--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Grant, Carter E. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 32 number: 12 published: 1929-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Carter E. Grant, “Jim Bridger Encounters Red Men,” *Improvement Era* 32, no. 12 (October 1929): 1018–1024." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera32012unse 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: improvementera32012unse start_page: 1018 end_page: 1024 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1929-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera32012unse publication_year: 1929 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 1929, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Jim Bridger Encounters Red Men Jim Bridger Encounters Red Men By Carter E. Grant, Principal of the Jordan Seminary (Note: This is the fourth of a scries of frontier narratives written by the same author. The former articles were: "In the Death Grip of the Grizzly," "On the Trail Ahead of the 'Mormons,' " and "When Jed met the Comanchcs." The next article will be "The First White Man to see the Great Salt Lake.") It is said that "Buffalo Bill' (Col- onel William F. Cody) was first intro- duced to the Wild West by "Moun- tain Jim," as Buffalo Bill later re- ferred to James Bridger. He stated that Bridger knew the western portion of the United States better than any other man of his time. As if to par- take of the wilderness atmosphere in its fullest extent and of savage life in particular, Jim married at least three dusky maidens, first, a Flathead; second, a Ute; and third, a trim damsel, daughter of a Snake chief. Colonel Frank Triplett, in "Con- quering the Wilderness," declares that this white chief, Bridger, also possessed a Blackfoot squaw, a mountain house- wife or lodge supervisor; for during Bridger's days "not a few of the trap- pers followed the Indian custom of taking a plurality of wives, and such bold mountain men as Jim found no difficulty in obtaining for themselves the pick of the chief's daughters." Reverend Samuel Parker, who with Dr. Marcus Whitman arrived on the Green River as missionaries to the Indians twelve years ahead of the "Mormon" migration, writes, "in this place I parted with Captain Bridger and his party who went northeast in- to the mountains to their hunting grounds. The first chief of the Flat- heads and his family (including Bridg- er's wife) , with a few of his people, went with Captain Bridger." Twelve years later, 1847, when the "Whit- man Massacre" occurred on the Colum- bia River, one of the granddaughters of this Flathead chief, "Mary Ann Bridger," then eleven years old, was attending the mission school conducted by Whitman and his wife, the half- breed girl having been sent there to be educated in the white man's ways. One of Bridger's daughters, Virginia, by a Ute mother, born in the mountains at Fort Bridger on July 4, 1849, was still well and hearty, October, 1924, when the picture was taken, found on page 476 of "James Bridger" by Alter. She was then living on her farm near Kansas City, Mo. While the interest in matrimony is still fresh, let us read Col. Triplett's narrative regarding one of Bridger's wives. The adventurous lover, it seems, was surrounded and made pris- oner, but due to the shrewdness of his dusky sweetheart, the warriors with their threatening hatchets were turned from the empty lodge of their escaped prisoner. Here follows the singular tale: "Bridger's visit to the village had been made for the sake of a bright- eyed and handsome young squaw, who had returned with interest the sudden affections of the young white trapper. When he was taken captive to the lodge, she at first determined to hasten to the blockhouse and notify his com- rades so that they might demand his re- lease, but fearing an attack in which some of her relations might be killed, and during which her lover would cer- tainly be assassinated, she chose the wiser course of endeavoring to effect his release herself. "This she felt would be an easy matter when she found that owing to a division of counsels the discussion would be prolonged until late in the night. Making her way as noiselessly Oct.. 1929 JIM BRIDGER ENCOUNTERS RED MEN 1019 as possible toward the lodge, she dis- covered a sentinel posted before its door. Crouching almost to the earth, she crept away, and from another quarter crawled to the back of the tent, where, after satisfying herself that she had not been seen or heard by the warrior on guard, she cut a long slit in the buffalo skin curtain and entered the lodge. Here she found Bridger tugging away at his bonds, and plac- ing her hand over his mouth to pre- vent an exclamation, she cut the raw- hide thongs and motioned for him to follow her. "Slowly and silently they emerged from the tent and stole away from the village, and here, after some counsel as to the best way to avoid the sentinels and pursuit that would soon be made, she left him. Before parting, however, she agreed that whether there was peace or war between her people and his, she would meet him in a certain grove of pinions at the base of a distant peak which she pointed out. 'After one hundred moons (mean- ing days) , I will meet you there,' she said; then holding her to his breast a moment, the trappper tore himself away and vanished down the steep cliffs. When out of sight, the Black- foot maiden stole leisurely back into the village and was soon slumbering in her paternal lodge. The sequel to this little romance was Bridger's marriage, after the Indian fashion, with the young squaw, who was afterward able to render many favors and benefits to the white men. "As the fall drew on, his brother trappers noticed that Bridger was look- ing ahead to some important event, and keeping a notch-stick with unusual assiduity, and at last when this was pretty nearly filled with the triangular marks, Bridger saddled his horse, and leading another, set out for the moun- tains, bearing toward a certain tower- ing peak that loomed up above its fel- lows like Saul amongst his brother Israelites. On the fifth day after start- ing out, Bridger came into camp, fol- lowed by his Blackfoot bride, his horses evidently having seen quite a hard time, but the young people looked radiant and happy." We are told that when it was neces- sary to match the savages tricky maneuvering, Jim could move as slyly as the most wily moccasined red man; still, given an opportunity for open war-fare, he invariably proved him- self as fearless. Each mode of war procedure, so Bridger found, was a necessary prerequisite to the mountain- man's preservation. Men, yes, brave and strong! But those coming into the western wilderness and refusing, "Braddock-like," to learn to scrim- mage among trees, rocks and bushes, soon forfeited their scalps to the thirsty Blackfeet or the deceitful Utes, who, after stripping their victims naked, very often mutilated the bodies. Of such an outrage on the Oregon Trail, William S. Brackett in "Bonneville and Bridger" writes, "The last Sun- day in June was a bright and peaceful day. Our men were cleaning up their arms, saddles and equipment. Quite a number of our best shots had gone off into the hills hunting. There was no thought of Indians, for no Indians had been seen by us for many days. Late in the afternoon as the men were starting the fires to cook supper, we saw a strange white man riding toward our camp in hot haste. Down the valley he swiftly came, until he was stopped by one of our outpost guards who rode forward to meet him. After a short parley his tired horse came galloping to our camp. " 'Indians! Indians!' he shouted as he threw himself off his horse and came up to our officer. The man re- ported that his camp five miles back to the eastward, on the ground we passed over the day before, had been attacked and that two men were killed. A few questions were asked him by Bridger (who was guiding our com- 1020 IMPROVEMENT ERA Oct.. 19>9 pany) and then the bugle rang out boots and saddles.' "Twenty picked men, under a ser- geant, were ordered to proceed at once to the scene of the tragedy. Several others were permitted to accompany the force, one of our federal judges and myself among the number. James Bridger was ordered to go along also, and carefully to observe all Indian signs and to make a report to our com- mander. "We learned from the strange man as we rode along that his wagon train of twelve or fifteen wagons had been straggling along the trail in single line, and that when the rear wagon was far behind and out of sight, a war party of Indians had suddenly swooped down upon it, had killed both men and had run off with the team of horses. "After a hard gallop of some five miles, we came up with the emigrants in camp. The wagons were parked in a circle with their horses and fires inside, and armed men marched about on guard. "I was riding with Bridger over a long hill when we came upon the wagon that had been attacked, and the horribly mutilated bodies of the two men. About a hundred yards from the wagon on the trail we came first to the body of an old man. At the in- stant of attack he had probably jumped out and run toward the other far off wagons. He was shot through the back and his head was fairly chopped to pieces with tomahawks, and the axe taken from the wagon lay beside him, covered with blood. His body was filled with arrows, and he was scalped and horribly mutilated. "Bridger calmly dismounted, knelt on the ground and closely examined the footprints around the body. Then he pulled three arrows from the old man's corpse and closely examined them. 'Arapahoes and Cheyennes,' he said, as he followed the blood creases on the arrows with critical eyes. Upon going to the wagon they found the young man lying dead upon the ground, "Three bullets had pierced his body, and he was also scalped and mutilated. A dozen arrows bristled horribly upward from his prostrate corpse. With fiendish malignity the savages had cut off his ears, nose, and the fingers of his left hand, and laid them on his body. Both eyes were obliterated and other dreadful brutal- ities had been enacted which are sim- ply unspeakable. All around on the ground the Indians had scattered rice, flour, coffee and sugar in their hasty plundering of the wagons. Of course, they carried off both, horses." Then because they completely vanished, the marauders remained unpunished, wait- ing in gleeful anticipation among hid- den ravines and swales, thirsting for more plunder, always catching the stragglers. Thus moved the daily pro- gram of the West, even as late as 1862, when this tragedy occurred. iNow as to Bridger's early life: James Bridger was born in Richmond, Va., March YL 1 ftQf^and was the third child. There were two boys and one girl. Eight years later, 1812, with his parents and brother and sister, he was caught in the tide of the prevailing western movement. Jim was swept down to St. Louis, a thriving trading Jpost of some fifteen hundred people on the very outskirts of civilization. Here, indeed, thrived a restless heterogeneous group, representing every walk of life, farmers, traders, trappers, lawyers and outlaws; negroes free, negro slaves and slave-drivers; Indians and half-breeds, orthodox and heterodox, and not a few other classes, all inordinately twisted into the frontier city of the West. It seems that these Missourians were half brothers to the slave holders of New Orleans, the strata of humanity that annoyed and vexed the broad-minded Lincoln when, a quarter of a century later, he drifted down the Mississippi. From St. Louis, in 1827, went the original "land stakers" of Jackson County, Missouri, and the village of Independence in particular. They Oct.. 1929 JIM BRIDGER ENCOUNTERS RED MEN 1021 owned the "Temple Site" and the "Place of the New Jerusalem" when Joseph the Prophet arrived in 1831, and received the following revelation: "Hearken, O ye elders of my church, saith the Lord your God, who have assembled yourselves together, accord- ing to my commandments, in this land, which is the land of Missouri, which is the land which I have appointed and consecrated for the gathering of the Saints. Wherefore this is the land of promise and the place for the city of Zion. * * * Behold the place which is now called Independence is the center place; and a spot for the temple is lying westward, upon a lot which is not far from the courthouse." Doc. and Cov. 57:1-3. Accordingly on Aug. 3, 1831, eight men gathered west of the courthouse, and as George Q. Cannon writes it, "The prayer of dedication was offered by the Prophet himself; and his prom- ises and supplications to heaven upon that spot have sanctified it for time, and while earth shall endure." One can imagine the reckless curiosity aroused among the villagers regarding the "Mormon" claims: "the land of their inheritance," "the place of the New Jerusalem," "the site of the great temple." Of the difficulties three years later and the expelling of twelve hun- dred "Mormons," we shall have some- thing to add in another narrative. It might be well to note here, however, that James Bridger was one year older than Joseph Smith and three years younger than Brigham Young, and seemingly not altogether a stranger to "Mormonism" when he met Brigham Young in the Rockies in 1847. The Bridger family with many others partook of this restless urge which, during the first half of the nine- teenth century, fairly thrust men onto the frontier, pushing them into the most distant nooks, scattering them from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Even the story of the "Mormon" Church, itself, during the second quarter of the century is a thrilling narration of a "young nation" on the move! Think of it, this whole body of religious wor- shipers living in five different states in seventeen years, and ending in the Rocky Mountains, two thousand miles west of its original home, New York State. Within six years after the Bridgers reached St. Louis, misfortune struck them, sweeping away father, mother, brother and sister, leaving the fourteen- year-old "Jim" a full fledged orphan, alone in the world, "Ruth and Naomi" like, only he lacked the persuading in- vitation of returning to his kindred. Seemingly, nevertheless, he soon fell upon good gleaning with his "Boaz," the town blacksmith. Here by the straining bellows, the glowing forge and ringing anvil, he hammered out the beginning of his later success. Ac- cepting his responsibility, Jim rose un- der its pressure. Although he received no schooling, learning neither to read nor write, a common thing in his home town, still he mastered his trade as many times testified to by "broken down" outfits, reaching his fort on the Green River. During Jim's four years at his trade, rough men of the wilderness, lounging about the shop, spun off western stories by the yard, always ending in victory, coming with boats laden with yellow furs, bringing home fortunes! "Why hammer away at the hot, smoky an- vil," he reasoned, "when the great West is calling?" Such seeds, abun- dantly nourished in fertile soil, were soon blooming. Then came his chance! In the Missouri Republican of March 20, 1822, there appeared this notice: "To enterprising young men. The subscriber wishes to engage one hundred young men to ascend the Mis- souri river to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years. For particulars inquire of Major An- drew Henry, near the lead mines in the county of Washington, who will ascend with and command the party; or of the subscriber near St. Louis. Signed, William H. Ashley." 1022 IMPROVEMENT ERA Oct.. 1929 Enough said! Off went the leather apron. Down fell the tools. The tall, broad-shouldered, eighteen- year-old Jim was ready, and from that day until death closed his wanderings, more than fifty years later, the West afforded him a roomy playground. (Bridger died four years after Brigham Young.) The young blacksmith acted none too soon, for already the necessary one hundred men had applied. Jedediah S. Smith, of whom we have been read- ing, reached St. Louis too late, and was forced to wait over and go with Ashley the next spring. Of Bridger's long, perplexing jour- ney up the Missouri, tugging overtime at the "cordelle line," dragging the heavy keel boats some three weeks be- fore Jed Smith, their future comrade and leader, had set foot upon the St. Louis landing (coming from Ohio) , these hundred men, with two keel boats loaded with trapping supplies and goods for the Indian trade, had begun the long ascent of the Missouri under the leadership of Major Henry. Gen- eral Ashley had accompanied them, in- tending to ascend to the mouth of the Yellowstone and return to the States in the fall. Ill fortune, however, was not lacking. While still in the state of Missouri, one of the keel boats, heavily laden with valuable goods, had become unmanageable while crossing the tur- bulent stream and, drifting against a snag, was staved and sunk. No lives had been lost, but the cargo, valued at $10,000, had gone to the bottom." At the village of the Ree Indians near the mouth of the Grand river (South Dakota) , fifty horses recently purchased from the Rees, were stolen by "a band of Assiniboines that had no doubt been spying upon the Amer- icans for days, swooping down upon the impotent horse guards at a time when the main body with the keel boat had crossed to the opposite shore." Nearly a hundred well-armed men looked on helplessly, but being out of range could do nothing but curse the vexatious and troublesome savages, knowing that with the disappearing of the horses, heavier burdens were to fall upon them. We are told that flaring phrases, spouting like the roaring forge itself, shot from the lips of Jim, the blacksmith. This first drink from the cup of Red Man treachery, however, was not to be Jim's last. Right here began his persistent vigilance, and it was his eternal distrust of the Indian that destined his survival while many less observant companions fell. A few months later, as Neihardt pictures this group, "gaunt with toil and privations, long haired and bewhiskered, bronzed with sun and wind of the wilderness, and clad in half-savage garb," they ar- rived on the Yellowstone. Little did the trappers, then realize, that the majority of the crew had seen "for the last time the smoke of the home fires pluming skyward. Some were to disappear like yonder hearth- reek, leaving no hint of the manner of their passing; and others, (like Jim) bewitched by the wild life and the vast free spaces of the wilderness, would shed, as an uncomfortable coat, the in- heritance of the ages, lapsing into the primitive, never again to long for the snug comforts and predetermined ways of civilization." We are informed that in and around Fort Henry the stealthy, revengeful "Lamanites", rightfully possessing the hunting-grounds because of tribal occupancy of legendary date, made the way of the white visitors irk- some by day and hideous by night. Very often the returning boats, in place of being heaped with golden packs of peltries, were empty, and the repulsed trappers, bearing heavy losses in men and outfits, retreated precipi- tately, completely defeated. Jim's first blood-stained introduc- tion to western savagery, roaring guns and crashing tomahawks, was at Pry- or's Fork on the Yellowstone in the spring of 1823, when a surprise attack from the Blackfeet ended in the death and scalping of a number of trappers, including the group leaders, Messrs. Immel and Jones. Bridger seeing this Oct., 1929 JIM BRIDGER ENCOUNTERS RED MEN 1023 ghastly affair began to realize his own gamble with death, at the hands of a hidden enemy intensely real and seem- ingly always present. As the summer wore on, Major Henry began expecting the reenforce- ments under Ashley, for the general had returned to St. Louis, the fall be- fore, ready to bring the second hundred men in the spring. It was with this company that Jed Smith was now making his way toward the Yellow- stone. At the approach of a hundred more trappers, their horses and outfits, the red men sitting about their war- fires looked anxiously from one to an- other, cleaning rifles, polishing knives and tomahawks, and chatting more vigorously than usual. That they meant business of the rougher sort was certain, for "the Indian had spoken! The winding Missouri pathway must be closed!" But they did not know that the white man, also had spoken, and though hundreds perished on the trail today, as did Colonel Custer and his brave band, still tomorrow the number would be doubled, while other hundreds knocked at the western ticket office, eager to swing into the tide, piercing the frontier, skirting the streams and distant ridges, viewing the wonders of the unexplored Yellow- stone Park and pushing overland to the western sea. As one looks back on the race pil- grimage, flocking to the Atlantic sea- board, then through the gaps of the coast ranges, up the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence; down the Ohio and up the Missouri, the Platte and Arkansas; over the vast prairies and Rocky Moun- tains, checked only by the stretches of rolling waters beyond; one marvels at the dynamic curiosity impelling it all! Men at that time as well as today, craving the unknown, gambled their lives in unique and strange undertak- ings, seeking not the "three R's" but rather the "three G's" — "gold, God, and glory!" The driving force back- ing every discoverer from Columbus on down in history seems to lie within one or possibly two of these words. For which symbol did our Pilgrim fathers seek? What satisfied the greed of the Spaniards in America? Why did Jim Bridgcr come West? What brought the "Mormons," swarming like bees to the mountains? Be the passionate pursuit of trapper and explorer what it may, on their trail followed the pioneer and colonizer, the plow, the harrow and harvester. While Major Henry impatiently waited on the Yellowstone, General William H. Ashley and his men were being disastrously defeated by the Ree Indians, some two hundred miles be- low, near the mouth of the Cheyenne river (South Dakota). Neihardt in- forms us that after most of the "horses had been rolled" and many hired trap- pers had shamefully retreated, that Jedediah S. Smith and his fighting friends could hold out no longer. "De- serted by their comrades, with half their number either dead or wounded, they realized at last the folly of further resistance. Leaping into the river, they struck out after the boats. Some mis- calculating the strength of the current, were swept away and lost. Others of the wounded went down and were seen no more. Several were shot, as they swam, and disappeared." In a letter written two days after the battle to Major O'Fallon, Indian agent at Fort Atkinson, at the mouth of the Platte some four hundred mile; down stream where the wounded were carried in boats. Ashley set down for posterity the full story of his woes and his hatred of the red man. (South Dakota Collection, Vol. I, also refer- red to by H. C. Dale in "Ashley — Smith Explorati ns.") When Gen- eral Ashley got his men together, ex- plaining the dire need of immediate reenforcements from Henry, and called for volunteers, but one man stepped forward, that being the young "Chris- tian trapper," Jed Smith. Being Smith's first trip into the broken country, Ashlev prevailed upon an older head, a French-Canadian. Bap- 1024 IMPROVEMENT ERA Oct.. 1929 tiste, to accompany the American. anti-Indian equipment into the river Following four days of thrilling ex- boats, then, as soon as the messengers periences as Dale records it, and "un- swallowed their first warm meal in dergoing severe hardships and escaping days, the noisy crew, shouting an In- death, or worse, on several occasions, dian war-song, sped off toward the Smith and his companion finally battle. Although this was Smith and reached the post." Immediately the Brid8er s first )om™Y together, by no magnetic Jed had won the esteem of ™ans w*s " l° ,be *!" v ,, 5 , . „ , c , , knew not at that time that his monu- all and especially that of the lonesome ment wouJd be raised ^ honQr of his blacksmith, Jim, who for more than discovering "The Great Salt Lake;" a year had been in the wilderness. neither had it dawned upon the fearless While Henry and Jed and Jim con- Jed, that future generations would versed, eighty restless, if not reckless, praise him as the "Mightiest Trail- trappers, anxious for revenge, threw Breaker of the Rockies." Dawes Upholds Prohibition That colorful character, Charles G. Dawes, former vice-president of the United States and at present ambassador to Great Britain, is aiding President Hoover and the cause of prohibition and at the same time astonishing English officials by his peculiar attitude. During the World War General Dawes demon- strated his physical courage, and his moral courage is of the same order. In European countries wine is served at all official functions, but Dawes, defying precedent, calmly announced that visitors, whether calling in an official or private capacity, could expect no such refreshment. This unusual action, coming from so well known and original a man, seems to have caused more amusement than resentment. Now the vigorous ambassador has gone one step farther, according to an Associated Press report which says: Charles G. Dawes today was one of the central figures in a quaint English drinking custom, as guest of honor at a luncheon by the Travel Association of Great Britain and Ireland. General Dawes and about 200 other guests sat down at the hospitable board of the famous old Vintner's hall, which was built near the river Thames just after the great fire of London in 1666. The very name of the Vintner's savors of drinking and the flowing bowl, and there were plenty of both circulating at the luncheon today. Am- bassador Dawes abstained from them all, but he could not refrain from taking part in the ancient ceremony of passing a huge loving cup around the circle of guests. Filled with specially brewed sack, a large cup was handed to Lord Derby, who presided. He turned to General Dawes and drank the ambassador's health with due ceremony. The ambassador then was supposed to turn and drink to the health of the guest on his left, who was Lord Rirrell, well known London publisher. General Dawes accepted the cup, raised it, and then passed it along.