---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Nibley, Preston
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 17
number: 5
published: 1914-03
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Preston Nibley, "Jim Bridger, “Our First Citizen”—II," *Improvement Era* 17, no. 5 (March 1914): 429–434.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1705unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera1705unse
start_page: 429
end_page: 434
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-03)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1705unse
  publication_year: 1914
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1914, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Jim Bridger, “Our First Citizen”—II

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Jim Bridger, "Our First Citizen"
(Continued from the December Era, 19 13)
BY PRESTON NIBLEY
II
Towards the close of the year 1849, William Drannan, then
a young scout and trapper, asserts that he and a companion
found Jim Bridger "laying around" at Taos, New Mexico :
"We went to the house where Jim was boarding, and we found
him in one of his talkative moods. We asked him what he proposed
doing this winter; he said, 'I am going out trapping, and I want you
boys to go with me.'
"I asked him where he was going to trap, and he said he thought
lie would trap on the head of the Cache-la-Poudre (a stream a little
to the north of what is now Denver, Colorado), and the quicker we
went the better it would be for us. 'I have all the traps we will need
this winter,' he said; 'now you boys go to work and mold a lot of
bullets.' "
Thus from Drannan's account we get sight of our old hero
once more, and are able to follow him a number of years. We
learn that he trapped beaver during the winter of 1849-50 on the
Cache-la-Poudre, had good success, and in the spring departed
for Bent's Fort with his cargo of furs; says Drannan :
"Here we met Kit Carson, who had just returned from a trip back
east. Carson said to Bridger, 'Now, Jim, I'll tell you what I want you
to do. I want you and Will,' meaning me, 'to go over to Fort Kearney
and escort emigrants across to California this season, for the gold excitement back in the eastern states is something wonderful, and there
will be thousands of emigrants going to the gold fields of California,
and they do not know the danger they will have to contend with, and
you two men can save many lives this summer by going to Fort Kearney and meeting the emigrants there and escorting them through.
Many times you will seem to take your lives in your hands, for the
Indians will be worse on the plains this year than they have ever been.
I know, boys, you can get good wages out of this thing, and I want
you to take hold of it, and you, Jim, I know you have no better friend
than General Kearney, and he will assist you boys in every way he
can. I almost feel as though I ought to go myself, but cannot leave
my family at the present time; now, Jim, will you go?' Bridger
jumped up, rubbed his hands together, and said, 'I'll be dog-goned if I
won't — if Will goes with me.' "
I like to think of these knights of the plains, these minute
men in buckskin, these dauntless scouts and path-finders in the

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430 IMPROVEMENT ERA
Great West, ready on a moment's notice for any act of adventure
that would prove productive of a good result. They came and
they went at will. They seemed to bear a charmed life among
the dangers that surrounded them, constantly alert for wild
animals and savage tribes.
For two seasons, now, during 1850-51, I learn that Brid°-er
guided emigrants across the plains to California. His stipulation with the gold-seekers was that he receive $4.00 per day "pav
every Saturday night." That he bore out the predictions of Kit
Carson that he would save many lives, history amply shows. The
emigrants of those years, whose one thought centered on the yellow metal of California, were almost without exception entirely
ignorant of the dangers that might beset them on their long and
arduous journey to the West. The first train that engaged Brido--
er was traveling promiscuously, without a captain, without scout's
or guards. What he did for them is well illustrated by Drannan's further account :
"There were four hundred eighty-six men and ninety women in
the train, and they had one hundred and forty-eight wagons Everything moved smoothly until we were near the head of the North Platte
river We were now in the Sioux country, and I began to see plenty
of Indian signs. Jim and I arranged that a certain signal meant to
corral the wagons at once. As I was crossing the divide at the head
of the Sweetwater, I discovered quite a band of Indians coming
directly toward the train, but I did not think they had seen it yet I
rode back as fast as my horse could carry me. When I saw the train
I signalled to Jim to corral, and I never saw such a number of wagons
corraled so quickly, before or since, as they were. Jim told the women
and children to leave the wagons and go inside the corral, and he told
the men to stand outside with their guns ready for action, but to hold
their fire until he gave the word, and he said, 'When you shoot, shoot
to kill, and do your duty as brave men should.'
"In a moment the Indians were in sight, coming over the hill at
full speed. When they saw the wagons they gave the warwhoop. This
scared the women, and they began to cry and scream, and cling to
their children. Jim jumped up on a wagon tongue and shouted to the
top of his voice, 'For God's sake, women, keep, still, or you will all be
killed.' This had the effect that he desired, and there was not a word
or sound out of them. When the Indians were within a hundred
yards from us, their yelling was terrible to hear. Jim now said, 'Now,
boys, give it to them, and let the red devils have something 'to yell
about,' and I never saw men stand up and fight better than these emigrants.
"In a few minutes the fight was over, and what was left of the
Indians got away in short order. We did not lose a man, and only
one was slightly wounded. There were sixty-three dead warriors on
the field, and we captured twenty horses.
"It was six miles from here to the nearest water, so we had to
drive that distance to find a place to camp. We reached the camping
ground a little before sunset. After attending to the teams and sta°
tioning the guards for the night, Captain Davis came to Jim and me
and said, 'The ladies want to give you a reception tonight.' Jim said,
'What for?' Davis replied, 'Saving our lives from those horrible sav-

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JIM BRIDGER, "OUR FIRST CITIZEN" 431
ages.' Jim answered, 'Why, durn it all, ain't that what you are paying
us for? We just done onr duty and no more, and we intend to do it
all the way to California!'"
The above portrays in graphic style the life of our old
friend as a scout and guide. It shows that the Indian ways and
wiles were fully known to him ; and how easy it was for him to
face great danger unafraid.
Many and varied were the experiences of this and subsequent
trips. It is interesting to me that when Bridger arrived safely
with his company in Sacramento valley, he left them and turned
aga:n to the wilderness. The sight of civilization always discomforted him. Once, years later, he remarked to a friend in the
city of Denver that he did not like the "canyons of the cities,"
meaning the narrow streets with the high buildings on either
side. He was a path-finder, a forerunner of the home-builder ;
for all the West was his home, and he was at peace where he
chanced to find himself over night.
In the fall of this same year, after Bridger had safely
brought two trains of emigrants across the mountains to their
destination in California, he and young Drannan made their way,
by traveling nights and sleeping days, alone across what is now
the state of Nevada, central Utah and southern Colorado, (then
a hostile Indian country) to Taos, New Mexico. "On this
trip" says Drannan, "we traveled some twelve or fifteen hundred
miles, and we never saw a white person the whole way, and not
even the sign of one."
The following year, (1851) Bridger is heard of again at
Fort Kearney, looking for opportunity to guide emigrants to the
gold fields. He was readily engaged by the first train that came
along. His easy, pleasant manner and exact knowledge of all
conditions in the Indian country soon made him a favorite among
the people. Drannan relates several instances of how Bridger
amused the emigrants on this trip. The following one happened
on a day when the party had been successful in killing a number
of buffalo, and Bridger knew that with the coming on of night
coyotes would be attracted by the carcases :
"After we had finished supper Jim stood up, and in a loud voice
said, 'Ladies, how many of you can dance?' I think there were asmany as twenty-five who answered T can dance.' Jim said, 'All right:
cret ready, and after dark we will have lots of music' One of the men
asked, 'Where are you going to get your music?' Jim answered, 'Why,
dog-gon it. Will and Mr. Henderson have engaged a band to play for
us tonight.' And in a few moments the band struck up in a coyote
howl, and Jim laughed and said, 'There, didn't I promise you a band?
Isn't that music?' And from then on until midnight the howling never
ceased."
One lively adventure after another occurred on this trip.

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432 IMPROVEMENT ERA
In an encounter with Indians, several of the red warriors were
killed and scalped. Bridger thereupon showed the crowd how
the scalp dance was done, much to their alternating delight and
horror. In camp at Soda Springs he encouraged the people to
drink of the bubbling water, and then stood by and watched with
a smile the effect it had upon them. Friendly old Jim.
When the party neared Sacramento Valley, the end of its
long and arduous trip, Bridger and his companion explained that
their services were no longer needed and they would return
again to the wilds. Why did they not accompany these gold
seekers, and also make their homes in the land of sunshine and
flowers? They could not! The wild life of the hills, the great
solitude of the plains, was their home. They had heard the "Call
of the Wild" and they had answered. Can you see them? Can
you follow them? Two dusty, dirt-begrimed, buck-skin covered
travelers ; long and gaunt, their grey eyes searching the landscape, far and near ; their tired ponies plodding along over the
sagebrush-covered valleys and hills on that little journey of
fifteen hundred miles.
At this juncture I lose account of old Jim again for a number
of years, and have searched the records in vain for mention of
him. Not until 1856, the year of the sufferings of our belated
hand-cart pioneers, does his name appear, and this time in connection with our own people. President Young had looked upon
the old trapper's "Fort," on Black's Fork of Green River, as a
suitable base of supplies for emigrants, and in this year he
bargained with Bridger for the purchase of it. In one of our
Church records there is brief mention of the transaction :
"President Brigham Young purchased of James Bridger a Mexican
grant of thirty miles of land and some cabins known as Fort Bridger,
for which he paid $8,000 in gold; the deeds of this property are still in
his possession. He erected a stone fort and corrals for the protection
of animals, and made other improvements on the ranch, expending
about $8,000 more."
What our old scout did with so much money in the country
where he loved to roam is almost beyond my imagination. One
writer who gives no definite dates, probably not finding any, says
of Bridger, that "later in life he purchased a farm at Westport, a
suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, but finding farming intolerable
he returned to the mountains." I construe that his purchase must
have been made about this time.
In June, 1859, Captain Drannan asserts that he was with Kit
Carson and Jim Bridger at the Cherry Creek gold fields, in Colorado. Denver at the time comprised only a few cabins, but "it
was amazing," says Drannan, "to see the number of people that
were coming in there every day." It was with wonderment that

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JIM BRIDGER, "OUR FIRST CITIZEN" 433
Bridger regarded this scene. "Where in the name, of common
sense do all these people come from?" he is said to have remarked.
The wilderness was changing. A strange feeling it must
have given the man who had known it more than thirty years in
its natural, wild state. As it had been it was his home, but the
encroachments of civilization verily meant that all that had made
a life like his possible was passing away forever. Still he clung
to the West, and shifted scenes as often as it was necessary to
avoid the growing communities.
From the above period of time until the end of the trapper's
life I shall have to rely upon the acccount of Mr. Arthur
Chapman, published in the Outing Magazine. The facts have been
obscured from me, but were evidently well known to the writer.
Says Mr. Chapman:
"Bridger's greatest work as guide was done from 1865 through
the war with Red Cloud in 1866. He was chief guide of the Powder
river expedition, under General Conner, which penetrated the heart
nf the hostile Indian country with the idea of so punishing the savages that travel over the Overland and Bozeman trails would be
made safe.
"Bridger guided Colonel Carrington to the Powder river in 1866
when that intrepid commander built Fort Philip Kearney in the
very heart of the hunting ground of the great Sioux warrior, Red
Cloud. This mighty warrior kept Fort Kearney in a state of siege
for two years and made travel over the Bozeman trail a matter
of the greatest hazard.
"When the chief engineer of the Union Pacific had well nigh
given up hope of getting his rails across the Divide, it was Jim
Bridger who showed an available pass which he had traversed years
before in his trapping days, and the existence of which no other
white man knew.
"At one time Bridger sought to leave the wild, free life of the
West and settle down to a farmer's life. He bought a farm near
Kansas City, but soon the plains called him, and he turned his
face again toward the country he loved so well. It was not until hebegan to lose his eye-sight that the greatest' of trappers and guides
left the wilds, to return no more. In 1870 he retired to his farm and
waited for the end that was slow in coming. Almost totally blind he
would mount an old horse,, and, accompanied by a faithful dog,
would make the rounds of his farm. Sometimes he would wander
away and the dog would run back to the house and whine until somebody would go in search of his master. There is a world of pathos
in the thought of Bridger, once the keenest-eyed of men, thus groping
and helpless in his old age. The end of all came July 17, 1881."
I am told that a beautiful marble shaft, in the cemetery between Kansas Citv and Independence, Missouri, marks the resting place of our "old hero; that some years ago his body was
rescued from an unknown grave by admiring friends and lowered
a^ain amid ceremonies of respect and honor. Is it not a curious

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434 IMPROVEMENT ERA
coincidence that this old trapper, who was the first to spy out the
land where we now reside, has for his last resting place a silent
home within the confines of a land inseparably connected with
our hopes and aspirations?
That Jim Bridger was an exceptional man among the rude
horde of trappers with whom he associated for so many years, is
attested by all who knew him. Chittenden, in his book on the
Yellowtsone Park says :
"The common verdict of his many employers, from Robert Campbell down to Captain Reynolds, is that, as a guide, he was without an
equal. He was a born topographer. The whole West was mapped
out in his mind as an exhaustive atlas. Such was his instinctive sense
of locality and direction that he could 'smell his way' where he could
not see it."
In Gunnison's book on the "Mormons" there is this of
Bridger :
"The Builder of Fort Bridger is one of the hardy race of mountain trappers who are now disappearing from the continent, being
enclosed in the wave of civilization. These trappers have made a
thousand fortunes for eastern men, and by their improvidence have
nothing for themselves. Major Bridger, or 'Old Jim' has been more
wise of late and has laid aside a competence, but the mountain tastes,
fostered by twenty-eight years of exciting scenes, will probably keep
him there for life. He has been very active, and traversed the region
from the head waters of the Missouri to the Del Norte, along the Gila
(which Bridger called the 'Helee'), to the Gulf and thence throughout Oregon and the interior of California. His graphic sketches
are delightful romances."
Captain H. E. Palmer, who kept a record of General Connor's expedition to guard the Montana trail, for which Bridger
acted as guide, tells an interesting little story illustrating Bridger's
possession of the "plainsman's eye :"
"As I lowered my glass, the Major (Bridger) said, 'Do you see
those columns of smoke over yonder?' I replied 'Where, Major?' To
which he answered, 'Over there by that saddle,' meaning a depression
in the hills not unlike the shape of a saddle, pointing at the same
time to a point fully fifty miles away. I again raised my glass to my
eyes and took a long earnest look, but for the life of me could not
see any columns of smoke even with a strong field glass. The major
was looking without any artificial help. The atmosphere appeared to
he slightly hazy in the long distance, like smoke, but there were no
distinct columns of smoke in sight. But knowing the peculiarities of
my frontier friend I agreed with him that there were columns of
smoke and suggested that we had better get off our horses and let them
feed until the General came up. The General raised his glass and
scanned the horizon closely. After a long look he remarked that
there were no columns of smoke to be seen. The Major quietly
mounted his horse and rode on * * * I galloped on and over-