Skeen Ogden with his party of Hudson's Bay Company trappers was on Humboldt River, and James P. Beckwourth was pursuing his daring adventures, and the region round the great lakes of Utah first became familiar to American trappers, William H. Ashley, of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, at the head of one hundred and twenty men and a train of well packed horses, came out from St Louis, through the South Pass and down by Great Salt Lake to Lake Utah. There he built a fort, and two years later brought from St Louis a six-pounder which thereafter graced its court. Ashley was a brave man, shrewd and honest; he was prosperous and commanded the respect of his men. Nor may we impute to him lack of intelligence, or of common geographical knowledge, when we find him seriously considering the project of descending the Colorado in boats, by means of which he would eventually reach St Louis. Mr Green, who gave his name to Green River, had been with Ashley the previous year; and now for three years after the establishing of Fort Ashley at Utah Lake, Green with his trappers occupied the country to the west and north.3

See Hist. Northwest Coast, ii. 447-8, this series. T. D. Bonner in his Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, 71-3, gives what purports to be an account of Ashley's descent of Green River to Great Salt Lake on a certain occasion in Ashley's own language. There may be some truth in it all, though Beckwourth is far astray in his dates, as he places the occurrence in 1822. Beckwourth goes on to say that one day in June a beautiful Indian girl offered him a pair of moccasins if he would shoot for her an antelope and bring her the brains, that with them she might dress a deer-skin. Beckwourth started out, but failing to secure an antelope, and seeing as he supposed an Indian coming, he thought he would shoot the Indian and take his brains to the girl, who would not know the difference. Just as he was about to fire he discovered the supposed Indian to be Ashley, who thereupon told him of his adventures down Green River and through the cañon to Great Salt Lake. I have no doubt it is three fourths fiction, and what there is of fact must be placed forward four years. We had a very dangerous passage down the river,' said Ashley to Beckwourth, and suffered more than I ever wish to see men suffer again. You are aware that we took but little provision with us, not expecting that the cañon extended so far. In passing over the rapids, where we lost two boats and three guns, we made use of ropes in letting down our boats over the most dangerous places. Our provisions soon gave out. We found plenty of beaver in the cañon for some miles, and, expecting to find them in as great plenty all the way, we saved none of their carcasses, which constituted our food. As we proceeded, however, they became inore and more scarce, until there were none to be seen, and we were entirely out of provisions. To trace the river was impossible, and to ascend the perpendicu

From Great Salt Lake in August, 1826, Jedediah S. Smith sets out on a trapping and exploring tour with fifteen men. Proceeding southward he traverses Utah Lake, called for a time Ashley Lake, and after ascending Ashley River, which, as he remarks, flows into the lake through the country of the Sampatches, he bends his course to the west of south, passes over some mountains running south-east and northwest, and crosses a river which he calls Adams,5 in

lar cliffs, which hemmed us in on either side, was equally impossible. Our only alternative was to go ahead. After passing six days without food, the men were weak and disheartened. I listened to all their murmurings and heart-rending complaints. They often spoke of home and friends, declaring they would never see them more. Some spoke of wives and children whom they dearly loved, and who must shortly become widows and orphans. They had toiled, they said, through every difficulty; had risked their lives among wild beasts and hostile Indians in the wilderness, all of which they were willing to undergo; but who could bear up against actual starvation? I encouraged them all in my power, telling them that I bore an equal part in their sufferings; that I too was toiling for those I loved, and whom I yet hoped to see again; that we should all endeavor to keep up our courage, and not add to our misfortunes by giving way to despondency. Another night was passed amid the barren rocks. The next morning the fearful proposition was made by some of the party for the company to cast lots, to see which should be sacrificed to afford food for the others, without which they must inevitably perish. My feelings at such a proposition cannot be described. I begged of them to wait one day more, and make all the way they could meanwhile. By doing so, I said, we must come to a break in the cañon, where we could escape. They consented, and moving down the river as fast as the current would carry us, to our inexpressible joy we found a break, and a camp of trappers therein. All now rejoiced that they had not carried their fearful proposition into effect. We had fallen into good hands, and slowly recruited ourselves with the party, which was under the charge of one Provo, a man with whom I was well acquainted. By his advice we left the river and proceeded in a north-westerly direction. Provo was well provided with provisions and horses, and he supplied us with both. We remained with his party until we arrived at the Great Salt Lake. Here I fell in with a large company of trappers, composed of Canadians and Iroquois Indians, under the command of Peter Ogden, in the service of the Northwest Fur Company. With this party I made a very good bargain, as you will see when they arrive at our camp, having purchased all their peltry on very reasonable terms.'

Jedediah Smith in 1826 calls the lake Utah, and the stream flowing into it from the south Ashley River. Je traversai le petit lac Utâ, et je remontai le cours de l'Ashley qu'il recoit.' Extrait d'une lettre, in Nouvelles An. des Voy., xxxvii. 208. For an account of this journey see Hist. Cal., this series, where are fully discussed the several conflicting authorities. Warner's Rem., MS., 21-9, dates the journey 1824, and carries the company from Green River, south of Salt Lake, and over the mountains near Walker Pass. Accounts in Cronise's Nat. Wealth Cal.; Hutchings' Mag., v. 351-2; S. F. Times, June 14, 1867; Randolph's Oration, 313-14; Tuthill's Hist. Cal., 124-5; Frignet, La Californie, 58-60; Douglas' Private Papers, MS., 2d ser. i.; Victor's River of the West, 34; Hines' Voy., 110, are mentioned.

The Sevier; or possibly he crossed from the Sevier to the Virgen and supposed them to be one stream.

honor of the president. After ten days' march, still in a south-westerly direction, through the country of the Pah Utes, he recrosses the same stream, and after two days comes to the junction of the Adams with what he calls the Seedskeeder, or Siskadee, river, a stream full of shallows and rapids and flowing through a sterile country. Then he reaches a fertile wooded valley which belongs to the Amajabes, or Mojaves, where the party rests fifteen days, meeting with the kindest treatment from the natives, who provide food and horses. Thence they are guided by two neophytes westward through a desert country, and reach the mission of San Gabriel in December, their appearance causing no small commotion in California. After many strange adventures, fully narrated in my History of California, Smith works his way northward up the San Joaquin Valley, and in May 1827 crosses the Sierra Nevada and returns eastward to Great Salt Lake. With Jedediah Smith, during some part of his stay in Utah, was Thomas L. Smith, whom we must immortalize in history as Pegleg Smith. He did not possess a very estimable character, as, I am sorry to say, few of his class did in those days. The leaders of American fur companies, however, were exceptions, and in points of intelligence, integrity, and daring were in no wise behind their British brethren."

From south-east to north-west a portion of Utah was traversed in the autumn of 1830 by a trapping party under William Wolfskill. The company was fitted out in New Mexico, and the great valley of California was their objective point. Wolfskill had been a partner of Ewing Young, who was then in California. Leaving Taos in September they struck

The Adams now is clearly the Rio Vírgen, and the Seedskeeder, or Siskadee, the Colorado. See Hist. Northwest Coast, ii. 583, this series.

P. W. Crawford, Nar., M., 27, says he saw Pegleg Smith in 1847 on Ham Fork, in a beautiful valley of the Bear River Mountains, where he then lived with his native wife and a few savage retainers.

north-westerly, crossing the Colorado, Grande, Green, and Sevier rivers, and then turned south to the Rio Vírgen, all the time trapping on the way. Then passing down by the Mojaves they reached Los Angeles in February 1831. George C. Yount and Louis Bur. ton were of the party.s

During the winter of 1832-3 B. L. E. Bonneville made his camp on Salmon River, and in July following was at the Green River rendezvous. Among the several trapping parties sent by him in various direc

There was little of importance to Utah history in this expedition, for full particulars of which see list. Cal., this series.

9 For an account of Bonneville and his several excursions see Hist. Northwest Coast, ii. chap. xxv.; Hist. Cal., and Hist. Nevada, this series.

WALKER'S EXPEDITION.

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tions was one under Joseph Walker, who with some thirty-six men, among them Joe Meek, went to trap on the streams falling into the Great Salt Lake.

Bonneville affirms that Walker's intention was to pass round the Great Salt Lake and explore its borders; but George Nidever who was of Walker's company, and at the rendezvous while preparations were made, says nothing of such purpose, and it was probably not thought of by Bonneville until afterward. Nidever had suffered severely from the cold during the previous winter, and had come to the Green River rendezvous that season for the express purpose of joining some party for California or of forming such a party himself, having been informed that the climate there was milder than in the mountains where he had been. 10

If the intention was, as Bonneville asserts, that this party should pass round the great lake, in their endeavor they presently found themselves in the midst of desolation, between wide sandy wastes and broad brackish waters; and to quench their thirst they hastened westward where bright snowy mountains promised cooling streams. The Ogden River" region being to them so new, and the thought of California so fascinating, they permitted themselves to stray from original intentions, and cross the Sierra Nevada to Monterey. All that is known of their doings before reaching the Snowy Range is given in my History of Nevada, and their exploits after reaching California are fully narrated in that part of this series devoted to the history of the latter country.1

12

10 Such being the case he would hardly have joined Walker's expedition had it been understood that the exploration of Salt Lake was intended. See Niderer's Life and Adv., MS., 58.

11 Previously called the Mary River, and now the Humboldt. See Hist. Nerada; Hist. Northwest Coast; and Hist. Cal., this series.

12 See Nidever's Life and Adv., MS.; Warner's Mem., in Pac. R. Report, xi. pt. i. 31-4. In giving his dictation to Irving, Bonneville professed great interest in the exploration of Great Salt Lake though he had done nothing to speak of in that direction. Irving, however, humored the captain, whose vanity prompted him to give his own name to the lake, although he had not a shadow of title to that distinction.