goldfields

“Friday, 30th. Traveled about 5 miles and encamped. Guess what took place; another family was created! Widow Gray, who was sister to Mrs. Kelsey, was married to a man who joined our Company at Fort Larimie. His right name I forget; but his everywhere name, in the mountains, was Cocrum. He had but one eye–marriage ceremony performed by Father De Smet.”

His right name was Richard Phelan, and he was a fur trapper who, with his one eye, spotted the widow Gray and took a fancy to her, which is probably the reason he joined the Bidwell-Bartleson Party at Fort Laramie. His courtship was successful. Since Phelan is an Irish name, he was no doubt a Catholic, and thus the couple was married by Father De Smet, and not by the Rev. Joseph Williams.

The man’s name was Phelan, but his nickname, or “everywhere name” as Bidwell says, was Cockrum.  Or maybe it was Cockrel—that’s the name Jimmy John records.  I haven’t found a first name for Mrs. Gray, but she was the sister of Samuel Kelsey’s wife, who was traveling with her husband and five children. Mrs. Kelsey was undoubtedly happy to have her sister’s help with the kids. Both sisters with their families would go on to Oregon.

“Monday, 26th. Left Green river – moved off in a W. direction – distance 12 miles . . . . Land high, dry, and barren, except upon the streams, which afford grass in abundance; also black currants, which though not delicious are acceptable.”

The next day Bidwell recorded nothing more than “Advanced upstream about 12 miles,” and then he dittoed this entry for the next two days. Nothing very exciting going on. They were in the southwest corner of what is now Wyoming, approaching the Wyoming-Idaho/Utah border. They traveled along Black’s Fork of the Green River. The weather was hot, and the land dry, but the river provided water and grass for their livestock.

Black currants, even if they were not very sweet or delicious, would have provided vital nutrition for the travelers. Black currants have an extremely high level of vitamin C, as well as good levels of potassium, phosphorus, and iron. Excellent for keeping scurvy at bay, and scurvy is always a danger when people are living primarily on meat, as these pioneers were.

John Gray (sometimes spelled Grey) was hired by the Englishman W. G. Romaine as a guide for his summer tour of the American West. Gray was  half Scottish and half Iroquois, a St. Regis Mohawk, born around 1795 in upstate New York.  His father, William L. Gray, had served as a soldier during the American Revolution and then married into the Mohawks of Akwesasne. John Gray also went by the Iroquois name of Ignace Hatchiorauquasha, St. Ignatius being his patron saint.

John Gray, as depicted by Nicholas Point, S.J. Picture from http://www.hunterbear.org/family_stuff.htm

Father Nicholas Point, one of the priests with Father DeSmet, drew this portrait of John Gray while on the trail. The smaller picture is of Gray’s wife.

The Catholic priests had a good opinion of Gray and his abilities. Father Gregory Mengarini records the following:

“So the sun rose and the sun set, and the end of our journey was still over a thousand miles away. Sometimes John Grey would say to me in the morning, “Father, so you see that speck in the distance? Today we must reach there.” “Then our day’s travel will be short,” I would answer. “We shall see,” he would say laughingly. And the hours of the morning would pass and we would be already journeying long under a scorching afternoon’s sun before that speck would achieve appreciable magnitude and distinctness of form.”

Gray entered the fur trade sometime around 1818, about the same time that he married his wife Marienne, also a Mohawk. He was active in the fur trade for the next 25 years or so.

Gray and Romaine, along with four other men, left the wagon train on July 25th to return to the United States. The trip with Romaine was probably the last of Gray’s excursions to the West, after which he retired to his home in Kansas City, Missouri. He was killed in 1848 in a dispute with a neighbor.

For more about John Gray, consult The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, by Leroy R. Hafen, or see the website of his great-great-great grandson Hunter Gray.  (I removed the link because that website is no longer operative.)

“Friday, 23rd. Went to Green river–distance 8 miles–spent the remainder of the day trading with the hunters.

“Saturday, 24th. Remained at this encampment and continued our traffic with the hunters. Chiles sold his oxen, 2 yoke, and wagon, another also was left.”

The hunters, or fur trappers, bought all, or nearly all, the alcohol brought by Bartleson and others, as well as other items, like Chiles’s wagon and ox team. Bidwell doesn’t say what they used to pay for it—whether they had money, or whether they traded goods.

In “The First Emigrant Train to California,” Bidwell relates what became of Fraeb’s party. “Years afterwards we heard of the fate of that party; they were attacked by Indians the very first night after they left us and several of them killed, including the captain of the trapping party, whose name was Frapp. The whisky was probably the cause.” Indeed, the alcohol and the resulting drunkenness would have drawn the attention of Indians. And since by the time Bidwell wrote this recollection he was a Prohibitionist, he does not fail to point the moral.

“Gray returned this evening having found Trapp’s company, which consisted of about 20 men. They had returned to meet our company, though on their way to hunt buffalo, and were now encamped on Green river about 8 miles distant. Gray had suffered much in overtaking the trappers; his mule gave out, there being no water for a great distance, and he himself was reduced so much by hunger and thirst that he was unable to walk. He was therefore compelled to crawl upon his hands and feet, and at last came up with the company in the most forlorn situation imaginable–if they had been another half mile farther, he never could have reached them.”

The man that Bidwell here calls “Trapp,” was generally called “Frapp” by his men. A German-American from St. Louis, his name was actually Henry Fraeb, and he was a veteran fur trapper and one of the founders, with Jim Bridger and William Sublette, of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.  The Rev. Joseph Williams called his outfit “a wicked, swearing company of men,” which is probably a pretty accurate description of the kind of men who lived far from civilization.

John Gray, who nearly lost his life in pursuit of Frapp’s company, was a half-Mohawk, half-Scottish trapper and trail guide from French Canada. He had been hired by W. G. Romaine as a companion and guide for Romaine’s summer excursion on the plains. If anyone could have found Frapp, it was John Gray, but he was traversing some of the most  unforgiving territory in America, and he was very lucky to survive the ordeal.

“Left Sweet Water this morning, course SW. Crossed the divide which separates the water of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and after a travel of 20 miles reached Little Sandy, a branch of Green river – 1 buffalo was killed.”

Leaving the Sweetwater River, the emigrants took the gradual climb up through South Pass, as a few wagon trains had done before them, and many, many more would do in the following years. As George R. Stewart wrote,”Here, at the summit of the Rocky Mountains, the very backbone of the continent, the grade was easy and the pass itself was more like a broad plain, so level that you were never sure when you passed from the Atlantic to the Pacific watershed.” (The California Trail)

South Pass--hardly the inspiring vista you expect for the Continental Divide.

Meanwhile the company awaited the return of John Gray, who had set off in search of the trappers who would surely be interested in the items (alcohol) that some members of the group had brought along to sell.

Stay tuned for more about the trappers and John Gray.

“Thursday, 15th. As many of the company had articles of traffic which they wished to dispose of at Green river, a subscription was raised to recompense any who would go and find the trappers. John Gray started in pursuit of them, while the company marched on slowly, waiting for his return. Travelled about 6 miles today.”

John Gray and W.G. Romaine had set out on July 6th to see if there were any fur-trappers camped at Green River, where the trappers usually had their rendezvous at this time of year. They didn’t find anyone, so the two men came back on the 13th. But other members of the party were anxious to find the trappers, since they had items that they wished to trade, so Gray set out once again on the 15th.

Gray (or Grey) and Romaine were part of Father De Smet’s missionary party; Gray was listed as a trapper, and Romaine as a “pleasure seeker,” or tourist. Romaine was an Englishman, and was often referred to as “Lord” Romaine, although whether he was really a lord I don’t know. Both men returned to the States without going all the way to California or Oregon.

Bidwell doesn’t mention it in his journal, but elsewhere he reveals that the “articles of traffic” were bottles or kegs of liquor. In “The First Emigrant Train to California” Bidwell says:

“Approaching Green River in the Rocky Mountains, it was found that some of the wagons, including Captain Bartleson’s, had alcohol on board, and that the owners wanted to find trappers in the Rocky Mountains to whom they might sell it. This was a surprise to many of us, as there had been no drinking on the way.”

No drinking—because Bartleson was saving it up to sell to thirsty trappers, a bit of entrepreneurship that hadn’t occurred to young John Bidwell.

“Saturday, 10th. Travelled about 14 miles and stopped to kill and dry meat. Buffalo began to grow scarce.”

By this time on their journey the company had almost exhausted its supplies of flour and other foodstuffs. Bidwell had laid in extra supplies, but he doesn’t say how much he had left. The company knew they still had a long way to go, and began to kill buffalo and dry the meat, with the hope that the jerky would last them until California.

However they had left their plans to “make meat” until too late. Crossing the plains they had seen vast herds of buffalo, but now as they traveled up the Sweetwater River toward the Continental Divide, they saw fewer and fewer. They killed twenty buffalo on the 8th and ten on the 9th. On the 11th Bidwell would record that they killed 6 or 7 the day before, and 4 or 5 on the 11th. Meat on the hoof was dwindling just at the time they realized how much they would need it.

“Monday, 5th. The hills continued to increase in height. After travelling 16 miles we encamped at a noted place called Independence Rock. This is a huge isolated rock covering an area, perhaps half a square mile, and rising in shape of an irregular obtuse mound to the height of 100 feet. It took its name from the celebration of the 4th of July at this place by Capt. Wm. Sublette, and it now bears many names of the early travelers to these regions.”

Independence Rock is located in southwestern Wyoming, near the Sweetwater River. Captain Sublette, a famous early fur trader, camped here on July 4th, 1830, and gave Independence Rock its name. Father De Smet at first thought “it had received this pompous name from its isolated situation and the solidity of its basis,” but he was soon set right. It was also known as the “Great Record of the Desert,” because travelers made a practice of carving their names into the rock. Bidwell and company were no exception. On the 6th he records that “All hands were anxious to have their names inscribed on this memorable landmark, so that we did not start until nearly noon.”