Wagon TracksVolume 17Issue 3 Wagon Tracks Volume 17, Issue 3 (May 2003) Article 1

2003

Wagon Tracks. Volume 17, Issue 3 (May, 2003)Santa Fe Trail Association

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.SANTA FE TRAlLASSOCIATION QUARTERLY

NUMBER 3MAY 2003

NTRA

VOLUME 17

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SYMPOSIUM, "A HIGHWAYBETWEEN NATIONS,"

SEPTEMBER 24·28, 2003by Anne Mallinson

[Anne Mallinson is vice-president ofSFTA and coordinator for the 2003symposium.}

THE 2003 Symposium offers a vari­ety of Trail experiences for those at­tending the Independence/KansasCity area event. In the 19th Century"Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Ben­ton called the Santa Fe Trail "AHighway Between Nations" and assuch the legacy continues into the21st Century, linking cultures withcommerce. From the Wednesdayevening (September 24) reception atthe National Frontier Trails Mu­seum, to the Sunday morning serv­ices held overlooking the MissouriRiver (September 28), members willhave the opportunity to tour Trailsites, visit a variety of museums andforts, attend lectures, hear the latestTrail research, participate in work­shops, sample Trail cuisine, pur­chase books and maps, and ex­perience time-period music. We evenhave ruts!

Registration material, a schedule,a list of accommodations, and a ros­ter of speakers are included as an in­sert in this issue of Wagon Tracks.For more information, contact coor­dinator Anne Mallinson at (816) 230­7228 or <SFTAMRO@aol.com>.Save expenses by registering early.The tours will give registrants a com­prehensive understanding of wherethe various Trail routes are locatedin western Missouri and easternKansas. After the registration dead­line, the committee cannot guaran­tee a seat on a bus, as unfilled tourswill be advertised locally. Additionallodging information and maps willbe sent with your registrationpacket. Updates as they occur can befound online at www.santafe­traiLorg.

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JUNE 14-15, 2003SIX WESTERN CHAPTERS MEETING

SANTA FE

JULY 1,2003DEADLINE FOR NEXT ISSUE

&DEADLINE FOR AWARDS

NOMINATIONS

JULY 15,2003SFTA ELECTION BALLOTS DUE

SEPTEMBER 24-28, 2003SFTA SYMPOSIUM

PLEASE CAST YOUR BALLOTBY JULY 15,2003

THE nominating committee (RogerSlusher, chair, Deanne Wright, andMike Najdowski) has completed thelist of candidates for officers andboard members, and the informationabout each nominee and a ballot foryour vote are enclosed as inserts inthis issue. Even though there is onlyone contested seat on the board,please take time to vote and showyour support for the purposes andprograms of SFTA.

These members who are willing tovolunteer time and expense to servea nonprofit organization deserve theencouragement provided by partici­pation of a large number of voters. Itonly takes a few minutes to vote anda few cents to return the ballot.

The ballots must be returned byJuly 15 to Linda Revello, SFTAHeadquarters, Santa Fe Trail Cen­ter, RR 3, Larned KS 67550. The re­sults will be tallied by a special com­mittee and announced at the sympo­sium and in the November issue ofWagon Tracks. Please cast your bal­lot.

EARLY COpy NEEDED FORNEXT ISSUE. PLEASE HAVE ALL

MATERIAL SUBMITTED NOLATER THAN JULY 1,2003.

EL CAMINO REAL TRAILASSOCIATION FOUNDED

by John P. Bloom[SFTA member Bloom, Las Cruces,NM, was chair of the convening com­mittee and presided over the opening

. sessions of the Socorro conference.}

A new, international trail associa­tion, El Camino Real Trail Associa­tion (CARTA), has been establishedto promote awareness of and givesupport to El Camino Real de TierraAdentro, in the well established styleof the Santa Fe Trail Association(SFTA), theOregon-California TrailAssociation (OCTA), and the OldSpanish Trail Association (OSTA),among others, The culmination ofmore than a year's effort, started un­der the aegis of the Historical Societyof New Mexico, more than 100 trailenthusiasts met in conference at So­corro, NM, March 14-15, 2003, toelect a first slate of officers, adopt by­laws, and start to enroll chartermembers. The City of Socorro andthe nearly-finished Camino RealHeritage Center, as well as Socorro1s

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Joy Poole, director of EI Camino RealInternational Heritage Center, speak­ing at CARTA founding meeting (photoby Ross Marshall).

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PRESIDENT'S COLUMN

T~~s is one of those reports I enjoywntmg. I have only good news. TheSFTA board met in Trinidad, Colo­rado, on Saturday, March 21. Beforetelling you part of what we accom­plished at the board meeting I'll tellyou about the workshop held the daybefore the meeting.

The National Park Service hadgiven us financial support for thisworkshop and Sharon Brown of theNPS planned and led the meetings.Sharon, by the way, did a great jobfor us. We were asked to think ofways the SFTA, the chapters, andthe NPS could cooperate in improv­ing our Trail. Many chapter presi­dents were in attendance as well asthe board and three NPS folks.Sharon and I will distill the ideas de­veloped at the workshop and presentthem to you in our next WagonTrachs.

The board meeting was especiallywell~attendedas most of the chapterpresIdents stayed over for it. Themost important issue addressed atthe meeting was the report by Ra­mon Powers and the finance commit­tee. They suggested several waysthat our budget could better commu­nicate what we do and how we payfor it. We also discussed ways inwhich we could balance our 2003budget. They suggested that we ac­tively seek business memberships.When I returned home from Trini­dad I reviewed our list of businessmemberships and found that we arenot doing a good job in this area.

By the time you read this messagechapter presidents will have re­ceived a missive from me spelling outwhat must be done. Restaurants,motels, and other businesses thatbenefit from people in the Associa­tion or folks traveling the Trail~~ould be strongly encouraged toJom the SFTA. One new benefit ofsuc~ membership will be a separatesectIOn on our web site. Those usingthe Trail can go to the web and locatemotels, restaurants, and the likewho support the SFTA by having an:embership in our great organiza­tion.

You will be receiving the slate ofcandidates for the board and officersin this issue. Please consider thecandidates carefully and thenVOTE. I thank Roger Slusher and

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All matters relating to WagonTracks should be directed to SFTAEditor Leo E. Oliva, PO Box 31,Woodston KS 67675.

Toll-free Phone: (888) 321-7341FAX: (785) 425-6865

E-Mail: <editor@santafetrail.org>Headquarters ofthe Santa Fe TrailAssociation are located at the officeof Treasurer Ruth Olson PetersSanta Fe Trail Center, RR 3 Bo~137, Larned KS 67550; Office Man­ager Linda Revello.

Telephone: (620) 285-2054FAX: (620) 285-7491

E-Mail: <trailassn@larned.net>

h~s ~ommi.ttee for the fine work theydId m gettmg people to run for office.

.We have a new web master. LarryMIX ~as agreed to help us out in this~ery Important area. Those of us us­mg computers and the Internetknow the power and influence a goodweb site can have. My thanks toDave Webb for his web master workthe last few years. I appreciate thesacri~ice,~ that Dave made to keepour SIte up and running." Be sure tovisit the web site often: www.san­tafetrail.org.

Lastly, I am really "up" right nowas my wife and I just returned from ameeting of the Texas PanhandleChapte~ of the SFTA. Kathy Wadeand ClInt Chambers invited me todrive over and visit one oftheir meet­ings and see parts of their trails. AI­vi~ Lynch, a most knowledgeablegUIde, showed us many pieces of the1840 Gregg Trail. You rememberthat Josiah Gregg established aroute from Fort Smith, Arkansas, toSanta Fe in 1839, returning east in1840. Read, or reread, his book for afascinating account of his opening ofthis southern branch of the SFT.

Bev and I greatly enjoyed our visitto Amarillo. We'd been through thearea on I 40 several times but thiswas o~~ first real visit. Don't putyour VISIt off as \ve had. I strongly en­couraged the chapter to considerhosting Six Western Chapters meet­ing in the near future. The treasuresof the Panhandle are there to beenjoyed.

The Pike Bicentennial Commis­sion met at Trinidad March 20 andplanning continues for comme~ora­tion. ~f that important exploring ex­pedItion of 1806-1807. Keep reading"Pike's Column" in WT.

-Hal Jachson

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WAGON TRACKS is the officialpublication of the Santa Fe Trail~sso.ciation, a nonprofit organiza­tlOn mcorporated under the laws ofthe State of Colorado. Letters andarticles are welcome, but they be­come. the prope.rty of WT and mayb~ edIt~dor abndged at the editor'sdlscretlOn. All rights reserved. An­nual subscriptions are obtainedthrough membership in the Asso­clatlOn, whose dues are fixed percalendar year. Checks should bemade payable to the Santa Fe Trail'Association and sent to the trea­surer (address below).

Membership CategoriesLife $885Benefactor $1.000Patron $100/yearInstitutional $40/yearBusiness $40/yearFamily $30/yearIndividual $25/yearYouth (18 & under) $15/year

Editor: Leo E. Oliva, PO Box 31Woodston. KS 67675 (888) 321~7341, <edItor@santafetrail.org>President: H~l Jackson, 45 Calledel Norte, PlaCItas NM 87043 (505)867-1742, <halitojackS@aol. com>Vice-President: Anne Mallinson964 NW 600, Centerview MO64019 (816) 230-7228, <SFTAMRO@aol.com>Secretary: Michael Olsen 5643Sonnet Heights, 9,?lorado Springs,CO 80918 (719) uu9-1955 <OlsenMiguel@aol.com> 'Treasurer: Ruth Olson PetersSanta Fe Trail Center RR 3'Larned KS 67550 (620) 285-2054:FAX (316) 285-7491, <trailassn@larned.net>2003 Symposium Coordinator­Anne M~llinson, see above unde;VIce-presIdent.Publicity Coordinator: MichaelE. Pitel, PO Box 31386, Santa FeNM 87594 (505) 982-2704, <PitelTSNM@aol.com>Directors:John Atkinson, MO (816) 233­

3924Helen Brown, KS (620) 697-4597Clint Chambers, TX (806)-791-

3612Dub Couch, CO (719) 254-3000Faye Gaines, NM (505) 485-2473Robert Kincaid, TX (940) 684-1531N,ancy Lewis, MO (816) 229-8379RIchard Louden, At-Large (719)

946-5513Ramon Powers, At-Large (785)

478-9526Mike Slater, OK (580) 327-5249Joanne VanCoevern, KS (785)

825-8349Stephen Whitmore NM (505) 454-

0683 'Vacancy, COVacancy, OK

VISIT SFTA ON THE INTERNET<http://www.santafetrail.org>

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I DAVID S. LAVENDER I:.-.-~~--

David Lavender, author of manybooks and featured speaker at thefirst Santa Fe Trail Symposium inTrinidad, CO, in 1986, died at hishome in Ojai, CA, on April 26, 2003,at the age of 93. He grew upon on aColorado ranch and became a re­nowned historian of the AmericanWest. Among his many books areBent's Fort (1954), The Trail toSanto. Fe (1958), and The Santo. FeTrail (1995). A complete list of hiswritings would fill this column.

Lavender became head of the Eng­lish department at Thacher Schoolfor Boys near Ojai, CA, in 1943. Hewas nominated twice for the PulitzerPrize and was honored in 1997 by theCenter of the American West at theUniversity of Colorado with the Wal­lace Stegner Award for sustainedcontribution to the cultural identityof the American West. He is survivedby his wife Muriel. Condolences areextended to family and friends.

CARTA(continued from page I)

Camino Real Heritage Center Foun­dation lent invaluable support to themeeting.

George Torok of EI Paso, Texas,was elected president; Thomas E.Chavez of Albuquerque and SantaFe, NM, was elected vice-president;Cameron Saffell of Las Cruces is sec­retary; Helen Geer of Santa Fe istreasurer; and the fifth officer, theInternational Liaison Officer, is R.B. 3Ben2 Brown, who divides his timeand talents between the Universityof Texas-El Paso and Mexico's Insti­tuto Nacional de Arqueologia y His­toria. They will see to the election ofa broad-based board of directors, thestartup of a newsletter and a website, and planning for a first mem­bership meeting, tentatively set forSaturday, September 20, 2003.

The meeting at Socorro featuredan ingathering and evening recep­tion at the historic Garcia OperaHouse, with a keynote address byOakah L. Jones, Jr. The full-day pro­gram on March 15 was kicked off bythe keynote address by the distin­guished Mexican scholar, Jose LuisPunzo Diaz, director of the Museo delas Culturas del Norte, Paquime,Mexico, for which an English trans­lation was available. Later panels

May 2003

featured representatives of the OldSpanish Trail Association (OSTA), ofSFTA, and of the Partnership for theNational Trails System. Joy Poole,"mother of SFTA" and director of EICamino Real International HeritageCenter south of Socorro, told aboutthe nearly-completed Center. Wil­lard Lewis, former OSTA president,spoke of plans for a coalition of his­toric trails in New Mexico: SFTA,OSTA, US Highway 66, and of courseCARTA-all of with a focus on SantaFe, for which there may be supportfrom state tourism interests. MarcSimmons, well known historian and"father of SFTA," presided over thesession at which CARTA was for­mally established.

Interested persons who were un­able to attend this conference canstill, for a limited time, join CARTAas charter members. Individual duesare $25, or $30 for a joint member­ship. Send a check made out toCARTA to CARTA, PO Box 15162,Las Cruces NM 88004-5162. Studentand institution charter member­ships are also available for $20 and$100 respectively. See an insert inthis issue with membership informa­tion and application form.

PARTNERSHIP REPORTby Ross Marshall

[SFTA Ambassador and formerPresident Marshall is the SFTA rep­resentative to the Partnership for theNational Trails System (PNTS).]

I attended the Partnership's Lead­ership Council meeting in Washing­ton D.C. in early March and ampleased to report that all but two ofthe twenty-three National Scenicand Historic Trails groups are nowdues paying members, and we areworking on those. In addition, afterwhat has seemed like forever, theIRS has approved our 501(c)3 tax­exempt status.

Aside from the usual committeeand financial reports and approval ofthe 2003 PNTS work plan, some ofthe issues on the agenda were thecontinuing implementation of Fed­eral ADA Standards and Guidelines(FSTAG) and the proposed initiativeby the federal agencies to outsourcesome of their scenic trail buildingand maintenance management re­sponsibilities, neither of which af­fects the Santa Fe Trail to the same

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extent as the scenic trails.The good news from Washington

is that Congress finally passed the'02-'03 appropriations bills. The badnews is that trails got very little in­crease, including SFNHT. In prepa­ration for '04 and '05 budgets, thePartnership spent time workingwith not only Congress but also theadministra tion side.

In addition to meeting with theHouse Interior Appropriations Sub­committee staff and calling on ourSenators and Representatives alongthe Santa Fe Trail, a few of us alsomet with a representative of the Of­fice of Management and Budget, As­sistant Director of the Department ofthe Interior Lynn Scarlett, and withNational Park Service Director FranMainella. Hopefully these meetingswill help strengthen their commit­ment to trails funding.

The Partnership is supporting thereintroduction of the Willing Sellerand Trails Feasibility Study (nowcalled the Pioneer Historic TrailsStudies Act) bills which were lost inthe Senate 'inactions' of last fall.

The Arizona Trail and the PacificNorthwest Trail are both seekingcongressional designation as Na­tional Scenic Trails. In addition, sev­eral feasibility studies are underwayincluding the Star Spangled Banner,the Washington Rochambeau, andthe Navajo Long Walk trails.

The 9th Long Distance Trails Con­ference will be held in Bow, Wash­ington' on Puget Sound, August 21­25, hosted by the Pacific NorthwestTrail Association. This will be a mar­velous venue and should be well at­tended. It would be nice to have twoor three SFTA leaders attend thisconference. Anyone who wants toconsider attending, please contactme and I will get you a registrationpacket when available.

LARRY MIX NEW WEB MASTERLARRY Mix, SFTA member fromSt. John, KS, was selected by theSFTA board meeting at Trinidad toserve as the new web master for theSFTA site. He replaces Dave Webb,who has handled this task for severalyears. Thanks to Dave for keepingthis site going, and thanks to Larryfor assuming the duties. Be sure tovisit the SFTA web site at <www.santafetrail.org>.

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SYMPOSIUM(continued from page 1)

The symposium committee invitesparticipants to bring a photograph orpicture which highlights the con­tinuing legacy of the Santa Fe Trail.These may include ancestors whowere involved in matters of the Trail,current participants and their de­scendants who support Trail preser­vation, or current members and theirproteges who share a passion for theSanta Fe Trail. The theme is "Fromthe Past to the Present, Generationson the Trail." We will create a collageof the pictures to be displayed in thelobby area. All photographs will bereturned to their owners at the endof the symposium.

A Santa Fe Trail Symposium orRendezvous is like a family reunion,but you don't have to bring a covereddish. The Missouri River Outfittersbranch of the Santa Fe Trail familyis looking forward to hosting thisevent. Join us September 24-28 for arousing good time!

COLLEGE CREDIT AVAILABLEAT 2003 SYMPOSIUM

DR. Joyce Thierer, Emporia StateUniversity, will offer a Santa FeTrail class in connection with theSeptember symposium. The course isespecially recommended to teachers.Course requirements include atten­dance at symposium and additionalprojects. For details, contact Dr.Thierer at Dept. of Social Sciences,Emporia State University, EmporiaKS 66801-5087, phone at office (620)341-5533 or home (620) 528, 3580, e­mail <thiererj@emporia.edu> or<ridehis t@satelephone.com>.

THE SFTA ARCHIVES NEED YOUThe Santa Fe Trail Association

has recently received a large dona­tion of maps that are to be used bymembers for marking the Trail. Bef­ore they can be checked out, themaps need to be folded, labeled andrehoused. If you are interesting involunteering for this task or wishfurther information, please contactBetsy Crawford-Gore at the SantaFe Trail Center by phone (620) 285­2054 or e-mail at trailctr@larned.net.

REMEMBER THE SANTA FE TRAILASSOCIATION IN YOUR WILL

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DAR MADONNA REDEDICA­TION AT COUNCIL GROVE

by Shirley Coupal

[SFTA member Coupal is state histo­rian ofKSDAR.]

THE Kansas Society Daughters ofthe American Revolution will host a75th anniversary and rededicationcelebration of the Madonna of theTrail statue in Council Grove, KS,September 7, 2003. National SocietyDAR President Linda Tinker Wat­kins and National DAR HistorianBeverly Jensen will be present.

Morning events are DAR related,including 9:00 a.m. worship serviceat Kaw Mission and 11:00 a.m. lunchat the Country Club, and reserva­tions are required. Nonmembers arewelcome if space permits. Non-DARparticipants please contact ShirleyCoupal at <scoupal@juno.com> forinformation. DAR members contactClarice Kennedy at <bckenn@cablerocket.com>.

Afternoon events at MadonnaPark are open to the public and eve­ryone is invited. The rededicationceremony is at 1:00 p.m., includingcolor guard, bands, flag raising, re­marks by KSDAR State Regent Pa­tricia Eddy Carpenter, keynote ad­dress by Bill Kurtis, and remarks byDAR President Linda Tinker Wat­kins.

Other plans are still be made andwill be reported in the next issue ofWT. The KSDAR hopes for a largecrowd to celebrate this event. News­paper accounts of the original dedi­cation on September 7, 1928, esti­mated there were 10,000 in atten­dance.

SFTA MEMBERSHIP ROSTERTHOSE interested in having a cur­rent SFTA Membership Roster mayorder one from Last Chance Store,PO Box 3, Woodston KS 67675, for $5postpaid. Periodic rosters have beenprovided to all members in the past,but a tight budget prompted theboard to change this policy. Manymembers may not want the roster.

The roster, printed when orderedso it will be current, is available on 3­ring notebook paper or bound withplastic comb. Please enclose pay­ment with orders and specific formatwanted. Allow at least three weeksfor delivery

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MITZI FRANK NEW SUPERIN­TENDENT AT FORT UNION NMMITZI Frank, a 20-year veteran ofthe National Park Service, was re­cently named superintendent at FortUnion National Monument. A nativeof South Dakota, she has served at anumber of National Parks, most re­cently at Sitka National HistoricPark in Alaska. Welcome to theSanta Fe Trail, Mitzi.

SANTA FE TRAIL BIKE TREKWILLARD Chilcott, director of thebiennial Santa Fe Trail Bike Trek,has announced the schedule for2003. There will be 50 riders. SFTAmembers living along the Trail maywant to greet the bikers as theytravel nearby. The schedule follows:Sept. 13: check in at Santa FeSept. 14: Santa Fe to Las Vegas, NMSept. 15: Las Vegas to Wagon MoundSept. 16: Wagon Mound to CimarronSept. 17: Cimarron to Trinidad, COSept. 18: Rest day in TrinidadSept. 19: Trinidad to La JuntaSept. 20: La Junta to LamarSept. 21: Lamar to Lakin, KSSept. 22: Lakin to Dodge CitySept. 23: Rest day in Dodge CitySept. 24: Dodge City to LarnedSept. 25: Larned to SterlingSept. 26: Sterling to HillsboroSept. 27: Hillsboro to Council GroveSept. 28: Rest Day in Council GroveSept. 29: Council Grove to Baldwin

CitySept. 30: Baldwin City to Independ-

ence, MOOct. 1: Independence to LexingtonOct. 2: Lexington to Arrow RockOct. 3: Arrow Rock to New Franklin

For more information, contactChilcott at (505) 982-1282.

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ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE'S SOUTHWESTERN EXPEDITION:BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR A NEGLECTED CHAPTER OF OUR HISTORY

by Stephen G. Hyslop

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[This special column will continue asa series in Wagon Tracks until theclose of the Zebulon MontgomeryPike Southwestern Expedition Bicen­tennial activities in 1807. It featuresdocuments, articles, bibliography,and notes which tell the story ofPike,his expeditions, and related topics.Submissions are solicited for this col­umn, and suggestions are welcome.

There are four Pike items in this is­sue: (1) a bibliography, (2) articleabout Pike's route near Pueblo, CO,(3) plans of Colorado Springs Pio­neers Museum for the bicentennial,and (4) the first installment of Pike'sjournal. Special thanks to StephenHyslop, Peyton Abbott, and MattMayberry for their contributions

A note on Pike's military rank is inorder. He is often referred to as Lieu­tenant Pike as well as Captain Pike.When he began his Southwestern ex­pedition in July 1806 he was a lieu­tenant, but his promotion to captainwas dated August 12, 1806, and thusit is with the rank of captain thatPike is properly identified during theremainder of the expedition.

Roy E. Pike, president of the PikeFamily Association of America, hasbeen in contact with informationabout plans for a Pike family reunionat Colorado Springs in 2006. Heplans to write an article for this col­umn about the Pike family. Check outtheir web site at <http: / / pikefam­ily.org>. Keep up to date with PikeBicentennial plans at <www. pikebi­centennial.org>.]

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[SFTA member Hyslop, Alexandria,VA, is a freelance historian andauthor of the highly-acclaimed book,Bound for Santa Fe: The Road toNew Mexico and the American Con­quest, 1806-1848 (University ofOklahoma Press, 2002), and a recentarticle about Pike, "An Explorer or aSpy?" American History 37 (August2002): 58-64. He was also editor ofthe Time-Life series on American In­dians. He is a volunteer consultant tothe Pike Bicentennial Commission.His introductory essay to this bibliog­raphy is an invaluable introductionto the study of the Pike Expedition.

The following bibliography is se­lective and does not include obscureitems, ephemera, or children's books.Suggestions for additions are solic­ited, and relevant selections will benoted in Wagon Tracks and postedwith the bibliography on the web site<www.pikebicentennial.org>.]THOSE who would like to becomeexperts on Zebulon MontgomeryPike without quitting their day jobswill be glad to hear that the bibliog­raphy on the explorer and his South­western expedition of 1806-1807 isrelatively brief. The list of books andarticles that follows contains fewerthan three dozen items. This list isincomplete-we welcome additionalentries from readers and contribu­tors-but it will never approach thedimensions of the bibliography onthe Lewis and Clark expedition, forwhich the catalogue ofthe Library ofCongress (www.loc.gov) lists over200 entries. By contrast, I have notseen a single authoritative book de­voted to Pike's Southwestern expedi­tion, other than critical editions ofPike's own journal of the reconnais­sance, despite the fact that it hadconsequences for American expan­sion rivaling those of the Lewis andClark expedition.

The dearth of literature on Pikeand his Southwestern venture re­flects a not entirely benign neglect ofthe explorer by historians and thegeneral public. Some authors haveraised questions about Pike's charac­ter, credibility, and possible involve­ment in a conspiracy to seize Span­ish territory in the Southwest with-

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out the knowledge or consent ofPresident Thomas Jefferson. The dif­ficulty of resolving such questions(conspiracy theories are hard to dis­prove) has evidently discouragedscholars from taking a fresh look atPike, while serious interest in Lewisand Clark continues to mount.

Both expeditions grew out of a mo­mentous event whose bicentennial isupon us: the Louisiana Purchase,signed in Paris by American negotia­tors on April 30, 1803. That deal wasrightly hailed as a masterstroke byJefferson, but it was not as much of abargain for the U.S. as some haveclaimed. For 15 million dollars, thenation acquired from France itsvastly inflated claim to the provinceof Louisiana, which supposedly em­braced everything west of the Missis­sippi River up to the headwaters ofits tributaries, including the Mis­souri, Arkansas, and Red rivers. Bythose standards, the Louisiana Pur­chase more than doubled Americanterritory for what amounted to a fewcents an acre. But in truth, only set­tled areas along the Mississippi­including the towns of St. Louis andNew Orleans, which proved great as­sets for the u.S.-actually changedhands as a result of the deal. Else­where, what the French called Lou­isiana was in fact Indian country, oc­cupied by tribes that had never beensubject to France or had transferredtheir allegiances to Britain or Spain,which contested U.S. claims underthe Louisiana Purchase. It wouldtake Americans the better part of acentury to gain firm control of thatimmense tribal territory, at a cost inblood and treasure that dwarfed theoriginal purchase price.

If the Louisiana Purchase was notexactly a steal for the U.S., it was in­deed one of the most significantevents in American history. For itgreatly accelerated the pace of west­ward expansion. Among the conse­quences of the deal were severalgovernment-sponsored explorationsof the newly acquired territory, be­ginning with the' journey of theCorps of Discovery under Lewis andClark-who reached the headwatersof the Missouri River (the limits of

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the Louisiana Purchase in theNorthwest) in the summer of 1805before continuing on to the Pacific­and culminating in Captain Pike'smilitary reconnaissance of 1806­1807, which probed the limits of theLouisiana Purchase in the South­west and, brought him up againstSpanish forces in New Mexico.

To be sure, the transcontinentaljourney of Lewis and Clark had anepic sweep that Pike's trek to Chi­huahua and back (part of it under­taken as a prisoner) could not quitematch. But this was just one of thefactors that helped enshrine Lewisand Clark as national icons whilerelegating Pike to the status of ashadowy and somewhat controver­sial figure in the annals of Americanexploration. Perhaps the greatestadvantage Lewis and Clark enjoyedin the eyes of posterity was that theirexpedition was conceived and spon­sored by that revered founding fa­ther Jefferson, whereas Pike's ven­ture was set in motion by one ofAmerica's more disreputable author­ity figures, General James Wilkin­son.

Not only was Wilkinson a spy inthe service of Spain-a rival powerthat nearly went to war with theU.S. while Wilkinson was entrustedwith the defense of the newly ac­quired Louisiana Territory-but healso conspired with former vice­president Aaron Burr to carry out afilibuster or coup of some sort in theSouthwest around the time that Pikeembarked on his expedition. Burr'saccusers claimed he had treasonousdesigns on American territory, buthe was acquitted of treason in fed­eral court in 1807 after Wilkinsonturned on him and testified for theprosecution. (As a cooperative wit­ness, Wilkinson faced no chargeshimself, but his already blemishedreputation was further tarnished.)In the same trial, Burr was also ac­quitted of the lesser charge oflevyingwar against Spain, a nation withwhich the U.s. remained officially atpeace. Yet evidence suggests that heand Wilkinson indeed had hostile de­signs on Spanish territory.

Disclosure of the Burr-Wilkinsonconspiracy aroused suspicions insome quarters that Pike and hisSouthwestern expedition were partof that plot. Those suspicions wereseemingly laid to rest when Secre-

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tary of War Henry Dearborn de­clared in writing that he had been in­formed by Wilkinson of Pike's recon­naissance and that President Jeffer­son knew and approved of the expe­dition and its results. Pike's subse­quent death in battle in 1813, whileleading troops against the British asa brigadier general, confirmed hispatriotism and argued against theidea that he would knowingly haveaccepted any assignment from Wilk­irison contrary to the interests of hiscountry and his duties as an officer.Yet charges to that effect resurfacedafter his death and remain current tothis day-as demonstrated by a re­cent book by M. R. Montgomery enti­tled Jefferson and the Gun-Men,which accuses Pike of playing "a ma­jor part in the Burr-Wilkinson plot."(The quote is from the book's coverand accurately reflects its contents.)

To say that Pike was party to theBurr-Wilkinson conspiracy is a seri­ous charge, and the burden of proofrests with his accusers. In reviewingthe literature on Pike and his South­western expedition, I have seennothing that comes close to meetingthat burden. The case against Pikerests on slender and ambiguous evi­dence, open to varying interpreta­tions. Indeed, there is no conclusiveevidence that Wilkinson had a con­spiratorial motive for sending Pikeon his mission. An acquaintance tes­tified that Wilkinson told himshortly before the Southwestern ex­pedition began that he had his ownreasons for organizing it-a motive ofwhich Pike was "as yet ignorant"­but Wilkinson made no mention ofhis conspiracy with Burr. l And inany case, he was such an accom­plished liar that nothing he said canbe taken at face value. Wilkinsonwas always seeking ways to profitpersonally by his official business,including selling American intelli­gence to his Spanish paymasters,but much of the business he con­ducted was in the national interestand this Southwestern venture wasno exception. Conspiratorial views ofPike's expedition must contend withthe indisputable fact that it servedJefferson's goal of exploring the lim­its of the Louisiana Purchase and as­sertingthe nation's claim to that dis­puted territory.

Perhaps the strongest argumentto be made in Pike's favor is that a

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number of historians and editorswho have carefully scrutinized thedocuments relating to his South­western expedition have concludedthat his actions were entirely inkeeping with Wilkinson's unobjec­tionable written orders-which wereto seek out various Plains tribes andencourage them to remain peacefuland recognize American authority,to reach the headwaters of the Ar­kansas and Red rivers (which meantprobing the limits of the LouisianaPurchase in defiance of Spanishclaims), and to avoid provokingSpanish forces if he encounteredthem. Wilkinson acknowledged thatfulfilling these orders would likelybring Pike "approximate to the set­tlements of New Mexico,"2 and he didnot have to remind Pike that his du­ties as leader of a military reconnais­sance included gathering intelli­gence that might be of use to thearmy if the territorial dispute be­tween the U.S. and Spain led to warand American forces set out to in­vade New Mexico. Pike conceded asmuch in his journal by admittingthat when Dr. John Robinson, theparty's physician and an associate ofWilkinson's, left the expedition inFebruary 1807 and traveled alone toSanta Fe on the pretense of conduct­ing private business, he was in factseeking to "gain a knowledge of thecountry.,,3 .

But did Pike himself knowinglyenter Spanish territory with the in­tention of spying? Was he telling thetruth when he said that he believedthe stockade he and his men built inearly February (along the ConejosRiver in what is now southern Colo­rado) was on a branch of the RedRiver and thus within the bounds ofAmerican territory as defined by theLouisiana Purchase? Pike's criticshave long contended that he musthave known he was in fact on abranch of the Rio Grande and thuswithin Spanish territory, and somehave taken his statements to thecontrary as proof of his deviousnessand his complicity in the Burr­Wilkinson plot-an argument thatoverlooks the possibility he ventureddeliberately into Spanish territorynot to further any conspiracy but togather intelligence that might be ofservice to his country in its relationswith Spain, come war or peace. Wemay never know the truth of the

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matter, but the evidence suggeststhat Pike had ample grounds for be·lieving mistakenly that the RedRiver originated in the Rockies northof Santa Fe and that he was sincerein denying any intention of strayingbeyond the limits of American terri­tory.

That is the conclusion of the lateDonald Jackson, editor of Pike's pa­pers, who remains our leadingauthority on the Southwestern expe­dition. Jackson's assessment thatPike's account of the journey was es­sentially truthful confirmed thejudgments of other astute editorsand historians, including ArcherButler Hulbert, Harvey L. Carter,and biographer W. Eugene Hollon.These. authors might be called de­fenders of Pike, but they did not seekto lionize him or deny his shortcom­ings. Hulbert, for example, in a spir­ited essay published in 1932, charac­terizes Pike as "an ambitious, over­zealous youth, itching for fame. ,,4 YetHulbert also observes that Pike's"verbal, sophomoric flourishings a lamilitaire" were typical of "whatmight have been found in almost anywestern army officer's journal inthese days of troublesome joint own­ership of the Mississippi River.'oSThis was, after all, the age of Napo­leon, and for a young American offi­cer like Pike (just 27 when he em­barked on his Southwestern expedi­tion) Napoleonic dreams of glorywere intensified by a brash patriot­ism that took for granted the right ofthe U.S. to assert its sweeping terri­torial claims at the expense of othernations.

The dominant image of Pike thatemerges from his own writings is notof a conspirator concealing his trueintentions but of a transparentAmerican expansionist who had nointention of being deflected from hisduty by hostile Indians, suspiciousSpaniards, or natural obstacles. Onemight well call Pike rash andoverzealous for continuing on up theArkansas into the Rockies in late1806 as winter approached-an ad­vance that exposed his lightly-cladmen to fearful hardship. But asidefrom his hankering for fame as anexplorer, Pike regarded his missionas a matter of some urgency in Amer­ica's ongoing dispute with Spain.The two nations nearly came toblows along the Texas-Louisiana

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border while Pike was away on hisexpedition. Had he returned thatwinter without fulfilling his orders,only to find his country at war withSpain, he might well have been con­sidered derelict in his duty.

One unfortunate consequence ofthe Burr-Wilkinson controversy hasbeen to divert attention from a largerand more important issue raised byPike's Southwestern expedition.Pike may have been acting strictly inthe national interest-and I believehe was-but how strong was the na­tion's claim to the country he ex­plored? Spanish authorities had twopowerful objections to Americanclaims under the Louisiana Pur­chase. In the first place, they pointedout that Spain, after receiving Lou­isiana from France by cession in1762, had retroceded the province toNapoleon in 1800 on condition thatthe territory not be transferred to athird party without Spanish consent.Napoleon had not obtained that con­sent before selling Louisiana to theU.S. in 1803, and Spain thus consid­ered the deal invalid. Beyond that,Spanish authorities denied thatFrench Louisiana had ever extendedvery far west of the Mississippi andthe French settlements along thatriver. 6 To be sure, French tradersand explorers had ventured far upthe Missouri and other tributaries ofthe Mississippi and traveled acrossthe Plains as far as Santa Fe. ButSpanish officials felt they had sur­passed the French through their ownexplorations of the region and byforging ties with Comanches, Pawn­ees, and other Plains Indians. Onbalance, Spain's claim to the countrytraversed by Pike between present­day Missouri and New Mexico wasstronger than the American claimacquired from France. Stronger stillwas the claim of the Indian nationsthat occupied this land and re­mained its rightful masters, not·withstanding their occasional will­ingness to recognize white men fromone country or another as friends or"fathers."

Of course, Pike believed in the va­lidity of the claim he was stakingout. Even before the Louisiana Pur­chase, many Americans felt they hadan inherent right to expand acrossthe continent, regardless of the priorclaims of other nations or peoples.And in asserting that presumed

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right, Americans like Pike were littledifferent from the Spanish conquis­tadores of old who laid claim to NewMexico and the Plains beyond-or ex­pansive tribal groups like the Co­manches who invaded the region andvied with resident Indians for terri­tory. This was a land of relentlesscompetition, and Anglo-Americanswere simply the latest contestants toenter the arena.

That Pike was trespassing on for­eign ground while claiming in allearnestness to be reconnoitering hisown country in no way detracts fromthe significance of his expedition orthe value of his account. His journal,partly reconstructed after he reoturned from the expedition, is not al­ways easy to follow and has often ex­asperated unsympathetic readers.One critic, John Upton Terrell, haslabeled his account "poorly organ­ized, unreliable, deceptive, inaccu­rate, carelessly prepared, lacking inessential details, scientifically andgeographically incorrect, and inmany places completely dishonest. ,,7

Pike's defenders, on the otherhand, consider the confusion in hisaccount to be an honest reflection ofa hastily assembled expedition forwhich Pike and his men were ill pre­pared. They find it understandablethat he was often unsure of hiswhereabouts during the grueling or­deal between his ascent into theRockies in December 1806 and hiscapture by Spanish troops at hisstockade near the Rio Grande in lateFebruary. And they argue that mis­placed concerns about Pike's motiveshave blinded critics to his powers asan observer and his vital contribu­tion to the literature of American ex­ploration. In the words of ArcherHulbert: "Is it not important that he,first of Americans, describes the lushand beautiful Kansas lowlands-or atleast as important as any hocus­pocus about General Wilkinson's re­lations with the British minister? ...Is it not impressive that Pike firstpictures for us the old Santa Fe trail,almost a generation before Brownand Sibley surveyed it-but who men­tions this when Wilkinson's alleged'secret instructions' to Pike can bemade the subject of spinal-column­tickling gossip? ... Is not beautifulSouth Park; the black grandeur ofthe Royal Gorge; the ineffable gloryof the Sangre de Cristo Range and

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the majesty of the San Luis Valley,first described for Americans inPike's pages?"s

The sheer scope of this pioneeringjourney, undertaken by Pike ~nd hismen under forbidding CIrcum­stances, makes their expedition well­worth commemorating. And thatcommemoration need not imply anendorsement of Anglo-Americanclaims or accomplishments overthose of Spanish Americans or Na­tive Americans. To the contrary,Pike's journey warrants furtherstudy precisely because it marks themoment when the Spanish andtribal cultures of the Southwest be­gan to impress themse.lves forcef~lly

on the American conSCIOusness. PIkehad no diplomatic training, and hewas sometimes overbearing in hisdealings with those he met with onhis journey, such as the Pawneesalong the Republican River. But likethe Santa Fe traders who followed inhis wake, he found that he could notrely solely on bluster or shows offorce in reckoning with rival powers.He had to negotiate with those for­midable competitors, and in the pro­cess he began to appreciate theirstrengths and capacities.

To explore the revealing literatureof Pike's Southwestern expedition isto leave behind the misleading no­tion that the U.S. more than doubledits territory in 1803 simply by pur­chasing Louisiana from France. Infact as Pike and his men discovered,, . .the American title _to LOUISIanameant little or nothing to those whoinhabited the vast expanse betweenthe Mississippi and the Rockies.Much of the ground between St.Louis and Santa Fe would have to bepurchased anew by American sol­diers, traders, and settlers throughcomplex and sometimes violent ex­changes with people of other nationswhose claims to the region were deep

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ana a01Ulng.

BIBLIOGRAPHY[Editor's Note: Many of these iten:sare no longer in print. Most are aVall­able in university and larger publiclibraries. Used copies of 'many itemsare for sale. Check for availability at<www.bookfinder.com>.]A. Editions of Pike's Journals:1810: An Account of Expeditions to

the Sources of the Mississippi, andthrough the Western Parts of Lou-

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isiana, to the Sources of the Arkan­saw, Kans, La Platte, and PierreJaun, Rivers; Performed by Orderof the Government of the UnitedStates during the Years 1805,1806, and 1807. ... (Philadelphia,C. & A. Conrad & Co.).

The original edition, containingPike's accounts of his expeditionin search of the headwaters of theMississippi in 1805-1806 and hisSouthwestern expedition -in 1806­1807, supplemented by his obser­vations on New Spain. Reprintedunder the title Sources of the Mis­sissippi and the Western Louisi­ana Territory. Readex Microprint,1966.

1811: London edition of above, editedby Thomas Rees; reprinted Den­ver: W. H. Lawrence & Co., 1889.

1895: The Expeditions of ZebulonMontgomery Pike, edited by Elli­ott Coues (New York: Francis R.Harper); reprinted Minneapolis:Ross & Haines, 1965; reprintedNew York: Dover, 1987. The firstcritical edition, voluminously an­notated.

1925: The Southwestern Expeditionof Zebulon M Pike, edited by MiloMilton Quaife (Chicago: R. R.Donnelley). An edited edition ofPike's 1810 publication, with aportrait and fold-out map.

1932: Zebulon Pike's ArkansawJournal: In Search of the South­ern Louisiana Purchase BoundaryLine, edited by Stephen HardingHart and Archer Butler Hulbert(Denver: Stewart Commission &Denver Public Library). Reprint­ed Westport, Conn.: GreenwoodPress, 1972. Contains Pike's jou~­

nal of the Southwestern expedI­tion up to the time he was cap­tured by Spanish troops, withnotes and a lively preface by Hul­bert entitled "The Purpose ofPike's Exnedition," rebutting ar­guments that he was party to theBurr-Wilkinson conspiracy.

1966: The Journals ofZebulon Mont­gomery Pike, with Letters and Re­lated Documents, edited by Don­ald Jackson (Norman: Universityof Oklahoma Press). An indispen­sable source, containing authori­tative notes and a wealth of docu­ments relating to the Southwest­ern expedition, including transla­tions of reports from Spanish offi-

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cials supplementing Pike's ver­sion of the events. Any seriousstudent of the Southwest Expedi­tion should begin with this edi­tion.

B. Books and Articles on Pike'sSouthwestern Expedition(includes books devoting a chapteror more to the subject):

Abernethy, Thomas Perkins. TheBurr Conspiracy. New York: Ox­ford University Press, 1954. Awell-documented but highly spec­ulative account of the plot. Chap­ter Nine, entitled "Pike's Peek,"deals with the Southwestern ex­pedition and portrays Pike as anunwitting accomplice of Wilkin­son and Burr.

Bennet, Robert Ames. A Volunteerwith Pike; the True Narrative ofOne Dr. John Robinson and ofHisLove for the Fair Senorita Vallois.Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1909. De­spite its title, this "true narrative"is a work of fiction.

Bierck, Harold A. "Dr. John Hamil­ton Robinson," Louisiana Histori­cal Quarterly 25 (July 1942): 644­69. A close look at the checkeredcareer of Dr. Robinson. "Whetherhe was a spy for Wilkinson andBurr, or a mere disinterested vol­unteer, Robinson took an activepart in the expedition," the authorobserves, and he later figuredprominently in further adven­tures and intrigues along theSpanish-American frontier.

Bolton, Herbert E. "Papers of Zebu­lon M. Pike, 1806-1807," Ameri­can Historical Review 13 (July1908): 798-827. This article marksthe first publication of vital docu­ments on the Southwestern expe­dition confiscated from Pike inChihuahua in 1807 and recoveredby Bolton in the archive ofthe Sec­retariat of Foreign Relations inMexico City.,~Includes a preface byBolton and editorial remarks.

Carter, Carrol Joe. Pike in Colorado.Fort Collins, Colo.: Old ArmyPress, 1978. Another look at Pikein Colorado.

Carter, Harvey L. Zebulon Mont­gomery Pike: Pathfinder and Pa­triot. Colorado Springs: DentanPrinting, 1956. A 32-page bookletdeftly summarizing Pike's careerand his Southwestern expeditionand arguing forcefully that Pike's

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account was faithful and his'mo- ,tives patriotic.

Crichton, Kyle S. "Zeb Pike," Scrib­ner's Magazine 82 (July-Decem­ber 1927): 462-67. A slight, loose~

ly-argued piece accusing Pike ofbeing "highly unethical and un­truthful at the very'least and ,with.a fair chance of being. distinctly

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traitorous.Greely, General cW. W. Explorers and

Travellers (a volume in the t\Menof Achievement" series). New·York: Charles Scribner's' Sons, .1893. This volume contains achapter on Pike, pp.163-193~

Hafen, LeRoy R. "Zebulon Montgom­ery Pike," Colorado Magazine 1-3(July 1931),132-142. A usefulbio-graphical essay. ,

Hollon, W. Eugene. The Lost Path­finder: Zebulon Montgomery Pike.Norman: University of-OklahomaPress, 1949. A conscientious biog- .raphy of enduring value. Hollon'sannotated bibliography (219-228)offers .a thorough review . ofsources on Pike in print and inmanuscript.

Hollon, W. Eugene. "Zebulon Mont:gomery Pike's Lost Papers," -Mis­sissippi Valley Historical Review34 (September 1947): 265-273:

Hyslop, Stephen G: Bound for SantaFe: The Road to New Mexico andthe American Conquest: 1806­1848. Norman: University ofOklahoma Press, 2002. . This .book's opening chapter, "The Am­biguous Venture of Zebulon Pike,!'concludes that the Southwesternexpedition set the stage for bothpeaceful and hostile exchanges be­tween Americans and rival groupson the Santa Fe Trail in decadesto come.

Hyslop, Stephen G. "An Exploreror a .Spy?" American History 37(August 2002): 58-64. Examinesthe Southwestern expedition andthe Burr-Wilkinson conspiracyand concludes that any subterfugeor spying Pike engaged in duringthe mission was consistent withhis official duties as leader of amilitary reconnaissance in dis­puted territory.

Jackson, Donald. "The American En­trada: A Spanish Point of View,"in The Frontier Re-Examined, ed.Francis McDermott. Urbana: Uni­versity of Illinois Press, 1967.

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. Jackson, Donald. "How Lost Was Ze­bulon Pike?" American Heritage16 (February -1965): 10-15, 75-80.·Examines the charge that Pikestrayed deliberately into Spanish

·territory and concludes that he'had good reason for being mis-· taken as to his whereabouts.

Jackson, Donald. Thomas Jeffersone;,nd the Btony Mountains: Explor­ing the West from Monticello. Ur­bana: University,of Illinois Press,1981. An .importantstudy of Jef-'ferson's role in furthering westernexploration and American expan­sion, 'including a chapter on Pike.

.' Jackson, Donald. "Zebulon M. Pike· 'Tours' Mexico," American West 3(Summer'1966): 67-71, 89-93. Ex­.aminesPike's expedition from the· time he and his men enteredSpanish territory until they re­turned to the U.S.

Jackson, Donald. "Zebulon Pike-thePoor Man's Lewis and Clark," WeProceeded On (October 1978): 6-9.

Jackson, Donald. "Zebulon Pike'sDamned Rascals," Occasional Pa­pers, No. 1 (1979). Pikes PeakPosse of the Westerners. ·Re­printed in Wagon Tracks 17 (Feb-

.... ruary 2003): 5-8. A revealing lookat the soldiers who made up Pike'sforce, including biographicalsketches of all 15 men who accom­,panied him up the Arkansas intothe Rockies.

Loomis, Noel M. and Abraham P.,Nasatir. Pedro Vial and the Roadsto Santa Fe. Norman: Universityof Oklahoma Press, 1967. Thisstudy, based largely on materialsin various Spanish archival collec­tions, -provides essential back­ground information on NewSpain, New Mexico, and the Lou­isiana country before, during, andafter the Pike Expedition, provid­ing a vital perspective on the in­ternational situation and Spanishconcerns and fears of U.s. en­croachment. It includes Spanishexploration and Indian relationson the Great Plains, as well asPike's venture and the aftermath.

Montgomery, M. R. Jefferson and theGun-Men: How the West Was AL­most Lost. New York: Crown,2000. The author takes a dim viewof Pike, portraying him as vain­glorious, careless of the welfare of

·his men, and devoted to the ne-

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farious interests of his benefactorWilkinson.

Murphy, John. F., Jr., "West's In­trepid Pathfinder," Wild West(August 1991): 18-24. This is apopular view of Pike's explorationof the upper Mississippi River andhis trip across the plains to NewMexico, with fine illustrations.

Prucha, Francis Paul. The Sword ofthe Republic: The United StatesArmy on the Frontier, 1783-1846.Lincoln: University of NebraskaPress, 1986. An authoritativemilitary history of American ex­pansion. Chapter Five, "Exploringand Protecting the Empire beyondthe Mississippi," concludes thatWilkinson had good reason in hisofficial capacity for orderingPike's Southwestern expedition.

Sabin, Edwin L. Lost with Lieuten­ant Pike. Philadelphia: J. B. Lip­pincott, 1919. A work of fiction.

Stallones, Jared. Zebulon Pike andthe Explorers of the AmericanSouthwest. New York: ChelseaHouse, 1992.

Terrell, John Upton. Zebulon Pike:The Life and Times of an Adven­turer. New York: Weybright andTalley, 1968. This critical asses&ment of Pike's career contains alengthy account ofhis Southwest­ern expedition, .interspersed withmuch speculation about the rela­tionship of that venture to theBurr-Wilkinson conspiracy, un­supported by notes.

Whiting, Henry. Lives of CountRumford, Zebulon MontgomeryPike, and Samuel Gorton. Boston:Little and Brown, 1845. Whiting's"Life of Pike" also appears in Ja­red Sparks, ed., Library ofAmeri­can Biography 5: 217-314.

NOTES1. Donald Jackson, ed., The Journals of Ze­

bulon Montgomery Pike, with Lettersand Related Documents, 2 vols, 2: 246­48.

2. Ibid., 1: 286.3. Ibid., 1: 378-79.4. Archer Butler Hulbert, Zebulon Pike's Ar­

kansaw Journal, Ixxx.5. Ibid., Ixxv.6. For the Spanish perspective on the Louisi ­

ana Purchase, see David J. Weber, TheSpanish Frontier in North America (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1992), 291­301.

7. John Upton Terrell, Zebulon Pike _130-31.8. Hulbert, Zebulon Pike's Arkansaw Jour­

nal, Ixviii-Ixix.

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WITH ZEBULON MONTGOMERY'PIKE THROUGH PUEBLO COUNTY, COLORADOby Peyton O. Abbott

[Peyton Abbott, Pueblo, CO, is a char­ter member of SFTA. His attempt totrace Pike's route and locate camp­sites in Pueblo County is what the Bi­centennial Commission is doing forthe entire expedition. Anyone whowishes to volunteer to work on thisproject is welcome.}

IT was obvious from the start thatthe original plan was not going towork. It had been my intention to fol­low Pike, campsite to campsite,through Pueblo County using hismap.l Pike had surveyed his way upthe Arkansas using, among othermethods, satellites to establish lon­gitude. I thought it would be inter­esting to check his longitudes andlatitudes by a modern use of satel-

. lites. Pike had used a different primemeridian from that used by my GPS,probably Washington D.C., as thatwas the prime advocated by thenPresident Thomas Jefferson, butthat could be accounted for. So at theconfluence of the Arkansas andFountain Creek I stood waiting for atleast four of the 24 or so Global Posi­tioning System (GPS) navigationsatellites to lock in. These of coursewere not the satellites used by Pike.His were the four major satellites ofJupiter, the Galilean moons. Byknowing the time of their immer­gence and emergence with the planetat the prime meridian and observingthe time of these occurrences at hislocation he was able to determine thedistance from the prime meridian aseach hour difference is equal to ex­actly 15 degrees difference in longi­tude.

The GPS location, when checkedagainst the USGS 7.5 minute North­east Pueblo quad map, read 38° 15' Nand 104° 35' W.2 Pike's location, asnear as I could estimate it, was 40°11' Nand 32° 40' W. Even allowingfor the 77+° difference in longitudebetween the use of the Washingtonmeridian and the Greenwich merid­ian, this was too much to make theGPS useful. The map shows a dottedline for the route of Pike's party anda small x for each encampment. Thetext of the diary often gives the mile­age covered each day by the partyand, though the map and the textcould not always be reconciled, it

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was this combination used in follow­ing Pike's party through the county.

Pike can hardly be faulted for thediscrepancies in latitude and longi­tude. Don Nemesio Salcedo, Com­mandant-General of the InteriorProvinces in Chihuahua, New Spain,had confiscated Pike's meteorologi­cal tables and other notes. And it wasonly by use of courses and distancescopied by Dr. John Robinson, also ofPike's party, that Pike was able to re­produce his chart.3

On the evening of November 23,1806, Pike and his party camped at aspot he called the "grand forks,"which on the map is clearly the con­fluence of the Arkansas River andFountain Creek. The party had trav­eled 19 miles that day. The day bef­ore, Saturday, November 22, Pike re­corded 17 miles oftravel. Ifwe acceptthese estimates of distance traveledit would put the party's encampmenton the night of the 21st somewherejust east of present-day Fowler. No­vember 22 was chosen for the dayPike entered Pueblo County.

The party, traveling on the southside of the river, had gone about fivemiles from the previous night's campand had dropped down off the prairieinto the river bottoms when they en­countered a band of 60 Pawnees whowere returning from an unsuccessfulsearch for their enemies, the Tetaus(Comanches).4 Outnumbered 60 to16, it was a nervous time for Pikeand his men. Though the Indianswere not hostile, Pike was wellaware that, as he put it, an "unsuc­cessful war party on their returnhome, are always ready to embracean opportunity, of gratifying theirdisappointed vengeance, on the firstpersons they meet." Pike was able to

.placate the Pawnees with a few gifts,but lost many small items to theft inthe process.

Though not mentioned in the di­ary entry for the 22nd, the map indi­cates that the party had passed theSecond Fork, apparently the Huer­fano River, and a Spanish campsite.The Spanish campsite was that ofLieutenant Facundo Melgares who,with a troop of 600 men, had beensent out from Santa Fe to exploreand examine the country northeast

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to the Missouri River as the Spanishdid not recognize France's right tothe Louisiana Territory or its sale tothe Americans. They were also tomeet with Indian tribes and per­suade them to reject overtures fromthe U.S. Melgares was also to watchfor Pike's party and turn them backor arrest them. The Melgares partywas in present Kansas and visited aPawnee village in present Nebraskaa month ahead of Pike. They re­turned to Santa Fe in October. Pikehad been essentially following theirreturn route from the center of pres­ent Kansas. Pike later met Melgaresin Santa Fe and, from his comments,the two developed a high mutual re­spect.

On November 23 the party, still onthe south side of the Arkansas,crossed the Third Fork, apparentlythe Saint Charles River, and stoppednear another deserted Spanish campat the mouth of the north fork, Foun­tain Creek. Here Pike decided to putthe party in a defensible situationand to go up the Fountain and climbto the high point of the blue moun­tain, later named Pikes Peak. He felthe could make the round trip in aday's march.

During the morning of November24 a breastwork of 14 logs waserected. The logs formed walls fivefeet high on three sides with thefourth side against the river. Themap shows the breastworks on thesouth side of the river just upstreamfrom the confluence with the Foun­tain.

The four making the side trip to"high peak of the blue mountain" or"Grand Peak" as Pike termed themountain later named for him wereCaptain Pike, Dr. Robinson, and pri­vates John Brown and TheodoreMiller. The trip took considerablymore than the one-day allotted. Thegroup left the breastworks on No­vember 24 and did not return untilthe 29th. They reported hiking 12miles the first day and camping be­neath a lone pine on the dry prairie.On the second night out, after a hikeof 22 miles, they camped at somesprings in an otherwise dry streamat the foot of the mountains. Herethey left their gear and on the third

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day began climbing the mountain.After climbing all day they campedin a cave, and upon awakening thefollowing day found themselves un­der a clear sky looking down on ablanket of clouds below. They contin­ued climbing to the peak of thismountain only to find they were stillwhat Pike estimated to be 15 or 16miles south of his Grand Peak. Dueto considerations of time andweather-their thermometer regis­tered four degrees below zero-theydecided to turn back. Back at thecamp at the foot of the mountainthey found all of the gear they hadleft, but ravens had destroyed alltheir provisions. That night theycamped under a sheltering ledge anddined on a single partridge and thesingle deer rib the ravens had left.Pike noted that it was their firstmeal in 48 hours. The following daythey proceeded straight down thecreek. That day they shot two buffaloand enjoyed the first full meal theyhad eaten in three days. Pike notedthat the place they picked to camp,again under a sheltering rock, wasas he termed it "very rich, and cov­ered with old Tetau camps." On Sat­urday, November 29, they arrivedback at the camp on the Arkansaswhere the rest of their party awaitedthem.

Pike's map shows only a generalloop north from the breastworkscamp up toward the "highest peak." Ican make out only two of the small xmarks that denote encampmentsand can assume the top of the loop,which is indicated to be on a ridge ofmountains, would be the cave wherea night was spent. There should beone more x at the base of the moun­tains where two nights were spent.Elliot Coues (see footnote 1) givesmuch space in his footnotes to thisside trip.5 He has them starting outup the Fountain but quickly aban­doning that course for one on the di­vide between the Fountain and Tur­key creeks. He identifies the drycreek where Pike found a spring as aheadwater stream of Turkey Creek.He suggests that the mountain Pike'actually climbed was CheyennePeak, and has the party travelingdown Turkey Creek to rejoin themain group. Donald Jackson (seefootnote 1) disputes this being themountain, citing identification by lo­cal investigators of Black Mountain

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or Blue Mountain being the oneclimbed. Jackson points out, how­ever, as Pikes Peak is not visiblefrom either of those two heights,Pike must have actually been view­ing Almagre Mountain when he de­cided to return to camp. Coues closeshis footnote by stating: "I think thiswas probably the route; but do notsee that we have the data to estab­lish the fact." For this reason and acouple of other reasons (the necessityof crossing Fort Carson firing rangeand the fact that the north part ofthe trip is outside Pueblo County), Idecided to forego the side trip.

On Sunday, November 30, theparty broke camp and by 11:00 a.m.were on their way up the river. Pike,Dr. Robinson, and the interpreter,Baronet (Baroney) Vasquez, went toview a Tetau encampment. Pike esti­mated it to not have been occupiedfor about two years and, "from thetheir having cut down so large aquantity of trees to support theirhorses" he concluded the encamp­ment must have included at least athousand persons. It would be greatto know just where this large Co­manche campsite was located. Pikedid not mention on which side of theriver it laid. It could have been wheredowntown Pueblo now stands or inthe large field between the PuebloNature Center and the Rock CanyonRecreation Area or even in the rec­reation area itself where the swim­ming pool now exists. It really doesnot make much difference as Pikegoes on to say that they passed sev­eral more of these abandoned camp­sites during the day, so any or per­haps all these areas could have con­tained an Indian encampment. Pikealso reported passing the site of aSpanish camp on this day as well. Hereported traveling 15 miles for theday.

Monday, December 1, was bad, aviolent snowstorm. The party, exceptfor one hunter who killed nothing,remained in camp. Magpies were at­tacking the sores on the backs of thehorses. This camp was probably atthe mouth of Boggs Creek or RockCreek.6

On December 2 Pike's partymarched two miles and found it nec­essary to cross to the north side ofthe river. Coues has them crossing ataround Swallows,? but that wouldput them above the mouth of Turkey

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Creek and the map shows clearlythey crossed below Turkey Creekand crossed that creek on their prog­ress along the north side of the river.The stream shown on Pike's map isthe one encountered on the side tripto the peak and is thought to be Tur­key Creek. However there are onlytwo major streams shown on thenorth side in this reach of the river,so Pike may have mistaken themouth of Beaver Creek for the mouthof Turkey Creek and mapped it thatway. Were they traveling on thesouth side of the river, as Coues be­lieved, he might well have not no­ticed the passing of Turkey Creek.Why they felt they had to cross to thenorth side of the river I don't know;the map indicates that the Melgaresparty had continued west on thesouth side of the river. Pike on thisday remarks of the extreme cold, 17°below zero, and the killing of a buf­falo. They also had to send a man af­ter a runaway horse. They traveled13 miles. Coues believed this camp tobe near Carlisle Springs.

On December 3 the party re­mained in the encampment awaitingthe men sent to retrieve the runawayhorse. While waiting, Pike and Rob­inson tried, with poor results it turnsout, to measure the altitude of PikesPeak. Pike reported that the weatherhad moderated to 3° below zero andthat two buffalo were killed in orderto make moccasins from their hides.

On December 4 they started out at5:00 o'clock and marched 20 miles,which would have put them well outof Pueblo County, thus ending myself-assigned odyssey.

At no place over the past dayscould I stand on a spot and say forsure: "Here is the place that ZebulonPike did such and such." There issome frustration in that. It wouldhave been nice to know exactlywhere the Comanche camps were lo­cated or where Pike's breastworksstood. On the other hand, now whenI look from the north part of Pueblotoward Pikes Peak I can squint myeyes, blank out any recent develop­ment in the foreground, and knowI'm seeing the same sight Pike sawduring that cold winter almost 200years ago. And as I stroll through thecottonwoods lining the river bottomsbetween the Pueblo Nature centerand Pueblo Dam it is easy to imaginethe tipis of a large "Tetau" ca.mp.

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And han almost hear the hoofbeatsof a large S'panish reconnaissanceparty wending their way west up thesouth side of the Arkansas River.NOTES

1. The map, A Chart of the Internal Part ofLouisiana, Plate II found in Volume II ofThe Expeditions of Zebulon MontgomeryPike, edited by Elliott Coues (1895; re­print. New York: Dover Publications,1987), presently out ofprint. can also befound in Pike's original 1810 publicationof a rather long name published underthe name Sources of the Mississippi andthe Western Louisiana Territory byReadex Microprint Corporation in 1966.It can also be found in Volume 1 of TheJournals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike,with Lefters and Related Documents,edited and annotated by Donald Jack ­son (Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1966). The map is available on theInternet from the Library of Congress atthe folloVving address: <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html>.

2. The GPS actually reads degrees, minutes,and seconds, each second represent­ing around 80 feet at this latitude. The 10 ­calion is cited only to minutes as thatwas the nearest I could estimate onPike's map. Also, no care was taken toget exactly at the c.onfluence as thecourse of the two streams has no doubtwandered all over the immediate areaduring the last two centuries. See themap in the U.S. Geological Survey Bulle ­tin 1262, General and Engineering Geol ­ogy of the Northern Port of Pueblo Colo­rado, by Glenn R. Scott, for the locationsof the 1870, 1921. and present ArkansasRiver channels through downtownPueblo.

3. See Pike's letter of July 5, 1807, to GeneralJames Wilkinson, in the books cited innote 1 above. That Pike's astronomicalobservations were more precise thanthose indicated by the chart mentionedin note 1above can be seen on Plate 48of volume 1 of the Journals edited byJackson, where, near present CanonCity, Pike noted the latitude to be 37° 59'only an error of about 27'. In volume 2 ofJackson's publication is A Map of the In ­ternal Provinces of New Spain by Pike,the topmost part of which shows theconfluence of the Arkansas River andFountain Creek and which is plotted atabout 39° 20' Nand 104° 48' W. On thismap Pike used GreenVvich as the princi ­pal meridian. This map was probablydrafted some time after Jefferson left of ­fice.

4. Pike mentions the Tetaus in numerousplaces in his journal. Coues states thatthis is a misprint for Tetans, and that amistake of letans or Comanches.

5. Coues's footnotes, which describe thearea as he found it in the 1890s, are inter ­esting themselves. I have been particu ­larly intrigued by the folloVving statementat the end of a long footnote on what isnow called Fort Pueblo: "For a long limethere was also an adobe tower or look ­out on top of the hill. about the presentintersection of Second and Summitstreets; but it has entirely disappeared." I

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have been seeking information on· thisadobe tower for some time rrow Vvith nQsuccess.

6. All the major creeks entering the Arkan­sas from the south in this reach of theriver are'not shown on Pike's map. Theyare Boggs, Rock, Peck, Rush, and Red·creeks, the latter intermittent. Only threeunnamed streams are shown. There isanother shown at the base of the moun ­tains, which undoubtedly is. Hardscrab ­ble Creek.

7. The site of the community of Swallows isnow usually under the wa'ters of PuebloReservoir: Swallows Cemetery remainson the terrace above and slightly down ­stream.

COLORADO SPRINGS PIO­NEER MUSEUM PLANS FOR .

PIKE BICENTENNIALby Matt Mayberry

[Mayberry is director of the ColoradoSprings Pioneer Museum. The PikeBicentennial Commission plans tocoordinate events with activities inColorado Springs.]

THE Colorado Springs PioneersMuseum (CSPM) is in the process ofplanning activities to mark the200th anniversary of the ZebulonMontgomery Pike Expedition in2006. Late last year a proposal wassubmitted to the US Postal Servicefor a stamp commemorating the bi­centennial. For 2006, a fine art ex­hibit is planned utilizing paintingsfrom the CSPM collection, from mu­seums around the cou:nty, and in pri­vate collections. Another exhibit willaddress Pike-related kitsch, suchthings as snow globes, medals, andsimilar tourist items associated withthe man and the mountain.

The key element of this yearlongobservance will be a scholarly ex­hibit that reexamines the purpose,results, and long-term impact of thisexpedition. The Museum's consultc

ants for this project are the country'stwo premiere scholars of western ex­ploration, James Rondo and JohnLoan Allen.

Professor Rondo is the H. G. Barn­yard Chair in Western AmericanHistory at the University of Tulsa.His numerous publications includeLewis and Clark Among the Indians,Voyages ofDiscovery, and Jefferson'sWest. Professor Allen is the chair ofthe Geography Department at theUniversity of Wyoming and has pub­lished many books and essays onwestern exploration, including Lew­is and Clark and the Image of the

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American West. Both have consultedwith.museums across the country re­garding exhibit design and content.

The Museum will be raising fundsto help cover the costs of researchand planning for this exhibition. TheCSPM was recently selected for the2003 Public Programming Awardfrom the Charles Reed Center forWestern· Studies, which is based atBright Young University.

For more information about theseplans and other museum activities,please contact the CSPM at 719-385­5990 or online at< www.cspm.org>.

PIKE'S JOURNAL, PART IIntroduction.

THIS begins a serial reprint ofPike's journal of "an expedition to ex­plore the internal parts of Louisiana,1806-1807." It should be noted thatsome of Pike's records were confis­cated when he was under arrest inMexico, and some portions of hisjournal had to be reconstructed frommemory. This was originally pub­lished in 1810, with several later edi­tions, the two most important beingElliott Coues, ed., Expeditions of Ze­bulon Montgomery Pike, 3 vols. (NewYork: Francis P. Harper, 1895), reis­sued in two volumes (Minneapolis:Ross & Haines, 1965) and DonaldJackson, ed., The Journals of Zebu­lon Montgomery Pike, with Lettersand Related Documents, 2 vols. (Nor­man: University of Oklahoma Press,1966), both sets of which containmuch additional information, rec­ords, and notes in addition to Pike'sdiaries.

This series contains Pike's journalof the expedition, as first published.Serious students are encouraged tosee annotated editions by Coues andJackson for supplementary material.For the identity of those who madeup Pike's exploring party, see Don­ald Jackson, "Zebulon Pike's Damn­ed Rascals," Wagon Tracks (Febru­ary 2003): 5-7.

Zebulon Montgomery Pike, a lieu­tenant in the First Infantry, led anexploring expedition in search of thesource of the Mississippi River in1805-1806. Soon after his return toSt. Louis, in July' 1806, GeneralJames Wilkinson sent LieutenantPike (promoted to captain a fewweeks later) on this venture, depart­ing from the military post of Belle

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Fontaine near St. Louis. Pike -fol­lowed portions of what became theSanta Fe Trail, and the publicationof his journal stimulated merchantsto attempt to open trade with NewMexico. Most of those who crossedthe plains to New Mexico, from theill-fated party led by RobertMcKnight in 1812 to William Beck­nell's successful trading venture in1821, had either read or heard aboutPike's descriptions, including how toget to Santa Fe. In this r~print, cor­rections, additions, and identifica­tions of persons and places appear inbrackets.Instructions

Letter, James Wilkinson to Lt. Z. M.Pike, St. Louis, June 24, 1806.Sir,

You are to proceed without delayto the cantonment on the Missouri,where you are to embark the late Os­age captives, and the deputationre­cently returned from Washington,with their presents and baggage,and are to transport the whole up theMissouri and Osage rivers to thetown of the Grand Osage.

The safe delivery of this charge atthe point of -destination, constitutesthe primary object of your expedi­tion, and therefore you are to movewith such caution as may preventsurprise from any hostile band, andare to repel with your utmost forceany outrage which -maybe at­tempted.

Having safely deposited your pas­sengers and their property, you areto turn your attention to the accom­plishment of a permanent peace be­tween the Kanses and Osage na­tions, for which purpose you must ef­fect a meeting between the headchiefs of those nations, and are to

. employ such arguments, deducedfrom their own obvious interests, aswell as the inclinations, desires, andcommands of the president of theUnited Sates, as may facilitate yourpurpose and accomplish the end.

A third object of considerablemagnitude will then claim your con­sideration. It is to effect an interviewand establish a good understandingwith the Yanctons, Tetaus, or Cama­ches. For this purpose you must in­terest White Hair, of the Grand Os­age, with whom and a suitable depu­tation you will visit the Panis repub­lic, where you may find interpreters,

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and inform yourself of the most feasi­ble plan, by which to bring the Ca­manches to a conference.-Should yousucceed in this attempt (and nopains must be spared to effect it), youwill endeavor to make peace betweenthat distant powerful nation, and thenations which inhabit the country-between us and them, particularlythe Osage; and finally you will en­deavor to induce eight or ten of theirdistinguished chiefs, to make a visitto the seat of government next Sep­tember, and you may attch to thisdeputation four or five Panis, andthe same number of Kanses chiefs.As your interview with the Caman­ches will probably lead you to thehead branches of the Arkansaw andRed rivers, you may find yourself ap­proximated to the settlements ofNew Mexico, and there it will be nec­essary you should move with greatcircumspection, to keep clear of anyhunting or reconnoitring partiesfrom that province, and to preventalarm or offence; because the affairsof Spain and the United States, ap­pear to be on the point of amicableadjustment, and moveover it is thedesire of the president, to cultivatethe friendship and· harmonious in­tercourseof aU the nations of theearth, and particularly our nearneighbors the Spaniards.

In the course of your tour, you areto remark particularly upon the geo­graphical structure, the natural his­tory and population of the countrythrough which you may pass, takingparticular care to collect and pre­serve specimens of every thing curi­ous in the mineral or botanicalworlds, which can be preserved andare portable. Let your courses beregulated by you compass, and youdistances by your watch, to be notedin a field-book, and I would adviseyou when circumstances permit, toprotract and ~lay down in a separatebook the march of the day at everyevening's ·halt.

The instruments, which I havefurnished you, will enable you to as­certain the variation of the magneticneedle and the latitude with exacti­tude; and at every remarkable point,I wish you to employ your telescopein observing the eclipses of Jupiter'ssatellites, having previous regulatedand adjusted your watch by yourquadrant, taking care to note withgreat nicety the periods of immer-

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sions and emersions of the eclipsedsatellites. These observations mayenable us after your return, by appli­cation to the appropriate tables,which I cannot now furnish you, toascertain the longitude.

It is an object of much interestwith the executive, to ascertain thedirection, extent, and navigation ofthe Arkansaw and Red river, as far,therefore, as maybe compatible withthese instructions and practicable tothe means you may command. I wishyou to carry your views to those sub­jects, and should circumstances con­spire to favor the enterprise, thatyou may detach a party with a fewOsage to descent the Arkansaw un­der the orders of lieutenant Wilkin­son, or sergeant Ballinger, properlyinstructed and equipped to take thecourses and distances, to remark onthe soil, timber, &c &c. and to notethe tributary streams. This partywill, after reaching our post on theArkansaw, descent to fort Adamsand there wait further orders; andyou yourself may descend the Redriver accompanied by a party of themost respectable Camanches to thepost of Nachitoches, and there re­ceive further orders.

To disburse you necessary ex­pences and to aid your negotiations,you are herewith furnished six hun­dred dollars worth of goods, for theappropriation of which you are torender a strict account, vouched bydocuments to be attested by one ofyour party.

Wishing you a safe and successfulexpedition, I am, sir,

With much respect and esteem,Your obedient servant,James Wilkinson

Additional Instructions

Letter, Wilkinson to Pike, Canton­ment, Missouri, July 12, 1806.Sir,

The health of the Osages beingnow generally restored, and allhopes of the speedy recovery of theirprisoners, from the hands of the Po­towatomies, being at an end, theyhave become desirous to commencetheir journey for their villages, youare therefore to proceed to-morrow.In addition to the instructions givenyou on the 24th ultimo, I must re­quest you to have the talks undercover delivered to White Hair and

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the Grand Peste, the chief 0 the Os­age band, which is settled on the wa­ters of the Arkansas, together withthe belts which accompany them.You will also receive herewith asmall belt for the Panis and a largeone for he Tataus or Camanches.

Should you find it necessary, youare to give orders to Maugraine theresident interpreter at the GrandOsage to attend you.

I beg you to take measures for thesecurity and safe return of yourboats from the Grand Osage to thisplace.

Doctor Robinson will accompanyyou as a volunteer. He will be fur­nished medicines, and for the accom­modations which you give him, he isbound to attend your sick.

Should you discover any unli­censed traders in your route, or anyperson from this territory, or fromthe United States, without a properlicence of passport, you are to arrestsuch person or persons and disposeof their property as the law directs.

My confidence in your caution anddiscretion, has prevented my urgingyou to be vigilant in guardingagainst the stratagems and treach­ery of the Indians, holding yourselfabove alarm or surprise, the compo­sition of your party, tough it besmall, will secure to you the respectof an host of untutored savages.

You are to communicate from theGrant Osage and from every otherpracticable point, directly to the sec­retary of war, transmitting your let­ters to this place under cover, to thecommanding officer, or by any moreconvenient route.

I wish you health and a successfuland honorable enterprise, and am,

Yours with friendship,James Wilkinson

Pike's Journal

15th July, 1806, Tuesda.y.-Wesailed from the landing at Belle Fon­taine about 3 o'clock P.M., in twoboats. Our party consisted of twolieutenants, one surgeon, one ser­jeant, two corporals, 16 privates andone interpreter [A. F. BaronetVasquez, re ferred to by Pike as "Bar­oney"]. We had also under ourcharge, chiefs of the Osage andPawnees, who, with a number ofwomen and children, had been toWashington. These Indians had

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been redeemed from captivity amongthe Potowatomies, and were now tobe returned to their friends at theOsage towns. The whole number ofIndians amounted to fifty one.

We ascended the river about sixmiles, and encamped on the southside behind an island. This day myboat swung around twice; once whenwe had a tow-rope on shore, which itsnaped off in an instant. The Indiansdid not encamp with us at night. Dis­tance 6 miles.16th July, Wednesday.-We rejoinedour red brethren at breakfast, afterwhich we again separated, and withvery severe labor arrived late in theevening opposite the village of St.Charles, where the Indians joinedus. Distance 15 miles.17th July, Thursday.-We crossedthe river to learn if any communica­tions had arrived from St. Louis, andif there was any news of other Indianenemies ofthe Osages. Called at Mr.James Morrison's and was intro­duced to a Mr. Henry (of New Jer­sey), about eight and twenty years ofage: he spoke a little Spanish andFrench tolerably well: he wished togo with me as a volunteer. From thisplace I wrote letters back to BelleFontaine, whilst the Indians werecrossing the river. A man by thename of Ramsay reported to the In­dians that 500 Sacs, Ioways, andReynards, were at the mouth of BigManiton. This gave them consider­able uneasiness, and it took me sometime to do away the impression madeupon them; for I by no means be­lieved it. We were about sailingwhen my interpreter was arrested bythe sheriff, at the suit of Manuel deLiza, for a debt between three andfour hundred dollars, and wasobliged to return to St. Louis. Thismade it necessary for me to write an­other letter to the general. We en­camped about three-fourths of a mileabove the village.18th July, Friday.-LieutenantWilkinson and Dr. Robinson wentwith the Indians across the countryto the village La Charette. Mr.George Henry engaged, under oath,to accompany me on my tour. Wroteto the general, and inclosed him oneof Henry's engagements. After wehad made our little arrangements wemarched by land joined the boats(which had sailed early) 'at twelveo'clock. Two of the men being sick, I

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steered one boat and Mr. Henry theother, by which means we were en­abled to keep employed our full com­plement of oars, although we put thesick men on shore. Encamped on thenorth side. About eleven o'clock atnight a tremendous thunder stormarose and it continued to blow andrain, with thunder and lightning,until day. Distance 15 miles.19th July, Saturday.-In conse­quence of the rain, we did not put offuntil past nine o'clock; my sick menmarched. I had some reason to sus­pect, that one of them intended neverjoining us again. At dinner time thesick man of my own boat came onboard; I then went on board theother, and we continued to run racesall day, and although this boat hadhitherto kept behind; yet I arrived atthe encamping ground with her,nearly half an hour before the other.The current not generally so strongas below. Distance 14 miles.20th July, Sunday.-Embarkedabout sun-rise. Wishing to ascertainthe temperature of the water, I dis­covered my large thermometer to bemissing, which probably had falleninto the river. Passed one settlementon the north side, and, after turningthe point to the south, saw two morehouses on the south side. We en­camped in a long reach, which borenorth and west. The absentees hadnot yet joined us. Distance 15 miles.21st July, Monday.-It commencedraining near day, and continued un­til 4 o'clock in the afternoon; the rainwas immensely heavy, with thunderand lightning remarkably severe.This obliged me to lay by; for, if weproceeded with our boats, it neces­sarily exposed our baggage muchmore than when at rest, as the tar­pauling could then cover all. We setsail at a quarter past four o'clock,and arrived at the village LaCharette a little after the dusk of theevening, here we found lieutenantWilkinson and Dr. Robinson with theIndians-also Baroney (our inter­preter) with letters from the generaland our friends. The weather stillcontinued cloudy, with rain. We werereceived in the house of a Mr.Chartron, and every accommodationin his power offered us. Distance 6miles.22d July, Tuesday.-We arrangedour boats, dried our loading, andwrote letters for Belle'Fontaine.

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23d July, Wednesday.-I dispatchedan express to the general, with ad­vertisements relative to Kenner­man, the soldier who had deserted.We embarked after breakfast, andmade good progress: lieutenantWilkinson steered one boat and I theother, in order to detach all the menon shore, with the Indians, that wecould spare. We crossed to the southside, a little below Shepherd river.Dr. Robinson killed a deer, whichwas the first killed by the party. Dis­tance 13 miles.24th July, Thursday.-We em­barked at half past six o'clock. Veryfoggy The Indians accompanied byonly three of my people. LieutenantWilkinson being a little indisposed, Iwas obliged to let Baroney steer hisboat. We made an excellent day'sjourney, and encamped five milesfrom the Gasconade river. Killedthree deer, one bear, and threeturkies. But three or four of the Indi­ans arrived; the others encamped asmall -distance below. Distance 18miles.25th July, Friday.-We embarked athalf past 6 o'clock, and arrived at theentrance of the Gasconade river halfpast eight o'clock, at which place Idetermined to remain the day, as myIndians and foot people were yet inthe rear, and they had complained tome of being without shoes, leggins,&c. One of our Pawnees did not ar­rive until late; the other had commu­nicated his suspicions to me that theOto, who was in company, had killedhim: he acknowledged that he pro­posed to him to take out their bag­gage, and return to St. Louis. Thereal occasion of his absence, how­ever, was his having followed a largefresh trace up the Gasconade a con­siderable distance; but finding it ledfrom the Missouri, he examined itand discovered horses to have beenon it, he then left it, joined our's, andcame in. This being generally theroute taken by the Potowatomies,when they go to war against the Os­age, it occasioned some alarm. Everymorning we were awoke by themourning of the savages, who com­menced crying about daylight, andcontinued for the space of an hour. Imade enquiry of my interpreter withrespect to this, who informed methat this was a custom not only withthose who had recently lost theirrelatives, but also with others who

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recalled to mind the loss of somefriend, dead long since, and joinedthe other mourners purely from sym­pathy. They appeared extremely af­fected, tears ran down their cheeks,and they sobbed bitterly; but in a mo­ment they dry their cheeks and theycease their cries. Their songs of griefgenerally run thus: "My dear fatherexists no long; have pity on me, 0Great Spirit! you see I cry forever;dry my tears and give me comfort."The warriors' songs are thus: "Ourenemies have slain my father (ormother); he is lost to me and his fam­ily; I pray to you, 0 Master of Life! topreserve me until I revenge hisdeath, and then do with me as thoupleaseth." Distance 5 miles.26th July, Saturday.-We com­menced at 5 o'clock to ferry the Indi­ans over the Gasconade, and left theentrance of this river at half past 6o'clock in the afternoon. Met fiveFrenchmen, who informed us thatthey had just left the Osage river,and that it was so low they could notascend it with their canoe. We wroteletters, and sent them back by them.Dr. Robinson, Baroney, Sparks, andall the Indians encamped about oneleague above us. Killed one bear, twodeer, one otter, three turkies, andone racoon. Distance 15 miles.27th July, Sunday.-We embarkedat half past five o'clock, and arrivedat the Indians' camp at 7 o'clock.They had been alarmed the day bef­ore, and in the evening sent menback in the trace, and some of thechiefs sat up all night. Breakfastedwith them. About half past threeo'clock encamped in sight of the Os­age river. There being every appear­ance of rain, we halted thus early inorder to give the Indians time to pre­pare temporary camps, and to secureour baggage. I went out to hunt, andfiring at a deer, near two of the Indi­ans who were in the woods, theyknew the difference of the report ofmy rifle from their guns, werealarmed, and immediately retired tocamp. Distance 13 miles.28th July, Monday.-Embarked athalf past 5 o'clock, and at halfpast 10arrived in the Osage river, where westopped, discharged our guns,bathed, &c. We then proceeded onabout six miles, where we waited forand crossed the Indians to the westshore, and then proceeded on to thefirst island, and encamped on the

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west side. Sans Oreille andfour orfive young men only, coming up, therest encamping some distance be­hind. Killed one deer and one turkey.Distance 19 miles.29th July, Tuesday.-All the Indiansarrived very early and the Big Sol­dier, whom I had appointed the offi­cer to regulate the march, was muchdispleased that Sans Oreille and theothers had left him, and said for thatreason he would not suffer anywoman to go in the boat and by thatmeans separate the party; but intruth it was from jealousy of the menwhose women went in the boats. Hebegan by flogging one of the youngmen and was about to strike SansOreille's wife, but was stopped byhim and told that he knew he haddone wrong, but the women were in­nocent. We then crossed them andembarked at half past eight o'clock.About twelve o'clock we found the In­dians rafting the river, when thefirst chief of the Little Osage, calledTuttasuggy (or Wind) told me thatthe man whom Big Soldier stuck hadnot yet arrived with his wife, "butthat he would threw them away." AsI knew he was extremely mortified atthe dissensions which appeared toreign amongst them, I told him by nomeans,-that one of my boats shouldwait for the woman and her child,but that the man might go to thedevil, as punishment for his insubor­dination.

I then left Baroney with one boat,and proceeded with the other. Wewere called ashore by three youngIndians, who had killed some deer,and, on putting them on board, gavethem about one or two gills of whis­key, which intoxicated all of them. Itcommenced raining about oneo'clock, and continued incessantlyfor three hours, which obliged us tostop and encamp. One of our men(Miller) lost himself and did not ar­rive until after dark. Killed five deer,one turkey, and one racoon. Distance14 miles.30th July, Wednesday. After the fogdispersed I left lieutenant Wilkinsonwith the party to dry the baggage,and went with Dr. Robinson andBradley. About two o'clock we re­turned, set sail, and having passedthe first rapid about three miles, en­camped on the eastern shore. Killedthree deer. Distance 5 miles.

(continued next issue)

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: Wagon Tracks. Volume 17, Issue 3 (May, 2003)

Published by UNM Digital Repository, 2003

PRAIRIE DOGS ON,THE SANTA FE TRAilby Phyllis S. Morgan

[This is fourth in a series about wild­life on the Trail by SFTA memb~r

Phyllis Morgan, Albuquerque. It ~s

noteworthy that Zebulon Montgom­ery Pike is include~ in this art~c~e

and that his descriptwn of the prmnedog was his main contribution to theworld of natural history. Next topicin this series will be wolves, coyotes,and roadrunners on the Trail.]

SANTA Fe Trail travelers wereamazed and fascinated by prairiedogs. These social animals, living ~n

family groups clustered toget~er.m

large colonies, aroused the CUrIOSItyof the travelers as they followed theTrail over the grasslands and alongthe Arkansas River. They frequentlyrecorded observations of prairie dogsin their journals and diaries ingreater detail than for any other ani­mal with the exception of buffalo.Tra~elers wrote about prairie dogs'physical characteristics, behavior,burrows, and "towns," and about thename of this animal, which seemed amisnomer to many. Men wrote aboutthe difficulty in shooting thesequick-moving animals and that theymust be shot dead, because if onlywounded the prairie dogs would dropinto their burrows, leaving no oppor­tunity to retrieve them. Some .O?­servers were convinced that praIrIedogs, rattlesnakes, and burrowingowls resided together in some sort ofmutual arrangement in the "vil­lages," while others questioned thatopinion and some contended thatsnakes and owls probably occupiedholes which had been abandoned byprairie dogs.

Prairie dogs did not pose thethreat that many travelers felt fromherds of buffalo, packs of wolves, andrattlesnakes, or cause the agony in­flicted by such pests as mosquitoesand flies. The prairie dogs' amazingbehavior and humorous antics pro­vided a much-welcome diversion andsome comic relief for the travel­weary sojourners. The travelersseemed to have a special feeling to­ward these sociable animals, fre­quently describing them in a varietyof human terms. They wrote aboutthe dogs' "houses" and their "towns"or "villages" with "streets." They alsowrote about the dogs' neighborli­ness, their caring for each other,

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"-

Prairie Dog (photo by Phyllis Morgan).

their apparent conferences describedas a "grand council" (also a "confab,""consultation," or "gossiping"), andtheir watchfulness and warnings toothers of approaching danger. Thetight-knit families of prairie dogsmay have caused the travelers tothink of their own families far awayand their longing to be with lovedones, of the warmth and security ofhearth and home, and of their ownneed to be ever vigilant of the manytypes of danger about them .on the~r

long journeys over the TraIl. TheIrcomments show a softness of heartfor these grassland squirrels.

Josiah Gregg saw countless prai­rie dogs on his trips over the SantaFe Trail from 1831 to 1840. He wroteseveral long paragraphs about these"curious" animals in his book Com­merce of the Prairies (1844). The firstparagraph shows that he was alsocaptivated by them: "But of all th.eprairie animals, by far the most CUrI­ous and by no means the least cele­brated is the little prairie dog. Thissingul~r quadruped is but littlelarger than a common squirre~, itsbody being nearly a foot long, WIth atail of three or four inches. The colorranges from brown to a dirty yellow.The flesh, though often eaten bytravellers is not esteemed savory. It, .is denominated the 'barking sqUIr-reI' the 'prairie ground-squirrel,'

, • "I "I

etc., by early explorers, wItn mucnmore apparent propriety than thepresent established name. Its ~elp,

which resembles that of the lIttletoy-dog, seems its only canine attrib­ute. It rather appears to occupy amiddle ground betwixt the rabbitand squirrel-like the former in fee?­ing and burrowing-like the latter mfrisking, flirting, sitting erect, andsomewhat so in its barking."l

Gregg's lively description of the

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little prairie dogs' behavior providesa good example of observers' incliD;a­tion to attribute human characterIs­tics to these animals: "Approaching a'village,' the little dogs may be ob­served frisking about the 'streets'­passing from dwelling to d~elling

apparently on visits-sometImes. afew. clustered together as though mcouncil-here feeding upon the.tender herbage-there cleansingtheir 'houses,' or brushing the littlehillock about the door-yet all quiet.Upon seeing a stranger, h?wever,each streaks to its home, but IS apt tostop at the entrance, and spread thegeneral aiarm by a succession ofshrill yelps, usually sitting erect. Yetat the report of a gun or the too nearapproach of the visitor, they dartdown and· are seen no more till thecause of alarm seems to have disap­peared."2

Lieutenant William Fairholme ofthe British army wrote about prairiedogs along the Trail in his "Journ~l

of an Expedition to the Grand PraI­ries ofthe Missouri, 1840." His expe­rience with these animals and a rat­tlesnake occurred near the PawneeFork of the Arkansas River whilepursuing buffalo with two compan­ions (Jean Baptiste Tabaud and aservant known only as Pierre): "Werode on together for some distancewhen I perceived, on. a bare sandyspot, some little animals like rabbitsrunning to & fro, as if in a great bu~­tle, and others sitting up on theIrhind legs. I got off my horse, and fol­lowed by Pierre, stole quietly up toget a shot at them, but just as I wastaking aim at 3 of them, altogether abeautiful shot, I was startled by aloud cry from Pierre. The prairiedogs, as they are called, disappearedinstantly, their heels twinkling for amoment in the air as they dived intotheir holes, and I looked round to Pi­erre, who screamed out, 'Le serpent!Gardez-vous du serpent!" And there,sure enough, close at my feet was alarge rattlesnake advancing towardme with his head up in the air, andhis eyes sparkling like diamonds. Imade off immediately, and when afew paces off, waited to see what hewould do. He came on in the mostgraceful undulations till he arrivedat the mouth of one of the prairie dog

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burrows, which he seemed inclinedto enter. But as he had spoiled mysport, I took advantage of his pauseto take a shot at him. My ball cut hishead clean off, and his body re­mained twisting & writhing for along time afterwards.

"I sat down with Pierre to wait tillthe little creatures should showthemselves again, and presently onepopped his head out of a hole, thenanother, and they seemed to hold a

.consultation together for a shorttime, when they both came out andsat up on their hind legs in the mostcomical way, opposite each other, tilltwo or 3 others joined them. It wasreally very amusing to watch thebustling manner they all ran aboutfrom hole to hole, as if paying visitsof congratulation on the danger be­ing past, for they could not see us, webeing concealed behind a thick bushof grass. I put an end to their gossip­ping after I watched them for a littletime by firing a ball into the middleof them (having no shot with me). Iwas almost sorry to see that I had se­verely wounded one which, just likea rabbit, managed to scramble into ahole close to him, and after a fruit­less attempt to get him, we re­mounted our horses and pursued ourroute.

"These prairie dogs seem to be aspecies of marmot. Their villages arealways in bare spots, & generally ona slight eminence from which theycan see around them, and it wouldseem that the rattlesnakes live withthem, for they are invariably foundtogether. I have several times seen asnake enter a hole into which one ofthe prairie dogs had gone a shorttime before. There is also a very di­minutive species of owl which is sup­posed to live with them also, but wedid not see any. Hit is the case, it is aremarkable fact that a bird, a ser­pent & a quadruped shld inhabit thesame den, more particularly as Ishould imagine there can be nodoubt that the rattlesnake feeds onthe prairie dog. ,,3

Lewis H. Garrard was charmed bythe little "dogs" as he rode throughtheir "villages." He recalled those ex­periences in Wah-to-Yah and theTaos Trail (1850), including in hisaccount what he had "ascertainedthrough inquiry and observation."The day after reaching "the grandArkansas," described as "quite

May 2003

broad, with two feet of water, sandybottom, and high sand buttes on ei­ther bank, as bare & cheerless as anymisanthrope could wish," Garrard'sparty rode through two prairie dogvillages: "These villages are fre­quent; often we came across themseveral miles from water, butwhether they abstain from it totallyis a question not solvable by anymountain men with us. Very little orno dew falls in this region, so thesestrange animals do not depend uponthis source to quench their thirst....The grass in this region is short,early, and highly nutritious. It has awithered, brown appearance evenearly in the spring, and is designatedas 'buffalo grass'.... ,,4 In fact, thegrasses, forbs (broad-leafed herba­ceous plants), insects, and grubseaten by prairie dogs usually provideenough water to meet their needs.

Garrard also found the "dogs" en­tertaining: "It is quite amusing towatch their movements on top of thecones [the mounds can be as tall asfour feet high]; on our approach, theybarked, their short tails nervouslyfluttering, and receiving a new impe­tus from the short, quick, and sharptiny yelp which they constantly ut­tered; when they thought them­selves in danger, with an incrediblyquick motion, they threw themselvesback in the holes and immediatelyreappeared with an impertinent,daring bark, as if to say, 'you can'tget me.' Others slowly 'crawfished,'hiding by their singular way ofcrouching the back, until nothing buttheir heads and tails could be seen­these latter shaking tremulously.Succeeding a silence of a few min­utes after scaring in the 'dogs,' we

. could see by lying flat on the groundso as to get the tops of the cones be­tween the sky and our eyes, with theclosest scrutiny, the head, here andthere, of a dog almost imperceptiblymoving, and with a cautious recon­noiter to see if the coast be clear, hewould show himself and with aknowing yelp apprise his neighborsof his investigations. ,,5

Some Trail travelers made note oftheir first sighting of prairie dogs;many had already read or heardabout them. One was Philip GoochFerguson, company clerk of the FirstRegiment of the Missouri MountedVolunteers in General Stephen W.Kearny's Army of the West. On July

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25, 1847, Ferguson wrote in campnear the "swift, muddy stream"called Pawnee Fork: "Today I saw forthe first time a village of prairiedogs, an animal whose habits haveexcited the wonder of man and theadmiration of the lovers of naturalhistory. The prairie dog is but littlelarger than a full-grown fox squirrel,of a reddish brown color, like aground hog-short tail, small ears,[with] teeth. and head like a squir­rel's or rat's, and very compactlyshaped. Their villages are frequentlyseveral miles in area, their housesbeing holes running slanting in theground, the dirt around the orificesometimes rising several feet abovethe surface like a chimney. Aroundthe outskirts of the village, sentinelsare posted, who on the approach ofdanger, give the alarm by their pecu­liar bark, from which doubtless theyderive their name of 'dog;' althoughit is more like the bark of a squirrel,there being but little resemblancebetween them and the dog."6

Ferguson noted in his diary thefollowing night, after marchingtwenty-two miles and making campon the Arkansas: "The men had beenshooting at prairie dogs all day, andnot killing one, they concluded thatthe dogs 'dodged the flash,' but I donot think this can be so. But it is saidthey are very hard to kill and unlessstruck instantly dead, will tumbleover and get into their holes. It isalso said that when one is killed, hiscompanions will frequently run outand drag him into the hole before hecan be secured."7

Susan Shelby Magoffin recordedseeing her first prairie dog town onJuly 2, 1846, in camp on the bank ofthe Arkansas River: "Prairie scenesare rather changing today. We arecoming more into the buffalo regions.The grass is much shorter and finer.The plains are cut up by windingngths Qnrl O:UO:1"''t.T th1T\n" nV>OrYl~C'lnC't n.P ...... V.1.L "-".L..L............. "' ...... .1... J V .LJ..L5 .tJ.!. J.J..l.1.~vCl a

buffalo dinner on the 4th. We left ourlast night's camp [Cow Creek] quiteearly this morning. About 9 o'clockwe came upon 'Dog City.' This curi­osity is well worth seeing. The Prai­rie dog, not much larger than a wellgrown rat, burrows in the ground.They generally make a regular townof it, each one making his house bydigging a hole, and heaping the dirtaround the mouth ofthis [hole]. Twoare generally built together in a

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: Wagon Tracks. Volume 17, Issue 3 (May, 2003)

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neighborly way. They of course visitas regularly as man. When we gotinto this one, on both sides of theroad occupying at least a circle ofsome hundred yards, the little fel­lows like people ran to their doors tosee the passing crowd. They could beseen all around with their headspoked out, and expressing their opin­ions I supposed from the loud bark­ing I heard."s

Another Missouri Mounted Vol­unteer, Frank Edwards, whomarched the length of the Santa FeTrail with Colonel Alexander W.Doniphan during the Mexican­American War in 1846, described the"towns" and their inhabitants in hisbook, A Campaign in New Mexicowith Colonel Doniphan (1847): "Wepassed by and over several prairiedog towns. One of these was very ex­tensive, being three or four miles incircumference, and the ground shookunder us as we crossed it, with a hol­low sound, as if we were passing overa bridge. Although the name of dog isapplied to these little animals, theybear no possible resemblance to ourdogs, even their cry is most like abird's chirp. They are much smallerthan generally represented, being atrifle less in size than the commonrabbit, and far superior to the latterin flavor. ,,9

In a series of 85 articles writtenabout his Trail experiences in 1839for the New Orleans Picayune,writer-actor Matthew C. (Matt) Fieldpenned one titled "Dog Towns." Hestated that these "towns" were "oneof the most striking peculiaritieswhich rivet attention in the buffaloregions.... These are spots of shortgrass, growing exceedingly thick andfine.... ,,10 Field explained how theanimals dug out burrows and madebrown earthen mounds around theentrances, "spangling the darkergreen of the prairie in a manner thatwould doubtless be exceedingly pic­turesque could it be viewed from aballoon." 11

One of the most detailed descrip­tions of prairie dogs by a Trail trav­eler was provided by W. W. H. Davisin his book, El Gringo, New Mexicoand Her People (1857), which in­cludes an account of his 1853 trip bystagecoach to New Mexico Territorywhere he served as U.S. attorney.When his party was in the presentOklahoma Panhandle on the Cimar-

18

ron Route, Davis recalled: "We werenow traveling through the region in­habited by the 'prairie dog,' and thewhole country seemed one continuedvillage. They are a curious and inter­esting little animal, and deserve apassing notice. For miles the Plainsare dotted with the piles of dirt be­fore their holes, which resemblelarge ant-hills. They dig a deep holein the ground, four or six inches in di­ameter, and carry up the dirt andplace it in a heap at the mouth in theshape of a cone, and about a foothigh. Their holes are unequal dis­tances apart, and are arranged with­out order. It is said by some that theylive on friendly terms with the owland the rattlesnake, but, from thebest information I could obtain oftheir manners and habits, I do notthink this is the case. It is quiteamusing to see the little canine citi­zens manamvre when a party ofstrangers invade their dominions. Inthe first place you will observe someof the little fellows, in various partsof the settlement, putting theirheads out of their holes and peepingover the sand-hills in front to seewhat is going on. Next they ventureall the way out, and sit on their hindlegs upon the top.ofthe sand-hills inorder to obtain a better view of mat­ters and things. After having made asatisfactory reconnaissance, you willsee them running in different direc­tions as though giving intelligencethrough the village. They skip fromhole to hole with great' agility; soonthe whole population is aroused, and'heads out' seems to be the order ofthe day.

"Those that first discerned yourapproach seem to have been senti­nels, stationed to sound the alarm tothe main body. Now the town isaroused, and every able-bodied citi­zen comes out of his hole to be pre­pared for any emergency that mayarise. As you approach nearer theiractivity increases, and frequent com­munication is held between differentquarters of the town. Now you noticethree or four in close conclave, as ifholding council upon the affairs ofthe nation, at the end of which theyseparate, each one returning to hisown home. Now you observe a singledog run across to his neighbor, hold amoment's confab with him, and thenskip back again. In another part ofthe village you will see them assem-

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bled in grand council, in considerablenumbers, apparently holding a sol­emn debate upon the state of publicaffairs. They are formed in a circle,each one sitting erect upon his hindlegs, and in the middle is seated agrave old patriarch, who has the re­quired wisdom to preside over anddirect their deliberations. Appar­ently some important question hasbeen discussed and decided, for,when they adjourn, messengers areseen hastening to all parts of thetown to announce the result. Thusthe little rascals keep up their opera­tions until you draw very near, whenevery fellow disappears in his hole,and you see nothing more of themwhile you remain in the village. Inpoint of size they resemble a commongray squirrel, and look. not unlikethat animal with the ears cut off andthe tail bobbed. They are seldomcaught, and will not even leave theirholes when water is poured in uponthem."12

On his way over the Trail to thegold fields of Colorado, Samuel D.Raymond wrote in his diary in May1859: "Passed a large city of PrairieDogs-all were active in sounding thealarm and scampering to theirhomes. We're now encamped nearanother small city of them. Theyap­pear to like our society very well solong as we keep a proper distancefrom them."13

Joseph Pratt Allyn traveled theSanta Fe Trail in 1863 on his way toArizona Territory to serve as an as­sociate justice. He added his obser­vations about prairie dogs. "Justimagine miles of level, barren prai­rie, covered with rather large anthills without any regularity of ar­rangement, and you have the exter­nal appearance of a prairie-dogtown. If you have good eyes or a goodglass you may see some of the dogs along way off. They are about the colorof the ground, and the size of a rab­bit, and somewhat the shape of asquirrel. Why they are called dogs ismore than I can imagine. The owlsare more easily seen, and once in awhile a rattlesnake drags himselfout and shakes his rattles. We thrustsabers and fired pistols into the holesand never startled anything out.Whether the owl, dog and rattle­snake live in the same hole is, I sus­pect, open to very grave doubt. Theycertainly live in the same town, but

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I"

'.

,..,'"

as these are miles long it doesn't nec­essarily imply joint tenancy of theholes. The dog has a shrill whistle orbark that resembles the cry of a bird.He is quick in dodging into his hole.They say he can dodge a musket ball.Those I saw concluded to keep out ofrange."14 Allyn repeated a story, toldhim by a soldier, about a prairie dogthat was shot and killed outside theburrow. Before the soldier could re­trieve the dead animal, "anothercame out of the hole, and dragged thedead body of his mate into thehole."15

For thousands of years, the prai­rie dog, a rodent belonging to thesquirrel family (Sciuridae), sharedthe prairie grasslands with millionsof buffalo, antelope, deer, and othergrassland creatures. These, animalshad long-established mutual rela­tionships. Grazing buffalo, for exam­ple, left large areas of closed-croppedgrasses, which prairie dogs prefer sothey can more easily see their nu­merous predators. In turn, prairiedogs benefited buffalo and othergrazing animals by digging up andloosening the ground, bringing upfertile subsoil and minerals, and aer­ating the earth. Rainwater couldsoak into the ground more easily.They also fertilized the' soil. All ofthis activity encouraged the growthof stronger, healthier, and more'nu­tritious grasses and other plant life.As prey, prairie dogs also benefited·many other animals living on thegrasslands, while their burrows pro~

vided shelter or habitat.Each prairie dog has its place in

the family, and each family plays arole in the life of the town, or colony.Similar to a human city, a colony isorganized. It may be divided up intosmaller sections called wards.Within each ward, prairie dogs -livein small family groups calledc6te­ries. A coterie typically consists ofone adult male, several (usna llythree or four) close-kin adult fe­males, year-old offspring, and newyoung of the season. Each coterieshares a burrow system that coversabout 0.6 to 1.0 acre. Their burrowsmay be as deep as 16 feet and havetunnels from 12 to 100 feet 10ng.16

Along tunnel walls, holes for rooms,or chambers, are scooped out andused for a variety of purposep fromnesting to burying trash.

Of the five species oLprairie dogs

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inhabiting western North America­black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunni­son's, Utah, and Mexican-two haveranges which inClude the routes ofthe Santa Fe Trail. The black-tailedprairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus),the most common and most social ofthe five species, lives on dry short­and mixed-grasslands, once stretch­ing the length of the plains fromsouthern Canada to northern Mex­ico. The tall-grass prairie, wherepredators can hide, limits its rangeto the east. Black-tailedprairie dogsranged along the routes of the SantaFe Trail from central Kansasthrough southeastern Colorado,across the Oklahoma Panhandle,and into northeastern New Mexico.This is the species that Santa FeTrail travelers saw and wrote aboutduring their journeys across theprairies along the Arkansas River.

As the plains turn to foothills andmountains in Colorado and NewMexico, the range of Gunnison'sprairie dogs (Cynomys gunnisoni)begins and extends westwardthrough the Four Corners area. Italso extends south from northernNew Mexico through Santa Fe to thecentral part of the state. Biologistsestimate that at the end ofthe 1800sas many as 5 billion prairie dogs oc­cupied millions of acres. Today, ,prai­rie dogs live on only about one per­cent of their former range. l

?

One, of the first Americans to de-'scribe the prairie .dog in an officialpublished document was Captain Ze­bulon Montgomery Pike. His de­scription of the black-tailed prairiedog is considered his main contribu­tion to the world of natural history.18Pike's account was based on his ob­servations of the prairie dogs andtheir towns scattered over the vastterritory of the middle plainsthrough which the Arkansas Rivercoursed. These observations weremade in 1806 during Pike's expedi­tion to the Southwest, one with along list of objectives, including as­cending the Arkansas to its source,and an important factor in the open­ing of the Santa Fe Trail.

Pike thought these animals weremore like squirrels than any otheranimal he had seen, and preferredthe name "prairie squirrel," which heconsidered more appropriate than"prairie dog." Others agreed withPike's view, but the common name

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stuck. W. Eugene Hollon remarkedin his book, The Lost Pathfinder, Ze­bulon Montgomery Pike (1949): "Thecontrast between a squirrel thatclimbed trees in the East and onethat burrowed in the ground in tEeWest was too much for most travel­ers who crossed the plains after Pike.Consequently, the rrairie squirrelwas made a dog!"1 Hollon addedthat prairie dogs were called petitchiens [little dogs] by the "Frenchlong before the Americans arrived onthe prairies. The Spaniards calledthem tuza, a name derived from Na­huatl, the language of the Aztecs.

Pike wrote a lengthy accountabout the prairie dog in his journalon October 24, 1806, a part of whichfollows: "We ascended the rightbranch [Pawnee River] about five,miles, but could not see any sign ofthe Spanish trace [the road that ledto Santa Fe]; this is not surprising,as the river bears southwest, andthey no doubt kept more to the westfrom the one branch to another. Wen~turned and on our way, killed someprairie squirrels, or wishtonwishes,and nine large rattle snakes, whichfrequent their villages.

"The Wishtonwish of the Indians,prairie dogs to some travelers, orsquirrel as I shOUld, be inclined to de­nominate them, reside on the prai­ries of Louisiana [the Louisiana Ter­ritory purchased .from the French in1803 for $15 million] in towns andvillages, having an evident police es­tablished in their communities....Their residence,being underground,is burrowed out and the earth [themound] answers the double purposeof keeping out the water and afford­ing an elevated place in wet'seasonsto repose on, and to give them a fur­ther and more distinct view of thecountry.

"As you approach their towns, youare saluted on all sides by the cry of\Vishtonwish, from which they de­rive their name with the Indians, ut­tered in a shrill and piercing man­ner. You then observe them all re­treating to the entrance of their bur­rows, where they post themselves,and regard every, even the slightestmovement that you make. It re­quires a very nice shot with a rifle tokill them, as they must be killeddead, for as long as life exists, theycontinue to work into their cells. It isextremely dangerous to pass

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through their towns, as they aboundwith rattle snakes ... and strange asit may appear, I have seen the Wish­tonwish, the rattle snake and otheranimals take refuge in the samehome. I do not pretend to assert thatit was their common place of resort,but I have witnessed the facts morethan in one instance."2o

Physical and other characteristicsof the black-tailed prairie dog weredescribed by Pike: "They are of darkbrown color, except their bellies,which are white. Their tails are notso long as those of our grey squirrels,but are shaped precisely like theirs;their teeth, head, nails, and body,are the perfect squirrel, except thatthey are generally fatter than thatanimal. Their villages sometimes ex­tend over two and three milessquare, in which there must be innu­merable hosts of them, as there isgenerally a burrow every ten steps inwhich there are two or more, and yousee new ones [burrows] partly exca­vated on all borders of the town. Wekilled great numbers of them withour rifles and found them excellentmeat, after they were exposed anight or two to the frost, by whichmeans the rankness acquired bytheir subterraneous dwelling is cor­rected. ,,21

Pike thought the prairie dogs' bur­rows descended in a spiral form,which he surmised was the reason hecould not ascertain their depth. Hewrote: "lance had 140 kettles of wa­ter poured into one of them in orderto drive out the occupant, but with­out effect.'t22 Other travelers at­tempted, without success, to flushprairie dogs out of their tunnels withwater. In,July 1851 Katie Bowen, ac­companying her husband, CaptainIsaac Bowen, from Fort Leaven­worth to Fort Union via the Santa FeTrail, wrote at their camp near CowCreek: "For several days we havebeen passing through "dog towns."They cover acres and acres, little

. holes a few feet apart and deeperthan anyone knows. We tried thismorning to drown some out andpoured many buckets full of waterinto their holes without any success.While running down the watersounded 20 or 30 feet below the sur­face.... We frequently see owls sit­ting on their holes and are told thatwith the rattlesnake, they form acharming society in their houses."23

. 20

In 1804, two years before 'Pike'sexperiment, Meriwether Lewis andWilliam Clark and their Corps ofDiscovery had tried to flush prairiedogs out of their burrows. In fact, onSeptember 7, 1804, the first day theyencountered prairie dogs, the entireCorps, except for a guard, haltedtheir expedition to try to dig someprairie dogs out of their burrow andcapture one alive to send as a gift toPresident Thomas Jefferson. Whenthat failed, they attempted to 'floodone of the animals from its hole. Af­ter great effort, they were able tocatch one prairie dog.

In March 1805, Lewis and Clarksent President Jefferson a large col­lection of plant and animal speci­mens gathered along their way overthe northern plains. The only liveanimals included in the cargo werethe solitary prairie dog, four mag­pies, and one "living hen of the prai­ries."24 The grueling journey leftfrom Fort Mandan (located in pres­ent North Dakota), headed down theMissouri River to the Mississippi,south to the port of New Orleans, byship around Florida and up the At­lantic coast, and finally overland toWashington, D.C., arriving onAugust 12, 1805. The prairie dog sur­vived the trip, but of the five birdsonly one magpie was still alive. Ac­cording to accounts, President Jef­erson was very pleased with theprairie dog and sent it to Philadel­phia to be kept on display at thenatural science museum situated in­side Independence Hall. In additionto being popular at the White House,the prairie dog aroused the curiosityand interest of the public. It is possi­ble that a live prairie dog made a tripin a cage or crate over the Santa FeTrail, but no record of such an occur­rence has been found.

Although there were differingopinions regarding the savoriness ofthe meat, prairie dogs would oftenbecome a substitute when othermeat was scarce or not available,ending up in someone's soup pot ordressed for roasting over an openfire. ,.I. W. Chatham of North Caro­lina briefly commented in his Trailjournal in 1849: "Having traveledabout 20 miles, camped tonight onthe bank of the Arkansas, a muddyand shallow stream. One of the hunt­ers brought in a prairie dog-a sorrylooking puppy-for SOUp.,,25

Wagon Trachs

Such was the fate of a prairie dogwhen Hezekiah Brake left Minne­sota and traveled the Trail in 1858 totake a job as manager of a dairy farmlocated west of Fort Union. Brake re­counted in his diary: "We were pass­ing through a prairie-dog village. Atthe door of his habitation, a fierceyoung dog set up a yelp of remon­strance at our interrupting theircouncils, and Mr. A[lexander] si­lenced him with a bullet, Throwingthe dog into the wagon, we went on toour limit of fifteen miles, andstopped for breakfast. I had cooked'possum, 'coon, even terrapin, in mytime, and was not to be deterred byjeers from preparing fresh meat sim­ply because there was no material athand to cook but a prairie dog, andno fuel for a fire but buffalo chips. SoI made my fire, put a vessel of wateron to boil, and dressed the dog. A sa­vory stew was soon prepared whichthrew fried bacon into the shade. Allof us pronounced prairie dog supe­rior to squirrel or rabbit, and de­clared that after this we would oftenhave fresh meat."26

Brake's admiration of prairie dogmeat, however, was short-lived, andhis opinion of bacon was restoredwhen he prepared another dog thefollowing day. The party rose earlythe following morning, cleaned andgreased the wagon axles, and startedout on their day's journey. Thatevening in camp near Pawnee Fork,Brake wrote: "Without breakfasting,made twenty miles. 'By this time wewere again hungry for fresh meat.Mr. A. shot a fat young prairie dog asbefore, and I skinned the animal andprepared him for the pot. Being verylean myself, I have. always been agreat admirer oHat, and I testified tothis admiration now by putting apiece of the stuff into my mouth. Ihad no more than masticated andswallowed that piece of fat until Iwas sicker than words can express.In disgust, I threw the whole dogaway, and I have never since par­ticularly cared for prairie dog meat.As to the fat, that mouthful haslasted me through all of the yearsthat have since elapsed. It took astrong cup of coffee to cure the dog fitfrom which we all seemed to be suf­fering, and bacon and eggs tastedlike ambrosia."27

Prairie dog meat became a "fastfood" for those who did not have time

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to prepare buffalo or other large ani­mals, James Josiah Webb, a well­known merchant on the Santa Feand Chihuahua Trails in the 1840s,recorded a memorable episode thathappened during his early experi­ences as "an unmitigated green­horn." His group was headed west to­ward the mountains after leavingBent's Fort. While in camp early oneafternoon, they saw three men ap­proaching at a brisk gallop. He con­tinued, " in a few minutes they had afire kindled, and the coffeepot overthe fire. They were soon recognizedas old mountain men and acquain­tances of several of the party- KitCarson, Lucien Maxwell, and Timo­thy Goodale [a trapper and guide].As soon as they got dinner cooking(coffee boiling, a prairie dog dressedand opened out on a stick before thefire), Carson and Maxwell came toour camp. This was my first inter­view with these three celebrities. Itwas very short, and I can remembernothing of the interview except thatthey left Pueblo that morning andexpected to reach Taos that night.They soon left [our camp], ate theirdinner, saddled their horses, caughttheir led horses, and were off. ,,28

Prairie dog meat was also eaten atfestive occasions. In December 1858,Edward F. Beale and his party wereheaded toward winter quarters atHatch's Ranch in New Mexico. Atthat time, Beale was an importantfigure in the American West, but isprimarily remembered today for hisefforts to introduce camels into theSouthwest and for charting a wagonroad almost due west from FortSmith (Arkansas), following thecourse of the Canadian River. Afterentering New Mexico, the partystopped at a place called LagunaColorado to spend Christmas Dayand enjoyed a feast that includedwild turkey, deer, antel0.pe, raccoon,grouse, and prairie dog.2

As settlers moved onto the plains,turning grasslands into croplands,and as cattle filled the void wherebuffalo once roamed, the softness ofheart toward the little prairie dogsturned to a hardness of heart. Nolonger considered a wonder of natu­ral history, they became unwanted,vilified vermin to be exterminated atany cost. Decades of poisoning, un­regulated shooting, and habitat losshave drastically reduced the popula-

May 2003

. tion and range ofprairie dogs. Sincethe 1940s, sylvatic 'plague, a diseasethat arrived in North America in1900, has also become a significantfactor in their decline, because theyhave little, or no, immunity to it.

In the latter part of the twentiethcentury, scientific research began toshow the contributions of prairiedogs to a well-balanced prairie eco­system.· It was also found that thelong~term programs to eradicateprairie dogs were taking a toll ondozens of other species linked to theprairie dog. The black-footed ferret,North America's- most endangeredmammal, 'is' a prime example- of themore than 100 _species, includingmammals, reptiles, amphibians,birds, and insects, that either de­pend on the prairie dog for food, shel­ter, or habitat, or benefit in one wayor another from the prairie dog andits activities. In addition to black'footed ferret, other species that aremost tied to prairie dogs for survivalare swift fox, burrowing owl, goldeneagle, mountain plover, ferruginoushawk, horned lark; grasshoppermouse, and deer mouse.3 Of the spe­cies of mammals benefited by theblack-tailed prairie dog, many aremainstays of the Great Plains andicons of the Old West31-the animalsthat once awed and delighted thetravelers on the Santa Fe Trail.

In recent years, public and privateentities, alliances, and concernedcitizens have been striving to find "amiddle ground" and come to gripswith issues surrounding prairiedogs. Their common vision is to worktoward restoration of the prairie dogecosystem in focus areas of severalstates of the Great Plains. Forexample, New Mexico completed astate management plan inNovember 2001 that aims toincrease, over a ten-year period, theacreage on which black-tailed prairiedogs live from the current 60,000acres to 97,000 acres. This planinvolves a mix of public and privateparticipants and emphasizes thevoluntary cooperation of landown­ers. Several ranches in the state arenow receiving prairie dogs removedfrom other areas, in particular fromexpanding urban areas, and areconducting research related to themanagement of prairie dogs. Theseconcerted efforts are an importantkey in giving this ecosystem a chance

Wagon Tracks

at regeneration and in preservingthe prairie dog and other icons of the .American West.NOTES

1. Josiah Gregg. Commerce of the Prairies(1844; reprint. Norman: University ofOklahoma Press. 1954). 379.

2. Ibid.. 381.3. William Fairholme. Journal of an Expedi­

tion to fhe Grand Prairies of the Missouri1840. ed. by Jack B. Tykal (Spokane: Ar­thur H. Clark Co.. 1996). 117-1-19.

4. Lewis H. Garrard. Wah-to-Yah and theTaos Trail (1850; reprint. Palo'Alto: Ameri­can West Publishing. 1968). 17.

5. Ibid:. 16.6. Ralph P. Bieber. ed.. "Diary of Philip

Gooch Ferguson. 1847-1848:' Marchingwith the Army of the West. 1846-1848(Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co.. 1936).305-306.

7. Ibid.. 307.8. Stella M. Drumm. ed .. Down the Santa Fe

Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of SusanShelby Magoffin. 1846-1847 (1926; re­print. Lincoln: University of NebraskaPress. 1982).37-38. Buffalo was availablefor the 4th of July dinner. but whether Su ­san ate anything that day she did notsay. because her terrible carriage acci ­dent happened on that day.

9. Frank S. Edwards. A Campaign in NewMexico with Colonel Doniphan (1847; re­print. Albuquerque: University of NewMexico Press. 1996). 15-1'6.

10. John E. Sunder. ed. Matt Field on theSanta Fe Trail (Norman: University ofOklahoma Press. 1995). 284.

11. Ibid .. 285.12. W. W. H. Davis. EI Gringo. New Mexico

and Her People (·1857; reprint. Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press. 1982). 41­42.

13. Lloyd W. Gundy. 'The Journal of SamuelD. Raymond. 1859-1862:' Wagon Tracks10 (November 1995): 15.

14. David K. Strate. ed .. West by Southwest:Letters of Joseph Pratt Allyn. a TravellerAlong the Santa Fe Trail. /863 (Dodge.City: Kansas Heritage Center. 1984). 61.

15. Ibid .. 80.16. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent. Prairie Dogs

(New York: Clarion, 1993). 18.17. Michael E. Long. 'The Vanishing Prairie:'

National Geographic 193 (April 1998):118-119.

18. Donald Jackson. ed.. The Journals of Ze­bulon Montgomery Pike. vol. 1 (Norman:University of Oklahoma Press. 1966).339.

19. W. Eugene Hollon. The Lost Pathfinder:Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1949; reprint.Westport. CT: Greenwood Press. 1981).121.

20. Jackson. Journals of Zebulon Montgom-ery Pike. 338-339.

21. Ibid.22. Ibid .. 338.23. Katie Bowen Journal. July 19. 1851.

Bowen Family Papers. United StatesArmy Military History Institute. CarlisleBarracks. Pennsylvania.

24. Dayton Duncan. Lewis & Clark: The Jour­ney of the Corps of Discovery (New York:Alfred A. Knopf. 1997).84.

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25. J. W. Chatham, Private Journal Com­mencing February 27, 1849 (Ms, Univer­sity of New Mexico General Library Spe ­cial Collections, Albuquerque, NewMexico), 36.

26. Marc Simmons, ed., On the Santo Fe Trail(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,1986),46-47.

27. Ibid., 47.28. James Josiah Webb, Adventures in the

Santo Fe Trade, 1844-1847 (1931; reprint.Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,1995),63-65.

29. Gerald Thompson, Edward F. Beale &The American West (Albuquerque: Uni­versity of New Mexico Press, 1983), 113.

30. N. B. Kotliar, et of., "A Critical Review ofAssumptions about the Prairie Dog as aKeystone Species," Environmental Man­agement 24:2 (1999): 177-192.

31. Russell A. Graves, The Prairie Dog: Senti­nel of the Plains (Lubbock: Texas TechUniversity Press, 2001), 79. This well­researched, objectively-written, andbeautifully-photographed book is rec­0mmended for anyone wishing to learnmore about prairie dogs.

CONVERSE OF THEPRAIRIES

-BOOK NOTICES-

John L. Kessell, Spain in the South­west: A Narrative History of ColonialNew Mexico, Arizona, Texas andCalifornia. Norman: University ofOklahoma Press, 2002. Pp. 462.Maps, illustrations, notes, bibliog­raphy, index. Cloth, $45.00.

John Kessell is something else.University of New Mexico Professorof History Emeritus, he is bestknown for his work on the history ofPecos Pueblo, Kiva, Cross andCrown, and for being the foundingeditor of the formidable, six-volumeVargas project covering the journalsof Juan Diego de Vargas, the Recon­queror of Spanish colonial New Mex­ico, both excellent but rather pedan­tic pieces of work.

This book's preface starts withthese words: "In the beginning, in­vading Spaniards did possess im­pressive advantages-imperial stateand militant church, long-range sail­ing capability, firearms, horses, im­munity to smallpox and measles,and more-but they too had to uri­nate."

"In the beginning" might causeone to think that the next wordswould be "God created the earth,"

22

but the last few words let you knowthat Kessell had his tongue in hischeek when he wrote those wordsand that this book is not going to bepompous. Rather it is what is im­plied by the "Narrative History" partof the title: easy-going, easy-reading,informal writing. That it can be that,and be scholarly at the same time istestimony both to Kessell's ability towrite and his remarkable knowledgeof the subject matter covered by thisbook.

Kessell has chosen to have indi­viduals carry the history as, floodsand plagues aside, they in fact al­ways do. Throughout, the deeds andsometimes the words of specific indi­viduals are used to sketch the his­toric events and historic trends thatmake up the history of Spain in theSouthwest. We read of soldiers, Indi­ans, some ordinary and some ex­traordinary men and women, explor­ers, priests, and of the good and thewicked. All of these populate theSpanish southwest, which here in­cludes the borderlands (mainlyTexas, northern Mexico, New Mex­ico, Arizona and California, withsome excursions into Louisiana, thePlains states and even Canada andAlaska). As one would expect from anarrative, and from the scope of thesubject, you will not find the kind of"in-depth" history that is in someother books with less breadth, butyou will find interesting coverage ofthe major aspects of the history ofthe Spanish southwest.

Kessell writes wonderfully well.Even though the author did retire toDurango, Colorado, I think his heartmust still be in New Mexico. Hisprose rises to its highest level andhis humor is the most pithy when hewrites about the events that makeup the colonial history of New Mex­ico (and maybe Arizona which thenwas part of New Mexico) and themen and women who were the actorsin tha t history.

Careful readers will note that theauthor writes that William Becknellarrived in Santa Fe in November1821 accompanied by some twentycompanions. That is not what weread in the November 1992 issue ofWagon Tracks, in which Harry My­ers and Mike Olsen reported thatMexican officer Pedro Gallego, in hisdiary reported meeting "six Ameri­cans." This probably settles the dis-

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crepancies noted in Larry M.Beachum's William Becknell, Fatherof the Santa Fe Trade and goes toshow that Dr. Kessell should haveread the aforementioned WagonTracks article. I would not mentionthis small point in a review for a dif­ferent audience, but here, well. ...

Kessell is a giant of New Mexicoand Spanish colonial borderlandshistory, and this work is the latestproof of his ability.

-E. Donald Kaye

FORT LEARNED

-TEACHER'S TRADING POST-

Chris Day, EditorPreparations and meetings are in

progress as Chris Day and JanetArmstead are gearing up for the 10thSanta Fe Trail Trip with eleven andtwelve year old students from NorthCentral Kansas. The ten-day tripwill be June 1-10, 2003, following theCimarron Route to Santa Fe and theMountain Route back to Kansas.

The students travel in charteredbusses and camp out in national,state, or private campgrounds. Allstudents are divided into workgroups and help do the necessarychores it takes to keep a caravan ofthis size traveling down the road.

A trip of this magnitude requiresadult chaperones and with each tripover the years, many have helpedChris, Janet, and former educationalleader, Marcia Fox. The SFTA al­ways seeks to reach out to teachersbecause they are the link in teachingchildren the history of the Trail.

To help the Santa Fe Trail Asso­ciation reach some of their educa­tional goals, Chris Day and JanetArmstead announce that they aremaking available a few adult chaper­one positions on the 2003 trail trip.

These openings will be for teach­ers who would like to travel with themodern wagon train and learn thebenefits of taking students on a his­toric trail adventure.

The cost of the trip for the teach­ers will be: (1) traveling expenses toand from Wamego, Kansas, (2) SantaFe Trail Association membership ifnot currently a member, and (3) col­lege credit

If interested, call Chris Day (785)456-8254 or Janet Armstead (785)456-7737.

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HENRY SKILLMAN-A GRIZZLY TEXAS MANby David M. Seals

/',

[Seals is an avid historian and gene­alogist from Alpine, Texas, where heresides with his wife, Reba. Recentlyretired, his research interests are pri­marily Southwest and Texas history,plus some research on the Civil War.]

THE year was 1842, and back Eastcivilization was humming. CharlesDickens published A ChristmasCarol, and the New York Philhar­monic Society was founded. But thewild frontier of Texas was rife withresentful Indians and unmarked,unknown territory, ready for the ap­pearance of the man who was tomake his mark in the uncivilizedSouthwest.

Henry Skillman was a tall, blond,grizzly bear of a man who wore hishair and beard long and flowing.Skillman was born in New Jersey inlate 1813 or early 1814, according tothe El Paso County census of 1860.His family moved to Kentucky whileHenry was a child. He came to theSouthwest in 1842 on the Santa FeTrail, perhaps as a trader or em­ployee of a trader. By 1846 he wasidentified as a trader, carrying sup-

. plies and sundry. merchandise toSanta Fe and Chihuahua. He appar­ently also sold supplies to U.S. troopsduring the war with Mexico, whichbegan that same year. I Before his ca­reer ended he was a mail contractor,an Indian fighter, as well as a scoutand a guide for United States troops,the Confederacy, and for wagontrains throughout the Southwest.

In February 1847 Skillman waswith a large group of traders andscouts accompanying Colonel Alex­ander W. Doniphan on his expeditionfrom El Paso to Chihuahua in theMexican War. When Doniphan'sMissouri Volunteers encounteredunexpectedly-strong 1\1exican resis­tance early on the trail, Colonel

, Doniphan mustered into service allthe traders and scouts accompany­ing the soldiers. He divided theminto two groups, and Skillman waselected Captain of Company B of theTraders' Battalion, an early demon­stration of his leadership skills.2

Skillman led some of the first scoutsfrom EI Paso del Norte on the Mexi­can road to Chihuahua and served asa scout for the Battle of Sacramento

May 2003

on February 28, 1847, and ended upfighting in the battle.3

Unscathed, and on returning toSanta Fe, he served as an interpreterand a guide for Lieutenant ColonelRichard H. Lane's detachment ofUB. troops that were ordered to ElPaso. The detachment reached FrayCristobal on October 27, 1847, and ascouting party of 22 men com­manded by Sergeant Smith, withSkillman as interpreter, marchedahead to the center of El Paso. Theirmission was to enter Franklin (EIPaso), master the resistance, andcapture ex-Governor Manuel Amijo,if possible. The results of this' en­deavor were surprisingly successful,as they met easy capitulation. Ar­mijo surrendered and was paroled.4

By February 1848 Skillman wasback in Santa Fe, and General Ster­ling Price, of the U.S. army, selectedhim to command a group of 15 scoutson Price's trip to Chihuahua. Whileon this trip, Skillman fought in theBattle of Santa Cruz de Rosales,which took place in Mexico betweenPrice's command and a Mexicanarmy.5 Again the intrepid fighter re­mained safe and unharmed.

By April 1849, the year of the goldrush to California, the adventurerwas in the small village of Franklin,present day El Paso, when Lieuten­ants W. H. C. Whiting and WilliamF. Smith, of the Whiting-Smith En­gineering Expedition, arrived fromSan Antonio on a mapping expedi­tion. As Skillman's reputation wasnow well established as a depend­able, daring scout, he was employedby Whiting for the difficult returntrip to San Antonio. Whiting realizedhow fortunate he and his engineer­ing party of 16 people had been to es-

th ,I' t' 1 .. f h{"'::linD _ 0. nAC' 1 Vllt-.f"\ _ f ......VCA.!-'v lJ.I. v ~.l-VU .1.LC Spll. 1.... V - lJ Ie;

Apache," and wanted additionalbackup and another route back toSan Antonio.6

Lieutenant Delos B. Sacket deliv­ered supplies from Dona Ana toWhiting's party at El Paso in prepa­ration for the hazardous trip back toSan Antonio. Whiting had the idea ofsending Skillman and three others,including John Spencer and a mannamed Gifford, by way of Fort Lea­ton, across from Presidio del Norte,

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on the way back to San Antonio.Whiting had left some important pa­pers, as well as several animals be­longing to the United States govern­ment, there on his way through onthe original trip. Skillman's littleparty would retrieve those items andjoin Whiting and the main party onthe Pecos River.7

Whiting felt there had to be asafer, better way back to San Anto­nio, and depended upon Skillman tohelp them find it. Skillman went toFort Leaton as instructed, with theplan to meet up with the Whiting­Smith Engineering Expedition atsome predetermined point on the Pe­cos River, probably at Live OakCreek, to where Whiting's party pro­ceeded directly from El Paso.8 OnMay 10, less than a month later, thetwo groups did meet up, althoughSkillman was late. His small party,when near Presidio, had been prom­ised safe passage through Apacheland by Chief Gomez, while Whit­ing's larger group had evaded theApaches and reached the PecosRiver on May 8. Skillman helped theWhiting-Smith party ford the PecosRiver. They then proceeded towardSan Antonio, ever on the lookout formarauding Apaches.9 Their party re­portedly ate well, as game was plen­tiful, namely deer and bear.

On May 16 Lieutenant Whitingsent Skillman, his partner Lieuten­ant Smith, and Dick Howard on

. ahead to San Antonio to announcetheir arrival. They carried a briefsummary of the expedition to BrevetMajor General William Worth. 1O

This was probably done to insurethat at least one record of their sur­veying activities reached civilizationin case of an Indian attack. Skillmanann party were set upon by ADachcs. ,- ,but lost only their horses, not theirlives. They limped into Camp Leonanear present-day Uvalde. By thetime they arrived in San Antonio onMay 21, 1849, General Worth haddied from the cholera ~lague thatwas sweeping the town. l

During the remainder of 1849 andthrough 1850 Henry Skillman wasone of the first to contract to carrythe mail from San Antonio to El Pasoby horse. The success of this chal-

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' ..

Sketch of Pinery Stage Station at the base of Guadalupe Peak, by Reba Seals.

Eventually the Union forces rec­ognized the cat and mouse game andordered the capture of Skillman. InMarch 1864 the Union army in ElPaso received a message that Skill­man was moving toward Presidio delNorte on the Rio Grande. Official re-

. ports show that Captain A. H.French, with a detachment of 25 Un­ion soldiers, was ordered to FortDavis, and then on to Presidio delNorte to either capture or kill HenrySkillman. French arrived with hismen at Presidio del Norte on April13, 1864, to lie in wait for Skillman.

On the same day, Skillman andhis party of Confederate soldiersmade camp on Spencer's Ranch onthe El Fortin Road near Presidio.Early on the morning of April 15,1864, Captain French surprised theConfederates at Spencer's Ranch.While the Confederates and Skill­man were sleeping, French led hismen into the dark camp, yelling forall to surrender. In typical fashionSkillman came out of his bedroll fir­ing pistols from both hands. CaptainFrench's first shot was fatal, andHenry Skillman was dead. His com­panions were allowed to wrap him ina blanket and bury him where hefell. 15

Thus ended the diverse career of aremarkable man who was certainlyinstrumental in opening the south­west to Anglo-American civilization.

>---·'~r::·;;.:>__._

which some onlookers said made himresemble a portrait of "The Wander­ing Jew."13

At the outbreak of the Civil War in1861, all the southern mail routeswere discontinued as the UnionArmy'moved into the southwestarea. Skillman's political leaningswere toward the Union, perhaps be­cause he -had been born in New Jer­sey, but he had been reared in Ken­tucky, and he now called Texas hishome. He decided to remain loyal tohis adopted state, which sided withthe Confederacy.14

Skillman then used his scoutingskills as a courier for the Confeder­acy between San Antonio and ElPaso. He kept the Confederate com­mand in San Antonio aware of the 10­cation and activities of the UnionArmy, while at the same time tellingthe Union Army of the false where­abouts of the Confederates. His re­ported false sightings of the gray sol­diers kept the Union blues on con­stant alert and going on fruitless sor­ties. He would report a rumor that alarge Confederate attack was goingto occur in the Trans-Pecos area ,then one supposedly to occur a hun­dred miles to the south. These kindsof rumors kept the Union forces onconstant alert for about a year. Un­ion patrols were sent out as far asFort Stockton, anticipating Skillmanand the Confederate troops.

lenging experience, along with hisreputation for bravery and grit thathe had earned during the war withMexico, earned him one of the cov­eted pending mail routes. The San

.Antonio to ElPaso mail route wasopened in 1850, and on September20, 1851, the Postmaster General ofthe United States awarded Skillmana contract from San Antonio to SantaFe,by way of El Paso. This includedthe expectation that passenger serv­ice would become available in a shorttime. Skillman's first mail run beganNovember 3, 1851, and since therewas not much demand for .passen­gers at that time, Skillman used hisfreight wagons for the mail, or some­times traveled the route on horse­back leading pack mules loaded withthe mail and merchandise.12

By 1852 the Postmaster Generalwas insisting on regular runs beingavailable for passenger service. Thiswould require stations at stated in­tervals along the rugged trail, withprovisions being available for foodand minimal comforts. The Postmas­ter General also insisted on comfort­able spring carriages for the passen­gers. This presented a problem forSkillman who was not financiallyable to make such an investment inthe mail/passenger run. As a resultthe Postmaster General awarded anew contract in 1854 to a David Was­son. For a while Skillman drove forWasson until George Giddings con­tracted the route. Skillman and Gid­dings formed a good team andworked hard to keep the route run­ning while enduring the many hard­

.ships it required, such as deer trailsfor roads and aggressive Indians.

During this time, on September30, 1853, Skillman was asked tomake a drive for the first Butter.fieldOverland Mail stage from Horse­head Crossing on the Pecos River toEl Paso. His reputation of knowingthe country better than any otherman made him the logical choice.Skillman made history on this tripby stopping only long enough tochange the mule teams, which wasabout every ten miles. He made thistrip in ninety-six hours, or four days,without stopping to eat or sleep.Skillman made quite a show whenhe arrived in El Paso wearing buck­skins with Bowie knives and revolv­ers stuck in his belt. He had his longsandy hair and a flowing beard,

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'.,

Today the rough Texan namedHenry Skillman would probably: beamazed to see in a large grove of lIve­oak trees, high in the Davis Moun­tains near Fort Davis, Texas, acowboy-camp meeting site calledSkillman's Grove. This favorite stagerest stop on the trail from San Anto­nio to El Paso is now the location ofBloy's Camp Meeting, an in~er­

denominational religious gathermgof cowboys and their families whotravel the trails once followed byHenry Skillman.

In 1964, on St. Francis Plaza inPresidio, Texas, a historical markercommemorating the life of HenrySkillman was erected. It reads:"Captain Henry Skillman, C. S. A.Renowned southwestern mail andstagecoach man. Born in Kentucky.Came to Texas before 1846. Servedas a U. S. Army scout in MexicanWar. About 1851 established thefirst mail service from San Antonioto El Paso. When the first ButterfieldOverland stagecoach in 1858 madebid to establish fast service to thewest coast, was selected to drive per­ilous Comanche Indian area fromHorsehead Crossing on the Pecos toEl Paso. Made it in 4 days withoutrest or relief, his 6-foot frame drapedwith revolvers and Bowie knives. AConfederate scout in the Civil War.From July 1862 when Federalsseized El Paso and the Davis Moun­tains (to make the longest enel?~ oc­cupation in Texas), served as lIaIsonbetween regular Confederate troopsand the C. S. A. patriots who plottedin their refugee colony in Juarez torecapture west Texas. Knowingcountry well, came and went at will.Spread false rumors of qonfederatesmassing in deserts, to dIvert federaltroops from combat. Came to be mostdreaded scout known to the occupa­tion. Was hunted by special forcecommissioned to take him alive. Inshowdown at Spencer's Ranch nearhere on April 3, 1864, fought to hisdeath~"16

NOTES1. The Houston Beacon. August 15, 1851;

Louise Barry, The Beginning ot the West(Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society,1972). 580, 639; Rolph P. Bieber, ed., Ex­ploring Southwestern Trails, 1846-1854,Vol. VII of Southwest Historical Series(Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Company.1938),311-312.

2, Bieber, Exploring Southwestern Trails: 311;William Elsey Connelley, Doniphan s Ex­pedition and the Conquest of New Mex-

May 2003

ico and California (Topeka: self-pub­lished. ] 907), 398.

3. Bieber. Exploring Southwestern Trails. 311 ;Connelley, Doniphan's Expedition, 440.

4. Rolph P. Bieber. ed., Marching with theArmy of the West, 1846- 1848. vol. IV ofSouthwest Historical Series (Glendale: Ar­thur H. Clark Company, 1936),335,340.

5. W. W. Mills, Forty Years at EI Paso, 1858­1898 (EI Paso: Carl Hertzog, 1962), 188­189.

6. Bieber, Exploring Southwestern Trails. 311­312; J. Evetts Holey, Fort Concho and theTexas Frontier (Son Angelo: San AngeloStandard-Times. 1952),29.

7. Haley, Fort Concho. 29; Bieber, ExploringSouthwestern Trails. 311-312.

8. Bieber, Exploring Southwestern Trails, 312,338.

9. Ibid.. 339-340; Holey, Fort Concho, 30.10. Bieber. Exploring Southwestern Trails, 344.11. Nacogdoches Times, June 16, 1849; Bie­

ber, Exploring Southwestern Trails, 349.12. Robert N. Mullin, Stagecoach Pioneers of

the Southwest lEI Paso: Texas WesternPress. 1983), 2-5.

13. Roscoe P. Conklin and Margaret B.Conklin, The Butterfield Overland Mall,1857- 1869, vol. 2 (Glendale: Arthur H.Clark Company. 1947).61.

14. Mullin, Stagecoach Pioneers, 5.15. Ibid.; Carl B. Raht. Romance of Davis

Mountains and Big Bend Country(Odessa: Rahtbooks Company. 1919),151; Santa Fe New Mexican, May 7,1864.

16. <http://wvvw.forttours.com/pages/bigbend.asp#huntwentyeight>.

POST OFFICE OAK

-LETIERS-Editor:

I just finished reading he Febru­ary issue of Wagon Tracks. As al­ways, I was most impressed with allthe info, the content, the articles, theprofessionalism, and so on. I amawed by the whole publication andknow what a deal we are getting. Ifwe were to buy all this in book form,it would be way beyond $29.95.Thanks,

Barbara Fentiman83 Verano Loop

Santa Fe NM 87508Editor:

Thanks so much for reprintingDon's article (,Zebulon Pike's Damn­ed Rascals") and sending the publi­cation, all of which I read and en­joyed. It's gratifying to have my hus­band's work remembered, read, andused. He would be proud of that.

Catherine JacksonSIX WESTERN CHAPTERS MEETING

SANTA FE, NMSATURDAY &SUNDAY, JUNE 14-15

Wagon Tracks

SANTA FE TRAIL CROSSINGSON THE ARKANSAS RIVER

by David K. Clapsaddle

[SFTA Ambassador Clapsaddle,Larned, KS, is a frequent contributorto WT. This is another in his occa­sional series on stream crossings onthe Trail.]

THE Arkansas River has its sourcein the Rocky Mountains of centralColorado near Leadville and flowssoutheast to Pueblo before taking aneasterly orientation to the Kansasline and continuing on to a pointnear Ford, Kansas. There, at the so­called south bend, the river makesan abrupt turn flowing northeast toEllinwood, Kansas, the site of thecelebrated big bend where thestream cuts sharply to the southeast.Passing through Wichita, Kansas,and bypassing Tulsa, Oklahoma,and Little Rock, Arkansas, the riverreaches its confluence with themighty Mississippi near the villageof Arkansas Post, Arkansas.

This river was known by variousnames among Indian tribes andEuropean explorers. FranciscoVasquez de Coronado's expeditioncalled it Rio San Pedro y San Pablo(Sts. Peter and Paul River) in 1541.Later Spanish explorers knew theriver as Rio Grande de San Francisco(Grand River of St. Francis) and Riode Napestle or Napeste (NapesteRiver), the latter being a translitera­tion of an Indian name for thestream. The name for this river to­day came from French explorers,who gave it the Gallicized name ofRiviere des Arkansa (earliest spell­ings were "Acansa" and "Akansas,"then "Arkansa"), for the Siouan­speaking Indians who lived nea~ theriver's mouth. "Arkansa" remamedthe popular spelling through thetime of the Lewis and Clark expedi­tion in 1804-1806.1

American writers Zebulon M. Pikeand Jacob Fowler in the early nine­teenth century identified the streamas the "Arkansaw," the pronuncia­tion officially maintained by theState of Arkansas and the generalchoice of ~eople in Colorado andOklahoma. Many Kansans mispro­nounce the word "Ar-Kansas." Sucha preference may be attributed toJames Mead who opined in 1903 thatArkansas "is the Indian word Kan-

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sas with the French prefix of ark, abow."3 Whatever the designation,portions of the Santa Fe Trail fol­lowed the river some 272 miles fromthe big bend to Bent's Old Fort, withseveral crossings between thosepoints.

There may have been an earlycrossing near the mouth of WalnutCreek, east of present Great Bend.Most Santa Fe Trail crossings werewest of the south bend, where theTrail forded the Arkansas River atseveral points to traverse a barren,semiarid region to the southwest.Therein lies some confusion. Earlywriters, such as Joseph Brown, sur­veyor with the party dispatched bythe United States government tosurvey the road to Santa Fe in 1825,referred to such fords as crossingsand the courses taken as routes.4 Ata much later date, writers usedcrossing in an indiscriminate man­ner to reference both the fords andthe routes. Especially was this truewith respect to the upper, middle,and lower crossings, each of whichled to a point near Lower Spring(later Wagonbed Spring) on the Ci­marron River, 11 miles south of pres­ent Ulysses, Kansas.

The upper crossing as describedby Surveyor Brown was located 20miles east of Chouteau's Island.There, the surveying party fordedthe Arkansas and continued up thesouth bank of the river to the islandlocated five miles upstream frompresent Lakin, Kansas. From thatpoint, the expedition proceeded in asoutherly orientation on what Browncalled the upper route to the "Sema­ron [Cimarron] Spring."5 By the timeof the 1829 expedition captained byCharles Bent and accompanied bythe first military escort on the SantaFe Road commanded by Brevet Ma­jor Bennet Riley, the crossing hadmoved upstream two-three miles be­low Chouteau's Island.6

Downstream from the uppercrossing were two well-documentedfords which, in time, became knownas the middle crossings. The firstford, called the Arkansas crossing,about 25 miles upstream from FortAtkinson, was the choice of Santa Fetravelers from the 1830s through theearly 1850s. As described by 2ndLieutenant William D. Whipple, itwas the"old and main crossing of theArkansas River to take the Cimar-

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ron route." The second ford, noted byRandolph Marcy in his 1859 PrairieTraveler, known as the CimarronCrossing, located eight and a halfmiles downstream from the first,was used through the balance of thedecade and into the 1860s.1

Interestingly, a review of the lit­erature produced only a singlesource from the nineteenth centurywhich referenced a "middle cross­ing." Describing his trip to Santa Fein 1853, W. W. H Davis recalled, "Wepassed old Fort Atkinson ... we en­camped ... at the middle crossingamong the sand hiIls."s Regardless,twentieth-century writers repeat­edly referred to the middle cross­ing(s). Perhaps, logic demanded thatif there were lower and upper cross­ings, there must be a middle cross­ing; or perhaps the paradigm wasborrowed from writers of the historicperiod who characterized the springsalong the Cimarron River as upper,middle, and lower.

Corresponding to the advent ofthe Cimarron Crossing, Fran<;ois X:Aubry conducted an unsuccessful at­tempt in the spring of 1851 to pio­neer a new road from near ColdSpring in the present Oklahomapanhandle to the Arkansas River. Inthe following fall, his second attemptresulted in "an excellent wagon road,well supplied with water and grass,and avoiding the Jornada and the Ci­marron trail altogether." The routewas well documented by William Al­len in 1852. He wrote that his partystruck "the river 12 miles aboveChouteau's Island and 58 above thepoint .where the Cimarron Roadcrosses the Arkansas." In 1866, thecrossing was reported to be 11 milesabove Chouteau's Island, 71 milesabove the Cimarron crossing, andfive miles above Fort Aubrey, theshort-lived army post named inhonor of Fran<;ois Aubry.9

The so-called middle crossing fellinto disfavor in 1861 with the adventof mail service to Fort Wise in pres­ent Colorado and the use of theBent's Fort road by some govern­ment freight contractors during theCivil War. JO Eschewing the regularroute to lower Cimarron spring, themail coaches and some freight wag­ons pursued the north bank of theArkansas to Bent's Old Fort wherethey forded the river to follow Tim­pas Creek to the southwest. I1 By

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1868, the Union Pacific (changed toKansas Pacific in 1869) arrived atthe little railroad town of Phil Sheri­dan in present Logan County, Kan-.sas. From that point, mail, passen­gers, and freight were dispatcheddown a newly developed roadthrough Fort Wallace and on to FortLyon near present Las Animas, Colo­rado. Consequently, overland trafficon the Bent's Fort road east of FortLyon essentially ceased while trafficto the west continued to use the fordat Bent's Old Fort. In 1870, the rail­road reached Kit Carson, Colorado,from which two roads departed. Thefirst, a stage route, took a southerlyorientation to Fort Lyon. The second,a freight road developed by GeorgeMcBride and Dick Wootton ran duesouth from Kit Carson before turn­ing southwest to Bent's Old Fort andseven miles farther west to the site ofKing's Ferry where La Junta, Colo­rado, was later established. ThereMessrs. McBride and Wootton con­structed a toll bridge under the aus­pices of the Kit Carson and Fort Un­ion Bridge Company. Regardless ofthe imposing title of the company,according to P. G. Scott, an 1870t:r:aveler, the bridge was "a very com­mon wooden affair."12

The lower crossing was originallysituated five miles west of theCaches. Such is at odds with manywriters of the twentieth century whohave placed the lower crossing at theconfluence of Mulberry Creek withthe Arkansas River at the westernend ofthe south bend. These writersare well represented by HobartStocking who wrote, "Before manywheels marked the Road, traderswith merchandise on packhorsessometimes left the Arkansas and theLower crossing at MulberryCreek."13 .

It was at Mulberry Creek that thesurvey party arrived on September6, 1825. Of this location, JosephBrown, the surveyor, wrote, "Itwould be nearer to cross the riverhere and ascend Mulberry Creek toits source and then go directly to thelower spring on the Semaron, but ontrial of the way travelers have dis­continued it as unsafe. It is incom­modious of water and timber for fuel,and wants such prominent land­marks as will be a sure guide. Onthis route has been much sufferinf:;in a dry time 'tis dangerous." 4

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George C. Sibley, one of three com­missioners appointed to oversee thesurvey, added, "Mulberry Creekruns from the South West. It is saidto be very short, not over 20 Miles, &its head branches interlock withthose of the Grand Saline [Branch ofCimarron] which runs parallel withthe Arkansas about 30 Miles from itat this point. At least such is the re­port of two of our Men who have beenacross there."15

Brown's report suggests that theroute along the Mulberry experi­enced limited traffic, perhaps a sin­gle expedition, and that the routewas discontinued because of severalfactors: the lack of water, fuel, andlandmarks. Sibley's report mentionstwo men associated with the surveywho had taken the Mulberry Creekroute previously. Presumably, thosemen were members of the expeditionreferenced by Brown. Who werethese men? The most likely candi­dates are Stephen Cooper and JoelWalker, both members of the surveyparty and an 1823 trade expeditionto Santa Fe.

Fortunately, both men left a rec­ord of that expedition. Unfortu­nately, both waited until they werewell advanced in years before record­ing their memoirs. At age 81, Walkerdictated his recollections to R. R.Thompson. By that time, age hadevidently taken its toll on his mem­ory. He reported that the trip wastaken in 1822, that it was the firstsuch expedition to Santa Fe, andthat his party had followed the Ar­kansas river to the lower Cimarronspring, all three statements obvi­ously untrue. Regardless, other in­formation in his narrative does con­firm that the trip described was the"trial of the way" along MulberryCreek described by Brown. To wit,Walker recalled that the party leftthe south bend and "traveled duewest a day and a half." Elsewhere, he

o

referred to: (1) the creek in opposi­tion to the river; (2) suffering fromthe lack of water to the point ofdrinking buffalo blood; (3) and bein~

disoriented on several occasions.1

Cooper's autobiography, written atage 91, is consistent with Walker'saccount, especially with regard tothe lack of water and the convolutedroute taken to the lower Cimarronspring. 17 Parenthetically, both mendescribed the chance meeting with

May 2003

the party dispatched from Taos to re­cover trade goods stored on the Ar­kansas in the previous spring. Theparty's destination was what becameknown as "the Caches," so-called forthe jug-shaped pits in which thegoods had been hidden.

Interestingly enough, neitherBrown or Sibley wrote of the Mul­berry Creek location as the lowercrossing, nor did Walker or Cooper.However, Brown did locate the lowercrossing about twenty-five miles up­stream from the Mulberry's mouthnear present Howell, Kansas. Hewrote: "Some turn off at a placeknown to the Santa Fe travelers bythe name of the 'Cashes,' near towhich is a rocky point of a hill atsome distance from the river, com­posed of cemented pebbles, andtherefore called Gravel Rocks. Atabout 3 miles southwest from thisrock is a place of crossing for thosewho travel the lower route, or di­rectly to the aforenamed SemaronSpring, but this (though in a less de­gree) is subject to the same objec­tions as that directly from the southbend."18

Two miles west of the Caches waswhat Brown called Gravel Rocks,later known as Point of Rocks. Threemiles upstream from that locationwas the ford, which Brown noted as"a place of crossing for those whotravel the lower route." Later, theford was relocated five miles down­stream from its original location.There, near the Caches where theCharles Bent caravan camped onJuly 4, 1829, BrevetMajor Riley hadintended to ford the Arkansas, butBent and the traders persuaded himto continue the march westward tothe upper crossing.1 9 Exactly howlong this ford was used to reachlower Cimarron spring subsequentto the 1829 expedition is not known.However, the ford appears to be theone used by the 1833 expedition cap-o _ _

tained by Charles Bent and escortedby troops under the command ofCaptain William N. Wickliffe. Tak­ing the dry route between PawneeFork and the Caches, the caravan be­came lost and finally reached the Ar­kansas on July 6. Pausing to rest, thecaravan arrived at the lower cross­ing on July 10. On the following day,the traders continued on to Santa Feand the escort returned to Fort Leav­enworth.2o The crossing is clearly

Wagon Tracks

marked on Brown's map, also on Bre­vet Colonel William E. Merrill's mapof 1868.21

In summation, there were at leasteleven crossings of the ArkansasRiver on the Santa Fe Trail: the Mul­berry Creek crossing which saw lim­ited traffic, perhaps a single expedi­tion;22 two variants of the lowercrossing, the first located five mileswest of the Caches, the second nearthe Caches; two variants of the so­called middle crossings, the Arkan­sas and the Cimarron; two variantsof the upper crossing, the first lo­cated 20 miles east of Chouteau's Is­land, the second two-three miles be­low the island; Aubry's crossing attwo separate locations; the ford atBent's Old Fort; and the crossing atpresent La Junta where McBrideand Wootton operated a toll bridge.23

Undoubtedly, there were otherpoints along the Arkansas Riverwhere some parties crossed butwhich were either not recorded orthe records have yet to be found.NOTES1. Clyde Brion Davis, The Arkansas (New

York: Farrar and Rinehart. Inc .. 1940),7-8:Bemard DeVoto (ed.), Journals of Lewisand Clark (1953: reprint. Boston: Hough­ton Mifflin Company, 1997), 6: JamesNewton Baskett. "Prehistoric Kansas. AStudy ot the Route of Coronado Be­tween the Rio Grande and the Missouririvers," Kansas Historical Collections, XII(191 1- 1912) : 228: AIfred Barnaby Thomas(ed.), After Coronado. Spanish Explora­tion Northeast of New Mexico, 1696­/727 (Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1966), 18: and Louise Barry(comp.), The Beginning of the West: An­nals of the Kansas Gateway to theArnerican West, 1540-1854 (Topeka:Kansas State Historical Sociefy, 1972), 11,14.

2. Donald Jackson (ed.), The Journals of Ze­bulon Pike with Letters and RelatedDocuments, 2 vols. (Norman: Universifyof Oklahoma Press, 1966), L 336. ElliotfCoues (ed.), The Journal of JacobFowler Narrating an Adventure From Ar­kansas Through the Indian Territory,Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and NewMexico To The Rio Grande Del Norte1821-22 (Minneapolis: Ross and Haines,Inc., 1965), 1.

3. James R. Mead, "The Wichita Indians inKansas," Kansas Historical Collections,VIII (1903-1904): 173.

4. Donald J. Blakeslee, 'The Rattlesnake andWalnut Creek Crossings of the ArkansasRiver," Wagon Tracks, III (Nov. 1988); 4-5:Jesse Scotf, Jr., 'The Cimarron Crossing,"Wagon Tracks, II (Feb. 1988). 8-9; and"Field Notes by Joseph C. Brown, UnitedStates Surveying Expedition 1825- 1827,"Eighteenth Biennial Report, Kansas StateHistorical Society (1913): 117-125.

5. Ibid. For more information on this route,

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May 2003

••••

SFTA Ambassador Paul Bentrupremains in the nursing home inLakin, KS, and is currently undergo­ing radiation treatments for skincancer. He enjoys hearing fromSFTA friends. Address: PO Box 595,Lakin KS 67860.

like a pot from a wheel,

You were templatefor apse and buttressIcon for Adams, O'Keeffe.

When experts embalmed youin cement to preserve you,they smothered you instead.You tried to return to earth.

Mud, dung, and straw revived you,bricks mixed by the rancher, the bar-

tender,the weaver of blue and yellow yarns,the swift hand at cards,

the priest in the Guadalupe T-shirt,the great grandmother with her

spade,the clerk with his flute,the chili vendorwho sees Jesus in dreams.

Women daubed onyour final coat of adobe,as they would shapea loaf of bread.

Your walls hold the handprintsof hundreds drawn to bathein your healing clay.

HOOF PRINTS

-TRAil T1081T5-

SFTA Ambassador Ralph Hatha­way, Chase, KS, had a recent bout ofillness and was hospitalized forabout a month. He is now at homeand doing much better. He also en­joys hearing from SFTA friends. Ad­dress: 422 Ave L, Chase KS 67524.

• • • •Richard and Shirley Flint are

leading scholars of the Coronado Ex­pedition. Two of their recent booksare now available. Great CrueltiesHave Been Reported: The 1544 Inves­tigation of the Coronado Expeditionis available from SMU Press, call(800) 826-8911. The Coronado Expe­dition from the Distance of 460Years: Papers of the 2000 CoronadoConference is available from Univer­sity of New Mexico Press, call (800)

21. "Field Notes by Brown"; Kansas With Partsof Neighboring States and TerritoriesMap compiled by Bv!. Col. Wm. E. Merrill,RG 77, National Archives Services, Wash­ington D. C., shows the lower crossing 10 ­cated just west of Fort Atkinson one halfmile from the Caches.

22. Even though the Glenn/Fowler trappingparty of 1821 did cross the Arkansas atthe mouth of Mulberry Creek, it did notpursue a route to the lower Cimarronspring. Rother it followed the river west ­ward to the mountains. Journal of JacobFowler, 29.

23. Not included in this study are the fordsused by William Becknell in his three tripsto Santa Fe. For an interesting treatmentof these fords, see Donald J. Blakeslee,'The Rattlesnake Creek and WalnutCreek Crossings of the Arkansas,"Wogan Tracks, III (Nov. 1988): 4-5.

TRAIL TROUBADOUR

Wagon Tracks

-Traffic in Verse­

Sandra M. Doe, EditorThis column seeks poetry which

addresses the history, realism, ro­mance, and diversity of the Trail anddemonstrates authentic emotion,original images, and skill in crafts­manship. Submit poetry, in open orclosed form, along with a brief biog­raphy to Sandra M. Doe, Dept. ofEnglish, Campus Box 32, Metropoli­tan State College of Denver, PO Box173362, Denver CO 80217-3362.

Janice Warren, a poet from Dur­ham, NH, earned her BA in Englishfrom Earlham College, Richmond,Indiana, and she continued herpoetry studies at the University ofNew Hampshire. Her work has beenpublished in Flash/point, Diner, andConcrete Wolf.

In the summer she is a Smutty­nose Steward, one of the summercaretakers of Smuttynose Island atthe Isles of Shoals in Maine. Herwesterly wanderings have taken herto Taos and Ranchos Church. Thepoem below is noteworthy for itsstrong alliteration, its use of asso­nance, and its intimate and empa­thetic address to the church, a sightboth familiar to and loved by many aSanta Fe Trail traveler, past andpresent.

Ranchos Church, Taos, NM

by Janice WarrenYou kneel like a sphinx in the desert,breathe the blue air,cast amber shadows,catch winter snow.

Spaniards and Nativespulled you from earth

see Dorothy Morgan, "Bear Creek Passand the Santa Fe Tra~," Wagon Tracks, XI(Aug. 1997): 1, 15-19.

6. Otis E Young, The First Military Escort onthe Santa Fe Trail, 1829, From the Journaland Report of Major Bennet Riley andLieutenant Philip St. George Cooke(Glendale: The Arthur H. Clark Com­pany' 1952),85.

7. Louise Barry, 'The Ranch at CimarronCrossing," Kansas Historical Quarterly,XXIX (1973): 346-350. Barry identified yetanother crossing near the Caches,which she mistakenly labeled as one ofthe middle crossings.

8. W. W. H. Davis, EI Gringo, New Mexicoand Her People (1857; reprint. Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 33.

9. Barry, Beginning of the West, 99, 1042­1043, 1089-1090.

10. Barry, "Ranch at Cimarron Crossing," 348­349

11. Morris Taylor, First Mail West: StagecoachLines On the Santa Fe Trail (Albuquer­que: University of New Mexico Press,1971), 68.

12. For a complete treatment of the roadsfrom Sheridan and Kit Carson, see DavidK. Clapsaddle, "The Fort Wallace/KitCarson-Fort Lyon Roads," Wagon Tracks,VIII (Feb. 1994): 11-14.

13. Hobart E. Stocking, The Road to Santo Fe(New York: Hastings House, 1971), 134.

14. "Field Notes by Brown."15. Kate L. Gregg (ed.), The Road to Santa

Fe: The Journal and Diaries of GeorgeChamplin Sibley and Others Pertainingto the Surveying and Marking of a Roodfrom the Missouri Frontier to the Settle­ments of New Mexico, /825-/827 (Albu­querque: University of New Mexico Press,1995),77. Hobart Stocking inferred thatthe town of Ford was named for the Mul ­berry Creek ford, an inaccuracy whichcontinues to be repeated to this day.Stocking, Road to Santa Fe, 133. Thetown of Ford was named for ColonelJames H. Ford, commander of the Sec­and Colorado Cavalry. "Origin of CityNames," Kansas Historical Collections, VII(1901-1902): 428.

16. Joel P. Walker, A Pioneer of Pioneers:Narrative of Adventures Thro' Alabama,Florida, New Mexico, Oregon, Califor­nia' etc. (Los Angeles: Glen Dawson,1953), 5-1 1, The south bend referred toby Walker was a few miles east of Mul ­berry Creek's mouth.

17. Justus H. Rogers (ed.), "Autobiography ofStephen Cooper," Colusa County: Its His­tory (Colusa, CA: Colusa Public Library,n.d.), 354-356; "Field Notes by Brown."

18. Ibid.19. Young, First Military Escort, 84. This is the

ford Barry mistakenly identified as one ofthe middle crossings. See note 7.

20. Louise Barry, Beginning of The West, 233­234. At its advent. the Dry Route mergedwith the Wet Route at the Caches. At alater dote, the Dry Route joined the WetRoute one mile east of the location cho ­sen to establish Fort Dodge. For a fulltreatment of the Dry Route, see David K.Clapsaddle, 'The Dry Route Revisited,"Overland Journal, XVIII (Summer 1999):2-8.

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The National Frontier Trails Mu­seum recently opened a new exhibit,"Westward Fever: The Desire toMove West." Those attending theSeptember symposium will get achance to see this addition.

Bent's Old Fort NHS Superinten­dent Don Hill retired April 1. He be­gan his appointment there in 1986.He has put in 33 years with the NPS.Hill was coordinator of the 1993SFTA symposium at La Junta. Wewish him well in his retirement.

• • • •The National Frontier Trails Cen-

ter in Independence, MO, is chang­ing the name to National FrontierTrails Museum. The museum re­cently acquired two additional wag­ons, and they are offering wagonrides to visitors.

29

President Mary Whitmore120 Gabaldon RouteLas Vegas NM 87701(505) 454-0683<whitmore@newmexico.com><www.nmhu.edu/research/sftrail/co­razon.htm>

A dozen chapter members, aidedby staff members of Fort UnionNational Monument, beat the road­sides of State Highway 161 fromInterstate 25 to Fort Union on April12. A pickup load of trash, bottles,

restore the site for 50% of his initialbid. It seems his grandfather hadactually gone to school in thebuilding and is buried just aroundthe corner in the WilmingtonCemetery. Work is scheduled to startMonday, May 12.

The chapter has almost all of thefunds to cover the restoration. Wewill have to start passing the hatvery soon to come up with the rest. Ifanyone out there has an interest inseeing this restoration realized, wewill gladly accept any donation youwish to give. I know you have allheard this kind of story before, butwe are so excited about this.

Our trail ride, June 13-21, isdeveloping nicely. The route isplanned and campsites are estab­lished. Hope to see many trailenthusiasts out there enjoying thegorgeous scenery. Call with ques­tions: Carol Retzer (785) 828-3739 ore-mail at <carolandrick@ grapevine.net>.

End of the TrailPresident Pam Najdowski1810 Paseo de La ConquistadoraSanta Fe NM 87501(505)982-1172<mikenaj@cnsp.com>

The chapter met March 22 withthe Salida del Sol Chapter of the OldSpanish Trail Association and theDocents of the Palace of the Gover­nors for a program by Harry Myers,"Mules, Sheep, Shawls and Specta­cles." He discussed trade in theSouthwest, from early Indian routesto the Santa Fe Trail and othertrails.

The next program was scheduledfor May 10 at Old Fort Marcy inSanta Fe with a program by JohnBloom. The chapter is looking for­ward to hosting the Six WesternChapters meeting June 14-15.

Corazon de los Caminos

••••

Wagon Tracks

President Carol L. Retzer4215 E245th StLyndon KS 66451785) 828-3739<carolandrick@grapevine.net>

The chapter has wonderful news.The board of directors had begun toaccept the possibility of having todismantle the old Wilmington Schooland establish a park on thepremises. Mark Smith heard of theseplans, and because of his intenseinterest in the area, offered to

The Independence City Councilhas hired Larry Hackman, former di­rector of the Truman PresidentialMuseum & Library, to consult on theredevelopment ofthe National Fron­tier Trails Museum.

CAMP TALES

-CHAPTER REPORTS­

Cimarron CutoffPresident D. Ray BlakeleyPO Box 222Clayton NM 88415(505) 374-2555

The April meeting was in MortonCounty, KS, and the July meetingwill be in Clayton, NM.

Texas PanhandlePresident Kathy Revett Wade1615 Bryan Place # 14Amarillo TX 79102(806) 371-9309<krevett@arn.net>

No report.

Wagon Bed SpringPresident Jeff TrotmanPO Box 1005Ulysses KS 67880(620) 356-1854<jtkb@pld.com>

The spring quarterly meeting wasin Hugoton, April 11. A new turnstilegate has been installed at Lower Ci­marron Spring, making access easierto the DAR Marker and the Joyce Icehouse. The Historic Adobe Museumhas completed the application forcertification as an interpretive facil­ity on the Santa Fe National HistoricTrail.

Heart of the Flint Hills

The Friends of Arrow Rock hasbeen awarded a $100,000 challengegrant by the National Endowmentfor the Humanities. The Friends alsoreceived a $15,000 gift from Wood &Huston Bank.

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May 2003

El Rancho de las Golondrinas, 334Los Pinos Rd, 15 miles south ofSanta Fe, offers special Josefinatours. Maria Josefina Montoya, theAmerican Girl doll from Spanish co­lonial New Mexico, lived on a haci­enda based on Las Golondrinas. Themuseum offers tours of sites shownin her books. Tours are offered in2003 on June 13, 19, 27, July 11, 18,24, August 8, 21, and September 6.Advance registration required, (505)473-4169.

The Trinidad, CO, Chamber ofCommerce, institutional member ofSFTA, will alter the focus of the an­nual Santa Fe Trail Days from acarnival-like atmosphere to a moreTrail-oriented event. This year's pro­gram, June 6-8, will concentratemore on Trail history by the use ofreenactors from Pueblo and withTrail-related talks, with programspresented at both the Bloom Man­sion complex and downtown. MarkL. Gardner and his banjo will add tothe flavor with a bit of Trail-days.mUSIC.

• • • •The Council Grove Republican,

newspaper at one of the most historicsites on the Trail, still carries the fol­lowing misnomer on its masthead:"Birthplace of the Santa Fe Trail."With all that authentic history, thecommunity should stop promotingsuch a fabrication.

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cans, and other debris was baggedand sent off to the dump. The viewsof the countryside and Fort Unionsite are much improved. The bestfind of the day was a 1957 NewMexico license plate-a Mora Countytreasure. 'Twas a beautiful warmand windy day-as spring is usuallyin our territory. We carefully baggedour empty pizza boxes after lunch!

Mitzi Frank, the brand new su­perintendent at Fort Union, joinedour working team too. She arrived inApril from Sitka National HistoricPark, Alaska, where the US pur­chased Alaska from Russia in 1867.

Weare looking forward to ourMay meeting at Hatch's Ranch as asplendid event- a panel comprised ofMarc Simmons, Jean Brittingham,Diana Dunn, and Leo Oliva.

Our programs for the rest of thisyear have been firmed up:

July 20: 10 a.m., presentation byBill Gwaltney on the Buffalo Sol­diers at Fort Union. The DanielsFamily fabulous barbecue dinnerwill be available for purchase or youmay bring your own picnic. This isFort Union's annual weekend of Cul­tural Encounters on the Santa FeTrail. The entrance fee is $3 per per­son if you don't have an annual pass.August 17: field trip along SFT rutshosted by the Daniels Family will in­clude their barbecue dinner. We willmeet at 10 a.m. at the Kruse' NCountry Cafe in Wagon Mound.September 21: Henry Ostranderwill give us a special tour of Rayadoon September 21. We will meet at theKit Carson Museum in Rayado at 1p.m.October 19: Faye Gaines and DixieOdom are leading us up RoundMound. Details TBA.November 16: our annual businessmeeting and election of directors for2004-2005 will be held at the St.J ames Hotel in Cimarron. DetailsTBA.

All of our programs are open toeveryone and we hope to see youalong our section of the Trail!

Wet/Dry RoutesPresident Rusti Gardner801 Vernon DrLarned KS 67550(620) 285-3433<jaxrus@larned.net>

The spring meeting was held

30

April 6, 2003, at Fort LarnedNational Historical Site. The upcom­ing May 3, 2003, Seminar wasreviewed and the meal plan for noonwas presented.

President Gardner gave a reporton the chapter presidents' meetingat Trinidad. The Santa Fe Trail As­sociation has asked the chapters tosupport the marking of the Santa FeTrail in a uniform manner along theoriginal survey of the Trail. Eachchapter would have one kiosk andtwo smaller markers. Each markerwould include a map of the entireTrail, with notations of where the re­maining markers can be found aswell as information about the cur­rent section of the trail. Each chap­ter would decide where the markerswould be placed in their section ofthe Trail. The National Park Servicewill provide matching funds. This al­lows our chapter to use "sweat eq­uity" toward our part of the en­deavor.

The SFTA also has asked our as­sistance to raise funds by sellingbusiness membership in our area. Itwould provide an inexpensive way toadvertise to around 1200 people.Our chapter would receive $20 of the$40 cost for a business membership.

There is a pipeline going throughthe Stewart Ruts. Rusti Gardner at­tended a meeting with a representa­tive ofthe gas line company, owner ofthe land, an archaeological consult­ant, and a conservationist. At thistime the plan is to bore under theruts so as not to disturb them.

David Clapsaddle will be taking aLanding display to Kansas City forthe fall symposium. Our Chapterwill sponsor this display.

Summer meeting will be July 12,2003, at the Clapsaddle residence inLarned. It will be a covered dish pot­luck at 6:30 p.m.

George Elmore gave the programon the history of Fort Larned fromfarm to national historical site.

Dodge City/Fort Dodge/CimarronPresident Bill Bunyan2207 McCoyDodge City KS 67801(620) 227-8203

The chapter met for a noon lunch­eon meeting on March 12, 2003.Richard Dryden presented the pro­gram on the chapter's participationin the Trail mapping project.

Wagon Tracks

For the seventh year, the chapterwill sponsor a living-history programas part of Fort Dodge Days. The 2:00p.m. event will be held in Eisen­hower Hall, Fort Dodge, KS.

Missouri River OutfittersPresident John Atkinson1113 Safari DrSt Joseph MO 64506(816) 233-3924<atkin@mwsc.edu>

The chapter met April 27 at theNational Frontier Trails Museum.Officers elected for the year arePresident John Atkinson, Vice­President Mary Conrad, SecretaryRoger Slusher, Treasurer NancyLewis, Historian Bill Wall, andBoard Members Julie Daicoff, SandySlusher, Ross Marshall, and AnneMallinson.

Jime Mallinson reported thatplans for developing the Wayne Cityoverlook are moving forward. NPShas recently sent text and signageplans for discussion and comment.The site should be completed in timefor the symposium. John Atkinsonrecently gave a program in Lawrenceon the Bent brothers and the SantaFe Trail. MRO members have beencontacting business along the trailregarding business memberships.Plans continue for the SeptembersympOSIUm.

QuiviraPresident Britt CollePO Box 1105McPherson KS 67460(620) 241-8719<blkcolle@midusa.net>

The chapter met April 6 to electnew officers, select committees, planevents for the coming year, and or­ganize for hosting the 2005symposium. No report is availablefrom this meeting.

Cottonwood CrossingPresident Gil Michel605 Park PlaceNewton KS 671 14(620) 284-0313

Some 40 members and guests en­joyed dinner and a program at theHarvey House Museum in Florence,KS, on March 6 and 13. Due to lim­ited seating there were two eveningseSSIOns.

Museum members were attired inHarvey House waitress uniforms.They served the dinner, which wasfollowed by a historical program

May 2003

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about Fred Harvey and his restau­rants and other businesses.

A short business meeting was con­ducted by President Michel, whoshowed the signs being fabricated tomark the auto-tour route throughMarion County.

President Michel and two commit­tee members met with the MarionCounty road supervisor on March 12.The county highway department willhelp with locating and erectingSanta Fe Trail signs, plus they haveprovided a paved turnout at the Cot­tonwood Crossing DAR marker site.

The executive committee met onApril 12 to plan future meetings andactivities. The next chapter meetingis May 15 at King Fisher Inn at Mar­ion Lake, with SFTA President HalJackson the featured speaker.

Bent's FortPresident Richard Carrillo718 W. 2nd St.La Junta CO 81050(719) 384-8054<cuartelejo@centurytel.net>

No report.

II.._..:N.:.::E:.:,W.:..;:.:SF..:.;TA;...;..;.;M,;,;;E;,;.;,M,;,;;B.;;,ER...;s~_1This list includes new member­

ships received since the last issue.Those received after this printingwill appear in the next issue. If thereis an error in this information,please send corrections to the editor.We thank you for your support.

BUSINESS/INSTITUTIONALA. R. Mitchell Museum & Gallery,

150 E Main, Trinidad CO 81082City of La Junta, PO Bo 489, La

Junta CO 81050City of Las Vegas, PO Box 160, Las

Vegas NM 87701Holiday Inn Express, 27994 Hwy 50

Frontage Rd, La Junta CO 81050Koshare Indian Museum, 115 W

18th St, La Junta CO 81050Otero Junior College, 1802 Colorado

Ave, La Junta CO 81050Rancho Arriba Bed & Breakfast, PO

Box 338, Truchas NM 87578

FAMILY MEMBERSHIPS

Dale and Coleen Creed, 2728 Raw­hide, Lawrence KS 66046

Mike & Lois Keith, 1307 W Trail,Dodge City KS 67801

Wayne & Bonnie McCandless, 825Juniper Dr, Manhattan KS 66502

Brian & Cindy Murphy, 17 Larch Dr,Chester NJ 07930

May 2003

Eric & Sara J. Nyman, 856 BristolWay, Liberty MO 64068

INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIPS

Ronald Dulle, 6144 SEaton Ct, LittletonCO 80123

Suzanne Murray, HC 01 Box 31,Rolla KS 67954

Rodney D. Penner, 1809 N Oliver Rd,Newton KS 67114

Joe Pickett, 14017 Parrish Trail,Montgomery TX 77316

Allen R. Pike, PO Box 696, CarmelNY 10512

Lisa Rome, 1013 Polk, Hugoton KS67951

Emilie Sharp, PO Box 28, Beaver OK73932

Mark Wilson, 1759 Linda Way,McKinleyville CA 95519

YOUTH MEMBERSHIPS

Taylor Atwood, 15104 Gillaspie Rd,Wamego KS 66547

Carson Donoho Bayless, 7955 N 73rdSt, Longmont CO 80503

Renee Brockish, 304 Walnut, Wa­mego KS 66547

Brittany Chasser, 13318 WoodlaneDr, Wamego KS 66547

Nikki Clayton, 4255 Blue Run Rd, StGeorge KS 66535

Hannah Cockerill, 305 Oakview Ct,St George KS 66535

Honesty Cohorst, 308 Vine, WamegoKS 66547

T. ,J. Collette, 131117th St, WamegoKS 66547

Jacob & Makenna DeHart, RR1 Box52A, Olsburg KS 66520

Kasey Delay, 702 Adam Dr, WamegoKS 66547

Hillary L. Dreher, PO Box 191,. Wamego KS 66457Brandon Falder, 3777 Pecan Dr, St

George KS 66535Jessica Fritz, 702 Locust, Wamego

KS 66547Rachel Hatfield, PO Box 33, Wamego

KS 66547Jana Havens, 15105 Elm Slough Rd,

Wamego KS 66547Brittney Hill, 600 Ash, Wamego KS

66547Chelsea Kay Hosfelt, 800 Bolderson

Blvd, Wamego KS 66547Catie Huston, 409 Vine St, Wamego

KS 66547Russell Jackson, 16540 Cameron

Circle, Wamego KS 66547Drew Jacobson, 409 Redwood Dr,

Wamego KS 66547Krisa Johnson, 300 Spruce, Wamego

KS 66547Candace Judd, 1455 Pearl Dr, Junc­

tion City KS 66441Devin Kesl, 6230 Hopkins Creek Rd,

Wagon Tracks

St George KS 66535Jonathan Lagerquist, 104 Warnow

Circle, Wamego KS 66547Sydney Lippman, 706 Country Club

Circle, Wamego KS 66547Sabrina Martin, 3866 Chestnut, St

George KS 66535Jennifer McFarlin, 14875 Lake

Crossing Rd, Wamego KS 66547Saige Morris, 105 E Valley St #23,

Wamego KS 66547Jacob Mueller, 4825 Auburn Dr,

Wamego KS 66547Marshall Musser, 12335 Woodland

Dr, St George KS 66535Shamus Neel, 105 Wilson Circle,

Wamego KS 66547Stephanie Neilsen, 19200 Marten

Rd, Wamego KS 66547Susan Overstreet, 422 Redbud Dr,

Junction City KS 66441Jennie Parker, 5770 Prairie View

Rd, Wamego KS 66547Olivia Parrish, 1703 Lilac Lane,

Wamego KS 66547Elizabeth Pitts, 3811 Butternut Dr

#53, St George KS 66535Kendall Poe, 16580 Cameron,

Wamego KS 66547Callie Price, 4440 Tuttle Creek Blvd

#305, Manhattan KS 66502Stephen Reavis, 15055 6th St Rd,

Wamego KS 66547Erica Smith, 206 Second, St George

KS 66535Melissa Sterrett, 38973 Paxico Rd,

Paxico KS 66526Lynsi Stutzman, 614 Broadway,

Belve KS 66407Lucas Swoyer, 13312 Cedarwood Dr,

St George KS 66535Storm Sebbutt, 4140 Rockenham Rd,

St George KS 66535Megan Thoman, 1689 Rust Rd, Con­

cordia KS 66901Jordan Umscheid, 1360 Forrester

Rd, Wamego KS 66547Evan Whetzel, 2309 K St, Belleville

KS 66935John White, 10850 Onaga Rd,

Wamego KS 66547Kevin White, 10850 Onaga Rd,

Wamego KS 66547Cassie Wolf, 4824 Auburn Dr,

Wamego KS 66547Dallas Wright, 1227 Colorado, Man­

hattan KS 66502Amy Yenze, 3545 Wilson Circle, St

George KS 66535

NOTICEDEADLINE FOR NEXT ISSUE

JULY 1, 2003YOUR COOPERATION APPRECIATED

31

31

: Wagon Tracks. Volume 17, Issue 3 (May, 2003)

Published by UNM Digital Repository, 2003

---------------------------------------[__....;.T.;.;,RA~IL....;.C;.;.A~L;,;;,EN;.;.D;.;A;.;.R~__I

Everyone is invited to send no­tices for this section; provide loca­tion, date, time, and activity. This isa quarterly. The next issue shouldappear in August, so send informa­tion for September and later to ar­rive by July 1, 2003. Thank you.Dates of additional events may befound in chapter reports.June 6, 2003: Santa Fe Trail Dazetour sponsored by Cimarron Heri­tage Center, Boise City, OK; call(580) 544-3479 for information andreservations.June 6-8, 2003: Celebration of Trailhistory by the City of Trinidad, CO,and the Santa Fe Trail Museumthere.June 7-8, 2003: Prairie Days at theMaxwell Wildlife Refuge, 6' miles'north or Canton, KS.June 14, 2003: First Fort Day atFort Union, call (505) 425-8025 fordetails.June 14, 2003:- Springer, NM, 1:00p.m., dedication for Santa Fe TrailInterpretive Center & Museum, aNational Scenic Byway project.June 14-15, 2003: Six WesternChapters gathering, Santa Fe, NM.For information call (505) 473-3124or (505) 244-7608.June 20-23, 2003: Old Spanish TrailAssociation annual Conference,Durango, CO.July 5, 2003: National FrontierTrails Museum, Independence, MO,2:00 p.m., special program "Saca­gawea: Images of the Last Frontier"presented by Dianne Moran.July 12, 2003: WetlDry Routes

Symposium 2003Independence/Kansas my MO~ Jrf(Jftway CBetween !Nations"

september 25,26,27,28Join us for a tour of

The Mahaffie Stagecoach Stopand Farm in Olathe, Kansas

Registration Assistant - Mary Conrad

Chapter, 6:30 p.m. at Clapsaddle's inLarned. Bring a dish to share.July 15,2003: Deadline for mail bal­lots for SFTA officers & board.July 19,2003: End of Trail Chapterfield trip to Los Trigos Ranch nearPecos River.July 20, 2003: Fort Union's annualCultural Encounters on the Santa FeTrail, with program by Bill Gwalt­ney on Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Un­IOn.Aug. 2,2003: Las Vegas, NM, CCHPPlaces with a Past tour, call (505)425-8803 for tickets.Aug. 2-3, 2003: Summer festival andfrontier days, EI Rancho de lasGolondrinas, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., featur­ing Peruvian Paso horses, mountainmen, soldiers, and traders.Aug. 10-16, 2003: aCTA NationalConvention, Manhattan, KS.Aug. 17, 2003: Corazan Chapterfield trip to see Trail ruts, hosted byDaniels Family; meet at 10:00 a.m.at the Kruse'N Cafe, Wagon Mound.Sept. 11-12, 2003: Fort Riley, KS,

Along the Westport Cut-off1858 to 1870

special program commemorating150th anniversary of the post.Sept. 20, 2003: tentative date forfirst membership meeting ofCARTA.Sept. 21, 2003: Corazan Chapterfield trip to Rayado; meet at Kit Car­son Museum in Rayado at 1:00 p.m.Sept. 24, 2003: SFTA board meet­ing, Kansas City, MO.Sept. 25-28, 2003: SFTA Sympo­sium, Kansas City, MO.

FROM THE EDITOREverything is shaping up for a

great symposium in September, andI hope to see you there. Early copy isneeded for the August issue, soplease have everything here by July1. Material received after that datewill appear in the November issue.

Because of space (and this is alarge issue), several items are car­ried over for November. Spend sometime this summer on the Trail.

Happy Trails!-Leo E. Oliva

Santa Fe Trail Association • • • • NONPROFIT ORGANIZATlON•PO Box 31 I( r- ~r-.) u.s. POSTAGE

~ ~rT!~Woodston, KS 67675 PAID

Change Service RequestedPERMIT NO. 2

WOODSTON KS 67675

32 Wagon Tracks May 2003

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