--- 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: 33 number: 8 published: 1930-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Carter E. Grant, “Bridger’s Indian Wife Dies,” *Improvement Era* 33, no. 8 (June 1930): 555–557." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3308unse 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: improvementera3308unse start_page: 555 end_page: 557 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1930-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3308unse publication_year: 1930 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 1930, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Bridger’s Indian Wife Dies Briber's Indian Wife Dies By CARTER E. GRANT This is the seventh of a series of frontier narratives written by Carter E. Grant, Principal of the Jordan Seminary, — The Editors BEFORE the close of the Salt Lake rendezvous on the Weber, 1826, as we have already learned, Jim Bridger had proved himself a formidable In- dian fighter. After his discovery of the Salt Lake in 1824, he stead- ily forged ahead, but due to his "tender years," being but twenty when he first saw the Inland Sea, he found that "breaking-in" with the group of financial promoters was a bit slow; for Jim possessed neither education nor money, while the "head-lodgers," such as Gen- eral Ashley, Jedediah S. Smith, Fitzpatrick, Sublette and the oth- ers, had both. History tells us that while Jim was still a blacksmith at St. Louis, before joining Ashley's men in his eighteenth year, he had become ex- pert with the rifle; and now, after four years of constant practice, it is stated, he drew a deadly aim with gun and pistol. He had be- come an obedient soldier, but when placed upon his own resources, be- came a fearless antagonist, crafty at warfare, and was seldom out- generaled in the wilderness. This sort of half-brother to the red man came to be known as their fiercest foe in a conflict, but their staunchest friend in peace. Setting aside all differences with his moun- tain neighbors, Jim married freely of their maidens, and at one time was proclaimed the "Blanket Chief" of the Crow Nation. JrOR a period of twen- ty-three years, 1824-1847, until the coming of the "Mormons," no other mountain-man among the many hundreds, if not thousands, visiting the Rockies, possessed the confidence of as many Indian tribes as did Bridger. The Flatheads, Snakes and Utes, and possibly the Blackfeet as well gave him wives. Some writers claim, however, that although he had several wives, he did not have more than one at a time. Being so intimate with In- dians, he soon learned that the savage mind was exceedingly alert at detecting the slightest crook in a trade or deceit in trifles; hence, by his accuracy in dealing with them he received a reputation among them for justice. It seems peculiar that the tribes who fought him one day would on the next come smoking the pipe of peace and offer to trade. If any excep- tion occurred to this rule, it lay with the crafty and treacherous Blackfeet with whom few white men could remain on terms of peace. Seemingly Bridger was able not only to interpret the savage's tongue, but his wily mind as well. It is said he could detect the very first signs of counterfeit friend- ship or duplicity; accordingly he never failed at cutting the fuse when it first sparked, thereby es- caping the scalping knife which he often saw reach the hair of his less sagacious companions. 1 0 Jim, the moun- tains, from first to last, possessed a rare attraction — constantly stir- ring up his curiosity. Having gained the summit of one lofty ridge, he just as eagerly sought the mystery lying beyond the next. It seems that this inborn inquisitive- ness for nature's wild abodes be- came Jim's dynamo, converting the unknown into the known, fairly driving him at the head of his men into the "valley of death," and offering little reward but the satisfaction of having been there or having seen it. Thus he became not only a trapper but a discoverer and explorer as well. Aj Nc OT many generations ago,' where you now sit, encircled with all that exalts and embellishes c/u- ilized life, * * * lived and loved another race of beings. * * * Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless. * * * Here they worshiped; and from many a dark bosom went up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. — "The Indians," by Charles Sprague. lS we learned in our last article, General Ashley, having received an independent fortune from the beaver chase, sold his trapping interests to Jedediah Smith, Fitzpatrick and Jackson signing the papers July 26, 1826, by "the Grand Lake beyond the Rockies," and moved to St. Louis, leaving the mountains forever. He did, nevertheless, return to the Sweetwater the next year with a great train of supplies for the trap- pers. It was this year, 1827, that Ashley sent a wheeled cannon to the Salt Lake rendezvous, it being the first wheeled vehicle to enter the Rockies. Some writers have erroneously sent this famous "four pounder" to Utah Lake, but we know now that there was no fort erected on Utah Lake and that the cannon remained west of Ogden, Ashley coming, because of sickr ness, only as far as the Sweetwater. In a letter to General A. Mocomb, he says, "In the month of March, 1827, I fitted out a party of 60 men, mounted a piece of artillery (a four-pounder) on a carriage which was drawn by two mules; the party marched to or near the Grand Salt Lake beyond the Rocky Mountains, remaining there one month, stopped on their way back fifteen days, and returned to Lex- ington in the western part of Mis- souri in September, where the party was met with everything necessary for another expedition, and did return, using the same horses and mules, to the mountains by the last of November in the same year." Thus has Doctor Hale cleared up part of the mystery of the cannon, but as to just when or where it was used, we are still at a loss. 556 (Illustration by courtesy Union Pacific R. R.) It was around this lake in the Jackson Hole country that Jim with his Indian wife "pursued the beaver with feverish anxiety, surviving on trails where others perished." Wi E are told that when General Ashley left the moun- tains, that Jim was pinched with a gnawing homesickness, for which we cannot blame him; think of it, four years on the frontier leading the life of a trapper week after week, year after year, heat, cold, hail or rain. Here he found no abodes of shelter except his own lodge or those of his mountain friends. Little wonder that he soon led a dark-eyed damsel of the Rockies to his camp, bestowing upon her the honor of becoming his "lodge supervisor." We are told that these dusky maids hon- ored their white chiefs, reverenc- ing them as their lords, perform- ing all the camp duties that the trapper had heretofore accepted as his lot. W ITH Ashley gone, Bridger and a large group of men turned energetically and rather fruitfully, toward the free trap- ping trade; thus they entered the territory of the Utes, Bannock, and many a hornet-nest of Blackfeet; onward they pushed through Crow and Gros Ventre hunting grounds, pursuing the beaver with feverish anxiety, surviving on trails where others perished, and so broad was their course that they visited prac- The Improvement Era for June, 1930 top of some of the packs were perched several half-breed children, perfect little imps, with wild black eyes glaring from among elf locks. These, I was told were children of the trappers; pledges of love from their squaw spouses in the wilderness." r ARKMAN, also, in the "Oregon Trail" speaking of these mountain trappers says, They soon camped by our side. Their rifles, dingy and battered with hard service, rested with ours against the old tree; their strong rude saddles, their buffalo robes, their traps and their few rough and simple articles of their travel- ing equipment were piled near our tent. Their mountain horses turned to graze in the meadows among our own; and the men themselves, no less rough and hardy, used to lie half the day in the shade of our trees, lolling on the grass, laz- ily smoking, and telling stories of their adventures; and I defy the annals of chivalry to furnish the record of a life more wild and perilous than that of a Rocky Mountain trapper." One of Bridger's wives, sup- posed to be his first, at least the first one bearing him children of record, was the daughter of a Flat- head chief. Her children were Felix and Josephine, both of whom were sent to school at St. Louis. After the Civil War broke out, Felix enlisted, 1863, in Com- pany L, Second Missouri Artillery, under General Totten. With the close of the struggle he joined Colonel Custer in some of his In- dian campaigns, but was not pres- ent when Custer and his two hun- dred twelve men were butchered by the Sioux. Felix died on the Bridger farm, Missouri, 1876. The mother of these two children took sick at Fort Bridger and died, 1846, the year before the "Mor- mon" pioneers reached the moun- tains. These half-breeds at that time were about eight and ten re- spectively. The mother was buried by the tribe in royal Indian fash- ion. Of such a death Parkman writes, "A complete stillness suc- ceeded;— then the Indians raised in concert their cries of lamenta- tion over the corpse, and among them Shaw, the white visitor, clearly distinguished those strange sounds resembling the word 'Hal- lelujah— Hallelujah,' which, to- gether with some other accidental tically every valley, and climbed nearly every summit of the entire west. Through Bridger's keen ob- servation, seemingly a gift of his, the wilderness was stamped, map- like, upon his mind, and he came to possess an unerring talent for knowing routes and places; more- over, it is declared, that he knew boulders and trees as cattlemen nowadays know brands and steers. Before the "Mormon" pioneers came flocking by the thousands to the mountains, Bridger had be- come as wild and rugged as the mountains among which he lived. As most of his men possessed In- dian women and children, they in true Indian fashion carried with them all their belongings, wife, lodge, children, trapping outfits, horses, etc. In Washington Irv- ing's "Captain Bonneville" we get a splendid view of Bridger and some of his companions, ."We re- member to have seen them with their band passing through a skirt of woodland, — their long caval- cade stretching for nearly a half a mile. Sublette still wore his arm in a sling. (He was wounded in a fight in Pierre Hole, July 18, 1832.) The mountaineers in their rude hunting dresses, armed with rifles and roughly mounted, and leading their pack horses down a hill of the forest, looked like ban- ditti returning with plunder. On The Improvement Era for June, 1930 557 coincidences has given rise to the absurd notion that the Indians are descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel." When the time for burial ar- rived, all the relatives of the dead woman brought forth presents, which, even to her horse, were buried by her side, after which ihe Indians mourned many days. Naturally believers in the Book of Mormon will not view these as "accidental coincidences." Park- man writes further: "Thus they passed the greater part of the night. At times the fire would subside into a heap of embers, until the dark figures seated around it were scarcely visible; then a squaw would drop upon it a piece of buf- falo-fat, and a bright flame, in- stantly springing up, would reveal the crowd of wild faces." To complete the ceremony, came the feasts, and, soon a nice group of well-grown plump dogs lay be- fore the chief's fire, for him and his guests, while the other savages prepared their own kettles, some- times scantily supplied. When all was ready at the chief's tent, an Indian squaw to begin the cere- mony hammered one of the fuzzy quadrupeds over the head, at least until the yelping ceased, then grab- bing it by a hind leg, quickly swung it to and fro through the blaze singeing the hair off, or the greater part of it, and before it had ceased kicking dropped its blistered body by her side while she com- pleted the customary rites for the others. This done, several squaws unsheathed their knives and soon the dripping pieces of flesh were in the boiling pot. Parkman con- tinues, "As a dog-feast is the greatest compliment a red man can offer to his guest; and, knowing that to refuse eating would be an affront, we attacked the little dogs, devouring them before the eyes of their unconscious parents." I HAVE previously mentioned that Hugh Glass was almost killed by a grizzly, and I promised to relate the story later. I shall quote from Henry Howe's book, "Historical Collections of the Great West," also from Nei- hardt, "The Splendid Wayfaring," using their stories without further reference. "Bridget' and Fitzpatrick, while rid- ing nfar the forks of the river two hours since, had pushed through a mulberry (Illustration by courtesy Union Pacific R. R-) Felix and Josephine with their mother, a daughter of a Flathead Chief, trailed Weber Canyon with Jim Bridger long before the Iron Horse or power plants were dreamed of in the West, thicket near a spring and had come sud- denly upon old Glass lying as though dead, with a bloody hunting knife be- side him. Not far away lay the car- cass of a grizzly bear. The old man's face was 'all scraped off,' as Bridger put it. It was evident that the old hunter had been taken by surprise and had not been able to 'set his trigger,' for the gun was still loaded and the great gashes in the bear's neck, chest and belly showed how Hugh had fought. Doubtless he had dismounted to drink at the spring, and his horse, terrified by the grizzly had bolted. 'We tried to put him on a horse,' said Bridger, 'but he screamed, though he didn't seem to know nothing; and so Fritz said he'd stay with the old man while I rode back to give you the word.' "It was, of course, impractical to move the whole party on to the forks at that late hour, so the major sent two men back with Bridger to watch over Glass until the main body should come up next day. It was commonly believed in camp that night that the old man was 'done for, but when the party ar- rived at the forks next morning, he was still living, though unconscious. What should be done? It was impossible to move him ; and certainly the two hundred men could not be delayed indefinitely while one man decided whether or not he was going to die. Finally two men were induced by the offer of a liberal reward to remain with the wounded man until he could be placed on a horse or under the ground." It is stated on rather reliable authority that the younger of the men left by Major Henry was the blacksmith Jim, then but eighteen years of age. As this was near the spot where Jed Smith and Baptiste had killed and scalped three Ree Indians not so many nights before, staying alone with a dying man was no enviable job. Then, too, it was learned that the Indians were near and at any moment might discover their hiding place. Finally the older man, a French- Canadian, fully sensing their dan- ger, saddled up his horse and also Glass's. Returning to the written account we read: "The main body, impatient at the de- lay, struck out for the Yellowstone. Ill luck still followed Henry and Ashley. A large war party thought to be Gros Ventres swooped down upon the men. During the brisk fight that followed, four trappers were killed and several horses were wounded. "During the evening of the day of the battle, the two men who had been left to watch over old Glass, rode into camp, and the saddle of the horse they led was empty. They said they had remained at the forks four days; then the old man had 'gone under' and had been decently 'juried. They had brought all his 'fixin's' iway with them, including gun, blanket, powder-horn, knife, and flint and steel. The story they brought occasioned no surprise. Many spoke kindly of the dead that night, remembering much good of the graybearded old hunter — how cool he had been in the Ree fight, the droll things he had said on such and such occasions, feats of strength he had performed when a keelboat had grounded on a bar, and many lesser matters such as make men love men. (Continued from page 563)