Gregg described the area as:³⁰

…timbered with abundance of cedar, besides oak, mulberry, etc.,…The ravines making into it are similar to those of Cedar Branch which makes to North Fork—being washed out of solid sandstone.

The Canadian was forded near present Fay in Dewey County. Soon the caravan came upon the wagon tracks which they had made the previous summer. The weary spirits of the travelers were lifted, and the remainder of the trip passed without serious incident. On April 22, 1840, the expedition arrived at Van Buren, Arkansas.³¹

The Santa Fe expedition marching across the plains

After his journey Gregg compared his new route to Santa Fe with the established trail from Independence, Missouri. Although he expected the older route to retain a preponderance of the trade, he believed that his trail across Indian Territory had much to offer. It was shorter and had earlier pasturages which allowed earlier crossing; moreover, it had fewer sandy stretches and large streams to be crossed.³²

This was Gregg's last trip across the prairies as a trader; after this expedition he attempted to divorce himself from prairie life. Yet, he was never able to adjust to the “sterile” environment of eastern civilization. His health, which had improved during his western travels, declined considerably. Accordingly, following the publication of Commerce of the Prairies in 1844, the wayward trader decided to return to prairie life. However, before doing so, he fulfilled a lifelong ambition; he studied for and was awarded a degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Gregg studied medicine late in life because of his love for science, not to establish himself in the profession. He returned to the prairies in time to participate in the Mexican War, and afterwards, like so many others, was drawn to California. On February 25, 1850, while exploring the Trinity Mountains, Josiah Gregg died from starvation and exposure. His wandering nature was laid to rest in a shallow unmarked grave in the wilds of California. That Gregg died while exploring an untamed region was fitting testimony to the manner in which he had lived.³³

Although Gregg's motivation for crossing present-day Oklahoma was purely economic, his cognizant observations have enlightened subsequent generations. That Gregg undertook this expedition qualified him for greatness; that he so eloquently recorded and published his observations insured his greatness. Although others toured the prairies of future Oklahoma, none recorded their experiences as did Gregg. His Commerce of the Prairies served as much more than a commentary on the Santa Fe trade; it gave insight into untamed western regions. Few regions in 1840 were as wild and mysterious as the Indian country. Gregg helped tame this wildness through his contacts with the inhabitants and also shed light on many of the mysteries of the region. Although the route which he pioneered played an insignificant role in the Santa Fe trade, it was utilized extensively by California-bound adventurers. Furthermore, modern readers can share Gregg's experiences and develop an understanding of the Indian Territory before the arrival of white settlers. Although much of the history of the state of Oklahoma has not been preserved for recent historians, thanks to the wandering spirit and talented pen of Josiah Gregg, some facts of this intriguing past have been recorded.

¹ Ralph P. Bieber, Southern Trails to California in 1849 (Glendale, California: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1937), p. 43; Grant Foreman, Marcy and the Gold Seekers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1939), p. 4; note by Josiah Gregg in Memoranda Book #3, Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Grant Foreman, “Early Trails Through Oklahoma,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. III, No. 2 (June, 1925), p. 105.

² Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, Max Moorhead, ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), p. xviii; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (56 vols., New York: James T. White and Company, 1926), Vol. XIX, p. 331; W. J. Ghent, “Josiah Gregg,” Dictionary of American Biography, Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds. (26 vols., New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1946), Vol. VII, pp. 597–598.

³ William E. Connelley, “Dr. Josiah Gregg, Historian of the Old Santa Fe Trail,” Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, Vol. X, Part 2 (1919–1920), p. 339; Ralph Emerson Twitchell, Dr. Josiah Gregg, Historian of the Santa Fe Trail (Santa Fe: Historical Society of New Mexico, 1924), p. 6n; John Thomas Lee, “New Found Letters of Josiah Gregg,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Vol. XL, No. 2 (April, 1930), p. 47; letter from John Gregg to Dr. George Engelmann, December 24, 1850, as cited in John Thomas Lee, “Josiah Gregg and Dr. George Engelmann,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Vol. XLI, No. 4 (October, 1931), pp. 390–391.

⁴ Connelley, “Dr. Josiah Gregg,” Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, Vol. X, p. 340; Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, Moorhead, ed., p. xix; Lee, “Gregg and Engelmann,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Vol. XLI, p. 361.

⁵ Charles S. Sargent, “Josiah Gregg,” Garden and Forest, Vol. VII, No. 307 (January 10, 1894), p. 12.

⁶ Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, Moorhead, ed., p. xix; Grant Foreman, Pioneer Days in the Early Southwest (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1926), p. 242; Lee, “New Found Letters of Josiah Gregg,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Vol. XL, pp. 50–51.

⁷ Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies: Or the Journal of a Santa Fe Trader (2 vols., New York: J. and H. G. Langley, 1845), Vol. II, p. 9.

⁸ Henry B. Parkes, A History of Mexico (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960), p. 206; Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies: Or the Journal of a Santa Fe Trader, Vol. II, pp. 9–10.

⁹ Ibid., p. 15.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Ibid., p. 16.

¹² Ibid., pp. 10–12; Ben Collins Pickett, “William L. McClellan, Choctaw Agent, West,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXXIX, No. 1 (Spring, 1961), p. 52.

¹³ Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies: Or the Journal of a Santa Fe Trader, Vol. II, pp. 12–18; Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, Moorhead, ed., p. 231 n.; Carolyn T. Foreman, The Cross Timbers (Muskogee, Oklahoma: The Star Printery, 1947), passim.

¹⁴ Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies: Or the Journal of a Santa Fe Trader, Vol. II, p. 200.

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 18; Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, Moorhead, ed., p. 231n.

¹⁶ Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies: Or the Journal of a Santa Fe Trader, Vol. II, p. 18.

¹⁷ Ibid., pp. 18–19.

¹⁸ Ibid., pp. 19–20.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 23.

²⁰ Ibid., p. 27.

²¹ Ibid., pp. 27–30.

²² Ibid., p. 30.

²³ Ibid., p. 31.

²⁴ Ibid., pp. 31–32.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 32.

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 32–33.

²⁸ Ibid., pp. 137–138.

²⁹ Josiah Gregg, Memoranda Book #3, Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, p. 35.

³⁰ Ibid., p. 38.

³¹ Ibid., pp. 48, 54.

³² Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies: Or the Journal of a Santa Fe Trader, Vol. II, pp. 155–156.

³³ Ibid., pp. 156–157; Lee, “New Found Letters of Josiah Gregg,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Vol. XL, p. 51; Lee, “Gregg and Engelmann,” Ibid., pp. 360–361; Twitchell, Dr. Josiah Gregg, Historian of the Santa Fe Trail, p. 45.

CAPTAIN NATHAN BOONE, 1843

By Jimmy M. Skaggs

Throughout the summer of 1843, Nathan Boone—frontiersman, businessman, politician, soldier and the son of the famous pioneer—explored the Indian Territory along the Arkansas River watershed. While his company of dragoons prepared to provide protection for traders who plied the Santa Fe Trail, Boone meticulously observed the countryside, charting the terrain, assessing the potential of readily exploitable mineral resources, marveling at the stark beauty of the largely unexplored region he traversed and forecasting with considerable accuracy the ecological consequences of frontier settlement. The observations he made added yet another chapter to the white man's knowledge of the Southwest.

Nathan Boone, the youngest son of Daniel and Rebecca (Bryan) Boone, was born at Boonesborough, Kentucky, on March 2, 1780. When Nathan was eighteen, his father—no doubt feeling hemmed in by onrushing civilization, which increasingly was seeping through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky—decided to move westward, settling upon Missouri as a likely place to begin again. In 1794 Daniel Boone had been given a grant of land near present St. Charles, Missouri, by Don Zenon Trudeau, the Spanish governor of Louisiana; five years later, Boone accompanied by his family and likeminded Kentuckians, who also felt crowded when the smoke from a neighbor's chimney could be seen on the horizon, began his trek westward. Along the way, and while floating down the Ohio River with his mother and brother, Daniel, Nathan apparently met sixteen-year-old Olive Van Bibber, for he wooed and won her within a matter of days. The newlyweds continued westward, arriving in St. Charles County early in the fall.¹

A tall, powerfully built man with steel-blue eyes and blond hair, Nathan set to the task of creating a home for himself and his soon-pregnant bride. He erected a log cabin on the land awarded his father, cleared a portion of the acreage and planted his first crop. To supplement his income, he undertook a variety of tasks. In 1802, in partnership with a William T. Lamme, he trapped approximately 900 beavers, selling the pelts for $2.50 each; these excellent returns encouraged him, in spite of problems with local Osages who pilfered from his traps and, not infrequently, purloined large bundles of pelts, to continue to trap along the Missouri River. On occasion, once Missouri fell to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase, he was employed by the federal government to survey portions of the largely unknown territory. In 1807, and in partnership with his brother, Daniel, he located and began exploiting salt springs in present Howard County, Missouri. The salt manufacturing business was so profitable that it was expanded the following year, netting the frontier entrepreneur a handsome return and forever identifying the location as “Boone's Lick.” Had it not been for escalating hostilities between encroaching whites and obstinately defiant Indians, Nathan reportedly would have moved his growing family to Boone's Lick.²

Captain Nathan Boone, who was sent to examine the reported salt deposits along the Arkansas River

In 1808 Boone enlisted in the territorial militia, an activity which was to occupy much of his time until the end of the War of 1812. Elected captain of militia at the outset of his service, Boone and his fellow Missourians chased the Osage tribe relentlessly—forcing it by the end of the year to surrender its land claims in Missouri. Four years later, when Indians north of the Missouri River began raiding into the territory, Boone again saw active duty. His six-month tour was extended, however, when war with Great Britain began, for his company was absorbed by the Missouri Rangers and ordered to patrol the frontier. By June 1815 when the Rangers were disbanded and Boone mustered out of the service, he had risen to the rank of major of volunteers.³

For the next several years, Boone returned to the relatively placid life of a farmer. He improved his holdings and built a large, two-story stone house on his land where his father, Daniel, lived out his declining years. Nathan served as a delegate to the Missouri Constitutional Convention and fought valiantly but vainly to have the state capital located in St. Charles, near his home. And, again, he worked for the federal government, this time surveying lands in Iowa. By 1832 he appeared to be content with his prosperous agrarian life, surrounded as he was by his wife and thirteen children.⁴

The Black Hawk War changed that. When hostilities erupted in the Illinois-Wisconsin region in 1832, spilling over into eastern Missouri, Boone volunteered for service with a cavalry battalion, called the Mounted Rangers, being organized by Colonel Henry Dodge. Captain Boone's company saw limited action in the conflict and, along with two other units from the Mounted Rangers, was transferred to Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory to assist the Stokes Commission, which was struggling to settle eastern tribes—Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole—on reservations. It was then that he accepted a commission as a captain in the regular army, apparently having decided to make the military a career.⁵

By act of Congress in 1833, the Rangers were reorganized as the First Dragoon Regiment, with Colonel Dodge commanding, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen B. Kearny as executive officer, and Captain Boone leading one company of the heavily armed cavalry unit. For the next decade, Boone served with the regiment in the Indian Territory and on brief assignments as far north as Iowa.⁶ Boone certainly proved himself worthy of Dodge's assessment in a fitness report in 1834—that the captain was “a first rate officer…. He is a good woodsman and would be valuable on a expedition and has good knowledge of the southwestern frontier.”⁷

In 1843 Boone's frontier resourcefulness and business expertise were called upon to expand the military's knowledge of the region. Brevet Brigadier General Zachary Taylor, commanding the Indian Military Department from his headquarters at Fort Smith, Arkansas, directed the First Dragoons at Fort Gibson, in the Cherokee Nation, to reconnoiter the boundary between the United States and whoever—Texas or Mexico—eventually established undisputed control over the region beyond the One-Hundredth Meridian. The expedition was to explore generally the area between the Arkansas and Red rivers as far west as the international boundary, to escort any traders plying the Santa Fe Trail to the ford of the Arkansas River—that is, their crossing of the border—and to locate and to evaluate salt deposits that were reported to lie between the two watersheds. The assignment was given to Captain Boone—obviously because he was an experienced officer but also because of his firsthand experience with the commercial exploitation of salt deposits.⁸

Boone selected two junior officers and sixty enlisted men to form his irregular detachment, which was to proceed up the Arkansas River and rendezvous with Company D, First Dragoons, under First Lieutenant Abraham H. Johnston. On May 14 Boone's command departed Fort Gibson and marched west-northwestwardly. The first week of the trek was largely uneventful, passing as it did through an area already well explored by the military attached to the Indian Department. Boone crossed the Verdigris River on the initial day of the journey at Unswatoy's Ferry, near present Okay, Oklahoma. Some twenty-two miles west-northwest of Fort Gibson, in present Wagoner County, the party located a mineral spring heavily laced with chalybeate, or iron salts, in a sandstone outcropping that reminded some of the troopers of formations near Little Rock, Arkansas. Three days’ march took Boone approximately thirty-one miles northwest of the fort, to a point near New Tulsa, where—buffeted the next morning by heavy rain and cold wind from the north—he ordered his command to remain bivouacked. Camp was moved one mile to higher ground the following day, Boone having decided to await Johnston and Company D; when they failed to arrive by nightfall, he determined to continue his mission, hoping that the lieutenant would be able to overtake him. Eighteen miles of additional travel brought the party to a point just west of present-day Tulsa, in rolling hill country dotted, here and there, with white oak, black jack, post oak and black birch trees. On the twentieth of May the dragoons proceeded another eighteen miles northwestward, along the north bank of the Arkansas River, to the ford of the Osage Trail, at a point almost due east of present Blackburn, Oklahoma. There, while allowing his troops to rest the next day—a Sunday—and while awaiting Johnston, Boone surveyed the remains of a large Indian encampment.⁹

On May 21 Lieutenant Johnston, Company D, and a Dr. Simpson, who held the rank of assistant surgeon, joined Captain Boone's command. Learning that a party of Texans, under the leadership of a Colonel Ryburn, had reportedly crossed the Red River and was proceeding toward the territory disputed by Texas and Mexico, Boone decided to cross the Arkansas, to travel westward, and to “fall in with Ryburn's party.”¹⁰ Fording the river proved to be an arduous task that required most of May 22. The detachment's three wagons were unloaded, provisions being placed in a bark canoe that had been constructed the day before; ten trips were required to ferry the materiel across the wide, chest-deep Arkansas River. The wagons were laboriously hauled over by their teams, and the troopers spurred their mounts to trudge to the south bank. Once the wagons were reloaded, Boone ordered his men to continue westward for about two miles where a campsite was selected. There, the exhausted party rested for the night, simultaneously allowing assorted supplies the chance to dry.¹¹

On May 23 the march was resumed in a generally northwestwardly direction. The next day, Boone's adjutant noted that the detachment crossed a large creek, whose running water was unusually red—probably Black Bear Creek—and that the region's soil, recently moistened by abundant rainfall, had been transformed into reddish, sticky goo, which presented problems both for the horses and the wagons. Everywhere, along every stream, thick forests of sycamores, ash, hickory and cottonwood abounded; the crest of every hillock offered views, the scribe insisted, that were “expansive and beautiful.” The following day, May 25, the expedition reached a wide, flowing river that Boone guessed to be what then was called the Red Fork—now the Salt Fork—of the Arkansas River. The detachment camped on the south bank, at a point just across from present White Eagle, Oklahoma. Reconnoitering the area the following dawn, Boone discovered the confluence of the Salt Fork and the main channel of the Arkansas River about five miles northeast of his campsite. He was struck by the purity of the stream from the north—especially as contrasted with its ochre-colored tributary, which coursed through rich deposits of clay.¹²

Having satisfied himself of his location on the morning of the twenty-sixth, Boone ordered his command westward along the north bank of the Salt Fork. He forded the river near present Tonkawa and continued another four or five miles further west, where, beside a tributary that abounded with walnut trees, camp was pitched. The countryside had become increasingly flat, tending toward level plains, and shelter—in the form of timber—except along the course of streams, was becoming increasingly rare. An additional twenty miles were consumed in marching the following day, as the dragoons paralleled the south bank of the Salt Fork. The column encountered few trees but, occasionally, signs of buffalo. Boone lamented the slaughter of the animals, which, by 1843, he estimated to take 100,000 bison annually. “The destruction of these animals yearly [by white hunters, he predicted] and their falling off so rapidly makes it certain, almost, that in a few years they will only be known as a rare species.”¹³ On the morning of the twenty-seventh, the detachment made camp near the present site of Pond Creek, Oklahoma. At sunset, a dark cloud rolled in from the northwest, and the spring thunderstorm drenched the troops; hail the size of hen's eggs frightened the horses, many of which stampeded. At dawn, the skittish animals returned to camp. Usually marching by 7:00 a.m., Boone delayed his departure until 10:00 on the twenty-eighth to allow provisions the chance to dry. As a result, the column had traversed merely eleven miles that day, when it halted to select a campsite on the south bank of the Salt Fork, at a point almost due south of present Hawley, Oklahoma.¹⁴

Members of the First United States Dragoons who marched to the Great Salt Plains of Oklahoma in 1843

Boone broke camp at 7:00 a.m. on the morning of the twenty-ninth and ordered his men westward. Before noon, advanced elements sighted a lone Indian and gave chase. Soon they overtook about thirty-five to forty Osage. Discussions with the Indians revealed that the salt deposits for which Boone searched were within twenty miles, and the officer decided to camp with the Osage and use them as guides the following day. At dawn, the dragoons discovered that ten of their horses and two of their mules were missing, lariates having been cut; accusations directed at the Osages were rebuffed, they claiming that several of their mounts also had been pilfered during the night—they suspected by Pawnees. Boone ordered thirty troopers into the saddle to locate a trail, follow it and recover the lost property; the expedition was off by half past six. A trail was followed for thirty miles, only to be obliterated on a sandy plain that teemed with buffalo.¹⁵

Boone still harbored suspicions toward the Osage. The chief, Towangaha, again denied all charges leveled at him and his people, offering to lead the soldiers to the salt flats as evidence of his friendship. Boone reluctantly accepted, and on May 31 the combined party traveled ten miles westward and made camp on the north bank of the Salt Fork, near a small gully that emptied into the river. The following day, while troops hunted buffalo in the vicinity of their campsite, Boone, an unnamed lieutenant and two Osage journeyed some ten miles southwestward to survey the salt beds, near the present site of the Great Salt Plains Lake. While there, one of the Osage saw a figure on a distant hill. When Boone investigated, he found a well dug in the sand and moccasin prints—the telltale signs of Comanches. The commander prudently decided to return to camp with all deliberate speed.¹⁶

On June 2 the dragoons mounted all available men to scout the region for the lost animals, for the Texans, for hostile Indians and, in keeping with the detachment's orders, to survey the salt flats. Traveling southward from the camp, Boone encountered crystal-clear streams—a marked contrast to some of those near his campsite, which were either brackish from the salt or cherry red because of the clay formations through which they coursed. Quicksand offered treacherous footing at virtually every stream crossing. Everywhere, the flat, almost treeless countryside glistened in the sunlight, the crystalline salt surface reflecting light and creating the mirage of a lake as far as the eye could see. It was near the headwaters of Turkey Creek that—having seen no sign of his lost animals, Ryburn's party or hostiles—Boone ordered his dragoons back northward to their camp on the Salt Fork. They arrived shortly before sunset.¹⁷

Above all else, Captain Boone was a realist. He had wasted time looking for the phantom Texas expedition, which he apparently was beginning to think was the figment of some overactive imagination, and he had little chance of recovering his lost mounts. Consequently, on June 3 he ordered his command to march in a generally northerly direction, crossing into Kansas just east of present Kiowa and camping for the night on the “Shaw-wa-cos-pag River” or Medicine Lodge Creek. The expedition observed minor salt deposits in the area but, for the most part, was struck by the bleak nature of the countryside—a virtually treeless expanse that seemed to harbor no game.¹⁸

It is here that Boone's journal, the daily log of his expedition, becomes questionable. The dragoons clearly reconnoitered the Great Salt Plains of north-central Oklahoma during the first two days of June, departing there for the Santa Fe Trail on the third. Boone's record of march states that the party traveled twenty miles on the third, twenty miles on the fourth and ten miles on the fifth of June, by which time the expedition had struck the Arkansas River. At best, Boone had traversed sixty miles since leaving the Salt Plains—according to his own account—which, perhaps, would have taken him as far north as the headwaters of the North Fork of the Ninnescah River. Yet, he asserted to have reached the Arkansas, which lay some seventy miles farther north.¹⁹

The discrepancy is not easily reconciled. Boone's principal chroniclers, Louis Pelzer, in Marches of the Dragoons and Carolyn Foreman, in a 1941 issue of The Chronicles of Oklahoma, judiciously skirt the issue by placing Boone wherever he claimed to have been without verifying his course with a topographical map.²⁰ The result is unsatisfactory. And when one considers that it took another week and an additional seventy-six miles of travel for Boone's detachment to link up with Captain Philip St. George Cooke, who was escorting merchants southwestward from Fort Leavenworth, along the Santa Fe Trail—the two parties meeting at the mouth of Walnut Creek on the Arkansas River—one becomes even more suspicious of Boone's journal.²¹

Several explanations are possible. Boone encountered a remnant of Towangaha's Osage tribe on June 5, and some of the Indians were riding mounts lost by Boone's party near the Great Salt Plains. Heated exchanges and, no doubt, tensions could have resulted in the inaccurate recording of journal entries. Too, since leaving the Great Salt Plains, the expedition had encountered a rolling countryside decidedly different from the wooded, hilly area it had traversed after leaving Fort Gibson. It is possible that mileage estimates, based on the number of hours traveled, became distorted as progress became easier. When Boone's journal recorded twenty miles, the actual distance traversed may well have been thirty-five, even forty—which would have placed the dragoons near where they claimed to have been. And last, while the suggestion may appear to be impertinent, it is entirely possible that Boone—an expert woodsman—became disoriented on the trackless plains and, quite simply, was lost without knowing it. In any case, students of military affairs should use his journal entries during the first two weeks of June with extreme caution and considerable skepticism.

On June 13, 1843, Boone's party unquestionably made camp on the south bank of the Arkansas River, directly across from the point at which Walnut Creek empties into the river, or about one and one-half miles east of present Great Bend, Kansas. Across the river, Captain Cooke and three companies of the Second Dragoons, stationed at Fort Leavenworth in present-day Kansas, awaited the arrival of a band of traders plying the Santa Fe Trail. The two military expeditions exchanged intelligence, both detachments observing that there had been few signs of hostile Indians, and then settled down to await the traders. Boone's men occupied their time during the ensuing week by hunting buffalo and antelope, both of which abounded throughout the region. On June 14 and 15 severe thunderstorms raked the area—the river rising to become a swollen torrent. When, on June 16, troopers from Cooke's command attempted to ford the raging stream, a mule was drowned. By June 21 Boone was eager to continue his march. Cooke's presence relieved him of the need to escort the traders southwestward to the ford of the Arkansas, and, in any case, it was impossible to know when the merchants—thwarted by the rain-swollen river—would arrive at Walnut Creek. Consequently, Boone advised Cooke that he would continue his exploration of the Indian Territory.²²

Boone's journal entries, on his return trip from the Arkansas—interestingly enough—correspond closely enough with geographic features and actual mileage that one can trace his route without difficulty or serious question. On the twenty-second he departed the Arkansas River at Walnut Creek and marched fifteen miles, following a course that was three degrees west of due south; he noted in his journal the existence of salt marshes a few miles east of his campsite, which would indicate he was just west of the present Quivera National Wildlife Refuge, in Stafford County, Kansas. On the twenty-third, the dragoons traveled eighteen miles and on the twenty-fourth, twelve. The detachment pitched camp on a stream it assumed to be the Ninnescah; forty-five miles of march would have placed the expedition on the South Fork of the Ninnescah River at a point near present Pratt, Kansas. On the twenty-fifth, a Sunday, Boone's party remained bivouacked, resuming its trek southward the following day—travel becoming increasingly difficult. The region between the South Ninnescah and Medicine Lodge Creek, where the detachment camped on June 27, is broken and rugged. The route Boone selected through the area was circuitous, often allowing no more than eight miles of travel per day. On the twenty-eighth the party crossed back into Oklahoma near the point where the Salt Fork of the Arkansas cuts the state boundary. The dragoons made camp about six miles further southward. Boone was approximately thirty-five miles northwest of the Great Salt Plains.²³

Though the general land features of present-day Oklahoma were known by the time of Boone's expedition, it was hoped that by examining the region around the Grand Saline and Strong Saline rivers, as well as Saline Creek, he would find large enough deposits of salt to be commercially valuable

On June 29 the expedition marched south-southwestwardly and camped on a small stream it supposed to be a branch of the Nescatunga—Salt Fork of the Arkansas. Clearly, it had struck the Cimarron River about seven miles southeast of present Freedom, Oklahoma, for the very next day Boone crossed the river and encountered another Salt Plain that was laced with small, sandy hillocks. His description coincides with the region known as the Little Sahara Recreational Area. Boone investigated the area for three days—talking with those Indians who passed by and scouting the general course of the river—before he correctly concluded that he was on the Cimarron and not a tributary of the Salt Fork. Between July 3 and 6 the dragoons descended the Cimarron as far south and east as present Isabella, Oklahoma.²⁴

On the morning of July 7 Boone's detachment buried one of its number, a Private Boone who had been ill with “a disease of the brain” since leaving the Arkansas and who had died during the night. The commander then ordered his men westward once more, for a final reconnoitering of the area. Thirty miles of march, accomplished in two days, brought the party to the North Fork of the Canadian, about ten miles west of the present Canton Reservoir; again, along the way, Boone noted the preponderance of gypsum deposits in most of the streams he crossed. Thunderstorms slowed progress on the ninth and tenth of June, but on the eleventh the dragoons struck the main channel of the Canadian River just west of present Camargo, Oklahoma. Off to the west, some twenty miles away, the column estimated, were the gypsum hills that supplied the salts so common in the river; the geological formation known as Antelope Hills were in fact twenty-three miles west of Boone's encampment.²⁵

Having accomplished his mission—to investigate the Great Salt Plains, to reconnoiter the country northward to the Santa Fe Trail and to survey the western reaches of the Canadian watershed toward the western limits of the Indian Territory—Captain Boone decided to commence his return journey to Fort Gibson. The route selected was along the watercourse of the Canadian River. By July 18 the dragoons had descended the river as far east as present Minco, Oklahoma. There, Lieutenant Johnston and Company D departed the main column to strike a southeastwardly route to Fort Washita in the Choctaw Nation, as his orders directed. Boone continued his trek eastward toward Fort Gibson, crossing to the north bank of the Canadian. On the twenty-fifth, shortly after having crossed to the north bank of the North Fork of the Canadian River, Boone lost a second trooper. The men had stacked their rifles against trees while assisting in hauling the wagons up the cut bank of the river. One of the weapons was inadvertently knocked down. It discharged, striking a soldier from Company H in the back. He died within fifteen minutes. The unidentified man was buried near the river, and the march was resumed the following day.²⁶

The dragoons reached the military road to Fort Gibson a short distance west of Fort Holmes, on the Canadian River on the twenty-seventh, and continued their march eastward. Four days’ travel brought them to Fort Gibson. There Boone assembled his men on the parade grounds before dismissing them, their mission having been accomplished.²⁷

Boone's scout, journal and report augmented sketchy knowledge of the Indian Territory, an area that had yet to be explored or evaluated adequately. His location and appraisal of salt deposits in north-central Oklahoma merely hinted at the enormity of mineral wealth that the region hid beneath its placid facade, and his march to the Arkansas River—questionable though parts of it may be—demonstrated effectively that the military, stationed in the Indian Territory, could, if called upon, furnish additional protection for traders who journeyed westward over the Santa Fe Trail.

Boone remained in the military for another decade, before retiring in 1853. During the Mexican War, he continued to draw garrison duty at various posts in the Indian Territory and in Arkansas. In 1847 he was promoted to major and, three years later, to lieutenant colonel. For the last three years of his career, Boone was executive officer of the Second Dragoon Regiment. In 1853 he retired and returned to his home in Missouri, where he died in 1856 or 1857.²⁸

¹ Josiah Gregg, “Commerce of the Prairies,” 2 parts, Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846 (32 vols.; Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1905), Pt. 2, Vol. XX, p. 213; Carolyn Thomas Foreman, “Nathan Boone: Trapper, Manufacturer, Surveyor, Militiaman, Legislator, Ranger, and Dragoon,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XIX, No. 4 (December, 1941), pp. 322–323.

² Ibid., pp. 323–324, 345.

³ Ibid., pp. 324–327.

⁴ Ibid., pp. 326–327, 345. Daniel Boone died in 1820.

⁵ Ibid., pp. 327–328; Gregg, “Commerce of the Prairies,” Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, Pt. 2, Vol. XX, p. 213; Arrell M. Gibson, Oklahoma, A History of Five Centuries (Norman, Oklahoma: Harlow Publishing Corporation, 1965), pp. 92–93. The precise reason for Boone's decision to abandon farming for an army career is unclear; the simplest explanation is that, bored by the relative humdrum of farming, Boone found military life exciting.

⁶ Foreman, “Nathan Boone: Trapper, Manufacturer, Surveyor, Militiaman, Legislator, Ranger, and Dragoon,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XIX, pp. 329–338; Gibson, Oklahoma, p. 98ff.

⁷ Foreman, “Nathan Boone: Trapper, Manufacturer, Surveyor, Militiaman, Legislator, Ranger, and Dragoon,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XIX, p. 330.

⁸ Ibid., p. 338; Louis Pelzer, Marches of the Dragoons in the Mississippi Valley: An Account of Marches and Activities of the First Regiment, United States Dragoons, in the Mississippi Valley between the Years 1833 and 1850 (Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1917), p. 97. Nathan Boone's report to Brevet Brigadier General Zachary Taylor and his journal are reprinted in Pelzer's Marches of the Dragoons…and are the principal sources used to trace his expedition.

⁹ Nathan Boone, “Journal,” May 14-21, 1843, Pelzer, Marches of the Dragoons in the Mississippi Valley: An Account of Marches and Activities of the First Regiment, United States Dragoons, in the Mississippi Valley between the Years 1833 and 1850, pp. 189–191; Nathan Boone to Brevet Brigadier General Zachary Taylor, August 11, 1843, ibid., p. 183; Foreman, “Nathan Boone: Trapper, Manufacturer, Surveyor, Militiaman, Legislator, Ranger and Dragoon,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XIX, p. 338.

¹⁰ Boone to Taylor, August 11, 1843, Pelzer, Marches of the Dragoons in the Mississippi Valley: An Account of Marches and Activities of the First Regiment, United States Dragoons, in the Mississippi Valley between the Years 1833 and 1850, p. 183.

¹¹ Boone, “Journal,” May 22, 1843, ibid., pp. 191–192.

¹² Boone to Taylor, May 23–26, 1843, ibid., pp. 192–196.

¹³ Boone to Taylor, May 27, 1843, ibid., p. 197.

¹⁴ Boone to Taylor, May 26–28, 1843, ibid., pp. 195–199.

¹⁵ Boone to Taylor, May 29–30, 1843, ibid., pp. 199–222; Boone to Taylor, August 11, 1843, ibid., pp. 183–184.

¹⁶ Boone, “Journal,” May 31–June 1, 1843, ibid., pp. 200–202.

¹⁷ Boone, “Journal,” June 2, 1843, ibid., pp. 202–203.

¹⁸ Boone, “Journal,” June 3, 1843, ibid., pp. 203–204.

¹⁹ Boone, “Journal,” June 3–5, 1843, ibid., pp. 203–205.

²⁰ Ibid., pp. 98–99; Foreman, “Nathan Boone: Trapper, Manufacturer, Surveyor, Militiaman, Legislator, Ranger, and Dragoon,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XIX, pp. 338–339.

²¹ Boone, “Journal,” June 5–13, 1843, Pelzer, Marches of the Dragoons in the Mississippi Valley: An Account of Marches and Activities of the First Regiment, United States Dragoons, in the Mississippi Valley between the Years 1833 and 1850, pp. 205–209.

²² Boone, “Journal,” June 13–21, 1843, ibid., pp. 209–213.

²³ Boone, “Journal,” June 22–28, 1843, ibid., pp. 213–218.

²⁴ Boone, “Journal,” June 29–July 6, 1843, ibid., pp. 218–222.

²⁵ Boone, “Journal,” July 6–11, 1843, ibid., pp. 222–226.

²⁶ Boone, “Journal,” July 12–25, ibid., pp. 226–235.

²⁷ Boone, “Journal,” July 26–31, 1843, ibid., pp. 235–237.

²⁸ Foreman, “Nathan Boone: Trapper, Manufacturer, Surveyor, Militiaman, Legislator, Ranger, and Dragoon,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XIX, pp. 339–347.

CAPTAIN RANDOLPH BARNES MARCY, 1849–1852

By Carl Tyson

By the mid-nineteenth century, the United States had expanded across North America, reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. From New York to California, Americans could call the land theirs. The United States was coming of age, but despite the refinement of Boston and the bustling of San Francisco, much of the region stretching from the Mississippi to the Rockies and from Texas to the Dakota country lay unknown and unsettled, guarding its secrets from white men. Intrepid explorers such as Zebulon M. Pike and Second Lieutenant John C. Fremont had wandered the American West, but much of the fact of what Jefferson had bought in 1803 remained veiled except to the eyes of wandering tribes of aborigines.

President Thomas Jefferson had organized two expeditions to ascend the Red River to its source. Both had failed. Zebulon Pike had set out across the West in 1805 to discover the sources of the Arkansas and Red rivers. He had failed, mainly due to problems of his own making. In 1820 Major Stephen Harriman Long, a dour and scholarly explorer, had failed to reach the Red River because he mistook the Canadian River for his goal. Thus the upper reaches of the Red River remained the domain of the redman. This situation could not be allowed to continue. The Red River, an important international boundary for many years, and, in 1850, the northern border of Texas, could not remain unknown to its owners. The task fell to Captain Randolph Barnes Marcy of the Fifth Infantry, an infantryman who possessed unique and outstanding abilities.¹

Randolph Marcy was born in Greenwich, Massachusetts, in 1812, and graduated from the United States Military Academy twenty years later. Until 1849 his career had been relatively undistinguished. That year he earned acclaim for his talents as a pathfinder by guiding a group of gold-seekers across the American West to California. The discovery of gold in California had created a serious demand for a rapid and safe route to that territory. The situation took on crisis proportions when groups of gold hungry easterners began gathering at the western outposts hoping to find a way to reach California. Inasmuch as the Federal Government could not—or would not—allow these people to attempt to transverse the wilderness without professional guidance, it was necessary to locate persons who could lead them to the western utopia. Randolph Marcy was appointed in the early spring of 1849 to meet with a group of the “argonauts” and lead them to California. The rendezvous took place in Fort Smith, Arkansas. There Marcy found several hundred travelers eager to leave for the gold fields.²

The California Trail, opened by Captain Randolph B. Marcy in 1849, stretched across Oklahoma to the gold fields in California

In addition to taking the group to California, Marcy was ordered to blaze a suitable trail for future treasure seekers. The first leg of the journey took Marcy through the southern half of the Indian Territory. The group left Fort Smith in May 1849. Marcy took his command in a generally southwesterly direction after leaving Fort Smith until striking the Canadian River. At the Canadian the explorer determined that the river would provide a useful signpost for his and future journeys. The group followed the southern bank of that river throughout the rest of the trip through the Indian Territory. The journey was largely uneventful except for the wonder and excitement created by the large geological formation Rock Mary. Marcy guided the immigrants without serious mishap to California, laying out a path that would be used frequently by latter-day travelers.³ From 1849 until 1852 Marcy explored the region surrounding the headwaters of the Trinity, Brazos and Colorado rivers of Texas. During this period he noticed “the remarkable fact that a portion of one of the largest and most important rivers in the United States…remained up to that late period wholly unexplored and unknown, no white man having ever ascended the stream [the Red River] to its sources…. In a word, the country embraced within the basin of Upper Red river had always been to us a ‘terra incognita.’”⁴ On March 5, 1852, Randolph Marcy was instructed to remedy this situation.⁵

Marcy was ordered to make his exploration without unnecessary delay. Therefore he proceeded to the Red River, arriving near the mouth of the Little Wichita River in May of 1852. His second-in-command was Brevet Captain George B. McClellan, a close friend and his future son-in-law. Arrangements were made for supplies to be shipped overland by wagons from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to the mouth of Cache Creek, the official starting point of the expedition. Therefore, Marcy, McClellan and a small contingent of soldiers followed the Red River from the mouth of the Little Wichita to Cache Creek, arriving there on May 13. Finding that the supply train had not yet arrived because of heavy rains, Marcy explored the surrounding area. The explorer was impressed by the plant life of the area, noting the size and quantity of trees. The next day the baggage train arrived, and the expedition began in earnest.⁶

Staying along the river, the party moved westward. On the seventeenth, buffalo tracks were found, exciting the explorers. Marcy remarked, “We are anxiously awaiting the time when we shall see the animals themselves, and anticipate much sport.”⁷ However, the Indians who had been hired as guides informed the party that the tracks were five days old and that the buffalo were far away. The sport would have to wait. However, that evening the explorers got an unexpected and dubious surprise. One of the guides informed them that a cougar had crossed the river nearby and was heading toward their camp. Immediately the soldiers were armed and set their hunting dogs loose. The dogs, elated to be free from their shackles, sprinted into the darkness. However, Marcy noted that “the zeal which they manifested in starting out from camp, suddenly abated as soon as their olfactories came in contact with the track….” Nonetheless, the soldiers convinced the rightfully cautious canines to continue, and the cougar was soon treed. Marcy arrived at the scene first and “fired several shots, which took effect and soon placed him ‘hors du combat.’”⁸ Marcy's first big game trophy of the journey measured eight and a half feet from nose to tail.⁹

The next day the party was forced to leave the Red River because the rugged terrain prevented the wagons from transversing the banks. In the afternoon the party was astonished by a freshet in the waters of a small stream on which they had camped. An hour after they had found the stream empty except for occasional holes of water, it was filled with a “perfect torrent.” Marcy was amazed because the skies had been clear for several days; his Indian guides informed him that it was a gift from the Great Spirit.¹⁰

The next day the rains that had swollen the creek reached the party, drenching the men and making progress impossible for two days. On the twenty-second the group continued, having sighted the Wichita Mountains. That afternoon they reached a small tributary of the Red which they named Otter Creek in honor of the abundant inhabitants of the stream. A short excursion up this stream to its exit from the Wichitas revealed deposits of quartz which contained small flakes of gold. These same formations would lure latter-day prospectors to the region to search vainly for a mother lode.¹¹

The rains which had slowed progress continued, leading Marcy to conclude that, because the region was usually dry, the effects of the Wichita Mountains protruding into the atmosphere had created the heavy downpours. On May 26 they sighted their first buffalo, and one was killed by an Indian guide. Marcy noted that the country changed near the mountains. Also, the river was different there. Whereas it previously had been wide and slow moving, it now was a narrow, rushing torrent.¹²

On the twenty-seventh the explorers met a party of Wichita Indians who had been hunting buffalo. The natives had many horses loaded with meat and were bound for their villages. The chief told Marcy that he had been searching for the white men for several days, having heard of their presence and wanted to know what their business was in his land. Marcy replied that he was going to the headwaters of the Red River and assured the chief of the peaceful intent of his mission. Also, gifts were distributed among the natives. Marcy then warned the chief that the Republic of Texas had become part of the United States and that depredations into Texas would result in severe punishment for the offending Indians.¹³

After these preliminaries were concluded, Marcy asked the chief for information about the country upriver. The reply was disheartening. Marcy recorded the chief's assertion that:¹⁴

…we would find one more stream of good water about two days’ travel…that we should then leave the mountains, and after that find no more fresh water to the sources of the river. The chief represented the river from where it leaves the mountains as flowing over an elevated flat prairie country, totally destitute of water, wood, or grass, and the only substitute for fuel that could be had was the buffalo ‘chips.’

Marcy then asked if holes of fresh water could be found. The chief replied that all water was soaked into the porous earth as soon as it fell from the sky.¹⁵

The natives soon left the party, but their information stayed. The explorer wrote that “it would seem that we have anything but an agreeable prospect before us.”¹⁶ But he would not forsake his mission: “As soon…as the creek will admit of fording, I shall, without subjecting the command to too great privations, push forward as far as possible into this most inhospitable and dreaded salt desert.”¹⁷ Randolph Marcy had not received command of the expedition due to his timidity.

The next day the explorers discovered by lunar observations that their camp was near the point “where the line dividing the Choctaw territory from the State of Texas crossed Red river.”¹⁸ Accordingly, the exact spot was marked by carving the longitude—100° 0′ 45″—and latitude—34° 34′ 6″—on a convenient tree. Also the next day, May 29, McClellan located and marked the point where the One-Hundredth Meridian crossed the Red River.¹⁹

On May 30 the party marched to the confluence of the Red and its North Fork. Here the stream was six hundred and fifty yards wide. After passing the confluence of the streams, the explorers progressed up the North Fork without hardship for two days, arriving at the mouth of the Salt Fork. The contents of this stream were brackish and salty, polluting the contents of the main channel. Also, the waters in the main stream were found to contain minerals and salts which made it unpalatable. However, fresh-water springs were located which provided sufficient quantities of drinking water. Near the mouth of the Salt Fork the party found a large mountain which they named Mount Webster in honor of Daniel Webster, the Secretary of State.²⁰

Captain Randolph Barnes Marcy

Ascending the North Fork, the party found signs of a hunting party of Comanche Indians; however, no natives were sighted. Marcy noted that his guides, who were Delaware and Shawnee, were enemies of the Comanche, but that they scouted far away from the main column each day without fear; he remarked that they were ready to fight any plains Indians if the odds were not greater than six to one.²¹

On June 7 Marcy and two of the Indian guides set out to explore the surrounding area. After traveling about three miles, the trio found fresh buffalo tracks. Marcy, still anxious to make his first kill, decided to follow the tracks, hoping to overtake the animals. On reaching a rise in the countryside, he sent one of his guides to its summit to survey the area for animals. The guide, John Bull, rode to the appointed spot, and then he began a series of gyrations which ended by his leaving at a full gallop toward the horizon. Marcy and his companion followed to the top of the rise, arriving in time to sight Bull in hot pursuit of a fleeing buffalo. Marcy wrote that the native was “mounted upon one of our most fractious and spirited horses, that had never seen a buffalo before, and on coming near the animal he seemed perfectly frantic with fear, making several desperate surges to the right and left, any one of which must have inevitably unseated his rider had he not been a most expert and skilful horseman.”²² Bull, on drawing near the beast, emptied his rifle in its direction; however, the great animal continued his fast pace. Reloading as he rode, the native pulled closer and “placed another ball directly back of the shoulder; but so tenacious of his life is this animal, that it was until the other Delaware and myself arrived and gave him four additional shots, that we brought him to the ground.”²³ The three then took the best parts of the carcass and located a spring which Marcy determined would be the site of the next camp.²⁴

The same day of the buffalo hunt Marcy dispatched McClellan with an interpreter to follow Comanche tracks found along the path. However, the party returned to report that the natives had departed southward.²⁵

The party then proceeded up the North Fork sighting the Llano Estacado on June 12, 1852. That same day the explorers camped near the remains of hunting lodges of a band of Kiowa Indians. The native guides told the white men that the camp had been Kiowa rather than Comanche because the former dug “holes for their fires about two feet in diameter, while the latter only make them about fifteen inches.”²⁶

Leaving this site, the party pushed farther up the stream, reaching its headwaters on June 16. There a bottle was buried to commemorate the occasion. A note placed in the bottle read in part:²⁷

On the 16th of June, 1852, an exploring expedition, composed of Captain R. B. Marcy, Captain G. B. McClellan, Lieutenant J. Updegraff, and Doctor G. C. Shumard, with fifty-five men of company D, fifth infantry, encamped here, having traced the north branch of Red river to its source.

Also, a nearby tree was emblazoned with the message: “Exploring Expedition, June 16, 1852.” The first leg of the journey had been completed.²⁸

The day after he found the source of the North Fork, Marcy and eleven of his companions set out northward to find the Canadian River. Marching about twenty-five miles, the group arrived at the Canadian and soon located a point on the stream which Marcy recognized from his exploration in 1849. Having completed this mission, the party returned to the main camp. The next day, June 20, Marcy directed his men southward toward the main fork of the Red River—and its source.²⁹

For six days the explorers traveled southward, sighting a party of Kiowa on the twenty-second, but they avoided contact. On June 26 they reached a massive prairie dog town which moved Marcy to remark on the characteristics of the burrowing rodent. He asserted that one town would cover 896,000 square acres, for he estimated “the holes to be at the usual distances of about twenty yards apart, and each burrow occupied by a family of four or five dogs, I fancy that the aggregate population would be greater than any other city in the universe.”³⁰ Furthermore, noting that some had asserted that the rattlesnake and the prairie dog lived in harmony in the same holes, he remarked that “…we have satisfied ourselves that this is a domestic arrangement entirely at the variance with the wishes of the dogs, as the snakes prey upon them, and must be considered as intruders.”³¹ In support of this conclusion Marcy wrote that a rattlesnake that had been killed by the explorers was found to have swallowed a full-grown prairie dog.³²

Pulling himself away from his evident fascination with the prairie dogs, Marcy pushed southward, skirting the edge of the Llano Estacado. The party, on June 27, reached the main channel of the Red near its exit from the Staked Plains. They found the river nine hundred yards wide and flowing over a sandy bed. The next day they reached the Llano, rising eight hundred feet above the prairies. Marcy and McClellan set out to discover a route onto the escarpment which would allow passage for the wagons; however, this proved to be a futile task. Nonetheless, the excursion provided the explorers with excitement.³³

During the brief survey of the area, the two explorers sighted a herd of antelope grazing quietly among a stand of mesquite. Marcy, ever a hunter, was determined to call one of the beasts within range of his rifle. Therefore he began a series of bleats with his call, which had been brought for such an occasion. Accordingly, one of the horned beasts approached. Marcy readied his weapon and was about to fire when his attention was captured by “…a rustling which I heard in the grass to my left. Casting my eyes in that direction, to my no small astonishment, I saw a tremendous panther bounding at full speed directly towards me, and within the short distance of twenty steps.”³⁴ His role now changed from the hunter to the hunted, Marcy continued:³⁵

In 1852, Marcy led his expedition into “terra incognita” and eventually found himself in the Llano Estacado, near the headwaters of the Red River

As may be imagined, I immediately abandoned the antelope, and directing my rifle at the panther, sent a ball through his chest, which stretched him out upon the grass about ten yards from where I had taken my position. Impressed with the belief that I had accomplished a feat of rather more than ordinary importance in the sporting line, I placed my hand to my mouth, (‘a la savage,’) and gave several as loud shouts of exultation as my weak lungs would admit, partly for the purpose of giving vent to my feelings of triumph upon the occasion, and also to call the Captain [McClellan].

However, Marcy's experience was not over. When McClellan approached and the two men returned to the spot of Marcy's feat, they found the prey “…upon his feet, making off.”³⁶ Acting quickly, McClellan discharged his rifle into the beast and administered a clubbing with its stock “to give him his quietus.”³⁷ The adventure was over.

Marcy, to his credit, noted that: “It occurred to me afterwards that it would not always be consistent with one's safety to use the deer-bleat…unless we were perfectly certain we should have our wits about us in the event of a panther or large bear (which is often the case) taking it into his head to give credence to the counterfeit.”³⁸ Laconically, the explorer summed up the incident by writing, “The panther had probably heard the bleat, and was coming towards it with the pleasant anticipation of making his breakfast from a tender fawn; but, fortunately for me, I disappointed him.”³⁹

Undeterred, Marcy set out exploring the next day. Because the terrain was too rugged to support the wagons, the main party was left behind while Marcy, McClellan and ten men pushed onto the Llano Estacado. Following the course of the river onto the Llano, the men were awed by the grandeur of the terrain. The great height of the escarpments which encased the river bed gave the explorers the feeling of walking into a massive tunnel. The walls of valley “were worn away, by the lapse of time and the action of the water and the weather, into the most fantastic forms, that required but little effort of the imagination to convert into works of art, and all united in forming one of the grandest and most picturesque scenes that can be imagined.”⁴⁰ Marcy, as always ready to invoke his powers of description, wrote:⁴¹

We all, with one accord, stopped and gazed with wonder and admiration upon a panorama which was now for the first time exhibited to the eyes of civilized man. Occasionally might be seen a good representation of the towering walls of a castle of the feudal ages, with its giddy battlements pierced with loopholes, and its projecting watch-towers standing out in bold relief upon the azure ground of the pure and transparent sky above. In other places our fancy would metamorphose the escarpments into a bastion front, as perfectly modelled and constructed as if it had been a production of the genius of Vauban, with redoubts and salient angles all arranged in due order. Then, again, we would see a colossal specimen of sculpture representing the human figure, with all the features of the fact, which, standing upon its lofty pedestal, overlooks the valley, and seems to have been designed and executed by the Almighty artist as the presiding genius of these dismal solitudes.

Map showing the routes taken across Oklahoma by Americans during the second period of exploration in the region. After Randolph B. Marcy's expedition in 1852, there remained only the railroad survey of 1853 conducted by First Lieutenant Amiel Weeks Whipple (from John W. Morris and Edwin C. McReynolds, Historical Atlas of Oklahoma, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, map 16)

But Marcy was aware of the power—and possible danger—of nature. He saw hidden within the grandeur and beauty of nature “…its unreclaimed sublimity and wildness…,” the power and scope of the scene inspired him “…with that veneration which is justly due to the high antiquity of nature's handiworks, and which seems to increase as we consider the solemn and important lesson that is taught us in reflecting upon their continued permanence when contrasted with our own fleeting and momentary existence.”⁴²

In spite of their wonderment at the beauty of the area, the explorers suffered. On the Llano fresh water was scarce, if not nonexistent. Several soldiers attempted to drink the brackish, mineral-laden waters of the river, but were rewarded by severe stomach cramps and vomiting. Nonetheless, the men retained their cheerfulness, discussing “…the relative merits of different kinds of fancy iced drinks would could be procured in the cities, and the prices that could be obtained for some of them if they were within reach of our party.”⁴³ Even at night the group suffered. Sleep was an elusive goal despite the hardships of the day. Marcy noted that his “slumbers were continually disturbed by dreams, in which I fancied myself swallowing huge draughts of ice water.”⁴⁴ One of the group offered $2,000 for one bucket of cold, clear water. However, Marcy sadly replied that “…this was one of those few instances in which money was not sufficiently potent to attain the object desired.”⁴⁵

On July 1 the determination of the explorers was rewarded by the discovery of a fresh water spring—and the source of the Red River. After refreshing themselves at the spring, the party proceeded to a place where the valley closed, uniting the walls of the escarpment. Here a spring burst “out from its cavernous reservoir, and, leaping down over the huge masses of rock below, here commences its long journey to unite with other tributaries in making the Mississippi the noblest river in the universe.”⁴⁶ A nearby tree was blazed with the date. Marcy had seen the headwaters of the Red River. More important to him and his men at the moment was the fresh, sweet water which trickled from the ground, quenching their thirst.⁴⁷

Two days after finding the source of the river, the party reached the main camp. On July 4, 1852, the explorers “turned our faces toward home….”⁴⁸ Captain McClellan, riding ahead of the main party, found a large cougar. Either through luck or skill he killed the cat with one shot, bringing the group's total feline trophies to three. The rest of the journey proved uneventful, and on July 28 the explorers marched into the confines of Fort Arbuckle, Indian Territory.⁴⁹

Marcy had completed his task. He had found the sources of the main and north forks of the Red River. Moreover, he had fulfilled his task without loss of life, and, as he noted, the animals which were taken were returned “in fine condition, and are now much better capable of performing service than when they came into our hands.”⁵⁰

After this mission Randolph Marcy continued his long and illustrious career in the Army. He held various positions and appointments, generally in the Southwest. But his later career was over-shadowed by his accomplishment of 1852—which had made him truly one of the last great explorers of the American West.

¹ See Elliott Coues, ed., The Expedition of Zebulon Montgomery Pike to Headquarters of the Mississippi River, Through Louisiana Territory, and in New Spain, During the Years 1805–6–7 (3 vols., New York: Francis Harper, 1895); Edwin James, “Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains in the Years 1819, 1820,” 4 Parts, Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846 (32 vols., Cleveland, Ohio: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1904–1908), Vols. XIV–XVII; Randolph B. Marcy, Adventure on Red River, Grant Foreman, ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), pp. 3–4.

² Grant Foreman, Marcy and the Gold Seekers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1939), passim.

³ Ibid.

⁴ United States Senate, 32nd Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Executive Document 54 (Washington: Robert Armstrong, 1852), pp. 2–3. This document is the official report of Captain Randolph B. Marcy regarding his exploration.

⁵ Ibid., pp. 2–5; Marcy, Adventure on Red River, Foreman, ed., pp. v–vii.

⁶ United States Senate, 32nd Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Executive Document 54, pp. 4–8.

⁷ Ibid., p. 10.

⁸ Ibid., p. 11.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 12.

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 13–14.

¹² Ibid., p. 15.

¹³ Ibid., p. 17.

¹⁴ Ibid., pp. 17–18.

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 18.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Ibid., pp. 18–19.

²⁰ Ibid., pp. 20–21.

²¹ Ibid., pp. 25–26.

²² Ibid., p. 27.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Ibid., pp. 27–28.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 28.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 33.

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 38–39.

²⁸ Ibid., p. 39.

²⁹ Ibid., pp. 40–41.

³⁰ Ibid., pp. 42–46.

³¹ Ibid., pp. 47–48.

³² Ibid., p. 48.

³³ Ibid., pp. 49–50.

³⁴ Ibid., p. 50.

³⁵ Ibid., pp. 50–51.

³⁶ Ibid., p. 51.

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 56.

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² Ibid.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 54.

⁴⁴ Ibid., pp. 53–54.

⁴⁵ Ibid., p. 54.

⁴⁶ Ibid., p. 55.

⁴⁷ Ibid.

⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 58.

⁴⁹ Ibid., pp. 59–82.

⁵⁰ Ibid., p. 82.

FIRST LIEUTENANT AMIEL WEEKS WHIPPLE, 1853

By James Ware

The warm humid air blanketed Arkansas in late June 1853 when a group of scientists and soldiers gathered at Fort Smith to collect supplies for their journey west. Amiel Weeks Whipple, leader of the expedition, was a thirty-six year old first lieutenant in the United States Army Corps of Engineers; he had graduated from West Point fifth in the class of 1851 and had completed a tour of duty as an assistant engineer with the Mexican Boundary Survey. Whipple's current assignment was to explore a possible route for the transcontinental railroad from the Mississippi River, through Fort Smith, and across the Southwest to the Pacific Ocean. Others, such as Stephen Long and Randolph Marcy, had explored this general area before, but this part of the Pacific Railroad Survey was the most extensive and organized scientific exploration of many sections of the Southwest, including Indian Territory. Whipple's subsequent report helped alter the “Great American Desert” myth: he presented government officials with a favorable view of areas such as Indian Territory. This contributed significantly to America's westward expansion and the eventual settlement of present-day Oklahoma.¹

The survey which Lieutenant Whipple conducted that summer of 1853 climaxed years of planning and dreaming by American business and political leaders. Such empire-builders as New York merchant Asa Whitney, United States Senators Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and Stephen Douglas of Illinois long had clamored for a transcontinental railway system. These supporters of Manifest Destiny wanted a link between the settled lands east of the Mississippi River and the unexploited western territories acquired through the Louisiana Purchase. By 1848 the need for a railroad had increased greatly with the acquisition of California and fear of British expansion in the Northwest. But at this point the Pacific railroad issue became a pawn in the greater debate over sectionalism which set East against West and North against South.²

First Lieutenant Amiel Weeks Whipple, who conducted the 1853 railroad survey across Oklahoma

Finally, in 1853, Congress accepted a proposal by Senator M. William Gwin of California establishing the Pacific Railroad Surveys. Congress appropriated $150,000 to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis for western expeditions which the Army would conduct; these were to determine the best route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast. With this approval, Davis ordered three teams of scientist-soldiers into the West. Isaac I. Stevens, Governor of Oregon, explored along the Missouri and Columbia rivers. The second team under the command of Captain J. W. Gunnison of the Topographical Engineers traveled the central trail along the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth parallels. A possible southern route lay along the Thirty-fifth parallel. A. W. Whipple prepared to traverse this last line in July 1853.³

Lieutenant Whipple organized his party after receiving his orders from Secretary Davis and Colonel John J. Albert, Chief of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. The military engineer gathered men, supplies, and equipment for the journey during May and June. As applications flooded into Washington, D.C. the lieutenant found more volunteers than he needed and had to turn many away. Finally, Whipple organized a group of one dozen men, including J. B. Bigelow as surgeon and botanist, Jules Marcou as geologist, A. H. Campbell as railroad engineer and H. B. Mollhausen as topographer and artist. Marcou of France and Mollhausen of Germany were known throughout Europe and gave the expedition an international reputation.⁴ To equip the team Whipple spent more than $6,000 on supplies including numerous presents for the Indians. So many scientific expeditions had left Washington that year that there was a shortage of technical instruments, and such equipment as barometers and magnetometers had to be made specially for the survey.⁵

On May 30 Whipple's party left Washington and traveled by train through Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Cincinnati, Ohio; there they boarded a steamer and shipped down river to Napoleon, Arkansas. Then, after changing vessels, the explorers headed up the Arkansas River to Little Rock and on to Fort Smith, arriving there on July 2, 1853. The team had completed the civilized leg of the journey; next they prepared to enter the wilder reaches of Indian Territory and the desert Southwest.⁶

The expedition encamped at Fort Smith for two weeks, making final preparations for its travels. Whipple had hired an additional eighteen men during the previous weeks to complete the company; these Arkansans acted as teamsters, cooks and servants for the soldiers and scientists. The lieutenant spent the remainder of this time writing letters, collecting last minute supplies, and attending church, where he was bored by a “miserable sermon.” Finally, on July 15, the party began its journey to the Pacific by crossing the Poteau River and entering Indian Territory.⁷

H. B. Mollhausen, who served as topographer and artist for Whipple's survey

Whipple soon realized that he had chosen an unauspicious afternoon to head west. First, as the party climbed a hill in the late afternoon heat, a protruding tree stump broke a wagon tongue. One malady followed another, for unpredictable weather worsened; a heavy thunder storm blew in, blackening the skies, shattering the stillness with flashes of brilliant lightning, and drenching the travelers. After wading knee deep in muddy water for two and a half miles, the company reached Ring's Plantation near present Spiro, Oklahoma.⁸

The expedition spent two days at this first camp, making necessary repairs; on July 19 the men traveled to Scullyville in the Choctaw Agency. At that camp Lieutenant Whipple examined the first example of this land's “savage” inhabitants, the Indians. The young soldier praised the Choctaws highly after observing them and talking with their agent. He found the tribal members rapidly adopting white society, for they had constructed excellent schools, fine farm homes and maintained respect for law unmatched by the usual frontier society. But he also noted the disastrous effects which liquor had on the Indians and recommended that the government close the “grog shops” which lined the Arkansas border.⁹

Early in the morning of July 26, the explorers broke camp and trekked southwest along the Poteau River. They traveled across heavily wooded hills interspersed with grassy prairies and covered ten miles before making camp by a small stream. The survey party, working slightly to the south of the main body, made slow progress the next four days because of dense forests. Due to these delays, Lieutenant Whipple decided that the survey would follow the easier wagon route and deviate only when obstacles made building a railroad impossible. On July 31 the company began this procedure, crossing a wide valley bordered on the south by the San Bois Mountains. After struggling across the San Bois River, with its steep, slippery banks, the explorers made good time traversing the fertile, rolling hills of the area. They frequently crossed the fields of local Indian farmers and even encountered some enterprising Choctaw merchants who, in spite of the language barrier, were eager to trade with these early tourists.¹⁰

On August 4 the company's luck changed for the worse again. Whipple had broken camp at daybreak, hoping to make better progress that day. But, as the party moved west, the road deteriorated with each mile. Deep gullies, worn by streams of rainwater, barred smooth travel and two broken wagons caused a long delay. Moving into the area near Gaines Creek, the explorers found the trail blocked by dense forests and the road broken by stretches of “miry sloughs and muddy pools.” The loss of several mules cost the company even more time. After crossing Gaines Creek the following day and continuing through the forest on August 6, the expedition emerged onto another series of rolling prairies. This repeating pattern of plains and forests amazed Lieutenant Whipple, who tentatively explained their existence as to radical differences in soil.¹¹

Besides the constantly changing geography, illness also had plagued the travelers since their departure from Fort Smith. On July 30, 1853, two men, including assistant surveyor Walter Jones, had left the company because of sickness; during the next few days several others had been ill enough to be mentioned in Whipple's official notes. On August 5 the expedition had lost its guide because his child was sick. Throughout the journey such illness continually delayed the westward movement and added to the problems of exploring the uncivilized land.¹²

On August 6 the expedition acquired a portly Shawnee to guide them and the party proceeded through a series of rugged hills near Coal Creek. For the next two days the party moved through these mountains, visiting several Indian villages. On August 8 the company camped in the vicinity of the modern town of Stuart. Before the men lay the Shawnee Hills, the next physical obstacle. This 500 foot high ridge extended before the explorers beginning on their right near the Canadian River. The wagon road ascended one spur of the hills at a thirty to forty-five degree angle. On the following morning the expedition began climbing the steep mountain path and found it worse than they had expected. At one point the wagons had to be lowered into a deep precipice by rope; one overturned and an important aneroid barometer was broken. Another wagon tipped over on August 10 and suffered serious damage which slowed the party even more. Thereafter the land became more passable, for the Shawnee tribe had opened a road through the forest.¹³

From August 9 through August 13, the company traveled near and camped among various groups of Shawnee Indians. Apparently an admirer of the feminine form Whipple commented often about the beauty of the women of this tribe. He described the Shawnee females as “the finest looking set of women ever seen among the Indians.”¹⁴ Whipple too learned that the Shawnees had a sense of humor when dealing with the white man. In one instance, unsure of the right road to Shawneetown, Whipple asked a local Indian to guide the company. At first taciturn and reluctant the Indian finally consented, leading the mule-riding explorers on an exhausting, helter-skelter chase through the woods to his village. There, he invited the company into his home, chatting amiably with them. The Indian finally admitted that their further inquiries about Shawneetown were unnecessary; they sat in its midst.¹⁵

This sketch by Mollhausen shows Ring's Farm which was the site of Camp Number One of the Whipple survey

The expedition encamped for several days near Shawneetown, repairing wagons and seeking a future guide from among the local tribes. Lieutenant Whipple requested that the famous Indian pioneer Black Beaver accompany the party, but the Delaware chief declined. The expedition's commander then vainly turned to another celebrated trail-blazer, Jesse Chisholm; unfortunately this famous frontiersman was away hunting horses. Finally, on August 14, the company resumed its march without Indian help. On the trail, Whipple learned of a local Shawnee named Johnson who knew the territory ahead, and he agreed to travel with the expedition as far as the Delaware settlement. Leaving Johnson's home, the survey team moved down the valley of Boggy Creek and up a gentle incline to the top of a ridge fifty to one-hundred feet high. The company wound back and forth along this hilltop and gradually descended to a rolling prairie which extended to the Delaware settlement. The explorers easily crossed this plain and arrived at the site of old Camp Arbuckle on August 17, 1853.¹⁶

Whipple's party had crossed that section of Indian Territory which was considered semi-civilized. Ahead lay the great stretches of dry plain and desert with its more nomadic Indian inhabitants. The lieutenant ordered a four-day rest at the Delaware settlement to prepare for the next leg of the journey to the Pacific Coast. Whipple spent most of this time searching for a guide and talking with Black Beaver about the country ahead and his tribe's beliefs and customs. Acquiring someone to lead the expedition across the dry desert plains proved very difficult. Black Beaver was too ill to travel; Jesse Chisholm, who had returned from his hunt, and John Bushman another Indian guide declined because they feared Indian attacks. Whipple was angered, for he did not understand the Indians’ indifference toward such an important mission as the Pacific Survey. Black Beaver delivered more bad news when he told the explorers that the Canadian River was unusually low that year, and the Delaware chief feared that the team might suffer due to lack of water.¹⁷

Lieutenant Whipple had better luck in his conversations with Black Beaver on the language and customs of the Delaware tribe. The chief admitted that his people were less civilized than others living in Indian Territory, but he blamed their attitude on the area's intemperate climate. Whipple recorded the vocabulary of the Delaware language and discussed tribal superstitions with the chief. Black Beaver professed little adherence to such beliefs which included priests who ministered to sacred tribal fires. These medicine men worked as tribal doctors and fortune tellers and received a tithe for their miracles.¹⁸

While Whipple held his meetings with Black Beaver, the company suffered two more minor disasters which further delayed their journey west. On August 21 the expedition's herders allowed fifty mules to wander away from camp. The soldiers spent the entire day rounding up the strays, three of which never returned. The same evening the company's beef cattle escaped their guardians and it took another day to collect these wanderers. Whipple was so disgusted that he wrote: “one Mexican peon is worth half a dozen” of his white herders.¹⁹

Guided by a comet in the Northwestern sky and accompanied by a young Mexican slave, acquired from the Indians, the explorers broke camp on August 22, 1853, and entered the vast prairies of present-day Oklahoma. After traveling about eighteen miles Whipple halted his column beside a branch of the Canadian River near present Purcell. During that day's march a scout had sighted two Indians setting fire to the prairie grass. As the company established their camp, the roaring flames threatened to sweep over their position. The explorers dug a firebreak around their tents and huddled in the midst of one of nature's most frightening and most beautiful phenomena. Whipple and the others were awed as “huge waves of flame, with a roaring sound like that of the ocean, were rolling over the rank grass, and rushing on with fearful rapidity.”²⁰

The following morning Whipple gathered his company and headed northwest toward a distant forest. The expedition pushed across burning grassland all day, choking through a smoke so thick that it almost obscured the sun. That evening the survey team camped near a small branch of the Canadian and encountered their first examples of the Indian tribes living in that area. Two Hueco Indians entered the explorers’ camp and visited with the white men that evening. These warriors dressed in cotton blankets and wore head dresses of eagle feathers, were painted with vermillion and carried three-foot-long bows and quivers of poison-tipped arrows. The Huecos claimed to be on a hunting foray and boasted of their many brothers living across the Washita River. After expedition artist H. B. Mollhausen sketched these Indians, they took their presents and left, having provided, according to Whipple, the company with a pleasant evening's entertainment.²¹

As the party prepared to continue its travels on August 24, another Hueco warrior rode into camp, offering to act as a guide. Whipple accepted his offer, and this devious Indian led the expedition down a branch of the Washita and into the dense Cross Timbers. Then, he deserted the explorers in a roadless country cut by small streams and difficult ravines. Fortunately, a Kichai Indian appeared and showed them a trail across the hazardous terrain. This route followed the northern slope of a ridge which intersected two branches of nearby Walnut Creek. From here the company moved into a beautiful valley extending as far as the eye could see. At this nearly perfect campsite the explorers halted, freeing their weary mules to feed on the valley's plentiful grass. That evening a grateful Whipple thanked the Kichai brave and gave him several gifts including a shirt, a pipe and one dollar.²²

The journey of August 25, 1853, covered the same type of land, with rolling grasslands, clear streams and forests of ash, oak and walnut. But the following day, another prairie fire interrupted this pleasant travel. Driven by a strong plains wind, the flames rushed over the crest of a hill and forced the party to flee. They took refuge in a nearby ravine and finally escaped the wall of fire. When the danger had passed, the company traversed a dreary, blackened land for the remainder of the day. Finding a strip of green with some grass for the mules, Whipple camped in the midst of this burned desolation near present-day Minco. Unfortunately for the worn travelers, the night proved as exhausting as the day had been. A sudden fierce storm swept the camp, drenching its occupants with freezing rain and sleet. The morning revealed “a ludricrous assemblage of miserable half-frozen wretches, quietly shivering under prostrate canvass.”²³ In this sad condition, the exhausted company hitched up their reluctant mules and headed into the raging storm. By mid-day the “Norther” had stopped and the expedition covered most of that day's fourteen miles under much better conditions. Both mule and man welcomed the night's encampment near Deer Creek.²⁴

On August 28 the expedition had much easier travel as it moved up Deer Creek to its source. During the following day, Whipple passed through a dismal, wasted area known as the “natural mounds.” He likened these remnants of ancient mesas to evil genie. However, after marching for ten miles, grasslands again appeared and the party stopped for the night. At this point the lieutenant noted for the first time that there was insufficient timber for building a railroad. This condition continued through the march of August 30, with huge masses of gypsum dominating a landscape largely free of grass or trees. On August 31 the explorers entered a pleasant valley dotted by small pools and streams and covered by clumps of red oak, post-oak and elm. There, Whipple described the only animals mentioned to that date in either the official report or his journals. These were two black bears who wandered out of the woods and across the expedition's path.²⁵

Mollhausen drawing of the Whipple survey Camp Number Thirty-eight on the Canadian River

The remaining days spent in the area of present Oklahoma were rather uneventful ones. From August 31 to September 4 the company moved across increasingly flat prairies, with fewer and fewer interruptions by either woodlands or large streams. On September 2 they again encountered evidence of recent prairie fires. Whipple speculated that this was the work of Indians preparing fresh grass for the buffalo soon to return from the north. On September 3 the explorers sighted their first example of this beast which supplied the Indians with food, clothing and shelter. On seeing a single buffalo, one member of the party, pistol in hand, dashed off in enthusiastic pursuit. Several hours later he returned, empty handed and extremely disappointed at his unsuccessful hunt. Finally, on September 4, 1853, the explorers spent their last night in Indian Territory camped in the vicinity of present-day Crawford near the Texas-Oklahoma border. The following morning Whipple's company marched out of the territory and continued its long journey to the Pacific.²⁶

On March 21, 1854, Lieutenant Amiel Weeks Whipple led his band of explorers into Los Angeles, California ending the southern section of the Pacific Railroad Survey. The company had charted over 1,500 miles in 9 months and had catalogued the flora, fauna and landscape of the Southwest. The lieutenant's subsequent report concluded an important chapter in the history of American exploration and expansion and contributed significantly to the scientific knowledge of the day. Dr. J. M. Bigelow, the team's botanist, made extensive drawings and wrote detailed descriptions of the area's plants. Local timber, especially in Indian Territory drew particular attention: extensive forests of black walnut, ash, elm, oak, cedar and cottonwood were ideal for building a railroad as well as for constructing future homes. The cacti which first appeared in the western sections of the territory also fascinated the botanist. Geologist Jules Marcou also contributed to the scientific end of the expedition. He described extensively the large coal deposits in Eastern Indian Territory which were of special importance.²⁷

Although Whipple subsequently lobbied in Washington for a railroad through Indian Territory and the Southwest, Congress decided against this route. Nevertheless the lieutenant had helped terminate the myth of the Great American Desert—his glowing descriptions of the land along the Canadian River opened the minds of government officials to the possibilities of Indian Territory. After the survey, opening the area for railroad use became a dominant theme in negotiations between the Five Civilized Tribes and the government. Whipple's report also recognized the potential value of the territory's land for ranching and farming. Americans could not ignore for long the land he described, a land from which a “large and magnificent” state could be made.²⁸

¹ Francis Stoddard, “Amiel Weeks Whipple,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3 (Autumn, 1950), pp. 226–227.

² Robert Russel, Improvement of Communications with the Pacific Coast as an Issue in American Politics, 1783–1864 (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press, 1948), pp. 1–53; George Albright, Official Explorations for Pacific Railroads, 1853–1855 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1921), pp. 1–9.

³ Albright, Official Explorations for Pacific Railroads, 1853–1855, pp. 37–41; Muriel Wright and George Shirk, “The Journal of A. W. Whipple,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3 (Autumn, 1950), p. 237.

⁴ The other members of the party included C. B. R. Kennerly; Hugh Campbell; William White, Jr.; George Garner; N. H. Hutton; John Sherburne; Thomas H. Parke; and Walter Jones, Jr. Wright and Shirk, “The Journal of A. W. Whipple,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, p. 238.

⁵ Ibid., pp. 239–243.

⁶ Ibid., pp. 239–245; Albright, Official Explorations for Pacific Railroads, 1853–1855, pp. 103–104.

⁷ Wright and Shirk, “The Journal of A. W. Whipple,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 243–247.

⁸ Ibid., p. 247.

⁹ United States Senate, 33rd Congress, 2nd Session, Executive Document 78 (11 vols., 11 parts, Washington: Beverly Tucker, 1856), Vol. III, Pt. 1, pp. 7–9.

¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 10–12.

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 13–14; Wright and Shirk, “The Journal of A. W. Whipple,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, p. 258.

¹² United States Senate, 33rd Congress, 2nd Session, Executive Document 78, Vol. III, Pt. 1, pp. 11, 14, 20.

¹³ Ibid., pp. 14–15; Wright and Shirk, “The Journal of A. W. Whipple,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, p. 259.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 260; United States Senate, 33rd Congress, 2nd Session, Executive Document 78, Vol. III, Pt. 1, pp. 15–16.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Ibid., pp. 15–18.

¹⁷ Ibid., pp. 19–20; Wright and Shirk, “The Journal of A. W. Whipple,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, p. 266.

¹⁸ United States Senate, 33rd Congress, 2nd Session, Executive Document 78, Vol. III, Pt. 1, p. 20.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ Ibid., pp. 20–21; Wright and Shirk, “The Journal of A. W. Whipple,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 269–271.

²¹ United States Senate, 33rd Congress, 2nd Session, Executive Document 78, Vol. III, Pt. 1,

²² Ibid., pp. 22–23.

²³ Ibid., pp. 23–24.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Ibid., pp. 25–26.

²⁶ Ibid., pp. 26–29.

²⁷ Ibid., Vol. IV, Pt. 5, pp. 2–3, 27–58; ibid., Vol. III, Pt. 4, pp. 124–132.

²⁸ Russel, Improvement of Communications with the Pacific Coast as an Issue in American Politics, 1783–1864, p. 176; United States Senate, 33rd Congress, 2nd Session, Executive Document 78, Vol. IV, Pt. 5, pp. 2–3.

SELECTED INDEX

By Steven M. Wear

—A—

Adams, John Quincy, 31

Adams-Onís Treaty, 3

Agnew, Brad, “Brigadier General Henry Leavenworth and Colonel Henry Dodge, 1834–1835,” by, 91–100

Albert, John J., 140

American Entomology, 60

American Fur Company, 79

American Mounted Rangers, 80, 83, 84, 85, 88, 90

American Philosophical Society, 38, 50

Asher, Oklahoma, 104

—B—

Ballinger, Joseph, 11

Barbour, James, 36

Bean, Jesse, 83, 84, 85, 88, 90

Bean, Mark, 55, 75

Bean, Richard, 55, 75

Beatte, Pierre, 83, 85, 87, 88

Becknell, William, 31, 61, 71, 72

Bell, John R., 53, 54, 55

Benton, Thomas Hart, 31, 32, 36

Big Salt Plain, 27, 30

Bigelow, J. B., 140, 149

Billington, Ray Allen, 51

Black Beaver, 144, 145

Blackburn, Bob L., “First Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson, 1806–1807,” by, 6–18

Blackburn, Oklahoma, 115

Blackfeet Indians, 66

Black Hawk War, 113

Blackman, Ezra, 30

Blackwell, Oklahoma, 25

Bogie,———, trader, 46, 49

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 3

Boone, Daniel, 19, 111

Boone, Nathan, 30

Boone's Lick (Missouri), 29, 30, 112, 113

Brackenridge, Henry Marie, 23, 29

Bradbury, John, 23

Bradford, William, 43, 44, 45, 65, 68, 69, 75

“Brigadier General Henry Leavenworth and Colonel Henry Dodge, 1834–1835,” by Brad Agnew, 91–100

Brown, Joseph C., 33, 35

Bull, John, 129, 130

Burr, Aaron, 20

—C—

“Captain Nathan Boone, 1843,” by Jimmy M. Skaggs, 111–123

“Captain Randolph Barnes Marcy, 1849–1852,” by Carl Tyson, 124–137

Cashesegra, 15, 16, 17

Catlin, George, 66, 93, 95, 98, 99

Che-ri-ta-rich (Pawnee), 23, 24, 26

Cherokee Indians, 17, 30, 43, 53n, 65, 68, 80, 93, 104, 113

Cheyenne Indians, 53, 78

Chickasaw Indians, 113

Chisholm, Jesse, 144, 145

Chittenden, Hiram, 51

Choctaw Agency, 142

Choctaw Indians, 113, 123, 128, 142

Chouteau, Auguste Pierre, 72, 82, 83, 90, 106

Chouteau, Pierre, 15, 16, 66, 72

Clark, William, 5, 21, 24, 25, 29, 51, 66, 69

Clermont (Osage), 25, 54

“Collections Towards a Flora of the Territory of Arkansa,” 50

Colter, John, 66, 66n

Comanche Indians, 26, 27, 28, 55, 59, 70, 74, 78, 95, 97, 98, 106, 118, 129, 130

Commerce of the Prairies, 30, 101, 109, 110

Cooke, Phillip St. George, 119, 120

Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de, 3

Cortez, Hernando, 3

Coues, Elliott, 61–62, 62n, 78n

Creek Indians, 104, 113

Crittenden, Charles, 68

Cross Timbers, 56, 74, 84, 89, 95, 99, 104, 105, 146

—D—

Davis, Jefferson, 92, 139, 140

Delaware Indians, 93, 129, 130, 144, 145

de Soto, Hernando, 3, 6

Dodge, Henry, 91–100, 113, 114

Dunbar-Hunter expedition, 9, 12

Dunbar, William, 9, 12, 51

Du Rivage, Sieur, 6

—E—

Ellsworth, Henry, 80–90

Engineer Cantonment (Iowa), 51, 53

—F—

Fifth Infantry, 124, 130

First Dragoon Regiment, 91, 113, 114

“First Lieutenant Amiel Weeks Whipple, 1853,” by James Ware, 138–149

“First Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson, 1806–1807,” by Bob L. Blackburn, 6–18

Fort Arbuckle, 137

Fort Bellefontaine, 20, 64

Fort Clark, 64

Fort Gibson, 17, 30, 68, 80, 82, 83, 88, 90, 91, 92, 99, 104, 113, 114, 119, 123

Fort Holmes, 123

Fort Leavenworth, 119, 120

Fort Osage, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 64, 72

Fort Smith, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 51, 53, 54, 55, 60, 65, 68, 75, 114, 125, 126, 138, 140

Fort Washita, 123

Fowler, Thomas, 61–79

Freeman, Thomas, 9, 51

Fremont, John C., 124

“Frontier Adventurers: Early American Exploration in Oklahoma,” by Joseph A. Stout, Jr., 3–5

—G—

Genera of North American Plants, 38

“George Champlin Sibley, 1811 and 1825–1826,” by Thomas Isern, 19–37

Glenn, Hugh, 54, 60, 61–79

Glenn-Fowler expedition, 61, 75, 79

Goetzmann, William, 51–52

Gragert, Steven, “Thomas Nuttall, 1819,” by, 38–50

Gragert, Steven, “Washington Irving, Henry Ellsworth, Albert-Alexandre de Pourtalès and Charles Latrobe, 1832,” by, 80–90

Gran Quivera, 3

Grand Saline, 14, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30

“Great American Desert,” 37, 51, 53, 60, 74, 138, 149

Great Salt Plains, 25, 30, 31, 118, 119, 122, 123

Great Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge, 31

Gregg, Josiah, 30, 101–110

Gunnison, J. W., 139

Gwin, M. William, 139

—H—

Ha-kat-ton (Quapaw), 40

Henderson, James, 23, 24

Hawley, Oklahoma, 117

Hopkins, Samuel, 19

Hueco Indians, 146

Hunter, David, 92

Hunter, George, 9, 12

—I—

Irving expedition, 90

Irving, Washington, 80–90

Isern, Thomas, “George Champlin Sibley, 1811 and 1825–1826,” by, 19–37

Iturbide, Augustín de, 78

—J—

Jackson, Andrew, 81

Jacobs, James R., 10

James, Edwin, 5, 53

James, Thomas, 61–79

James-McKnight expedition, 69, 79

Jefferson, Thomas, 5, 6, 9, 10, 19, 20, 124

Johnston, Abraham H., 114, 115, 123

“Josiah Gregg, 1839–1840,” by James West, 101–110

—K—

Kansa Indians, 23, 24, 31, 33

Kaskaia Indians, 55, 59

Kearny, Stephen Watts, 36, 92, 114

Kichai Indians, 146

Kiowa Indians, 53, 79, 95, 97, 130, 131

—L—

Latrobe, Charles, 80–90

Leavenworth, Henry, 91–100

Lewis, Meriwether, 5, 43, 51, 66, 69

Lisa, Manuel, 15, 66

Llano Estacado, 130, 131, 133, 136

Long Expedition, 51, 52, 53, 55, 60

Long, Stephen Harriman, 50, 51–60, 75, 124, 138

Louisiana Purchase, 3, 6, 112, 138

—M—

“Major Stephen Harriman Long, 1820,” by James Smallwood, 51–60

Mandan Indians, 66

Manifest Destiny, 138

Marcy, Randolph Barnes, 124–137, 138

Mather, Thomas, 31, 33, 35, 36

McClellan, George B., 126, 128, 130, 131, 132, 133, 137

McFarlane, James, 17

McKnight, John, 68, 72, 73–74, 75, 79

McKnight, Robert, 68

Menominee Indians, 40

Mexican War, 92, 110, 123

Missouri Rangers, 113

Mollhausen, H. B., 140, 146

Mo-no-soo-gee (Osage), 26

Monroe, James, 29

—N—

Nuttall, Thomas, 5, 38–50, 75

—O—

Osage Indians, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 44, 47, 49, 53n, 54, 65, 68, 69, 70, 72, 75, 77, 82, 83, 93, 97, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118, 119

Oway Indians, 97

—P—

“Pastry War,” 103

Pike, Zebulon Montgomery, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 24, 29, 51, 52, 58, 59, 62, 124

Poinsett, Joel, 34

Ponca City, Oklahoma, 14

Pond Creek, Oklahoma, 116

Pourtalès, Albert-Alexandre de, 80–90

Pryor, Nathaniel, 46, 69

—Q—

Quapaw Indians, 40, 68

Quivera National Wildlife Refuge, 120

—R—

Rector, William, 29

Red Mouse (Comanche), 55

Reeves, Benjamin H., 31, 33, 35, 36

Rock Mary, 108, 125

Rock Saline, 26, 27, 28, 30

Rock Salt, 30

Russell, Dr. Thomas, 43, 44, 49

—S—

Sans Oreille (Osage), 23, 26, 27, 29

Santa Fe Trail, 19, 31, 35, 36, 101, 111, 114, 119, 120, 123

Say, Thomas, 53, 54, 60

Schermerhorn, John, 82

Scullyville (Choctaw Nation), 142

Second Dragoon Regiment, 120, 123

Seminole Indians, 113

Seneca Indians, 93

Seymour, Samuel, 53, 60

Shahaka (Mandan), 66

Shawnee Indians, 40, 129, 143, 144, 145

Shawneetown (Choctaw Nation), 144

Shone-ge-ne-gare (Kansa), 23

Sibley, Elizabeth, 19

Sibley, George Champlin, 19–37

Sibley, John, 19, 20, 21

Sibley, Mary Easton, 31, 36

Sibley, Samuel, 19, 21

Sioux Indians, 40

Skaggs, Jimmy M., “Captain Nathan Boone, 1843,” by, 111–123

Smallwood, James, “Major Stephen Harriman Long, 1820,” by, 51–60

Snake Indians, 78

Spiro, Oklahoma, 142

Stevens, Isaac I., 139

Stokes Commission, 113

Stout, Joseph A., Jr., “Frontier Adventurers: Early American Exploration in Oklahoma,” by, 3–5

Styles, William, 44, 45

—T—

Taylor, Zachary, 30, 114

“Thomas James, Hugh Glenn and Jacob Fowler, 1821–1823,” by Phillip Drennon Thomas, 61–79

“Thomas Nuttall, 1819,” by Steven Gragert, 38–50

Thomas, Phillip Drennon, “Thomas James, Hugh Glenn and Jacob Fowler, 1821–1823,” by, 61–79

Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans, 65

Tonish, 82, 83, 87

Tonkawa, Oklahoma, 116

Tour on the Prairies, A, 82

Towangaha (Osage), 118, 119

Treaty of Fontainebleau, 3

Treaty of San Ildefonso, 3

Tuttasuggy (Osage), 14

Tyson, Carl, “Captain Randolph Barnes Marcy, 1849–1852,” by, 124–137

—U—

Unswatoy's Ferry, 114

—W—

Waco Indians, 97

Walker, Joseph Reddeford, 33

War of 1812, 31, 51, 63, 69, 113

Ware, James, “First Lieutenant Amiel Weeks Whipple, 1853,” by, 138–149

“Washington Irving, Henry Ellsworth, Albert-Alexandre de Pourtalès and Charles Latrobe, 1832,” by Steven Gragert, 80–90

Way-be-soon-je (Osage), 27

Webb, Walter Prescott, 51

Webber, Walter, 43

Webster, Daniel, 129

West, James, “Josiah Gregg, 1839–1840,” by, 101–110

Whipple Amiel Weeks, 138–149

White Eagle, Oklahoma, 116

White Hair (Osage), 25

Whitney, Asa, 138

Wichita Indians, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 106, 128

Wilkinson, James, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 20

Wilkinson, James Biddle, 6–18

Williams, William Shirley, 32, 33

—Y—

Yellowstone Expedition, 51

The text of Frontier Adventurers: American Exploration in Oklahoma has been set on the Linotype in eleven-point Granjon. One point of line spacing has been added for increased legibility. The text and illustrations have been printed by offset on paper which has an intended effective life of at least three hundred years. Composed and printed at the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma 73019.

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