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Special articles
The Old Fort Hall Broadsheet was published in June 1995, 1996, and 1997 in conjunction with the a series of rendezvous held at the Replica. Articles in the Broadsheet related to the Replica, Fort Hall history, mountain men, Native Americans, and other items of general interest. The articles are presented by year of publication.
Articles:
Articles:
Articles
Letter From Hudson's Bay Company 1961 To Jack Alvord
Memorializing Old Fort Hall
by Ezra Meeker, Motor Travel, April 1925.
Fort Hall Place of Destiny
…Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark in 1804 to explore and report on our
new possessions, the unknown land of the Missouri River, and the River of the
West--Columbia. Their published report together with hours of listening to the
tales of sea captains, inspired the imagination of Hall Jarvis Kelly, Boston
school teacher, who, practically unaided, enlisted a membership in an Emigration
Society of over eight hundred, in 1832, among whom were Captain B.L.E.
Bonneville and Nathaniel Wyeth of Boston….
Encouraged by the enthusiasm of Hall J. Kelly, Wyeth a young married man of
thirty began in the winter preceding his expedition of 1832 to hold meetings in
his home every Saturday night, with a band of young mechanics and farmers near
Boston, discussing every phase of their intended journey to the Columbia to
establish then an American state founded on good character and pursuing the
useful arts. Twenty-one of this left Boston in the spring of 1932, under Wyeth,
provided with guns for hunting, but not intended for human slaughter, strong
boat-built wagons, and instead of munitions of war, the chief baggage was a
complete outfit for a blacksmith shop, anvil and all…
Of Wyeth's eleven men, two died Vancouver, two remained in the country and were
the first American settlers in Oregon, five returned by sea, two trapped for
other companies in the mountains, and Nathaniel Wyeth journeying home alone of
all these Americans, did an amazing thing unmatched for assurance and belief in
himself. He made a contract with Milton Sublette and Fitzpatrick of Sublette's
rival company to bring $3,000 worth of goods to their rendezvous in the spring,
gave bond for its delivery, took bond of $1,400 in case of their failure to pay…
In the spring of 1834we see Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, now thirty-two of age,
wending his way from Boston to St. Louis, this time accompanied by Thomas
Nuttall, botanist of Harvard, and John R. Townsend, naturalist of Philadelphia,
and the two Indian lads, bound for a second expedition to found a fortune in the
Columbia River fishing and fur trade, which Wyeth had begun to organize the next
day after his return in November 1833 from a trip that any other man would have
counted a total failure. It was very simple. Wyeth did not see failure, he saw
and sensed only success, and with such truth, that hard headed Boston merchants
saw eye to eye with Wyeth, and financed a second
enterprise.
At St. Louis he engaged 70 men, this time experienced frontiersmen. At
Independence he bought 250 horses and outfit, with now four rival companies of
the fur trade secretly thwarting him. With these men and horses he arrived at
the Green River rendezvous with the $3,000 worth of goods for the Rocky Mountain
Fur Company according to the contract with Milton Sublette and Fitzpatrick on
the Big Horn; but Captain William Sublette, head of the company, advised against
having anything to do with Wyeth. Fitzpatrick refused the goods, but the payment
of $1400 guarantee
given by the Rocky Mountain Company. Said Wyeth,"Gentlemen, I will roll a
stone in your garden that you will never get out."
With these goods on hand, Wyeth had no other choice than to bring them on. He
could not with wisdom found a competing fur trade in the territory east of the
Rockies, then nameless except Louisiana, and on come these trinket intended for
the Indian trade into the neutral territory of the Oregon country, into present
Idaho. Past Bear Lake came Wyeth, past Soda Springs, the Bottoms of Snake River,
the thirty-five mile stretch of Snake Valley that dimpled in when the mountains
crinkled up. And here in the Bottoms on the edge of the Snake, Wyeth shot a
buffalo on the morning of July 15th, 1834, and said, "Here I
will build my fort."
Wyeth know very well about this Bottoms place, looked down on by Old Mount
Kinport since time began. The Bottems was known from the Mississippi to the
Western ocean as the best beaver country in the west, the best feeding grounds,
the warmest sheltered winter place for miles around…
Son on that July morning in 1834 history was in the making at the beautiful
meadow of the Snake River Bottoms. Here Wyeth built the peaceful trading post
know as a "fort" but never used for military purposes. Never a treaty
was made within its walls, nor a battle fought. Here at this peacefully occupied
post citizen Nathaniel Wyeth played a losing game with the Hudson's Bay Company.
Leaving eight men at Fort Hall to take care of the intermountain Indian trade
which he had never intended to cultivate, he proceeded on the early morning of
August 6th, 1834, to the Columbia, where he founded Fort William, the
only post he had intended to found until the breach of contract by Fitzpatrick
at Rendezvous cause the accidental founding of Fort Hall.
On went Wyeth from Fort Hall to the Columbia, where good Dr. McLoughlin, chief
factor for the Hudson's Bay Company had a policy to support, and it was to
discourage American enterprise in Oregon.
…By treaty with Great Britain, Oregon was yet neutral territory, claimed by
both nations. Fort Hall had as a place of Destiny settled this dispute in favor
of Columbia.
…And so in 1836 he sold to the Hudson's Bay Company both his Fort William at
the mouth of the Williamette and Fort Hall, eastern gateway to Oregon on the
Oregon Trail.
It was roads and not fur trade that made the importance of Old Fort Hall. Here
in the Bottoms centered roads north , east, south, went and southwest. Here at
Fort Hall, men's minds were changed for them, and by them, and the result is the
extension of the United States to its present northern and western boundaries.
As soon as the Great American Migration of two hundred wagons got past Fort Hall
in 1843 through the presence and wit and will of Marcus Whitman, first wagons
got past Fort Hall after Hudson's Bay occupancy. Immediately thereafter Captain
John C. Fremont, following in the rear of this migration, records at Raft River
he saw to his surprise a well marked wagon train leading to the Southwest. Since
Whitman's 200 wagon train had been the first wagons to pass Fort Hall, and this
was just one month before, this must have been a newly made road. It was the
first road to California…
Because of Fort Hall we have Oregon and also California; and because we had the
Oregon and California gold, this nation held together in the Civil War; and
because we held together, we are the great nation we are today, with a place in
the sun to work out a just government among men….
Copyright 1934 by Minnie F. Howard
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Dr. Minnie Howard of Pocatello, Idaho was in the party which rediscovered Old Fort Hall in 1916. For the next 30 years she dreamed of establishing a replica of the fort. This article was printed in its entirety in the Souvenir Handbook for the centennial celebration of the fort's founding in 1934. |
ezra meeker speech about fort hall
How many of you that hear this made known that almost within the threshold of the spot that in one day's travel in 1852, by careful count 121 fresh graves were found; this somewhere between Soda Springs and the site of Pocatello…I now believe the estimate of 5000 dead on the Plains for the one year of 1852 is less than the actual number; the suffering was tremendous…of a family all buried in one grave; of 41 of one train that died near my camp in one day and two nights…not all buried when the train moved on; of a spot where 52 fresh graves, none more than three days old. These were the days of trail and heroism. I can truly say that I did not suffer as I saw others so often even unto death. I claim no personal credit for this…but my friends, we should honor the common soldiers of the dead of this army.
I deem it but just as record of history to not the important part played by Wyeth, who built Fort. Hall. Jason Lee accompanied Wyeth's party from the Missouri river to the spot and it was upon his request the note sermon was preached. Contemporaneous records are extant that had it not been for the aid Wyeth extended to Lee it would have been doubtful that he could have succeeded. Be that as it may, the fact remains the aid was freely given…
In the lapse of years, as with the greater part of the Oregon Trail, the land marks pointing to the site of Fort Hall had disappeared, while others were forgotten and passed out of memory, as the pioneers, one by one, passed on to their reward. So, when I drove with my ox team into Pocatello in May 1906, on my way over, the Oregon Trail, searching for suitable spots upon which to erect monuments, I naturally first queried to ascertain the site of Fort Hall, which I then and due now, consider the most important historic point on the great trail. It was here the early pioneers must needs abandon their wagon and proceed on their weary journey as best they could; some on horseback, some afoot, and some with oxen or cows packed, while the unfortunate pioneer trudged along behind covered with dust and in many instances enduring parched lips of thirst. As we have seen, the Fort was built in 1834 and until 1843 this condition continued, with an accumulation of vast numbers of abandoned wagons and other property.
An energetic, patriotic citizen, Mr. George North, since deceased, who volunteered to show me the site, upon arrival on the ground, pointed out a spot as the site. I at once became convinced that, my friend had forgotten the location, as I could not, after making excavations and diligent search, find the least scrap of anything indicating the spot once occupied by the Fort or the abandoned property, so I drove on over the trail and to Washington City, erecting monuments on the way whenever I could secure co-operation.
Four years later, on a second trip over the trail, another attempt was made, under the auspices of W. E. Siders, with the same effort of excavation as on the first visit. No results—and I again drove on over the trail to the Missouri River.
I made a third trip over the Oregon Trail in 1916, this time in an automobile, and on August 29, under the auspices and guidance of Dr. W.F. Howard and Dr. Minnie Howard, with the interpreter Joe Rainey as guide, we unmistakably found the exact spot where the old Fort had once reared its formidable walls. Rainey had taken us straight to the old site. We need not rely on his recollection. Excavations made at once developed numerous relics of the old Fort, which have since been supplemented by further explorations, resulting in a treasured collection of Dr. Minnie Howard of Pocatello. The most contributory and convincing relics consisting of broken, English-decorated china; deeply rusted scrap iron, an old clay pipe stem, a broken knife, an old ox shoe, a broken stove grate, a broken beef bone, a quantity of lime, all two feet, or more under accumulated debris. The site of the old blacksmith shop, within the walls is there. A temporary wooden post was set which, subsequently, was replaced with a stone marker and so, you, my friends, need have no doubt but this assemblage is on the memorable spot where we have met to commemorate the memory of the great event, the preaching of the first sermon west of the Rocky mountains b Jason Lee.
Confusion in the minds of sincere searches after truth exists because of discrepancy of distance by different observers. To such it should be sufficient to say that three other localities bear the name of Fort Hall. Then again, good authority locates the original Fort Hall a mile or more from the bank of the Snake River, whereas, the site I have described is less than three hundred yards from the river. An examination of the surroundings unmistakably discloses a change of the waters nearly half a mile from the old channel of the river, so I can say I haven't the least shadow of doubt about the genuineness of the site as here described…
Confusion in the minds of sincere searchers after truth, exists because of discrepancy in the distance by different observers. To such it should be sufficient to say that two forts have been built since the original, all bearing the name Fort Hall; then again, good authority located the orginal fort half a mile or more from the bank of Snake River whereas the site I have described is less than three hundred yards from the river. An examination of the surroundings unmistakably disclose a change of the waters of the river near half a mile from the old channel and so I can say I haven't the least shadow of a doubt about the genuineness of the site as here described…
It is an inspiration, and I consider it a high privilege to meet you on this historic spot on the 87th anniversary of the first sermon preached west of the crest of the Rocky Mountains; the spot where Nathaniel J. Wyeth selected to plant the American flag and challenged the supremacy of Great Britain, who through the instrumentality of the Hudson Bay Company were attempting, by a possessory right, to claim eventual ownership of the Oregon country.
Jason Lee, the missionary, who had accompanied Wyeth this far from Saint Louis, delivered this historic sermon before a motley assemblage of mountaineers, traffickers in furs, trappers, Indians, employees of Wyeth and many other adventurers of the northwest of early days…
That he had an attentive audience should go without saying, but we have records of how under a friendly shade of the nearby forest trees the listeners, some sitting on the ground, some reclining, some squatting, each choosing his own posture, yet all intent to drink in the words or catch the notion of the gifted preacher…
By Ezra Meeker, Oregon Emigrant of 1852, Speech delivered at Fort Hall, Idaho on the 87th Anniversary of the Sermon by Jason Lee at Fort Hall in 1834.
sho-ban games
Several games are played by the Sho-Ban to include Indian Football, Spear
Hoop, Shinny Game, and Rock Juggling.
Indian Football: It is fun and competitive team sport. How to play:
1.Each team has 5 units which consists one man and one women who must hold hands
continuously throughout the game. It is favorable to tie the wrists together in
order not to break the bond.
2. Object of the game is to penetrate the opponents goal. Goal posts are to be
placed approximately eight feet apart on the ends of the playing field. The
field may be as long as a football field or about 75 feet long.
3. There is a referee to maintain order and to keep the game in progress.
4. Teams are to be dressed in traditional clothing and NO SHOES are to be worn.
5. To win a point the Indian football, made of deer hair in buckskin or denim,
must be KICKED THROUGH THE GOAL BY THE WOMEN. The man CANNOT kick the ball or
throw the ball or run with the ball. This is true for the woman. She can only
kick the ball. The man can block and protect the woman from other kickers and he
can place the ball only by pivoting.
6. There is no time limit. The normal game may be four points. This can be
determined at the start of the game.
HAVE FUN.
Shinny Game: Only ladies play this game. It is played similarly to
hockey. There may be 5 to 7 players on a team. Willow birch or chokecherry
sticks,4-5 feet long, are used to throw the NOYO to a team mate with the
objective to throw the NOYO through the goal posts. One point is gained. Teams
again assemble at the mid point of the playing field for the referee to throw
the NOYO in the air at which time the game again begins. Ladies are not to
strike, trip, slash the opponent(s) with the stick. Sticks should not be raised
higher then the shoulder.
Players play at their own risk There is not time limit. Can play for a
predetermined amount of point or time. This game should not be played at dusk,
and it is recommended that there be a time out for sleep and not continue for
days.
Indian Kick Ball: Competitors are teamed in groups of four or three.
Several teams may play. This is a race to the finish line.
A. Ball is made of deer hide covered with buckskin or denim-size of a
volleyball.
B. Players are to were moccasions.
C. Each team has a ball. Before each kick the players alternate kicking the
ball. Designate the chronological order of player to kick the ball. The to cross
the finish line is the winner.
Rock Juggling: Women primarily play this game. Competitors select their
own rocks, three or four rocks. Women are lined up at a starting point. The
finish line is 40 to 50 feet long. The judge starts the race with a drop of the
hand, hat, or audibly. The women race to the finish line juggling as they walk
or run. If a racer drops a rock, she must immediately stop in place, pick up the
rock and begin juggling and then she may start to walk or run to the finish
line. First to cross the finish line is the winner.
Provided by Sho-Ban Opportunities
Changing traditions: the Indian Pow-wow
Pow wows are celebrations, social gatherings, and feiendly dancecompetitions; they are a time to meet with old friendsand make new friends, and celebrate life the creator has given us through dance. There are sacred traditions to be found in this coming together of people. There is a circle of dances which represents the circle of unity, the cycle of life. Dancers often follow the clockwise directions of the sun.
Everyone is welcome at a pow wow, regardless of race or tribe. For newcomers to these colorful events, there are a few general rules of conduct which must be followed at pow wows. The following explanation may enhance the enjoyment and understanding of the pow wow.
The grand entry is the parade of all dancers into the dance area. When the eagle staff is brought into the arena for grand entry, those who are able must stand, and hats are removed in respect. The same respect is shown should an eagle feather fall to the ground during the dancing. Everything must stop until a proper retrieving of the feather has been performed.
Do not touch any part of a dancer's outfit, for some outfits have special meanings to the wearer. All outfits are handmade and could cost thousands of dollars; they are cherished and sometimes are heirloom pieces which are handed down through generations.
As with most competitive events involving concentration, camera flashes could be distracting. Photos may be taken, but don't use a flash during the contest. Always as permission before snapping a dancer's picture outside the dance area, for this is for private time. Also, do not crowd the dancers or stand in front of those who are preparing to dance or sing.
Feel free to join in the inter-tribal dances on invitation of the master of ceremonies, for these are the only dances which are open to public participation, regardless of race or tribe.
Dances are either for men or women and the competition dances are divided into age categories. Here is a brief description of dances which you will see at the Fort Hall Replica Pow wow.
MEN'S NORTHERN TRADITIONAL DANCE: Lavish bustles of long eagle feathers--or other birds of prey--are worn around the dancer's waist. This is the orginal wardance which was danced by the old timers before and after going into battle. Some of the regalia worn are very old and were passed down from the generations. Some men's outfits may include a red eagle feather--which denotes a veteran who sustained an injury in battle.
MEN'S FANCY DANCE: The dancers wear brillantly colored outfits with double bustles behind the back, with small bustles on the arms. This is the most athletic dance of the pow wow. The dancers must be extremely coordinated, and are required to stop with the last beat of the drum, or lose points in the competition.
MEN'S GRASS DANCE: This dance is one of the oldest dances preformed at pow wows. The grass dancers wear outfits which have strands of yarn or ribbon hanging down form the arms and waist, which represents grass in the spirit world. The dancers move gracefully, and flow like strands of grass blowing in the wind.
WOMEN'S JINGLE DRESS DANCE: This dance stems from the Chippewa legend of long ago, where a young girl was very ill and was on her death bed. While her father slept, he was told in a dream to make a special type of dress which should be adorned with metal cones sewn around the cloth. He was told to put this dress on his daughter, and when she danced, she would be miraculously cured. The dresses make a gentle swishing sound when worn; these dresses were traditionally decorated with rolled tobacco can lids.
FANCY SHAWL DANCE: This is a dance where some of the ladies emulate the movements of a butterfly. The dancers wear elaborately beaded dresses, moccasins, and leggings--which is completed by a beautifully embroidered or decorated long fringed shawl, which is further complemented by the high spirited twirling and prancing movements of this exuberant dance.
WOMEN'S TRADITIONAL DANCE: This is the original dance style which the women were limited to in the old days. They women move in a very graceful bounce step, rhythmically dipping and swaying to the beat of the drum. The women wear dresses of buckskin, wool, or other material, which are heavily decorated with beadwork, shells or elk's teeth.
The competition is scored by judges which are selected at random, and the dancers are judged by their individual dance style, quality of outfit, athletic ability, and participation.
THE DRUM: The drum is the most important participant at any pow wow, because without the drum groups, there would be no dancing or singing--therefore no pow wow. The drum represents the heartbeat of the Indian people; some of the songs which are sung by very old and have been handed down through generations.
Bill Hayes is a well known international organizer of Pow-wow and dance
troupes. He is responsible for this first ever event to be held at the Fort Hall
Replica.
By the Pow wow Committee
1803 harpers ferry flint lock rifle
On the eve of an era called the "Fur Trade," many events were taking place that would shape this country, the new breed of men that would live there,a nd the firearms which they would use to survive and prosper.
France under Napoleon, would wrest control of vast territories in North America from Spain. With war looming in Europe, and the loss of thousands of men to disease and revolt in Haiti, Napoleon offered to sell the territory of Louisanna to Thomas Jefferson for 15 million dollars.
Jefferson, who at one time only wanted to buy New Orleans, ws elated, and the deal, constitutional or not, was sealed. This new purchase brought much criticism and questions: What did this new land hold? Could it be farmed? What minerals could be found? Were there furs to be found? And what tribes inhabited the area?
These questions and more would be answered by a corps of men: a corp of discovery,.led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. This corps of men would need to travel a great distance with no reserves. They needed firearms that would be lighter than the "Brown Bess" of the revolution and of a smaller caliber which would use less lead. They needed to be rifled so htat accuracy would increase. Thus fewer shots would be wasted. And maybe most important, they need a firearm that had tolerance so close that parts would be interchangeable.
Eli Whitney was the master at the new federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry, Virginia. This man, who would later gain fame for his cotton gin, was a mechanical genius, and in designing this first of the U. S. Regulation Rifles, he also had to redesign machinery and patterns to make interchangeable parts.
In May-June 1803, the official requisition "Articles Wanted by Caprtain Lewis," lists 15 stands of this rifle along with 15 powder horns, punches, bullet molds, wipers, and gall screws; also listed were 15 gun slings, which if applied to the model 1803, would have been a departure from the regular issue which had no sling swivels.
The expedition also took along extra lock parts and tools for repairing by their gunsmith and he apparently impressed the Minetaree Indian Chief "One Eye," who said to the British traders: "Had I these white warriors in the upper plains, my young men would soon do for them as they would for so many wolves, ofr there are only two sensible men among them, the worker of iron (blacksmith) and the mender of guns."
The first model 1803 rifle to be used by the Indians may have been the arms that Lewis and Clark gave to the Nez Perce Indian Chief "Twisted Hair" for caring for the expedition horses during the winter of1805-1806. This took place near present Kamiah, Idaho. Three more arms were given to the Nez Perce guides after crossing the Great Divide. These were possibly the first the Nez Perce had. The barrels or stocks may have been shortened by the gun smith shields. It is known that at least one had a ruptured rifle barrel that was sawed off. Short arms would be the arm of choice of all mounted Indians for the next 100 years.
John Colter (First Western Mountainman) upon his release from the expedition on the Upper Missoure, may have taken a model 1803 with him backup river with two fur trappers.
The 1803 Harpers Ferry was different in other respects than just having a rifled barrel, and the rest of the barrel supported under the barrel. It was half-stocked (the wood stock running only half up the barrel, and the rest of the barrel supported under the rib); it was short (31 3/4 to 36" barrel length) compared to the common musket, and was "small" caliber (.54) compared to the common military calibers of .69 to .75. The arm had good balance and was easy to handle.
Just under 20.00 were made, 4,023 between 1803-07 and 15,70e between 1814-20. They were still being issued to regular troops in t1836 and a few may have been issued to troops on both sides in the early stages of the Civil War (1861) in the western areas (Missouri, Arkansas, etc.) of the war zone.
Our favorite rifled musket (1803) is thought by many to have been a great influence on the "mountain" or "plains" rifle, the Hawkin, and other rifles of the fur trade era.
Today the originals are sought after by collectors and new made replicas are
used by modern day mountainmen and re-enactors for shooting, hunting, and just
having fun.
Gordon Perry, Portneuf Muzzleloader Member and former Chairman of the Fort
Hall Replica Commission
Shoshone-Bannock women have always been strong.
In long ago days, they owned almost everything--the tipi trimmings, dogs,
children.
My grandmother and I are walking, her pace is slow, for the roads in the Fort Hall townsite are in bad need of repair. We are going to visit Big Rose Koops, and in true Indian fashion we are just dropping in for a visit, uninvited. Grandmother is talking about her as we walk.
"I've known Roase since I was a young girl, she was always independent as hell, a crack shot and a good rider. She could do anything a man could, and prided herself in doing it even better."
Shoshone-Bannock women have always been strong. In long ago, they owned almost everything--the tipi trimmings, dogs, children. They made the buckskin and were true artists with beads and quills. Although not allowed in council sessions, their voices were heard everywhere else in camp and undoubtedly in their men's ears. In the daughters of the trappers and their Shoshone-Bannock wives, that freedom of spirit and strong character were magnified.
I grew up around such women of English and French or Indian lineage: My Grandmother, Hazel Truchot, my great aunts, Emlie Edmo and Louise Truchot, and of course, Big Rose Koops, and of her I was terrified. If you were a child and around big Rose you had to be well-behaved, or get your rear end switched with a handy willow.
My Grandmother and I arrive at the log cabin of Big Rose. It has large elms growing around it, and is shady even in the hottest of days. An old couch and chair are underneath on of the trees, she loves the out-of-doors. We are asked to enter and find Big Rose watching TV. It is on loud, because she is hard of hearing. Grandmother comes up behind Rose's big green easy chair.
"Rose it's me Hazel," Grandmother says in a loud voice. Rose Koops looks up, surprised, and then a slow broad smile comes across her face and her eyes twinkle. I have always been amazed by her eyes--they speak of a women who loves life, and someone who could raise a lot of hell if her body was willing. He hair is cropped short and curled. She wears a print dress, calico apron, and well worn slippers. She smokes cigarettes; in early years she rolled her own--Bull Durham or Golden Harvest tobacco.
"Hazel, I'm glad to see you!" she smiles again.
"Rose, I brought my grandson along. He wants to talk to you about your father and old times," Grandma says.
"Sure, sit down and let's talk."
The conversation first proceeds to the operation Rose had on her eye. She says laughingly:
"I'm crippled, deaf and blind, but still keep-a-going! I'll be ninety on June first. I think I'll buy me a jug of whiskey to celebrate--that's what folks do for a good time these days.!" She takes a drag of her cigarette. "You know, when I was young we didn't need to drink to have a good time, and we worked hard. Ain't that right Hazel?" My grandmother nods her head in agreement.
"The problem with kids today is they are loved to death. They don't have to do nothing--that they don't want to do, and they get rewarded for it! When we were kids living on the ranch along Teton River, we walked five miles to school each morning, and washed dishes and made beds before we did that! We kids were seen and not heard, when visitors came to call. I remember when dad guided Teddy Roosevelt, that was in 1892. I was being sassy around him, so he took me over his knee and spanked me! I bet I'm the only Indian that was ever spanked by a President! She grins at that thought. "We spoke both English and Bannock when I was small. A language is important to a people, especially Indians. Indian people should talk Indian, not be ashamed of it. There was a time that's all you heard around these parts, but now all you hear is English. We Indians are becoming white people." She put out her cigarette.
"When I was two weeks old, I road my first horse! My mother put me in a baby board, hung it from her saddle,a nd we went from our place on the Teton River to Jackson Hole; that's a three days ride! I rode horseback ever since then." At this my grandmother smiles and lights her cigarette. She remembers her own cowgirl days working for her family at their ranch around Ferry Butte in Fort Hall.
"Rose, you must tell me about your father and his first family," I say. Big Rose looks out to space, she lights another cigarette.
"My father never celebrated Christmas or New Years. Between those dates in 1876 his wife Jenny and six kids died of smallpox. He used to stop at this Indian camp on his trapping rounds. One day he stopped there and everyone was dead except a baby. He took it home; it died--and his whole family also. He buried them along the Smoke River near Rexburg. I don't know if that flood done any harm to their graves or not."
"Do you think the grave should be moved to a safer place, Rose?"
"No, it should be right where it is. My dad married my mother when he was past 50 and she was fourteen. My grandfather's name was Pag Pege-a-ben-ni, my mother Sue Tadpole. They were Bannocks, full blood. My dad built fires around the tipi my mother was born in; it was very cold that time in th the Shoshone-Bannock winter camp--that was up near St. Anthony. He saved her from freezing to death. So her father gave her to him.
"They helped the first Mormon's that came into the St. Anthony area; they came by wagon in June, to late to plant crops. Some of then brought a cow or maybe some chickens or even a pig or two. Those folks might have starved to death if it wasn't for my mother teaching them to dry chokecherries, dig roots, and dry meat. My father kept them in game during the winter. Those old time Mormons were good folks.
"One time my dad and one of these Mormon ranchers were putting up hay. After working in the fields they were sitting in the house. That fellow said, "Rick, why don't you sent your Indian squaw and those kids to the reservation and get you a white women?" My dad just looked at him, and then pointed to the door. "The next time you come through the door you'll be carried out feet first!' I guess that Mormon rancher meant well; maybe he had one too many wives and they couldn't get along!" She chuckles at this and takes a puff of her cigarette.
"My dad was a guide, and one of the last of the old time mountain men. He was a guide for Hayden in 1872, zmotsn in 1879, and Teddy Roosevelt in 1892, just to name a few of them. There was no highway into there then, just elk and Indians' trails. Everything changed up there now. When I was in Jackson for the Centennial Celebration they asked me, 'Rose, is this place like it was when you were you were young?' I told them, 'No! What happened to all of your trees? Why are they all brown or dead?" They told me it was bark beetles and they were spraying to kill the bark beetles. Well, they werekilling everything else off too. While I was there, I saw only one squirrel and a moose!
"I'm a half breed, but I'm not proud of it. They think they are so damn smart. Look what they done to the buffalo. That was the Indian's food. My dad killed buffalo for the Hudson's Bay Company. Two bits a piece; they took their hides, tongue, hump, and tenderloins, left the rest to rot.
"A women came up to my cabin in Salmon one time., she wanted to meet me I guess. We started to talk and she told me, 'Rose, there was plenty of wild game for everyone, until the Indians came and ruined it.' Well, I got her told; she never did come back.
"My friend Lilly Mosho told me that she could remember salmon in the Yankee Fork so thick your could almost run across their backs! Now what has happened to the salmon? Too many damns and not enough water!
"There's an Indian prayer that I remember: 'Our Father, thank you for thy many gifts to us, your Indian children. Thank you for the clear running streams, the deer and buffalo you have given us in abundance. Thank you for the sunshine and the blue sky, and the green things from it. A voice we send to you throught the eagle. Thank you for the life we live."
"Well, we must go, Rose, thank you for visiting. We'll come back some time again," my grandmother says.
"Sure, anytime," Rose says with a sly smile, "and if you
decide to go elk hunting up in Jackson Hole this fall, you better include me in!
We'll have meat in the camp that night."
As told to Clyde Hall, Native American of Shoshone-Cree lineage, and Replica
Commission member. Reprinted from Idaho Heritage.
The flatlanders guide To mountain man say'ins
34. Beaver Plew- The streached, dryed hide of a beaver.
By Wild Bill Tanglefoot
Old fort Hall broadside June
1996
The revenge of Nathaniel Wyeth
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth was born on January, 29, 1802, at his father's Fresh Pond Hotel Cambridge, Massachusetts. On his twenty-second Birthday he married his cousin, Elizabeth Jarvis Stone. Choosing to stay at home, he helped his father run the hotel instead of following his oldest brother Jacob to Harvard. During the winter slack season, Nathaniel worked to supply the hotel with ice from Fresh Pond. His efforts to improve on the backbreaking methods used to cut and shift the heavy blocks of ice resulted in several inventions. These were so successful that ice became the principal export of Boston. Wyeth joined Frederic Tudor's ice company, and under exclusive contract supplied Tudor with ice from Fresh Pond. Except for five unsuccessful, frustrating years trying to establish himself in the fur trade of the Rocky Mountains, Nathaniel Wyeth would spend his whole life working in the ice trade, shipping ice up and down New England's coast and to ports as far away West Indies and the Far East.
Wyeth became interested in a venture of Hall Jackson Kelley, and soon joined Kelley's American Society for Encouraging the Settlement of Oregon, founded in 1829 to plan and work for an expedition to the Oregon Territory. The supposed expedition was to leave Boston January 1, 1832, under the command of Captain Benjamin L.E. Bonneville and Major Joshua Pilcher. Wyeth was to be one of the captains. After some delays, Wyeth suspected Kelley's expedition would never leave Boston, and, being much more interested in Oregon's fur trade than in settlements, he borrowed heavily from business and personal assets to form his own trading company for the Columbia River fur trade.
At the time Wyeth was preparing for his first expedition to the Rocky Mountains, the yearly fur trade rendezvous had been going on for quite a while, starting with a small gathering of four brigades of the Ashley-Henry Fur Company. In 1824, Ashley sold out to Jedediah Smith, David Jackson, and William Sublette, with the condition that Ashley would be the exclusive supplier of their fur company until they had paid off the balance owed to Ashley. Making good on their note and seeing the coming trend of fewer beaver and lower fur prices, Smith, Jackson, and Sublette sold out to Thomas Firzpatrick, Jim Bridger, Henry Fraeb, and William's younger brother Milton Sublette. This was the beginning of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Like Ashley, William Sublette and Tom Fitzpatrick would hold exclusive rights to supply the new fur company with the needed trade goods for rendezvous until the purchase price had been met.
Nathaniel Wyeth, with his band of greenhorns, met William Sublette and Robert Campbell, the leaders of the expedition to supply the rendezvous of 1832. Fearing no competition from these newcomers, Sublette and Campbell allowed Wyeth to join the expedition. The combined party of about 80 men left Independence, Missouri, on May 11, reaching Pierre's Hole Rendezvous July 8, 1832, and staying until July 17. During this time all but 1 1 men left Wyeth. He and what remained of his company joined Milton Sublette and Henry Fraeb, who was going to the Salmon River country in the present state of Idaho. The first day's travel was slow, with camping only eight miles from the rendezvous. The following morning a band of some 200 Gros Bentre Indians were seen on a trail near camp. The events of that morning led to the famous battle of Pierre's Hole. After taking care of the dead and wounded, the trappers again set off on their journey, July 23, 1832. Reaching the Portneuf River, Wyeth cached six loads of furs and goods, then followed the Portneuf to the Snake River valley, but found it already trapped out by the Hudson's Bay Company.
Sublette and Fraeb parted from Wyeth near the junction of the Snake and Owyhee Rivers in the southwest Idaho area. Wyeth then crossed the Blue Mountains to Fort Walla Walla, the Hudson Bay post on the Columbia River. Traveling by barge provided by the Hudson's Bay Company, Wyeth arrived at Fort Vancouver in October ' and was welcomed by the chief factor, John McLoughlin.
Before leaving Boston, Wyeth had arranged for a supply ship, the Sultana, to meet him on the Columbia River. Soon after arriving at Fort Vancouver, he was told the ship had been lost in the South Pacific. His trading venture had failed. After the death of one of his men, the rest requested to be released of their duties. Wyeth, still convinced of the commercial possibilities, spent the winter determining the prospects for salmon packing and farming. The failure of his venture forced him to return to the Rocky Mountains in hopes of selling the furs he had cached near the Portneuf River. Wyeth rehired one of his former party and left the Columbia on March 3, 1833, making his way to Fort Colville, then to the Missouri, trapping along the way. He complained of snow, lice, bad food, and starvation, but found time to write his observations of the Flathead, Nez Perce, and Blackfoot Indians. These were later printed as part of a six-volume book written by Henry R. Schoolcraft on the American Indian.
Late in May, 1833, Wyeth joined B.L.E. Bonneville's party traveling up the Salmon River, and on July 17, 1833, reached the rendezvous on the Green River near Bonneville's fort. Seven days later Milton Sublette, Tom Fitzpartrick, and Wyeth left for the mouth Of the Yellowstone River. William Drummond Stewart, a Scottish nobleman and adventurer, accompanied the party for the first few days of the journey on his way back to St. Louis. This was the first of several trips Stewart would make to rendezvous.
While camped along the Bighorn River, Wyeth convinced Milton Sublette and Fitzpatrick that he could supply the Rocky Mountain Fur Co. with trade goods much more cheaply than they were now being supplied by William Sublette. Wishing to break the stranglehold of the exclusive supply contract and the grossly inflated prices charged by William Sublette, which made it more difficult to pay off their debt to him, the Rocky Mountain Fur Co. on August 14, 1833, contracted with Wyeth for him to supply goods for the 1834 rendezvous.
In late August Wyeth, on his way back to Boston to arrange for the needed supplies, stopped at Fort Union, an American Fur Company post on the Missouri just above the mouth of the Yellowstone. In late September he stopped at Fort Leavenworth to report Fort Union's illicit distillery to the government authorities there, then made his way to Boston, arriving in early November.
Wyeth convinced Henry Hall and the firm of Messrs. Tucker and Williams to invest in his new venture of supplying the rendezvous of 1834. By mid-April Wyeth was in Independence, but was delayed in continuing by the late arrival of Jason Lee and his group of Methodist missionaries, whom Wyeth had agreed to escort to the Columbia. He left Independence on April 28, 1834.
William Sublette, who by the original contract was to supply the Rocky Mountain Fur Company with trade goods, heard of Wyeth's party leaving Independence for the rendezvous ahead of him. Determined to reach the rendezvous first, Sublette had caught up with Wyeth within a few days and managed to pass him in the night. The race to the rendezvous was on. Even though Wyeth sent word ahead that he would arrive about July first, he was too late. His goods would not be purchased. The Rocky Mountain Fur Co. was dissolved at this rendezvous and was succeeded by the Fitzpatrick, Sublette, and Bridger Co. Wyeth swore revenge, saying he would roll a stone into their garden that they would never be able to get out. That stone was to be the building of Fort Hall on the Snake River. The fort was enclosed and named after his partner Henry Hall in August of 1834. From there Wyeth's fur trade would be conducted.
After a failed attempt Hudson's Bay Co., Wyeth went to the rendezvous of 1836 at Horse Creek, Whitman missionary party and offered the hospitality of Fort Hall to Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding, the first white woman in the Rocky Mountains and the first to make Fort Hall a major reprovisioning stop on the Oregon Trail.
Due to the high cost of maintaining Fort Hall, it was sold to the Hudson's
Bay Co. in October, 1837, for $8,179 giving Great Britain another foothold in
their claim to the Oregon Territory. Nathaniel Wyeth died at his Cambridge home
August 31, 1856. He had failed in the fur trade but was an i settlement of
Oregon Territory.
Submitted by Bill Carnes, Portneuf Muzzle Loaders
From Carrie free's memorandum book
I was born in Bear River City, on July 26,1868. I remember a fewthing my mother told me about herself. Her father was a fisherman and shoemaker from a little island in Sweden calle Ulan. She said one time she got a ginger dough doll, but later they had to sell it to buy bread. She then told us that at 14 she was hired by a priest and he was very hard with her--only gave her two slices of bread a day once in the morning and one at evening. She was so hungry that she would beg waste bread from the cook. Now this was what she got for six months of work--a gray dress. Mother met father on the ocean wind when he was very sick, and she was asked to care for a sick man and his children.
My parents crossed the Plains in 1862 by ox team, with the Hancock Company. They had endured their share of hardships and sorrow, father having buried his second wife and two children on the Omaha Plains. Mother continued to care for this two remaining children and when they reached Salt Lake they were married. Mother was the first woman settler there at Bear River. They lived in their wagon for the first year, then in a two-room adobe house. When I was five their house was sold for $150.00 and we moved to Draper where I attended my first primer school. We always stood to recite our lessons, our hands behind our back and even in line. If we moved a toe or a hand, we learned the feel of out teachers ruler! I remember my Sunday school teacher buried six of her children that year, dead from diphtheria and smallpox.
In Draper we raised grain and cut it with the cradle and thressehed it wouth the flail on canvas. Then we children lifted the grain and let the chaff plow away as the grain fell to the canvas. We used bitch lights always (a rag laid in a cup of tallow) so when mother got a three candle mold and let us children dip the tallow to make candles we were delighted with out modern method of lighting!
My brother Fredie, who was eight, too sick on Sunday morning with membranic croup and died that afternoon. At that time there was mother and brother Pete and sister Stina and myself, all sick in bed. They sat mother up in a chair and carried the coffin by the beds for us children to look at. It was a hard day.
I took care to protect my own children from such illness as best I could. In the spring and fall we took all molasses and sulphur to purify the blood. We took onion syrup for coughs and sore throat, and a spoon of coal oil with sugar for croup and coughs. There were always dirty socks to wrap around sore throats, goose grease and turpentine to rub chests, and red flannel to cover the same. Watkins linament and cayenne pepper in hot milk for the grippe, horehound candy for cough drops. Sometimes neighbor ladies and I would gather to make assifidity bags for our children to we around their necks. Nothing can quite discribe the odor of assifidity on warm little chests. This works to kill or ward off childhood diseases.
Oh the hardship and suffering and times of poverty, but we were made closer as a family by it. My father regarded earthly gain as petty in comparison to honesty, charity, and kindness. I hope my children still remember such values in these easy times.
I am married now, and children and I are leaving Salt Lake to homestead in
Idaho. Our course our wagon is drawn by horses now, instead of oxen, and with
these good roads we are almost halfway there in only seven days! I wonder what
life will be like in Idaho.
Submitted by Jill Barber
I'd like to share with you some of the lessons I learned and the tribulations I faced while living in a tipi on the Bear River. Lookin back, I was sorta green, I was. Oh, I'd Spent one or two winter nites in a tipi, but not a whole season--that's when this child learned a heap! During my first winter I learned one very important thing that the Native Americans knew for centuries--when winter comes, move to a warmer place! Now Soda Springs is not one of the warmer places! Just a 30 mile trip could get you into a valley warmer by10 degrees. Another tip--camp in or around some trees for windbreak and some firewood. Two trips for wood got enough to last one night!
I had enough firewood gathered to build a four foot high wall all around the tipi for blocking the wind. It worked very well for a while bust as the wood pile diminished so did my windblock, and that wood didn't last near long enough! Since then I've learned many of the Indian tribes built a brush fence around the outside to block wind and stack firewood between it and the tipi, os the windbreak was always there. They also stuffed grass between the tipi and liner for insulation.
I also tried a woodburning stove the first winter. During a wet storm I brought wood in and stacked around the stove to dry. I woke up the morning with a lodge full of smoke! Thinking it was the stove, I opened the damper and went back to sleep. When next I woke up it was very bright and very warm in that tipi because all the wood was on fire! So was the flooring, the wooden chair, my clothes at the foot of the bed, and the bedding I was in! In the middle of this was a can of white gas I had just bought.
Needless to say that was the fastest exit I'd made out of bed all winter! I grabbed that can and threw it out the door, then managed to throw out all of the things that were on fire. While dancing in the snow to cool my feet, I thought about that gas can and how I could have been the first tipi in obit! That mistake could have cost my life but it only cost me a few burns on my feet, hand, and head--no, that's not how I lost my hair! But now I know--gas does not belong in a tipi --ever!
Another nuisance come winter was my unwanted house guests--field mice! Now I didn't mind them running up and down the tipi liner or even the food they ate, but when they started playing tag across my face while I was trying to sleep, that was too much! It was time to become a trapper! Now I'd read mountain men usually had six traps, so I got me six regulation mousetraps. If there'd been a market for mouse skins I'd be a rich man today, I tells you! I check my trap line twice a day and every trap was always full.
By the end of my second winter my clothes were pretty ragged from mousechews
and sparks from the open fire, and I'd almost wore out my snowshoes form
would-hauling! I musta looked pretty grizzled, cause even my pet coyote done ran
off, and I was half-starved for company! So's ifn you ever have a mind for the
spell of tipi life, you might heed these lessons learned in the schools of hard
knocks.
Submitted by Craxy Coyot
July 1932 was a very special time in Pocatello, Idaho. In honor of 100th anniversary of Nathaniel Wyeth's first visit to the valley and location where he would build Fort Hall in 1834, a big celebration was held in Pocatello. On June 17,1932 The Fort Hall Bugle, Volume 2, Number 2 was published with special emphasis on the upcoming American Legion Convention to be held in Pocatello in commeration of the "Days of Old Fort Hall" in Pocatello, Idaho. The newspaper and front page contained the following headline and articles:
POCATELLO'S CALLING YOU COME ON
DAYS OF 'OLD FORT HALL' CELBRATION WILL DRAW THRONGS
"All Idaho roads will lead to Pocatello, scene of the big 'Days of Old Fort Hall' celebration and state convention of the G. A. R, Spanish American Veterans, and American Legion on July 4, 5 and 6. Out of town attendance of about 10,000 persons is expected and adequate plans are being made for their entertainment by Pocatello Post No. 4, American Legion.
Since the Fort Hall Bugle was issued a big new entertainment feature in the form of a series of boxing matches has been arranged for July 4, with Leo Lomske, light heavy weight champion of the coast and Pocatello's own Jimmie Hanna in a 10 round bout as the headliner. This no dout will be the best fight ever staged in southern Idaho.
There will be an abundance of music by the famous "Rock of the Marne" band, the local bands, and drum corps form the various American Legion posts of the state, a Hall pagent, Legion junior baseball games, 49ers dance, rifle tournament, golf tournament, drum corps contest, patriotic addresses, convention sessions and banquets, and a gigantic pageant depicting the Days of Old Fort Hall, with a cast of 250 persons, including a large number of Indians from the Fort Hall reservation.
This latter event will be held on the University athletic field, with it's flood light arrangements on the evening of July 4, and will be concluded with a display of fireworks."
LAST CHANCE SALOON TYPICAL OF OLD DAYS
The Last Chance Saloon of the American Legion on West Lewis street is a faithful replica of the old time western mining camp drink dispensary, with the exception that only soft drinks are sold in the former. Slabs nailed to the outside gives a log construction effect. A wooden roof porch extends over the sidewalk, supported by cedar posts with a row of empty beer kegs on the sidewalk, all of which is mindful of a hundred different mining camps of the western early days.
The interior of the saloon is also typical with its bar, rail, glasses, bottles, and the lurid lithograph of "Custer's Last Fight", a piano with and empty beer keg as a stool, an electric piano, and two music boxes such as might be found in every well appointed parlor in the gay nineties.
The walls of the saloon are nearly covered with a beautiful selection of trophies of the chase including a buffalo head, and the heads of a moose, elk, and deer; and the hides of mountain lion, bear, and other animals.
The walls are also adorned with a number of ancient guns and pistols, with a goodly carpet of sawdust on the floors.
Midnight Frolic
"The midnight frolic which will start promply at 12:01 o'clock Monday morning, July 4, at the Dance Gardens, is going to be a big affair in every way, according to Bob Early, chairman of the committee in charge. Mr. Early states that he has arranged for a big orchestra for the big crowd and that the dance will be bigger, even if he has to stretch it. "Looks like a big night on Monday morning."
HUMOR ON FRONT PAGE
Cruelty Personified
A Russian was being lead to execution by a squad of Bolshevik soldiers one
rainy day. 'What brutes you Bolshevik's are,' grumbled the doomed one, 'to march
me through a cold rain like this.' 'What about us?', retorted one of the squad,
'we have to march back."
Loyal Friends
R. J. Schwendiman of the Idaho Oil Company spends a portion of his time
visiting out of town service stations of the company, and when he failed to
return the other evening, Mrs. Schwendiman became worried and wired five of his
friends as follows: "R. J. hasn't come home. Am worried. Is he spending the
night with you?'" Soon after this Mr. Schwendiman came home, and before
long a messenger boy came in with five replies to the wires Mrs. Schwendiman had
sent. They all read: "Yes. R. J. is spending the night."
Prompter Required
When G. M. Dean moved from the city to the country, he was told that he
ought to get a watch dog to guard the premises at night, so he bought the
largest dog that was for sale in the kennels of an Alameda dealer. Shortly
afterward the Dean home was entered by burglars who made a good haul while the
dog slept. Dean went to the dealer and told him about it. "Well, what you
need now," said the dealer "is a little dog to wake up the big
dog."
Scant Attire of Firemen
It was shortly after A. B. Canfield had assumed charge of the Pocatello fire
department and a local fireman had shuffled off, and was called to the place
where his service were not necessary, or useless, as the case may be, and in
connection with the funeral arrangements, the chief issued the following orders:
" All members of the Pocatello fire department are requested to attend the
funeral of our deceased member. Wear hats only."
Essential Information
Professor Schnabel caught a train form Pocatello for Salt Lake City.
Arriving there, he forgot what he was supposed to do so he wired so he wired his
wife: ""Why am I in Salt Lake? What am I supposed to do?" Mrs.
Schnabel replied that he was on his way to Provo to deliver an address before
students at B. Y. U. And he proceeded on his way.
Fort Hall Bugle Page Submitted by Jacquee Alvord
(the beginning or the truchot family in Idaho)
Many a lale could be told of the dayws when men trapped and traded furs of the Hudson's Bay Company around old Fort Hall. On of the most unusual is the story of Frances Truchot, a friend of Captain Richard Grant the Chief Trader of old Fort Hall and his son Johnny Grant.
Frances Truchot was born in 1833 in Bussiers, Le Belmont, France, to a family of prosperous saddlemakers. As a 19year old, he was smuggled out of France to escape military conscription during the wars of Napoleon II."Anyone with half an eye," his family said of him, "can se well that he'll never make a soldier." So off to America they shipped him. He served as a galley boy aboard ship and was treated quiet harshly by the sailors.
In 1852 he arrived in New York City and walked the cobbled streets of New York hunting for cousin Louis, as he had lost the address while aboard ship. It was a miracle that led the half-starved boy to his cousin's café in a city of some 600,000 people.
At long last, when Frank (as he was now called) learned enough English, he set out for the West to make his fortune. His best bits of luck were to recover from yellow fever while helping to build a railroad across the swamps of Alabama and to survive a severe freezing winter in the Rockies as a mule skinner for Colonel Albert Johnson of the Second Cavalry in the ill-fated Army of Utah.
Later, it was Frank's poor luck in the gold field of California and the Rockies and in his try at fur trading with the Indians at Fort Hall that brought him the greater good fortune of falling in with Captain Richard's Grant's outfit at Cantonment Loring, located close to old Fort Hall in the bottoms of the Snake River. When the sharp-eyed young Frenchman saw the jovial captain's prospering cattle transactions, he made an important decision. So it was that Frank Truchot enthusiastically learned to ride and rope for Captain Grant and was partners with his son Johnny Grant at Cantonment Loring and later in the Deer in Montana.
Johnny Grant became like an older brother to the inexperienced Frenchman. Born in the Northwest, Johnny Grant knew the West by heart and taught Frank what he knew of the wilderness. The two friends worked together in Cottonwood Creek, now known as the Grant-Kores Ranch National Monument in Deer Lodge, Montana.
Along, with another friend, Alexander Pamburn, he started a freighting business into and out of Montana Territory and over Monida Pass and along the Red Rock and Beaverhead Rivers to the Gold Rush towns of Bannock and Virginia City.
On one occasion, on the outskirts of Virginia City, at the Lemhi Indian encampment, Frank Truchot met an attractive and vivacious Lemhi Shoshone girl by the name of Mari:ci or Mary Watson; she was a young woman in her teens. It is not known how the courtship of Mari:ci came about with Frank Truchot. But the conditions of the Indians and especially the Lemhi band were quite bleak during the period of the 1860s through the 1870s. So what Indian family or woman would turn down the opportunity to marry into such a prosperous concern as had Frank Truchot? Freighting provisions from Salt Lake City to the gold camps in the Montana Territory paid very well, Frank buying flour there at $8 to $10 a sack and selling it in Montana for $35 a sack. And everything else in the way of provisions was high in proportion, since gold was the medium of exchange for all goods.
In the summer of 1866 Mari:ci gave birth to twins, and Frank gave them the names of Frank and Louis, but according to the age-old beliefs of the Shoshone people. twins were bad luck. So one day, when the twins were a year old, Mari:ci left the Truchot Ranch at Deer Lodge with Frank, leaving Louis behind. It was a long way between Deer Lodge, Montana Teritory, and her encampment of Lemhi people in Idaho Territory. And it was especially difficult for a woman and a child on horseback. Frank quickly caught up with her and the child as they hid beside the trail.
The boy Frank went back to Montana with his father to rejoin his twin brother Louis. Later in life they would return to Idaho when the Lemhi Tribe was allotted land on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in 1911. They will establish a ranch and home in the Gibson District of the Reservation. Louis never married, but Frank fathered children with his wife Louise Fellers Truchot.
What became of Mari:ci? Frank Truchot never saw her again, but in the verbal history of the Shoshone-Bannock people, it is told that Mary Watson--as she was known in later years--had a second family on her return to the Lemhi Reservation and later to Fort Hall. She lived to become an old woman, "old Mari:ci." Her son from her second marriage was known as "Three Findered" Jack Wheeler. In her latter years she would run away from her family's small cabin to live for days in the Fort Hall bottoms; the only way that her family would find her was because of the many dogs that she owned that always followed her.
One cannot help but wonder if she ever thought of her twin boys and her
French husband that she left on the banks of Warm Springs Creek on that summer
day in Montana Territory in 1867. Her sons moved to the Fort Hall Reservation
three years after her death.
By Clyde M. Hall, great-great-grandson of Francois and Mari:ci
Model 1816 U. S. Flintlock Musket
The model 1816 Flintlock Musket was made by Springfield Armory, Virginia (now West Virginia) c. 1816-1844. Production totals were enormous, over 325,000 were made at Springfield with over 350,000 made at Harper's Ferry. In addition well over 113,000 were produced by contract gun manufacturesfor federal, state, or local militias and the new Republic of Texas.
The model 1816 was made in .69 caliber, single shot, smooth bore muzzle loader with a 43" round barrel. The mountings are of iron with the metal parts finished bright, or browned. The lockplate generally had the date and manufacture's name stamped behind the cock.
Because of the large numbers of these guns many found their way into the hands of trappers and Indians alike. With a smooth bore the musket could be used with shot for taking water fowl and other birds in the field, and when loaded patched round ball, they were used to take big game from buffalo to deer in size. Their range was short but they could be very deadly and the military developed a paper cartridge that carried powder, one .69 cal. Round ball and three .36 Cal. Triple .0. buck. The load was called Buck and Ball and was used with devastation throughout the Civil War.
By 1942 the U. S. Government decided to drop the Flintlock for the more reliable percussion lock. Between that time and the first year fo the Civil War most model 1816's were converted to percussion in one of three ways: French style, Belgian style and Belgian alteration or Bolster type. All three ways used a new hammer to replace the cock, and a means to attach a nipple (tube) onto the breech of the firearm. Many of the musket barrels were rifled at this time and also had a rear sight added.
During the Civil War about 650 model 1816's were actually converted to breech
loaders using a specially designed .69 caliber center-primed metallic cartridge.
After the war in the late 1860's and 1870's Idaho Territorial Governor Brayman
about May 15, 1876 sold nearly all model 1816's to Bannock Indians in Boise. On
May 30, just two weeks later, the Bannocks could tolerate no more white man
inscursion and upon discovery of their traditional Camas Grounds near present
day Fairfield totally ruined by settlers' hogs, the Bannock Indian War
commenced.
By Gordon Perry, Vice President of Port-neuf Muzzleloaders
Oregon trail migrants and the snake river landscape
Between 1840 and 1860 close to 300,00 people traveled the Oregon and California Trails into the West. Though the numbers are difficult to calculate, it is possible that half of these wandered through a portion of Idaho's Snake River Plain on their way elsewhere. During these years of overland migration, the Snake River Plain proved for many reasons, to be for travelors one of the most difficult stretches of the entire journey. The Snake Rive Plain is essentially a desert, and overland travelers passed though it during the summer months, with the peak period of travel being the first three weeks of August. Especially these factor, but also a host of other affected the way in which Oregon-California Trail migrants responded to the landscapes of the Snake River region.
As overlanders exited the Rocky Mountains and descended onto the Snake River Plains--in about the spot where Old Fort Hall was located--they generally reacted in a positive way to the landscape they encountered. One migrant wrote the "we have another splended spring near us and the stream near it is full of speckled trout::.The wild currents grow here in abundance…with yellow blossoms." Initial reactions such as these suggest that to overlanders the valley of the Snake was somewhat of a paradise.
But from this point of the journey, the overwhelming nature of the Idaho desert soon took its toll. Adverse travel conditions, such as boring scenery, excessive dust, oppressive heat, and the lack of grass and water certainly influenced they way that travelers perceived their surroundings. As early as 1836 Narcissa Whitman wrote, "But the same scenery prevails, rocks and sandy plains covered with a species of wormwood…offensive to both sight and smell." In 1853, Rebecca Ketcham remarked, "The valley looks pleasant but the road is dreadfully dusty." Another confided that "This day is the warmest yet, the thermometer being one hundred & four. Felt today like giving up in dispair." In 1852 John Spencer found, "Almost no water. Poor grass…Fear of alkalai, a nasty place."
By the 1850's,smigrants were herding more cattle west to Oregon and California. The misery of desert travel also exacted a heavy price from these poor creatures. The loss of valuable animals and the resulting stench of decaying carcasses was another burden migrants had to endure in southern Idaho. In 1853 Amelia Knight "found the smell of carrion so bad, that we left as soon as possible the dead cattle lying in every direction."
One of the most difficult situations for overlanders to deal with was that although they crossed through a sun-parched desert and water proved scarce, the abundant Snake River flowed nearby. The problem was that migrants and their stock as well--could not always get to it--for along most of its way the Snake is entrenched in a deep gorge. This situation set up utter frustration for migrants. Polly Coon related in 1852, "This is one of the most singular rivers in the world beinf for miles enclosed by a perpendicular ledge of rocks & the thirsty animals were obliged to toil for miles together in the heat and dust with the sound of water in their ears & neither man[n]or beast able to get a drop."
Under the various stresses and strains of travel, overlanders repsonded in different ways. Some engaged in wishful thinking. For example, Agnes Stuart wrote, "hard on man and beast very warm nothing but hills and hollows and rocks. O dear if we were only in the Willamette valley or where we are going for I am tired of this." In other cases, entire wagon trains apart. Jared Fox wrote in 1852 that "At noon formed a company for mutual safety & at night broke up by our individual contrayness. Now in hostile Indian country where 30 wagons ou[gh]tto go together cant but 2 or 3 agree." And often actual fight broke out. In 1843 James Nesmith wrote that "Had a fight in camp this evening. Old Zachary stabbed Mr. Wheeler with his knife." More peace-loving travelers found solace from the hardship of days travel in the rest of the camp which awaited the end of the day. For example, Bernard Reid wrote, "Oh, how glad was everybody when the campfires of the trains ahead gleamed in our sight..we spread out our blankets at once and slept till day…."
For the Oregon-California Trail migrants who traveled west between 1840 and 1860, the Snake River Plain was a region with a double perwonality. On the one hand, it was a place which presented travelers with their greatest hardships. Indeed, these hardships took many and caused others to turn back. On the other hand, the Snake River region provided travelers with some of the most spectacular scenery they encountered on their way west. This scenery buoyed spirits, helped them forget their troubles, and encouraged more to continue on to the West Coast than it caused to turn back. In 1851, while on the Snake River Plain, Elizabeth Wook summed up the dual nature of the Snake's landscape and the significance it played in offering encouragement to many who continued westward when she wrote:
"After experiencing so many hardships, you doubtless will thing I regret
taking this long and tiresome trip, and would rather go back than proceed to the
end of my journey. But no, I have a great desire to see Oregon, and besides,
there are many things we meet with-the beautiful scenery of plain and mountain,
and their inhabitants, the wild animals and the Indians, and natural curiosities
in abundance--to compensate us for the hardships and mishaps we encounter."
By Peter Boag, Commission Member, and Professor of History, Idaho State
University
Movement to preserve old fort hall continues
The Fort Hall tribal council has designated "Red" Perry (Historical Trails Manager) to further the preservation and development fo the historical assets on the Fort Hall Shoshone Bannock Reservation. He has been setting up a system that would allow Indian guides to take individuals or groups of individuals to see these areas of historical interest. Contact Red to negotiate a price for such a tour. Red was born at Cantonment Loring and has spent much of his life on the Reservation. He has an acute interest in the history of this area and sensitive to the feeling and history of the Indians. It is important that these National Historical treasures be preserved.
In August of 1997 the Idaho Chapter of the Oregon-California Trails Association(OCTA)will host the national parent organization for their annual convention. The theme will be Fort Hall, Hub of the West. The national organization was established over twenty years ago to protect and preserve our historic trails. This organization was in the political front lines when the U. S. Congress passed the National Historic Trails Bill and assigned the National Park Service as the lead institution to mark and make these trails accessible to the general public. OCTA member were the nucleus that started the Oregon Sesquicentennial that was such rousing success. This organization is over 4,000 members strong and usually has a convention of some 500-700 people. The 1996 convention will be held in Elko, Nevada. The historical assets in the area are being evaluated ofr the tour that this group of historians will share. These areas are not user-friendly and need attention and signs. The Pocatello Chamber of Commerce, Idaho OCTA, and the tribe under the direction of Red Perry have formed a consortium to preserve and protect these assets.
The Old Fort Hall site is designated as a National Monument is also is on the endangered list because of the backwaters of the American Falls reservoir and the constant erosion of the Snake River. These historical sites are important not only to the national OCTA organization, and the Idaho OCTA, but also to the citizens of the area, the Bannock Shoshone Indian tribe, and the United States public. The areas should be preserved. Mr. Red Perry noted the following needs:
By J. Michael Bateman, Board of Directors, Oregon California Trails Association
Old fort Hall broadside June 1997
Charlie and Annie Pete Bell
Charley Bell was a rancher and a farmer. Annie Pete Bell was a housewife. Together they had 15 children, only two are living.
DAD. Charley was a farmer and also a rancher, he owned approximately 300 head
of Hereford cattle, and about 100 head of horses, some saddle horses and some
work horses he used for farming. He also owned turkeys, ducks, chickens, sheep,
hogs, and milk cows which kept the whole family very busy until his death.
Before Charley, long ago there was a Crow family traveling in their wagon near
what is now Owyhee in Nevada. They had a daughter and other kids. They were
attacked by Paiute Indian warriors. All were killed but one little girl. An
elderly couple found the girl in hiding and took her back to their camp and
raised her. As the girl grew up the old couple continued to remind her that she
was born a Crow. The Paiute and Shoshoni Indians in the area continued to look
for the girl and threatened to kill her, but the elderly couple guarded her with
their lives. The girl became a women and had two boys, one of whom was Charley
Bell’s father. Later they went back to Montana. Early in his life, before he
was married, Charley Bell told of being a Pony Express rider, which he said was
a very dangerous job. He worked from Bruneau, Idaho to Elko, Nevada. ( I believe
this was in the late 1800's). Sometimes he carried money to be delivered.
One day he met his wife, Annie, and they were later married. They had about two
children when they headed out on horseback to Fort Hall, Idaho, which was a long
trip from Owyhee, Nevada. When they got to Fort Hall they settled there and were
allotted lands. They later had more children. Charley was also blessed with a
great spirit. He had the power to cure sickness, so he became known as an Indian
doctor. In the early part of the 40's he ran Sun dances around Pryor and Big
Horn, Montana with his cousins, William Big Day and Henry Big Day, also cousin
old Eddy Round Face and George Bulltail. He taught young men how to sing sun
dance songs and how to make big drums for the Sun dances. He was also an
Etho-botanist. He used wild plants, herbs, and roots for medicinal purposes and
also edible use. He was also a tribal police in earlier years and served a chief
judge for many years for the Shoshoni-Bannock tribes. Charley Bell died Dec. 17,
1950.
MOTHER. Annie Pete Bell was a mother of 15 children, which only two are
living today. Annie was a gardener. She planted a big garden every year and
canned food, such as carrots, beans, corn, and other kinds of vegetables. Her
garden won many blue ribbons. Besides being a gardener, she was a traditional
arts and crafts person. She tanned hides, deer, elk, buffalo, moose, and
cowhides.
She was an expert at beadwork, basketry, ans weaving. She made moccasins, beaded
bags, belts, the whole buckskin outfits, besides making baby cradle boards and
little shades out of willow trees and bark. She also made winnowing baskets. She
was also an Etho-botanist; she collected seeds of various plants for edible
uses. She picked wild berries and dried them for future uses. She used
traditional tools, such as the winnowing try, and the stone bowl for grinding,
preserving food for future.
Both Charley and his wife, Annie, were story tellers. The told stories about
animals. As one day long ago, they, the animals were created before mankind.
They were Animal people. As the story goes, long ago, the animal people were
starving to death. The squirrel happened to be the chief. So all the animal
people came to the squirrel and asked him how he can save the people from death.
So the squirrel in all his wisdom came up with the idea, they would have to
dance all night and do the prayer dance. The coyote was the camp crier. He was
ordered to announce the dance, so he did. All the animal folks came out to
dance. The first song was sung and the dance came to an abrupt stop. One person
was missing, the chief. He was no where in sight. Everybody looked for the
chief. He was found and brought back, he was asked why he ran away. He made
excuses, such as his nails were too long, he might hurt himself dancing. But he
was told he was the chief, so he finally gave in. The animals danced until
midnight.
At midnight, all prayed to the four winds. The dance started again. Then a
strong wind came up and brought the seeds. Then the rain came and watered the
seeds by then the ground was almost plowed by the squirrel’s toe nails. In the
morning when the sun came up the chief commanded the dance to stop. Chief said
"Look, everybody, look." They people saw the mustard seeds growing and
all over ready to collect. Chief said, "Get your baskets and beating
sticks, collect the seeds." They all collected the seeds in rock bowls and
made seed pudding. And all the people were fed and survive.
By Ramona Walema, Fort Hall Replica Commission
Oregon was taken at Fort Hall
[1902]
"There at Fort Hall the final conquest was made, which resulted in the United States obtaining possession of a good share, at least of the Northwest coast. Previous to 1836, when Dr. Whitman cam to the coast, in nearly every contest which the Americans had had with the British subjects here they had been defeated. Severeal fur companies, among which werthe Pacific Fur Company, Wyeth's Salmon Cannery and Trading Company, Captain Bonneville, and others, which swelled the number to eleven, had fought the battle with the Hudson Bay Company and retired defeated. The American Society for Encouraging Settlements in the Oregon Territory, with Hall J. Kelly at its head, had lost $30,000 and retired from the field. Astoria, built in 1811 before the Hudson Bay Company was here, and Fort Hall, built in 1834, by N. J. Wyeth, had fallen into the hands of the enemy.Thus, previous to 1834, every American effort was defeated. In that year Rev. Jason Lee and other crossed the continent, and, though it was not in their first plan, actually began a settlement in the Willamette, which greatly assisted in the final victory. The same year Rev. Samuel Parker began to arouse the Congregational and Prysbyterian churches and the American Board of Commissers for Foreign Missions in regard to missions on this coast, and the next winter found Dr. Whitman and interested him in the work. Then it was that the tide began to turn in favor to of the United States. In 1836, when Mrs. Spaulding and Mrs. Whitman crossed the Rocky mountains, the first white women who ever did so, it was a victory. When during the same journey, Dr. Whitman brought the first wagon that ever broke sagebrush to Fort Boise, it was another victory. When four years later, Dr. Robert Newell and company took three wagons to Walla Walla, the enemy was again overcome. When, again, Dr. Whitman made his journey east in 1843 through terrible suffering, and gave such information at Washington that the opinions of the rulers as to the value of the country and the possibility of reaching it with wagons were changed, still another victory was won. But the results of all these would have been well nigh or completely lost had Captain Grant at Fort Hall induced the emigration of 1843 to do as he wished. There was no flurish of trumpets or sound of drums, no rattle of musketry or roar of cannon at that battle. The contest was simply between two men, and was a battle of brains and diplomacy, but the result were greater than oftentimes when many thousands have been slain. Each of the parties felt in a measure the responsibility, and Whitman won.
Fort Hall had been built nine years previously an American,
but in the contest between the trading companies quickly fell into the hands of
the British. Now it was the scene of another contest, when settlements, not
furs, were at stake, and the American gained the victory. All that was done
after this was simply to gather up the spoils and make the treaty of peace. And
when, in 1846, the treaty was signed between Great Britain and the United
States, it was simply writing in an official way what had been written de facto
three years previous at Fort Hall."
Myron Eells, D. D. Oregon Resident, A Reply to Professro Bournes' 'The
Whitman Legend', 1902
Dr. William Burrow voiced similar sentiments:
Undated "In later days, when the spirit of war was aroused for the whole of Oregon or war, the question was raised whether it was to be taken under the walls of Quebec or on the Columbia. Neither was the place. Oregon was taken at Fort Hall; for it well be seen that from this time the grand result in the Oregon case was no lonter an open and doubtful issue; only details and minor adjustments required attention.
Dr. William Burrows in Burrow's Oregon, p.249
Lamb of the Mountains,
A Shoshoni Woman
What we know of Umentucken Tukutsey Undenwatsey, Mountain Lamb, comes to us from the biography of Joe Meek, the mountaineer, whose words show his love for this woman. They first met when Joe Meek & Milton Sublette were captives in the Shoshoni Village & were to be killed when the morning came, but one chief Gotia helped them escape in the night. He led them to where this beautiful young Indian girl stood holding their getaway horses. Later she became the wife of Milton Sublette & when he left the mountains, the wife of Joe Meek.
In Jan. 1833, during a winter move to find feed for the horses, Joe met Mt. Lamb on the trail. She & her child were freezing, & were without extra blankets, so Joe wrapped his capote around them. & he rode the rest of the day naked above the waist, & so cold the men had to rub him with snow to warm him up. By this gallant action he became a hero in her eyes. She & Joe Meek were together for only one year, 1835, & he described her thus: "She was the most beautiful Indian woman I ever saw, & when she was mounted on her dapple gray horse, which cost me $300.00, she made a fine show! She wore a skirt of beautiful blue broadcloth and a bodice and leggings of scarlet cloth of the very finest make. Her hair was braided and fell over her shoulders, a scarlet silk handkerchief tied on hood fashion covered her head, and the finest embroidered moccasins her feet. She rode like all Indian women, astride, and carried on one side of the saddle the tomahawk for war & on the other side the pipe of peace."
This woman with all the feminine attributes still had the spunk & spirit to survive in a harsh land. Once while picking she & other women were picking berries, they were attacked by Blackfeet, & she saved herself by swimming across the Yellowstone river with bullets flying all about her.
In another incident a trapper accused of her freeing his 2 Ute slaves who had escaped, & he threatened to whip her. When he was coming after her, she got a pistol in her lodge, snuck back, & came around behind him as he was about to enter. "Coward,’ she said, "you would whip the wife of Meek. He is not here to defend me, not here to kill you, but I shall do that for my self." And she held the pistol to his head. The Bully began to apologize & to beg for his life, and a shout went up form the mountaineers camp-- "Hurrah for Mountain Lamb." She was much admired for her show of bravery.
The same year a hunting party she was accompanying noticed she was missing form their group, having fallen behind. The trappers rode back looking for her & found she had been captured by a party of Crows. Just then Meek’s horse bolted, out of control, & and dashed right into the middle of the Crow War Party. The battle for Mountain Lamb had begun! The Crows fled after losing 2 of their party. The trappers heaped compliments on Meek for his daring, but Meek later said, "I took their compliments quite naturally, I didn’t think it was worthwhile to them that I couldn’t hold my horse."
Another time a party of Crows visited Bridger’s camp to trade, and one warrior struck Umentucken with his whip, by way of showing his superiority to women, especially trappers wives. In an instant he was dead by a bullet from Joe Meek’s gun. The Crows lost 2 men & one trapper died in the skirmish that followed. "Well, you raised hell of a rough in camp," Bridger told him. "I’m very sorry, Bridger, but I couldn’t help it, " said Meek. He wouldn’t have any man striking his wife!
Umentucken’s days with Meek were nearly done. In the following summer she died from a Bannock arrow, meeting death valiantly, like a warrior.
By Jill Barber, Fort Hall Replica Commission Member
POCATELLO
Pocatello is named for a Chief of the Bannock Indians. There is some question as to origin of the name Pocatello. Mr. Red Perry's explanations are the most colorful and you must get him to tell you what he thinks. The following excerpt from Frederick W. Lander's report to the special session of the 35th congress in 1858-59 may give the most appropriate clue.
"When I heard that these Indians had broken out into hostilities, had stopped the United States Mail, and killed some of the emigrants who were, in small parties, endeavoring to reach California from Salt Lake City, I thought it proper to visit them, taking with me "Shoshone Aleck," the interpreter, my engineers, Messrs. Wagner, Long, and Poor, Mr. Campbell, and the mountaineers Justus, Gabriel, and Williamson. On my way I procured the services of a leading warrior of the Pannack tribe, and by his kindness and discretion I was enabled first to obtain an interview with ten warriors, an outlying party of the band of Po-co-ta-ro or the "white Plume". The leader of these ten warriors told me that he would visit Po-co-ta-ro's camp in the mountains, but that the chief's heart was bad, and that he would listen to soft words from the whites. I sent by this messenger a few small presents to Po-co-te-ro, inviting him to come to me and have a talk. He came with fifty-five mounted warriors, and treated me and my small party with the utmost respect and consideration. I have to place on record before your department the simple fact, that this young chief, known to be hostile to the whites received me with an attention which I have seldom known manifested by the wild tribes of the interior whom I have repeatedly met."
It would be easy to see how this name could have undergone the change to
Pocatello. Since Lander was probably the first person to transfer this name to a
written record it would seem likely that this city and Chief Pocatello owe their
name to Lander's interpretation. Despite Chief Pocatello's so called bad heart
he lived through the Battle Creek Massacre north of Preston Idaho in January of
1863 in which all but 4 of his Bannock band was destroyed. He died near the
bridge on Monsieur or Michaud Creek west of Pocatello. He was buried wrapped in
a blanket in a spring on the Portneuf River two and one half miles north of the
Schilling Ranch along with his personal horse which had acted as the hearse to
transport him from the farm. Nine other horses were also killed and sacrificed
in the spring.
Submitted by Dr. Michael Bateman, Fort Hall Replica Commission
Dr. Minnie F. Howard Of Pocatello
And The Oregon Trail Half Dollar
In early 1926 Representative Addison Smith of Idaho and Senator Wesley Jones of Washington sponsored the Memorial Coin Bill to authorize the coinage of 50 cent pieces to commemorate the heroism of the fathers and mothers who traversed the Oregon Trail to the far west. In 1986 Bert Webber wrote The Oregon Trail Memorial Half Dollar (1926-1939). Mr. Webber dedicated his book to the memory of Ezra Meeker, AThe Grand Old Pioneer of the Oregon Trail who was also the instigator of the Oregon Trail Memorial Half Dollar.@ While Meeker=s role has been thoroughly documented, there is another story. The concept of the Oregon Trail half dollar originated in Pocatello, Idaho and Dr. Minnie F. Howard was the central catalyst.
The Dr. Minnie Howard Collection at Idaho State University contains many documents relating to the Oregon Trail Memorial Half Dollar. There is also a book, Covered-Wagon Centennial and Ox-Team Days, which contains information on the the Oregon Trail Half Dollar and has many notes in the margins written by Dr. Minnie Howard or as she liked to be called, Dr. Minnie. The book and documents reveal that there was a direct connection between the Oregon Trail Half Dollar, the Fort Hall Monument Association of Pocatello, and Ezra Meeker=s Oregon Trail Memorial Association.
Dr. Minnie=s association with Ezra Meeker and Fort Hall dated back many years. Mr. Meeker first came to Pocatello, Idaho, as a part of his trek from Oregon back across the Oregon trail with his ox team and dog. Both 1906 and in a subsequent visit 1912 Mr. Meeker made numerous inquiries in an attempt to find the site of Fort Hall, which he stated that he considered to be the most important historic point on the great trail. On his third trip over the Oregon Trail in 1916 in an automobile, under the auspices and guidance of Dr. William Howard and Dr. Minnie Howard, (with Joe Rainey serving as a guide, and accompanied by D. Keeney and E. Young), they found the exact spot where the fort had stood. Following the location of the old fort a marker was erected to mark the site.
Ezra Meeker and Dr. Minnie shared a greater goal. According to Dr. Minnie, AMr. Meeker always told us that the most pretensions monument on the Oregon Trail should have been at Fort Hall.@ The Nathaniel Wyeth Chapter of the Daughter of the American Revolution took the initiative to preserve the exact site of the old fort, which was in danger of being covered by the waters of the American Falls Reservoir, and to design a creditable monument to commemorate AFort Hall@ as a place of destiny.
To build a monument it was necessary to obtain funds. In October 1925 Ezra Meeker wrote a letter to Dr. Minnie asking if her Pocatello people had a plan of financing the Fort Hall Monument, AI replied to Mr. Meeker that I had no financial plan, but I would consult with others of the group interested. Among these was Mr. F. C. McGowan, whom I often consulted as he was the husband of our regent of D. A. R. which until now was sponsoring the monument plan. He replied without hesitation >Yes, Coinage. Like this!= and he drew form his pocket a Stone Mountain memorial coin. I said >Fine! Will you write that in a letter to the New York officer and I will enclose it in this letter I am taking to mail on this train.=@ Mr. McGowan=s suggestion actually came six months after the Oregon Trail coin was first discussed in the Idaho State Journal in Pocatello. Dr. Minnie=s notes the margin of the Centennial book that the idea for a Oregon Trail Coin was in fact initiated by an editorial in the Idaho State Journal in early 1925 by D. T. Murphy. Interestingly, Mr. Murphy in a letter to Dr. Minnie dated May 18, 1926 revealed that it was his wife, Mabel Mary, who had the initial inspiration for an Oregon Trail Coin and that he incorporated the suggestion in several articles. Upon receipt of a letter from Mr. McGowen, Ezra Meeker wrote Dr. Minnie on November 2, 1925 and stated:
A
After full and farther investigation and thought to conclude it is best to arrange the incorporation for erecting the Fort Hall Monument, at Pocatello and make the organization national in scope, that is to include the whole of the Oregon Trail. Mr. McGowen=s sage words of advice to secure the coinage of Memorial half dollars is sound and has opened new thoughtin my mind to increase the scope of the proposed organization, and with it change the name to the >Oregon Trail Memorial Association,= and ask Congress to coin a million memorial half dollars instead of the smaller sum for one object. Of course this change would not in any sense abandon the idea of a Fort Hall Monument or that object could be specifically set into the article of confederation if thought necessary, which I don=t think would be. This would place the organization on a higher plane than merely local in aword it would appeal to the nation. There is a farther reason: I under-stand such action by the government action by the government is rare and only to promote objects of nationwide interest. We could more easily get a bill throughCongress to issue a million half dollar coins than for a hundred thousand.@Ezra Meeker began working with Dr. Minnie and others to obtain Congressional and national support for the Oregon Trail Half Dollar and the incorporation of the Oregon Trail Memorial Association. Legislation was introduced in the House early in 1926 and was passed on April 5, 1926. Passage in the Senate was placed in jeopardy when Secretary of the Treasury A. W. Mellon recommended a substituting a medals for coins. Ezra Meeker immediately telegraphed Dr. Howard and the members of the Pocatello organization (G. Nicholas Ifft, Augustus C.Hinkley, Ethelyn Glasser, Bertha M. Winters, and Jesse L. Retherford) informing them of what had happened and requesting their help. The Pocatello group notified Ezra Meeker by telegram that it was essential that a coin, not a medal, be created. Ezra Meeker presented this information in a Senate Hearing and the coin bill subsequently passed the Senate without opposition.
Once Oregon Trail Bill was signed by the President on May 17, 1926 the next step was to design and distribute the coins. Letters from Ezra Meeker and other members of the OTMA Board of Directors detail how Dr. Minnie was consulted in each phase. The correspondence reveals that the selection of the sculptors and the final design of the reverse of the coin both come directly from Dr. Minnie. She also drafted proposals to the D.A.R. and the General Federation of Women's Clubs that brought their support in the sale of the Oregon Trail Coinage.
When the Oregon Trail memorial coinage was sent into circulation, Mr. Ezra Meeker was presented with the first coin. Dr. Minnie Howard of Pocatello, Idaho received the second coin. Dr. Minnie accepted the coin in behalf of her state and deposited it in the state museum at Boise.
Submitted by Jacquee Alvord, Chairman, Fort Hall Replica Commission
THE rebellion AT FORT HALL
In December 1839 the mountain men who frequented Fort Hall decided that they could no longer accept the British Flag flying over a fort that they considered to be in American Territory. There was a brief , but colorful revolt by the American trappers. An account of this event was related by Rufus B. Sage following his visit to Fort Hall in November 1842:
"During our stay at Fort Hall an incident connected with its early history was narrated to me, which, as it tends much to illustrate the bold daring and spirit inbred republicanism possessed by the mass of trapping parties frequenting the mountains, I am tempted to discribe.
Soon after this post came into the hands of its present owners, severa squads, on returning from their regular hunts, rendezvoused in its vacinity. According to the custom of the Hudson Bay Company on such occasions, the British Flag was hoisted in honor of the event. Thereupon the proud mountaineers took umbrage, and forthwith sent a deputation to solicit of the commandant its removal; and, in case he should prove unwilling to comply, politely requesting that, at least, the American flag might be permitted to fly by its side. Both propositions were peremptorily refused.
Another deputation was then sent announcing that, unless the British flag should be taken down and the stars and strips raised in its place within two hours, they would take it down by force, if necessary. To this was returned an answer of surly defiance.
At the expiration of the time named the resolute trappers, mustering en masse, appeared before the Fort, under arms, and demanded its immediate surrender.
The gates had already been closed, and the summons was answered by a shot from the bastion. Several shots were forthwith exchanged, but without much damage on either side; the trappers directing their aim principally at the British flag, while the garrison, feeling ill-disposed to shoot down their own friends in honor of a few yards of parti-colored bunting, elevated their pieces and discharged them into the air.
The result was that the assailants soon forced an enterence, took down and tore in pieces the hated flag, and mounted one of their own country in its stead, amid deafening huzzas and successive rounds of riflery. The commandant and his sub-cronies, retreating to a room, barricaded the enterence, when the trappers promptly demanded their surrender upon the following terms:
1st. The American flag shall occupy its proper place
hereafter.
2d. The commandant shall treat his captors to the best liquors in his
possession.
3rd. Unless the offenders comply with these conditions, the captors will
consider Fort Hall and its contents as lawful plunder and act accordingly.
After a short parley the besieged agreed to a capitulation. In compliance with the second article of the terms, a barrel of whiskey, with sugar to match, rolled out into the yard, where its head was knocked out, and the short but bloodless campaign ended in wild frolicking, as toast after toast was drunk in the fancied honor of the American flag, and round after round of responsive cheers told who were they that stood ever ready to proudly hail it and rally beneath its broad folds."
On the 6th of February 1840, in a letter to his brother Edward Ermatinger, Francis Ermatinger wrote the following letter confirming the events related by Rufus Sage:
"My Dear Brother.......My campaign in the Snake Country I consider to have been my master work and must have removed any doubt, if nay had exited, of my abilites as a trader. We doubled the returns and reduced the expenditure much and had a ruined country to work upon. I brought out 3300 beaver and better, and received compliments enough here, but they cannot avail me for next year. Pambrun, who is and has been snug at Walla Walla for 10 or 12 years past , deserves the preference and must be brought in before me. Be it so, I will be patient for the present. The Snake country is not as when you were here, a snug little party to conduct to their trapping ground. We have to deal with a lawless a rabble, the scum of all nations, as can possibly be gathered together. I left Fort Hall upon the 26th November and soon afterwards received an express informing me that a part of scoundrels had been at the Fort and run off all the horses, at the same time left a note threatening my life and declaring that ‘their fathers fought for the country and the Company shall not possess it.’ I have again, in consequeneces of these threats, consented to head the party, for I am determined to make them see how they have neglected me, and if I come clear off, I hope it will be my last risk in that quarter for notwithstanding their having made the threat, I cannot believe they intend any harm to me individually. The good folk here treat the thing lightly, and I am sure I hope they may have no cause to change their opinion before two or three years are passed...."
Submitted by Jacquee Alvord, Fort Hall Replica Commission
Fort Hall And The Indian Trade
The history of the Indian Trade at old Fort Hall and later the Fort Hall Agency has been an interesting and colorful one. The Indian Trade started with the establishment of old Fort Hall by Nathaniel Wyeth on July 18, 1834 and continues to this day.
The Hudson Bay Company bought the Fort from Wyeth in 1837 and continued in business until the fort was officially closed in 1863. The trading operation was located in various places within the structure of old Fort Hall, during the decades of it’s existence. The primary inducement for the Indians to trade at the old fort was the then "rare goods" such as: traps, Hudson Bay point blankets and English selvage edged red and blue cloth, beads and vermilion paint, metal English Sheffield knives, awls and guns. In turn the Hudson Bay company required fur pelts as the exchange.
In a letter by Chief Trader of Fort Vancouver, James Douglas to Governor George Simpson- Fort Vancouver, March 18th, 1838; he described the Indians living around Fort Hall as:
...a numerous assemblage of Panaks, Shoshones and Shoshikos, cognate Tribes, living with each other, on terms of amity...They are and equestrian and exceedingly "arratick" people we have hopes of introducing among them more settled habits of life and leading them to devote more of their time to Fur hunting, and object worth of our attention, as we are likely to derive from their exertions, more certain and extensive benefit...
The Trading Room of the old Fort was equipped with a counter made of rough lumber placed on top of wooden barrels that ran the length of the room. The Clerks were dressed in black wool frock coats with double brass buttons as officials of the Hudson Bay Company. Behind the counter was hung or placed on shelves the trade goods mentioned above. But also included was goods supplied to the trappers who worked for the Fort and later, goods oriented toward the Oregon Trail pioneers who traded with the Fort enroute to either California or Oregon.
Captain Richard Grant former Chief Trader of Fort Hall for the Hudson Bay Company during the years of 1843 to 1851 also ran a small trading post and a large ranching operation at Cantonment Loring not for from the original fort after 1863.
The Fort Hall Indian Reservation was established in 1868 under the Fort Bridger Treaty and in the early years "the official post trader" was appointed by the Superintendent of the Agency according to the political "spoils system." The Trading Post was the only licensed government trader allowed to operate to trade with the Indians and was therefore a lucrative and profit making concern. The official government Trading Post was first opened in 1872 when Stanton G. Fisher was granted a license under special Indian Agent High of the then Ross Fork Agency
In the early years, the Trading Post, along with the Railroad depot, was the center of all activity around the "Ross Fork" later known as the Fort Hall agency. In the photograph included with this article, dated 1878, the Government Trading Post is pictured as a two room structure, a clapboard building added on to the original structure, which was a one room cabin.
The interior of the Trading Post consisted of two long wooden counters, behind which was arranged food stuffs, beads and blankets, saddles and tack, house wares and other assorted sundries. There was a post office in the back of the store and a pot bellied stove in the center, around which was grouped a collection of chairs and spittoons.
The Trading Post was a center for the early community of the agency. From within it’s walls deals were made, goods bought, sold and traded by the Indians and general news and gossip of the community was exchanged. To visit the Indian Agency and Trading Post, it was a day long trip either by horse or wagon from various outlying districts of the Reservation.
The Indian Trade was such a lucrative business that many Indian Agents (Superintendents) became Indian Traders once their term expired. The following is a history and sequence of Indian traders after 1882 to the present day.
In 1873, Johnson H. High, former Indian Agent, applied for a Trader’s license under his successor Indian Agent Reed. This was denied. High then became partners with Stanton G. Fisher, forming the Trading Firm of High and Fisher, who ran the Trading Post until 1886, when Campbell and Walker were appointed Indian Traders under Agent A. L. Cook. The Trading firm of Campbell and Walker continued for a period to twenty years. In 1906 H. W. Evans was appointed as the last official Indian Trader of the Fort Hall Indian Agency and the Evan’s family ran the operation for three generations. In 1970 "Evan’s Store", as it was then known, was bought by Jerry Williams. In 1975 the store was bought from Williams by Jim Birdwell. In 1993 it was bought by Wendy Hall Loudermilk, a member of the Shoshone Bannock Tribes, who remained the store to "The Corner Mercantile/Indian Goods".
In many respects, the Corner Mercantile, located on the Fort Hall townsite on
old U. S. 91 highway still serves the acquired purpose of the original Agency
Trading Post and that of Old Fort Hall trading room. As a place for people to
meet, exchange the news of the day and purchase or trade for groceries, beads,
and craft items, and bead work to be bought, traded or sold. The customers are
still, descendants of the Shoshone Bannock Indians, Cowboys, Mexicans and
decedents of early Mormon pioneers that still farm the land and live in the
area. So in an old and yet modern sense, the long and colorful history of the
"Indian Trade" still continues to this day.
Submitted by Clyde M. Hall, Bannock-Shoshone Tribal Member, Fort Hall Replica
Commission
The Fort Hall Replica site at Ross Park
"When the Bannock County Territorial Centennial Commission was appointed by the board of county commissions, the members were at a loss to think of a suitable project around which to the county's Centennial part of the celebration would be built. It was finally decided to build a replica of Old Fort Hall, "The Place of Destiny" as far as the Northwest is concerned.
Here in the Bottoms on the edge of the Snake River, Nathaniel Wyeth, a young Bostonian shot a buffalo on the morning of July 15, 1834 and said, "Here is where I build my fort." The fort was dedicated Aug. 6, 1834. He had trade goods which he expected to exchange with the Indians for furs as the Bottoms were known from the Mississippi to the Western Ocean as the best beaver country in the west. From Fort Hall developed five great trails--natural roads--which made Fort Hall a strategic port--Gateway to the Oregon and California country from the United States.
Centennial committee members knew that they would be criticized by some for not erecting the replica on the original site, located on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, would require long negotiations. In fact attempts have been made over 30or 40 years to get a suitable monument on the site, which had a marker furnished by the Wyeth Chapter of the DAR, and recently, we are informed that the U.S. Interior Department has placed one of his historical markers on the spot. The committee knew that long negotiations would be required to get an improved road from the present village of Fort Hall to the site of the old fort and many tourists would not take the side trip.
For this reason the committee members selected a site on the Upper Level of
Ross Park for the replica. It is a spot which affords a beautiful view of the
surrounding country and is about 14 miles as the crow flies, from the original
site. Also, the Fort will be plainly visible for a long distance to the tourists
traveling the new interstate highway…
Published in the Idaho State Journal, "Buzz of the Berg" column by
Ing (G. Nicholas Ifft), 1963.
EARLY EXPLORERS AND TRAPPERS
OF THE FORT HALL AREA
The importance of Fort Hall dates to the antiquities since the Indian tribes have used it as their winter quarters as long as they have been in this area. The first non Indians given credit for seeing this area were the Wilson - Price Hunt party on October 23, 1811. This party of 52 had been financed by John Jacob Astor to further his fur trade interests by exploring the area to his newly planned post at the mouth of the Columbia River (Astoria). Wilson Price Hunt was a 29 year old New Jersey citizen. No one in the party had been west of the continental divide. Many of them were of mixed Indian descent. There was only one full blooded Indian among them—the only female in the party. Stuart returned in this direction the next year, 1812, on his way to South Pass and met four or five trappers that they had left at Fort Henry the year before (Joseph Miller, Hoback, Robinson, and Reznor). Stuart found them at The Devil’s Cauldron on the Snake River some 90 miles west. They were naked and stripped of all their goods. Miller was an unpredictable trapper associated with the Wilson Price Hunt party. The other four trappers were part of Andrew Henry’s 1810 fall excursion into Idaho and had elected to stay behind when the Andrew Henry with the rest of his contingent returned to Fort Raymond on the Big Horn River. The Wilson Price Hunt party had apparently encountered this group of trappers in the vicinity of the Big Horn Basin and persuaded them to act as guides over Union Pass to the upper Green River and then down what was to be named the Hoback River to Jackson Hole. This area was named after another of Andrew Henry’s men named, Belt or Bel Jackson. Once the Wilson Price Hunt party reached Andrew Henry’s huts on the Snake River they named it Fort Henry and decided to travel the rest of the way in Cottonwood dugouts. They left a number of their horses and goods with the above trappers in hopes that this would serve as a trapping base for their enterprise. The dugouts were of little value and the trappers left behind had little success. Martin Cass, the 5th trapper left in charge of the horses and traps at Fort Henry, and horse, were missing. There was speculation that Martin Cass and his horse had been eaten. Stuart resupplied these men and they stayed in the area. In January 1814, Hoback , Robinson, Reznor , as well as an Astorian clerk John Reed, were killed by Indians on the Boise River. They were on another ill- fated expedition.
The British fur brigades were the next white visitors to impact the Fort Hall area… Donald MacKenzie was a giant of a man who had left Scotland when he was 17. He entered the service of The Northwest Fur Company in Canada. On March 10, 1810, he enrolled in Astor’s Pacific coast enterprise and left S. Louis with Wilson Price Hunt on October 21. MacKenzie resented the fact that Wilson Price Hunt was the leader of this group. In January of 1812 at Astoria Oregon it was easy for him to turn coat when Astoria was sold to Northwest Fur Company. Initially Astor had no suspicion of MacKenzie, who reached New York overland with a report of the transaction in November 1814. Later Astor believed that the Scotsman had intrigued against him. MacKenzie rejoined the Northwest Fur Company again and was assigned to the Northwest. MacKenzie then returned to this upper Snake River site in 1817 with 22 trappers, 1818 with 55 men, and later in 1819. In 1821 the Hudson Bay Company absorbed the territory and MacKenzie made his last trip up the Snake River. Two years later the Hudson Bay Company made its first trip into the upper Snake River country.
In 1823, the largest Hudson’s bay expedition worked its way into the area. Alexander Ross, another Scott who entered Astor’s service and arrived in Astoria in March of 1811, led this brigade. He sailed around South America on the Tonquin and quickly switched back to British allegiance when it was obvious Astor’s project was not going to be successful.
The next trapper to be assigned to this area after it was noted by the Hudson Bay Company that Alexander Ross was not the man for the job, that was Peter Skene Ogden. Peter Skene came from the north through John Day’s Defile that lies between the Salmon River and the Snake River plain. The Little Lost River drains from The Donkey Hills in this area. It is to the northeast. He crossed the plains and wintered in the area between the Snake and Portneuf River. Some of this area is under the waters of the reservoir. Peter Skene’s 1827 journal gives us the flavor of the moment. He is the first outsider to spend the winter at the Fort Hall area.
At this point in the winter Peter Skene Ogden has set up his winter camp on the spit of land between the Portneuf River and the Snake River. This is land between the Fort Hall site that we will visit and the reservoir that is in the southwest direction. It may have been in the area of Horse Channel and Horse Island that are now beneath the waters of the reservoir. He is quite concerned about Mr. McKay who had been left trapping in the Boise River area and who was supposed to be wintering with Peter Skene Ogden to strengthen his brigade and help with the spring hunt. He keeps sending men through the snow to try to reach the Salmon River where he expects to find Mckay. Staying with Peter Skene Ogden is a group of Rocky Mountain Fur Company trappers led by Samuel Tullock for whom Georgetown Creek was called in the early days.January 1828
"Tuesday, 1st. At an early hour, the men paid me their respects and were politely received. The American party followed the example of my men and received the same treatment. At an early hour the Indian who left the man in the rear, who I sent off with the men and horses, all returned without finding the man. This appears very strange, and I am now almost of opinion all is not right, and it is more than probable from the contradictory statement he has given since his arrival that the absent may be with Mr. McKay, and this fellow had deserted from him. Should he not soon make his appearance I must conclude it is so--- at all events I know not where to find him. If on his return to this place, he cannot lose himself, as he has the three Knobs to guide him, go in whatever direction he pleases....
Thursday, 3rd. Again another snow storm which has far surpassed any other we have had this season. What will become of us I cannot say two thirds of our horses will certainly die, nor can I afford them any relief. All over the country it is the same, such a severe winter was never experienced before. The climate of this quarter is certainly experiencing a change, and for trappers and horses not a very desirable one, as the hunters can no longer employ horses or hunt on foot from the depth of snow, they are now making snow shoes and the remainder pass their time in gambling. I know not how it happens but from the best of my knowledge, no cards are sold to the men at Fort Vancouver, still they continue to procure them at that place and this year no less than four packs. It so happens that the who can the least afford it is the greatest gambler and also loser since we have been in winter quarters. From the dawn of day till late at night are they gambling, and from all appearances are determined to continue as long as we are obliged to remain idle, and this if we may judge from the present state of the weather, will not be of short duration."
This journal of Peter Skene Ogden’s is fascinating but much too lengthy to continue in this synopsis. Its recommended reading for anyone who would like to study this aspect of the fur trade in this area. Suffice it to say that Mr. McKay finally showed up in the spring but it was almost to late to help in the beaver trapping. The water was so high that they did not do well in their trapping endeavors. The American trappers tried to reach Salt Lake three times but did not make it until late spring and this made Peter Skene very happy since he would not have to compete with them on their return. They might well have made it if Peter’s men would have taught them how to make snow shoes, but the Hudson Bay men were ordered to neither make or trade any snow shoes for or with the Americans. During this long and arduous winter, where the snow was four feet deep on the level, the Americans lost over 50 horses, the Indians 200, and the Hudson Bay Company lost one third of their horses to the deep snow. It is probably so hot now that we could use a little snow. Despite the elements the men ate well and fed the Indians because the animals in the entire surrounding area were trying to come to the bottoms of the Snake River to winter. It was easy for men on snowshoes to kill the buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, etc. They did so wantonly and were scolded by Peter Skene Ogden for so doing. Their answer was "We are tired of living on thin meat. We want fat meat." Obviously none was to be found.
The other important fact was that this Hudson Bay group had a trapper named
Joseph Portneuf or Portnuf and this is the likely source of the name given to
the river that flows through Pocatello.
Submitted by J. Michael Bateman, Fort Hall Replica Commission
Nathaniel Jarvis wyeth's fort Hall
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, an iceman from the east, had attended the rendezvous of 1832 which was held at Pierre’s Hole. Though he was a New Englander who new little about the wild west he soon learned as he was a part of the Battle of Pierre’s Hole. He also made arrangements with Milton Sublette to sell goods and trade for furs at the 1834 rendezvous on the Hams Fork of the Green River. An advance and forfeit was negotiated. Despite this contract made between two battle comrades the business transactions broke down in 1834 on the Green River’s Ham’s Fork. Milton Sublette was no where around to straighten things out and the remaining partners Fitzpatric Sublette and Bridger indicated "the Rocky Mountain had dissolved". They agreed to pay back" the advance and forfeit but no interest on the advanced". Nathaniel was incensed. William Sublette had arrived two days before Nathaniel and succeeded in trading with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company for their furs. Nathaniel wrote a letter to his eastern partners.
"Hams Fork of the Colorado of the West July1st 1834
Latt.41 deg.45 min. Long, 112 deg.34 min.
Mess Tucker & Williams
Gent…
In addition to not fulfilling their agreement with me every exertion is made to debauch my men in which they have had some success, but I have hired enough of theirs to make up, and do not fear falling short of troops. These circumstances induce me to quit their neighborhood as soon as possible.
I shall proceed about 150 miles west of this and establish a fort in order to make robes and come and trade them at this Post. I am under the impression that these Indians will make a good quantity of Robes whenever they find they can sell them and I believe the Transportation will not be too expensive for the value of the article beside which I have no doubt that tolerable good returns of beaver may be made at this post. I propose to establish it on a river called Portneuf on Snake or Lewis River. …
I am yrs. Nath. J. Wyeth"
"July 14th went down the river about 3 miles and found a location for a fort and succeeded and killed a Buffaloe near the spot.
15th Commenced building the fort and sent out 12 men to hunt to be gone 12 days and continued at work on the fort a few days and fell short of provisions and was obliged to knock off in order to obtain food sent out some men for Buffaloe they returned in two days with plenty. The 12 returned the 28th day at night. On the 26th a Frenchman named Kanseau was killed horse racing and the 27th was buried near the fort he belonged to Mr. ( "Thomas son of Alexander who was earlier blown up in the Ashley’s ship the Tonquin) McKays camp and his comrades erected a decent tomb for him service for him was performed by the Canadians in the Catholic form by Mr. Lee in the Protestant form and by the Indians in their form as he had Indian family. He at least was well buried.
30 Mr. McKay left us and Mr (Jason) Lee and Capt. Stewart (Captain Sir William George Drummond) with him.
6th. (Aug.) Having done as much as was requisite for safety to the Fort and drank a bale of liquor and named it Fort Hall in honor of the oldest partner of our concern we left it and with it Mr. Evans in charge of 11 men and 14 horses and mules and three cows we went down the river S.W. 4 miles and found a ford crossed and made N.W. 7 miles to the head of a spring and camped in all 29 strong. Fort Hall is in Latt. 43 14 Long 113 35’
7th. Started at day light and traveled 10 hours as fast as possible N.W. by W. 30 miles to the Bute. Being the most southwardly one and from the other two Butes bear N.N.E. the farther about 20 miles off the other midway the Three Tetons about 100 miles off and bearing N.E. the day was hot and we suffered some for water and found but a small supply on the N. side of the Bute a miserable chance for our horses and not a good one for ourselves
8th. Started at sunrise and made N.W. 10 miles to Godins river then crossed it and made in the same direction 12 up the river and camped in fine grass where we struck the river there is no grass nor until we camped above I am told it is fine found no appearance of buffaloe
9th. Made due W. 16 miles striking for the N. side of it a pretty high hill and struck up the mountains close on the N. side of it then wound into the mountains in a S.W. course finding water at 5 mils this we followed 3 miles N.W. and struck a pretty large creek which we followed N.N.E. 1 mile and camped just at starting killed a Bull and separated from Abbot and a small party of trappers accompanied by Antoine Godin whom I sent out for Beaver."
Nathaniel finally reached the Columbia River only to find his ship the May Dacre had been struck by lightning on the way out to the Columbia River and thus delayed had missed the salmon season upon which his plans were partly built, thereby making his business extremely uncertain.
Nathaniel stayed around the Columbia area setting up a post at Fort Williams on Wappatoo Island ( Wapato - Sauvies). This island is between the Multnomah and the Columbia where they converge. He arranged a party to return and resuply a " Fort which I have built among the Rocky Mts." (Fort Hall). Nothing seemed to work quite right for Nathaniel and he wrote a letter to John McLoughlin Esqr.
From Nathaniel Wyeth to John McLoughlin Esqr Fort Vancouver 5th May 1836
"Sir: The following proposal is made with a view of establishing a permanent for business on the Upper Waters of Snake River and counties to the Eastward and Southward, not much, if any frequented by your parties, it is not made with a view of eventually limiting the supplies named, but to increase the same to any
extent that may be found profitable. …" He then goes on to make a contract with the Hudson Bay Company to supply him with horses and men necessary to pursue his fur trade on the waters of the Salt Lake, the Colorado, del Norte, and Rivers of the Atlantic. The 5th article of the contract is important.
"5th N. Wyeth to agree to abandon Fort Hall if required and in no case to trade or barter with any Indians of freemen below the Scottie of said Fort on the waters of Snake River, and also agree to establish no posts on the Columbia or any of its waters without the consent of the Honble. Company, but to pursue his trade on the waters of the Salt Lake, the Colorado, del Norte, and the Rivers of the Atlantic.
I am respectfully
Your obedt. Sert.
Nathl. Wyeth"
Apparently this agreement was solidified and almost two years after he built the Fort he was making arrangements to turn it over to the dreaded Hudson Bay Company at a $30,000 loss. The sale of Wyeth’s fort to the Hudson Bay Company was completed in the winter of 1837-38 and Thomas McKay was placed in charge. Wyeth then returned to Boston where he again entered into the ice business, an endeavor in which he was quite successful until his death at the age of 54.
The fort was a stockade 60 (80) feet square, made of cottonwood logs 12 feet
long set two feet in the ground. Within this enclosure, stores and quarters were
built of posts and brush with dirt coverings. Bastions were constructed at two
corners to be manned by 12 men with a hundred loaded guns. On Aug. 5, 1834,
Wyeth raised the American flag over the still uncompleted fort. The banner had
only 24 stars, that last one representing Missouri. The stars and stripes were
taken down from Old Fort Hall in 1837 and the crimson banner of the Hudson’s
Bay Company was hoisted in its place. Woven in the flag were the letters HBC and
this was said by the irreverent jokers of the time to mean "Here Before
Christ.’’
Submitted by J. Michael Bateman, Fort Hall Replica Commission
The Hudson Bay Company then ran the fort from 1836 until 1856. The numbers of furs brought to the Hudson Bay Fort by trappers such as Peg Leg Smith’s entourage grew less and less. They continued to ask for supplies from the pay window however. In 1855 Hudson’s Bay abandoned Fort Hall, moving its goods to Flathead, Montana. Richard Grant spent ten years of the fort’s history as its factor. He retired and turned the job over to his son-in- law, William Sinclair. He settled in a comfortable log house at Cantonment Loring. He conducted an emigrant trade business and remained there until the Fort closed in 1856. He was still in the vicinity in 1862 according to George Goodhart who was hired to work for Johnny Grant the son of Richard Grant. They apparently partied with Richard Grant at Soda Springs that same year. Richard and Johnny ended up running a cattle ranch near the present Deerlodge Montana. The original ranch is now a state park.
Attempts to make Fort Hall more self-sufficient—commenced in Wyeth’s time with efforts at raising onions, peas, corn, and turnips—continued under the British company. A plow was brought in 1839, but dry weather ruined the projected wheat crop. Cattle, traded after 1842 from emigrants on the Oregon California Trail, thrived around Fort Hall, though. Moreover, the fur trade itself prospered at Fort Hall after it had declined in the Rockies generally; during the winter of 1842-1843, Fort Hall and Fort Boise were responsible for 2500 beaver which helped that season " to make up for losses elsewhere." In 1845-1846, the Snake country fur trade (1600 beaver) still was valued at 3000 English Pounds. Much of the Fort Hall trade depended upon emigrant traffic by 1842, however.
Wagon trains could reach Fort Hall from the Missouri valley with no particular difficulty. Taking wagons farther west proved to be more of a problem. Henry Harmon Spalding and Marcus Whitman had brought a wagon as far as the "Big Hill" in 1836, but it was damaged there and converted to a cart which was taken as far as Fort Boise. There it was abandoned for the moment. They returned to haul the wagon parts over the Blue Mountains at a later date. Whatever wagons reached Fort Hall were left there at the suggestion of Richard Grant and emigrants continued on with pack animals until 1843. Joe meek suggested that he and Osborne Russell were able to get wagons to Oregon in 1840 but there is no confirmation that this occurred. Grant was able to sell the emigrants flour for the rest of their journey at half the price they had to pay at Fort Laramie; he traded for the abandoned wagons as an accommodation to the travelers. In 1843 with moral support from Marcus Whitman the emigrants pushed their wagons on west from Fort Hall to the Columbia River. In 1846, partly in response to continued emigrant traffic, the Snake country became part of the United States. Pending settlement of Hudson’s Bay Company claims for posts in that part of Oregon assigned to the United States, though, Fort Hall continued to function as a British post.
Practically a complete shift from fur trade to emigrant trade followed not long after the boundary settlement. Extensive Mormon migration in 1847 to Salt Lake gave Fort Hall an unexpected new market for several years, until the Mormon settlements became self -sufficient. A dip in emigrant wagons from 901 in 1847 to only 318 in 1848 came just before the end of the fur trade. The California gold rush improved the fort's position. Even though the opening of the Hudspeth Cutoff in 1849 diverted much of the traffic to California Richard Grant estimated some 10,000 wagons rolled past Fort Hall that summer. At this same time the beaver market dropped in London and the rate of even one blanket for four beaver did not allow a profit. Fort Hall became little more than a supply post for wagon trains. Fort Hall suffered an abrupt decline.
Fort Hall was severely damaged by great Snake River Floods in 1853 and much of the emigrant traffic began to bypass the Fort. Though the Hudson Bay Company hoped to make a profit supplying travelers, Indian troubles broke out at Fort Boise in 1854 and by 1856 the situation had deteriorated to the point that British interests withdrew from Fort Hall and company claims for the value of posts in the United States was arranged. This did not kill Fort Hall however as there were soon freighters headed for the Montana gold mines, a stage coach station, and an Indian reservation waiting in the wings.
After 1856 the traffic decreased to the Fort Hall site as the newer cutoffs on the eastern bluff and the Lander Road diverted local traffic to the Portneuf Ferry and the Portneuf bridge just northwest of Pocatello.
In 1868 the Fort Hall Indian Reservation was established by the treaty of Fort Bridger. At that time it contained 1,200,000 acres. In subsequent agreements made in 1898 and later, the southeast portion of the reservation was ceded to the government for $1.25 dollars per acre. The area south of Pocatello was opened to homesteaders about 1901.
At the west end of reservation road there is a dugway which leads off this bluff to the river bottom. This is the Lander Road, The Tilden Road, and the route of any south Fort Hall cutoffs or alternates for those individuals that did not want to go to Fort Hall. After 1853 the British abandoned Fort Hall to the local trappers such as Richard Grant, Goodhart, and Patee. These alternates crossed the Ross Fork Creek in the vicinity of what became the 3rd stage station, which was just west of the present tribal museum that you will see later today. At the bottom of this hill was the Portneuf Ford, Portneuf Bridge, and the Portneuf Ferry which were active during various years.. The Tildon Road ruts leading to the Snake River and towards the Spring Creek Ford at the 2nd stage station can be seen crossing the meadows to the northwest.
Celinda Hines(1853) diary entry:
"Thursday, July 28-Left Ft. Hall about 12 miles to the north thereby saving 16 miles, and it is said the road is better. We were in site of the three Buttes all day. They are three mountain peaks rising above the chain. We almost suffered with dust and want of water. Near night we close to the Portneuf River, which we had to ford. It is large and deep. We had to raise our wagon beds. Ft. Hall trading post is near. The commander of the fort, Mr. McArthur, is very agreeable. We camped about a mile on, near a fine spring. The men from the post came to see us Charles company was near."
Sarah Sutton(1854) diary entry:
"Sunday July 9th came on 8 miles to a bridge across Portneff paid 50 cents a wagon for crossing , and noond just across, dere is a store and plenty of French and indians... Mr. Cook got the axle tree of his wagon broke, and we have to stop, he has gone 7 miles to fort hall to get one"
The original Snake River Bridge (Tilden Bridge #1since there were 2 other bridges with the same name placed just northwest of Ferry Butte ) was about 3 miles southwest of the Old Fort Hall site. The pilings are still visible when the water in the reservoir recedes as it usually does in low water years and late in the fall. This bridge carried Tilden road travelers from the Pocatello area to the Sterling, Springfield, and Aberdeen area in later years. This bridge crosses the Snake River near the site where Nathaniel Wyeth forded the Snake when he left the fort.
After 1862, when Montana mines attracted a gold rush to the north of Fort Hall, a stage and freight station was needed in the area. A location was chosen in line with Howard Stansbury’s Bannock mountain road that ran from Arbon Valley down Bannock Creek to ford the Portneuf river and Spring creek. The road continued towards the Snake River and eventually passed near the Fort Hall site. It traveled on to The Gibson - Meek Ferry near Ferry Butte. The first stage station was built near where this freighting road forded the Portneuf River in1864. Stage service continued there for only a year or so then William Murphy’s Portneuf canyon route displaced Howard Stansbury’s Bannock Mountain Road. A second stage station was built at Spring Creek where The Tilden road to be and the Howard Stansbury’s Bannock Mountain Road would intersect. There is a photograph of this second station found in Leigh Gittons’ book The Gold Road. This second station is sometimes referred to as The Adobes since the material to build this station was taken from Fort hall which had been upgraded to white washed adobe walls by the Hudson Bay Company. Red Perry is aware of this site but the back waters of the American Falls reservoir make it inaccessible most of the time. This second station is about 3 miles south from the Old Fort Hall site. J. N. Ireland apparently built both the stage stations. Grant Stanger can remember this site as a youth. He was born and raised on Horse Island near the site of the first stage station. He can remember a fork in the trail just south of Spring Creek with one branch headed for the Tilden Bridge ( The Tilden Road ), and one branch headed for the Old Fort Hall site ( Original Oregon - California trail and freighting road). It is interesting to note that the first Tilden Bridge site would be approximately where Nathaniel Wyeth originally crossed the Snake River. This was probably the best place to ford the Snake River since Mc Tucker Creek forms a vast swamp on the west side of the Snake River and if you try to ford further south you would get mired down.. The second stage station was used only briefly then was replaced by one at Ross Fork just west of the museum at the junction of Eagle Road with Simplot road. Leigh Gitten’s book Idaho’s Gold Road has a photograph of this station as well.
Cantonment Loring
On August 8, 1849 Colonel William Wing Loring established two companies of mounted riflemen. The Colonel’s instructions were to start two military posts at strategic locations. One, Fort Laramie began near a trapper’s outpost there. A second was designated for the area in what is now southeastern Idaho---either along Bear River, where Soda Springs would have been appropriate, or at Fort Hall. After selecting a Snake river spot about three miles above Fort Hall, Loring’s detachment occupied their new post through April, 1850. They then headed west, replacing Cantonment Loring with another fortification at the Dalles. Fort Dalles did little to serve Oregon and California emigrants headed west across Idaho, so Loring's enterprise had only a short term function around Fort Hall. Two other temporary military outposts (Howe's Camp, 1860, and Camp Lander, near the Fort Hall Stage Station in 1865) followed Cantonment Loring. Mr. "Red Perry" the Shoshone Bannock historical trails manager, has identified Cantonment Loring where he was raised as a child. It is about three miles north of the Fort Hall site. Red saw numerous artifacts such as military buttons, guns, etc. in his youth.
Freight and Stage Stations
After 1862, when Montana mines attracted a gold rush to the north of Fort Hall, a stage and freight station was neededin the area. A location was chosen in line with Howard Stansbury's Bannock Mountain Road that ran from Arbon Valley down Bannock Creek to ford the Portneuf river and Spring creek. The road continued towards the Snake River and eventually passed near the Fort Hall site. It traveled on to the Gibson-Meek Ferry near Ferry Butte. The first stage station was built near where this freighting road forded the Portneuf River, in 1864. Stage service continued there for only a year or so then William Murphy's Portneuf canyon route displaced Howard Stansbury's Bannock Mountain Road. A second stage station was built at Spring Creek where the Tilden road to be and the Bannock Mountain Road would intersect. There is a photograph of this second station found in Leigh Gittons' book The Gold Road. This second station is sometimes referred to as The Adobes since the material to build this station was taken from Fort Hall had been upgraded to white washed adobe walls by the Hudson's Bay Company. Red Perry is aware of this site, but the back waters of the American Falls Reservoir made it inaccessible most of the time. The second stage station is about 3 miles south form the Old Fort Hall site. The stage stations were apparently both built by J. N. Ireland. Grant Stranger can remember this as a youth. He was born and raised on Horse Island near the site of the first stage station. He can remember a fork in the trail just south of Spring Creek with one breach headed for the Tilden Bridge (The Tilden Road), and one branch headed for the Old Fort Hall site (Original Oregon-California trail and freighting road). It is interesting to note that the first Tilden Bridge site would be approximately where Nathaniel Wyeth originally crossed the Snake River. This was probably the best place to ford the Snake River since McTucker Creek forms a vast swamp on the west side of the Snake River and if you try to ford further south you would get mired down. The second stage station was used only briefly then was replaced by one at Ross Fork just west of the museum at the junction of Eagle Road with Simplot Road. Leigh Gitten's book The Gold Road has a photograph of this station as well.
In 1868 the Fort Hall Indian Reservation was established by the treaty of
Fort Bridger. At that time it contained 1,200,000 acres. In subsequent
agreements made in 1898 and later, the southeast portion of the reservation was
ceded to the government for $1.25 dollars per acre. The area south of Pocatello
was opened to homesteaders about 1901.
Submitted by J. Michael Bateman, Fort Hall Replica Commission
Test Excavations at Fort Hall, Idaho
The Fort Hall National Historic Landmark, which is located on the Fort Hall Reservation in Bannock County, Idaho, is endangered by seasonal flooding of the Snake River.
Consequently, The Archaeological and Historical Services (AHS) at Eastern Washington University was contracted by an inter-agency coalition for test excavations of the property, a National Historic Landmark (so designated in 1961), distinguished as a key trading post for emigrants along the Oregon and California Trails.
Dr. Jerry R. Galm was principle investigator for this project. Dr. Galm is director of the Archaeological and Historical Services (AHS) at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, WA. Bryn H. Thomas was the project lead archeologist under contract with NPS and the Bureau of Reclamation and manages the AHS office in Vancouver, WA. This summary of the full report, dated April, 1994, was made by Kristine Fairchild, Student Conservation intern in the NPS Trails and Greenways Division.
The inter-agency coalition, in cooperation with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, included the National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Reclamation. Volunteer labor assistance was provided by the Idaho State Preservation Office along with the federal agencies listed above.
The Tribes and the participating federal agencies are considering strategies to stabilize and protect this archeological resource. Testing per- formed by AHS complied with applicable federal rules and regulations pertaining to the protection and management of cultural resources, including the stipulations and agreements made with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Council. The excavations were conducted in a manner that met the Tribes' concerns: (1) That site disturbance be minimized; (2) That there be no disturbance of human remains or burials; and, (3) That all analysis take place on the Fort Hall Reservation. An agreement with the Tribe allowed for wood samples, historic artifacts, and items of non-Indian manufacture to be removed to AHS offices for analysis and reporting.
Fort Hall was constructed in 1834 by Nathaniel Wyeth, a Massachusetts businessman associated with the Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company. He developed plans for an American trading company that would compete with the Hudson's Bay Company by exporting barreled salmon and setting up a trading post. The Fort was a squared structure built with cotton- wood logs and situated along the Snake River near the mouth of the Portneuf River above American Falls. The persistent competition from the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) was one of the major factors contributing to the downfall of Wyeth's business. Wyeth sold the post to the HBC in 1837, just three years after it was constructed.
The Fort continued to function as a supply post for the Company's regional trapping brigades, and eventually became a mercantile center for trade. Fort Hall's most significant time period was the 1840s when it was renowned as a stop for emigrants along the Oregon Trail, and later 49ers hastening to the California old fields. It also carried on a flourishing trade with Mormon settlers after their arrival in the area in 1847. The decline of the fur and mercantile trade, which also coincided with increasing Indian hostilities, brought about the abandonment of Fort Hall in 1856. Seasonal traders and U.S. Army troops occupied the Fort, but that only lasted for a very short time. In 1862 and 1864, summer floods left the Fort uninhabitable.
In the early-20th century, local civic organizations and individuals developed an interest in commemorating the Oregon Trail emigration. There was, however, considerable confusion as to the exact location of Fort Hall. A stone monument. was constructed by Ezra Meeker in 1906 at the site of the "Abodes," an 1864 stagecoach station, which some claimed to incorporate the remnants of Fort Hall. In 1916, this site was found to be incorrect, and the monument was correctly relocated in 1920. Difficulties identifying the correct location arose from contradictory historic references to places and distances and changes in the Snake River environment.
The 1993 test excavations sought primarily to verify as to whether or not this site is indeed the Nathaniel Wyeth (1834-1837) and Hudson's Bay Company's (1837-1856) Fort Hall, as the historical records suggest. In order to verify the location, archeological test excavations were conducted at the purported Fort site during the autumn of 1993 to see if they could corroborate a variety of 19th-century, first-hand descriptions of the Fort. Three 5x5' grid units and 60 subsurface probes were excavated. Adobe foundations from the southeast bastion, the west stockade wall, a building along the west wall, and artifacts associated with mid-19th-century Hudson's Bay Company sites were found. These data, along with a review of the historical descriptions of Fort Hall, support the conclusion that the National Landmark encompasses the Wyeth-Hudson's Bay Company Fort Hall archeological site.
Additional survey objectives were to deter- mine the extent of archeological deposits and establish whether these deposits remain intact and possess archeological integrity. A variety of artifacts-items of Indian manufacture, pipes, but- tons, glass beads, pottery shards, bottle glass, stove parts, hooks, nails, gunflints, horseshoes, and even an Army belt buckle—closely corroborate the architectural subsurface features. The findings were conclusive that the Fort site remains intact and does possess significant research potential.
A number of recommendations for future work at the Fort Hall National Historic Landmark are also offered in the event future investigations are initiated or approved by the Shoshone- Bannock Tribes' Fort Hall Business Council. These recommendations include: preparation of a site topographic map, completion of a remote sensing survey of the Fort Hall site, and the creation by the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of an archeological repository for the records and artifacts from the 1993 excavations, past investigations (including private collections of Fort Hall materials, if they exist), and future investigations. (It should be noted that not all of these recommendations involve excavations and all are presented with the intent of promoting sensitive site stewardship and preservation.)
In conclusion, the findings of the AHS archeological excavations do not
suggest changing the physical boundaries of the Fort Hall National Landmark
property. Therefore, plans for any land- altering activities located within
Landmark boundaries should take into consideration the archeological resources
documented by the test excavations and those projected by the National Register
of Historic Places nomination form for the site. This document should be
submitted to the appropriate review agencies for their comment prior to
initiation of any land-altering activities.
Summary Results, CRM, Cultural Resources Management, Volume 20, No.1, 1997
The Oregon California Trails Association (OCTA) was established 15 years ago by a group of historians in Denver Colorado with the specific thoughts in mind of increasing the nations interest in the important historical trails which played a most important role in the settling of the west and the determination of our nations boundaries, protecting the existing remnants of the trail system so that future United States citizens and world travelers would be able to see and study the routes and diaries of these important emigrants. The organization has been working on these goals since that time. The organization was successful in their efforts to get the United States Congress to pass a National Historic Trails Bill which protects the remaining remnants and has now authorized the National Park Service to develop and supervise a plan which both protects and develops these sites for the general public to visit and study. OCTA continues to play a valuable role in this process and will continue to do so in the future.
Each year OCTA has an annual meeting at a city along the historical trails. This year on August 13th through August 17 the annual gathering will be in Pocatello Idaho. The Idaho Chapter of OCTA and local friends in Pocatello are sponsoring the meeting. Plans are underway to have a full day of speakers including Peter Boag, an associate Professor of History at Idaho State University, Scott Stevens Hughes, an associate Professor of Geology at Idaho State University, Chilton Phoenix, a charter member of OCTA and an adjunct professor in the ISU Sociology department at Idaho State University, Rusty Houtz, a Native American from the Bannock Shoshone Tribe as well as other renowned speakers who will discuss a variety of subjects dealing with the southeastern Idaho area and the various historical events and geographical features.
Tours are being developed which include the Soda Springs area as well as the Parting of the Ways at Raft River and the Old Fort Hall area on the Snake River. The local arrangements committee feels the tours we have developed for the annual convention in August can be shared with the local community if there is any interest.
The first tour offered will be on May 10th at 7:30 AM. We will leave the Quality Park Hotel and return at around 4:30 PM. This tour will include portions of the Portneuf Valley, Hudspeth Cutoff, Henderson Canyon, Fish Creek, The Crater near Alexander, The Alexander Point Graves, Steamboat Springs, The Wagon Box Massacre site, Alexander Ruts, and the early Mormon town of Chesterfield complete with its tithing house and tithing barn. We will stop at Soda Springs for lunch and see the geyser in action.
The second tour will be June 21st at 7:30 AM. We will leave from the Quality Park Hotel and return at around 4:30 PM. This tour will leave from the Pocatello Park Hotel and travel to Portneuf Point to see the area where the Lander Road, South Fort Hall alternates, and the Tilden Road dropped off the bluff to cross or skirt the Portneuf River. The Tilden Road carried travelers from Pocatello to the Sterling area across the first Tilden Bridge which was about 3 miles below the Old Fort Hall site on the Snake River. The pilings in the old river bed can still be seen when the reservoir recedes in the fall. The tour will continue on to the Massacre Rocks Site, Register Rock, Coldwater Hill, to the parting of the ways where the California Trail leaves the Oregon Trail and heads for California through the City of Rocks and Granite Pass. On the return trip we will have lunch at Indian Springs where the second part of the Massacre occurred and hear Merrit Thornhill discuss his knowledge of these events. We will then see the ruts along the Snake River in the area of Neeley, Pipeline Park, The American Falls Landfill, and the Oregon Trail Marker at the forebay of the American Falls Dam.
The tour cost will be $15.00 dollars and you should bring your own lunch. If you are interested call 235-6224 or 775-4462 or address your inquires to Country Coaches, 360 Inkom, Idaho, 83245. If we get 35 participants we will go and if not then the tour will be canceled. This should be fun so join in.
If you are interested in joining the OCTA convention in August then write to
The Oregon California Trails Association, PO Box 1019, Independence, MO.
64051-0519 or call 816-252-2276 and ask for convention reservation material. You
are welcome to be part of this as well but you must register.
Submitted by Dr. Michael Bateman, Board of Directors Oregon California Trails
Association, Fort Hall Replica Commission
OCTA's 14th annual convention was held August 13-17, 1997, in
Pocatello, Idaho. The convention was open to both OCTA members and the general
public.
Some basic information:
Here's the general schedule of events:
Pre-Convention Activities:
Sunday, August 10
8:00 AM:
Lander Road Pre-Tour (4WD)Monday, August 11
Tuesday, August 12
**CONVENTION BEGAN**
Wednesday, August 13
Thursday, August 14
Friday, August 15
Saturday, August 16
Sunday, August 17
Letter from Hudsons Bay Company
About Fort HallJust exactly where the original fort was built has been debated among
historians. However, from the evidence give before the British and American
Joint Commission, appointed under the Treaty of 1st July, 1863 it is
clear tht the position was on the left bank of the Snake River, some miles above
the mouth of the Portneuf River. Chittenden give the distance as nine miles on
page 478 of "The American Fur Trade.."
Fort Hall was established by Nathaniel J. Wyeth of Boston, who first went to the
Columbia Valley in 1832.
Wyeth selected the site fro the trading post on 15th July, 1834.
Building was started on 16th July, and on 6th August,
Wyeth entered in his diary:
"Having done as much as was requisite for safety to the fort and drank a
bale of liquor and named it Fort Hall in honor of the oldest partner of our
concern, we left it and with it Mr. Evans in charge of eleven men and fourteen
horses and mules and three cows."
There is no bill of sale in the Hudson's Bay Company Archives, but the Company
bought Fort Hall from Wyeth sometime in 1837.
Aftert he settlement of the Oregon Boundary Question in 1846 Fort Hall came into
the territory of the United States, but the Company continued to operate south
of the 49th parallel in order to maintain their possessory rights.
In the 1840's trading in the Snake River Country began to be carried on under
difficulties. Beavers were becoming scarce, and in addition the skins had become
almost valueless on the London market owing to the decline in the fashion of
beaver hats and the introduction of the silk hat. Up to this time beaver had
been used in the manufacture of hats and had not been marketed as fur.
Sir George Simpson wrote to Chief Trader Richard Grant at Fort Hall on 30 June
1849, and remarked that the Indian tariff price at that place of a blanket for
four beavers was too high to make any profit and he added: "…as you get
neither martens, foxes, otters nor other small furs, the fur trade of the Snake
Country is more than unprofitable…".
Since the massacre of Dr. Marcus Whitman and some of the inmates of this Mission
in 1847, the Indians of that district had been in an very unsettled state. As a
result United States troops were sent into the Snake County and they were
stationed near Fort Hall.
In 1854 the Indians were again troublesome an attacked a party of American
immigrants near Fort Boise, thereby causing much alarm in the district. The
United States troops were sent to punish the Indians and they succeeded in
taking some prisoners. As it was considered unsafe for the Company people to
remain a Fort Boise after the departure of the troops the post was abandoned in
the summer of 1855 and Fort Hall was abandoned in the sumnmer of 1856 for the
same reason.
The following Company buildings were at Fort Hall in 1847:
1 2 storey, adobe dwelling house, 22 x 12 feet.
1 2 storey adobe store, 44 x 12 feet.
1 range of adobe buildings, 47 x 10 feet (vis., 2 dwelling houses and 1 meat
store).
1 range of adobe buildings 57 x 10 feet (vis., 2 dwelling houses; 1 mill
house and lumber room).
1 range of adobe buildings, 36 x 10 feet (viz., 2 dwelling houses and 1
blacksmith's shop).
2 2-storey bastions (10 x 10 feet and 8 x 8 feet).
1 2 storey, 12 x 12 feet (store house, etc.).
Wall (adobe) of the Fort 13 high by 19 inches thick; length 100 X 80 feet.
1 1 dwelling house, 35 x 10 feet.
1 1 horseyard or park, 130 x 60 feet high by 19 inches thick.
1 1 horseyard or park, 165 x 130 feet, enclosed by adobe wall 5 feet hight
by 19 inches thick.
Sent to Jack Alvord, 1961.
