goldfields

John Bidwell recorded some prices in his entry for July 25, 1841.

I will not omit to state the prices of several kinds of mountain goods. Powder which is sold by the cupful (pint) is worth $1 per cup. Lead 1.50 per lb., good Mackinaw blankets 8 to 15 dollars; sugar $1 per cupful; pepper $1 also; cotton and calico shirts from 3 to 5$; rifles from 30 to 60. In return, you will receive dressed deerskins at $3, pants made of deerskins $10, beaver skins $10, moccasins $1; flour sold in the Mts. at 50 cents per cupful, tobacco at $2 per lb., butcher knives from 1 to 3$. A good gun is worth as much as a horse; a cap lock is preferred, caps worth $1 per box.

These prices would have shocked the folks back home. For comparison, here are a few prices in Massachusetts in 1841, from Comparative Wages, Prices and Cost of Living (1885) which contains prices going back to the 1790s.

White sugar sold for 15 cents a pound (and there are several cups in a pound), flour sold for 4 cents a pound, or $7 a barrel, and pepper was 20 cents a pound. A blanket cost $5.50 but whether it was a “good Mackinaw blanket” I don’t know.

Pocket knives were 25 cents each; a butcher knife would have cost somewhat more, maybe 50 cents. Tobacco was 20 to 28 cents a pound, so you can see that the price had increased 8-fold in the mountains.

This must be where John Bidwell acquired the “buckskin suit” he mentions wearing when he and Jimmy John went to get some snow from the mountains.

Sunday, 25th. Left the rendezvous this morning, 6 of the company, viz., John Gray, Peyton, Frye, Rogers, Jones, and Romaine, started to return to the United States. Baker stopped in the mountains to trap; crossed Green river and descended it about 8 miles. Trapp and his company likewise left in search of buffalo.

Trapp, as you will recall, was Henry Fraeb (tricky name). The name also shows up as Frapp. I’ll have more about him shortly.

John Gray had been hired by the Englishman William G. Romaine to escort him on a tour of the American West. They hadn’t signed up to go to California, so it was time for them to turn back. I don’t know anything about Peyton or Jones. Bidwell describes Rogers and Amos Frye as “pleasure seekers,” what we would call tourists. Bidwell and Frye would meet up again nine years later on the East Coast. Frye came to California to work for Bidwell on Rancho Chico and died in Chico in 1852.

Baker, who “stopped in the mountains to trap,” was Jim Baker, a trapper who had attached himself to the company to travel to the Rockies. At this time he was a young man, about the same age as John Bidwell, but he would go on to a long career as a hunter, trapper, explorer, scout, and rancher, and an associate of John C. Fremont, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, and other frontiersmen. There is a good article about him at WyoHistory,org.

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 the alcohol brought by Bartleson and others, as well as other items, like Joseph Chiles’s wagon and ox team. If the load in Chiles’s wagon was mostly whiskey, then he wouldn’t need the wagon anymore. Anything he had left he could put in someone else’s wagon.

Bidwell doesn’t say whether his group paid with money or bartered goods. It seems unlikely the hunters had much money, but they had goods the travelers could use, so it was probably mostly barter. Jimmy John says, “we stayed until the 25th and traded with the Indians and Trappers for horses and buffalo robes.” Maybe this is where Bidwell picked up the buckskin suit he later says he was wearing.

In tomorrow’s entry Bidwell will give some “mountain prices.”

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

I don’t imagine John Bartleson had any problem selling the whiskey he brought with him to Fraeb’s hunters.

Wednesday, 21st. Descended Big Sandy about 15 miles and again encamped upon it — no grass, had a little rain this evening but not enough to lay the dust.

There’s a little grass in this picture, but you can see that beyond the margins of the river there is no grass at all. Grass was the fuel that powered the wagon train — the travelers would not get far without grass for the animals.

Tuesday, 20th. Traveled about 18 miles in a circuitous direction, first west and then south. Country was extremely dry and dusty — no game seen but a few antelope — encamped on Big Sandy, having come about 18 miles.

Or, as Jimmy John wrote: “Traveled hard all day and did not get more than eight miles in a straight line.”

I don’t know why they were wandering around like that. Maybe looking for grass, maybe for game. Grass was scarce and the oxen, mules, and horses couldn’t get far without it.

Monday, 19th. 15 miles took us on to Big Sandy, which is likewise a branch of Green river — 2 buffalo were killed.

They are roughly at the halfway point of their journey. They have been traveling three months, and it will be another three months before they enter California (although they won’t know that they are in California for another two weeks after that.) They have traveled almost 1000 miles, and they have another almost 1000 miles to go.

But that was the easy half of the journey. Rolling over the prairie had its ups and downs (so to speak) but nothing compared to what they were about to encounter. Deserts and mountains and totally unknown territory lie before them. Here on the Big Sandy they know the name given the river because they have a trail guide with them. Captain Fitzpatrick had traveled this trail many times. There will soon come a time when the rivers are nameless.

Sunday, 18th. 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.

At an elevation of 7400 feet, South Pass is a broad open saddle between the Wind River Range to the north and the Oregon Buttes to the south. It affords a relatively easy route through the Rocky Mountains, and became the chosen route for emigrants on the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails.

Leaving the Sweetwater River, the emigrants took the gradual climb up through South Pass, as a few wagons 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)

The Wyoming Historical Society has an excellent article on South Pass with maps, well worth checking out if you want more information.

Little Sandy Creek flows into Big Sandy River, which leads to Green River, which is a tributary of the Colorado River, which flows into the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Mexico. The Bidwell-Bartleson Party has crossed the Continental Divide.

Saturday, 17th. Traveled about 5 miles — still on Sweet Water.

Not all days are exciting. Plenty of days on the trail were humdrum — travel a few miles, hunt for game, try to preserve some meat, take care of the animals, keep going. It was a hot, dirty, sweaty, hungry business, but with magnificent scenery.