Friday, 16th. Traveled about 10 miles and encamped opposite the Wind River mountains where we were in full view of many lofty peaks glittering with eternal snow and frost under the blaze of a July sun.
The trail may have been tough but the scenery was grand!
Sorry I couldn’t find a better copy of this painting. It gives you a good idea of what the Bidwell-Bartleson Party was viewing in western Wyoming.
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.
Gray was gone for a week and suffered a great deal in his search for the trappers. It would have killed a weaker man. Stay tuned for more about his ordeal when he returns on July 22nd.
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 (Echoes of the Past, p. 119) 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. Enterprising fellow. This was a bit of entrepreneurship that hadn’t occurred to young John Bidwell. Bidwell was not a teetotaler at this time in his life, but he was not a drinking man and he hadn’t thought about bringing items to sell of any kind.
Wednesday, 14th. Company engaged in hunting and curing meat.
Another brief entry. Jimmy John reported in his journal that they killed ten buffalo. It sounds like they are accumulating plenty of jerky, but it won’t last them very long.
They are getting close to South Pass and the Continental Divide.
Tuesday, 13th. Left our hunting encampment and met John Gray and Romaine returning from Green river. They found no person at the rendezvous on Green river, not any game ahead; it was therefore thought best to lay in more meat, while we were in the vicinity of the buffalo. We therefore came to a halt, having travelled about 15 miles.
John Grey and “Lord” Romaine had left on July 6th and gone ahead to see if there were any trappers or traders at the usual rendezvous spot on the Green River. The trip there and back had taken them a week. Nobody at the rendezvous and scarce game ahead was not good news. Jimmy John recorded that “they did not see any person, not even an Indian.”
By the way, William G. Romaine was called “Lord” Romaine by the company because of his British accent. He was a well-to-do and well-educated young Englishman who had hired Grey to guide him on a tour of the “Wild West.” His cultured upper-crust accent (think Masterpiece Theatre) naturally made these American frontiersmen think of him as an aristocrat, whether or not he was one. I expect he was a good sport about it all.
After his adventures in America, Romaine went on to a distinguished legal career at various outposts of the British Empire.
Since John Bidwell did not make a separate journal entry for this day, I will substitute an incident he related in his 1891 dictation. This happened somewhere along the journey — we don’t know just when or where.
I remember Mrs. Samuel Kelsey; I pitied her. We had traveled all day and everybody was tired. It was hard work to get a fire built, but she managed to and was frying some bacon and tried to make some coffee. She had, I think, five children, the smallest of which could barely stand alone. They were all standing around, crying at the top of their voices for something to eat. Just at that time the coffee upset and it went into the bacon and put out the fire. She threw up her hands and hollered out loud enough for the whole camp to hear: “I wish to the Lord I had never got married!”
Saturday, 10th. Travelled about 14 miles and stopped to kill and dry meat. Buffalo began to grow scarce.
On the 10th they decided to stay in place and spend a day or two hunting and drying meat. Good idea — but it wouldn’t be enough to get them to California.
Friday, 9th. Travelled about 18 miles, killed ten buffalo.
By this time on their journey the company had almost exhausted its supplies of flour and other foodstuffs. Bidwell had laid in extra supplies, because he hated the idea of living on nothing but meat, but by now even he must have been running low. He doesn’t say how much he had left. The company knew they still had a long way to go, although they really didn’t have a good idea of how far. They 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. The number of buffalo would continue to dwindle.
Thursday, 8th. This morning we came in sight of Wind River mountains; their snow-enveloped summits were dimly seen through the misty clouds that obscured the western horizon. Made about 15 miles today and encamped on the Sweet Water in full view of thousands of buffalo; 20 were killed. We now began to lay in meat to last us over the mountains to California.
It’s a good idea to begin drying meat but they have left it too late. Whatever meat they try to preserve now will be gone long before they reach California.
Bidwell noted later that, “It was the first time I had seen snow in summer; some of the peaks were very precipitous, and the view was altogether most impressive.” (“The First Emigrant Train”, in Echoes of the Past.)
Wednesday, 7th. As we journeyed, the mountains were high and naked; passed a pond that was nearly dried up, perfectly white with Glauber Salts, and in many places two or three inches deep, so that large lumps weighing several pounds were taken up. Buffalo increased in number; 10 were killed. Travelled today about 14 miles.
The Bidwell-Bartleson Party are following the Sweetwater River west toward South Pass. Captain Fitzpatrick would already know about South Pass. His friend Jedediah Smith had explored the pass in 1824.
The Sweetwater rises at the southern end of the Wind River Mountain Range and flows almost due east to join the North Platte River near Independence Rock. It made an ideal trail for westering pioneers as it skirted the dramatic peaks of the Wind River Range.
goldfields 