The Wilderness Breaker—Lisa Closes his Account—General Ashley Takes a Hand—The Religious Jedediah—Green River Valley—What a White Bear could Do—Ashley Navigates Red Canyon of Green River—Discovery of Salt Lake—Ashley Retires Rich—The Rocky Mountain Fur Company—Sylvester and James O. Pattie—Pattie's Journey in the Valley of the Colorado—The Great Circuit of Jedediah Smith.

As the third decade of the nineteenth century came in, the trappers and traders began more than ever to long for the conquest of the great mountain Wilderness, whose solemn front, ending the wide rolling plain, reared its craggy barriers with soothing outlines tantalisingly suggestive of wealth and wonder easily accessible behind. The hardships of the explorers to the mouth of the Columbia passed unheeded, for the men who now came to match nerve and muscle against the entrenched mystery were in their natural element when battling with danger and difficulty in the uplifting air, and, like the eagle sailing high, were never more at home than when pushing their daring tread into some virgin valley, where falling waters broke the calm and fostered multitudes of beaver, where game bounded from every nook and glade, and the rich bunch-grass fattened their patient horses. Here with traps, a good rifle, and plenty of ammunition, notwithstanding encounters with the native striving to preserve his happy hunting-grounds, their lives were full of pleasure and that resolute and healthy vigour which comes to the intelligent man alert to protect life and limb. They appeared to have been born for this particular operation of breaking the final strongholds of the Wilderness.

The whole western region, being at a greater elevation than two thousand feet, the air is extremely invigorating. This desirable quality, with the absence of continuous rains from the larger part, renders it an ideal country for living in the open. Even in dead of winter the dry air causes the cold to be more easily borne than the same degree in moister regions. Those who have never tried it can hardly appreciate the pleasure of winter living out-of-doors; nor can they realise the alluring interest of unknown country, where now and then from some splendid height the wide encircling problem is viewed for leagues, or till merged in the haze of distant sky. Perchance a film of smoke steals up from some blue, deep glen to mark the presence of dwellers in the wilds. Toward evening the night mists draw earth and sky together, and the mountain billows seem interminable and impossible. Another sun lights the mystery, and the stranger gropes on expecting surprises at every step.

The extreme hardship that sometimes was endured was frequently due to wrong decisions or inadequate outfit; or from going ahead too fast. The born mountaineer and explorer, however, meets with few setbacks because he does not know a setback when he sees it. He fits into the Wilderness without effort, and drifts across it as summer clouds cleave a tranquil sky. Many of the American trappers of this period had been reared to life in the woods of the East; the rifle was their childhood's toy. Through sheer love of adventure they were impelled to the wider Wilderness, and quickly adjusted themselves to new conditions. They could have been anywhere readily distinguished. With compact muscles and solid frame, partners of fresh air, exercise, and simple fare, they had a clear, wide gaze, flinching before neither man nor beast; and unfailing nerve that often whipped prospective disaster to success.

The routine of the frontier and especially of the deeper Wilderness precluded any great lapse from physical excellence. When a man was alive he was generally well. Indeed, the average American trapper had a constitution that seemed invincible. Besides this his moral fibre was usually excellent. His word was good, his dealings with his fellows honourable. Money he cared less for than freedom. Cheerfully he risked his life for another. The code of law was unwritten, but it was well understood; punishment for serious offences was swift and certain. Crimes against white men were proportionately less than in a modern city; but when it came to dealings and intercourse with the Amerind conscience was paralysed. They also rated his blood at about the price of water, and out of this, for them and for the nation, came deep and lasting trouble. But, on the whole, they were a class to be much admired; some of their names, like Bridger and Kit Carson, are imperishably woven into history and literature; others, like Jedediah Smith, are to the general reader unknown.

This period opens with the death of the dominant figure of the Missouri River trade from the beginning of the century, especially from the date of the Louisiana Purchase, Manuel Lisa, who made his last voyage in 1820 and then closed the epoch, and his own earthly account, forever. He may have had all the faults charged against him, but nevertheless he seems not to have committed any grave offence, and he possessed commanding ability, so that his life appears to balance well. In a letter to General Clark, Superintendent of the Western Tribes, resigning the position of sub agent, which he had held for three years—1814 to 1817,—he explains his influence over the natives by his fair dealing and by his kindness to them. He gave them pumpkin, potato, and other seed; his blacksmiths worked for them without charge; he lent them traps, and his forts were the refuge of the old and feeble. He was the most active man of his period. But the beginning of this decade saw another active man come to the top, the man who started the actual breaking of the Rocky Mountain Wilderness, and who, with his employees and the "free" trappers and freebooters who followed their lead, soon penetrated the secret places of Mexican territory. This was William H. Ashley, a brigadier-general of militia in Missouri, the first lieutenant-governor, and later twice a member of Congress from the newly created State. He was a Virginian who came to St. Louis in 1802, the year before the transfer of Louisiana. He was then twenty-four, a man of education, of great executive ability, and of unfaltering courage. He was forty-eight when the third decade of the century opened, with which his name is so closely associated that it might almost be called the Ashley decade. Not that he was the first to cross the mountain barrier into Mexican territory, for Etienne Provost (Provo) had gone to Salt Lake in the very first year, and there were others, of whom little or no record is preserved. Samuel Adams Ruddock, in 1821, went from Council Bluffs to Santa FÉ and thence north, apparently about on the line of Escalante's old trail, to Salt Lake valley, performing a memorable journey, but Ashley was the master organiser who dealt the obstinate Wilderness its death-blow, battering a permanent breach that was quickly widened. In 1822 he built a fort on the Yellowstone. With twenty-eight men, the following year, he started to make his first attack on the frontal mountains. The Arikaras by this time had more than ever determined to obstruct the entrance of the whites into their territory and sharply repelled the company, killing fourteen of the party and wounding ten. Such an overwhelming defeat would have completely vanquished many leaders, but Ashley, who had a large investment in this venture, did not falter, and next year, 1824, when the time came to move on he was ready, and they marched to success.

With him were a number of men soon to become celebrated in Wilderness breaking, among them Andrew Henry, who had crossed the Continental Divide to Snake River as early as 1809; Fitzpatrick, William Sublette, Green, after whom Green River is supposed to have been named; Jim Bridger, then a youth of nineteen; and the extremely religious as well as unflinching trapper, Jedediah Smith, one of the boldest, strongest, most skilful, and altogether admirable characters of the time, a veritable knight in buckskin, whose career was a continual romance. Andrew Henry, who, as mentioned, had long before explored and trapped in the country, in connection with Lisa and the Missouri Fur Company, at the time when he established the fort on the head of Snake River, which Wilson Price Hunt visited and temporarily occupied, had then discovered South Pass, a discovery which has been erroneously awarded to others of a later time. Of course, even he only followed an Amerind trail. Ashley led his band up the North Platte, about on the track of Robert Stuart's eastward journey from Astoria of 1812-13, named the Sweetwater Branch, and passed over to Green River Valley, an inviting basin surrounded by high mountains, the Wind River range on the north, and on the south the point where the Green, then commonly called the Colorado, Spanish River, or the Seedskedee, enters the Uinta range by Flaming Gorge, the first of the thousand miles of canyons now celebrated, which enclose the river and, together with the rush of descending waters, make travelling by it hazardous. This Green River Valley was adopted as the rendezvous—that is, the point where all the trapping parties, separating to pursue the hunt for rich beaver streams, should again meet the following year to deliver pelts for shipment to St. Louis. The locality for a long time afterward was the central meeting-place for mountain men and was known far and wide.

Many of the trappers and traders of the early days wrote or dictated books, and there is consequently a large amount of literature bearing on the subject, but others, like Ashley, whose story would to-day be invaluable, apparently recorded little. Yet some journals may still come to light, for it was not long ago that Coues discovered and printed that of Jacob Fowler, who, in 1821-22, went across to Santa FÉ in company with Hugh Glenn.[84] Fowler and Glenn built the first real house on or near the site of Pueblo, Colorado, and occupied it for about a month. Then they went on to Taos and Santa FÉ. Glenn had a permit from the Mexican authorities to trap and trade in their territory. The route was over the Sangre de Cristo Pass by the regular trail, for many years travelled by Spaniards, who inherited it from the natives. It passed down to Trinchera Valley, in San Luis Park, where the sketch was made which forms the frontispiece to this volume.

Fowler and his companions met with difficulties from Spaniards, from lack of food, from Amerinds, and from bears. The "white bear," or grizzly, at that time was numerous everywhere, and the guns of the hunters being small-bore, muzzle-loading flint-locks, they were of small service in a battle with one of these impervious monsters. The cry of "white bear" was almost as alarming as that of "Indians." On one occasion a bear ran for shelter into a dense thicket of ten or twenty acres near camp, where Glenn and four others pursued him. As is usual with them, the bear kept quiet till the men were directly upon him, when he rose and attacked Lewis Dawson. Glenn's gun missed fire, but a dog worrying the animal Dawson was able to get away, though only momentarily, for the ponderous beast was again quickly upon him. Glenn's gun missed a second time. Dawson ran up a tree, but the bear caught him by the leg and pulled him down. Meanwhile Glenn, in another tree, sharpened his gun flint, reprimed his piece, and put a ball into the enemy. Several others now coming up also shot and the bear was killed. But Dawson was badly hurt. He was helped to camp, where, in Fowler's own words and spelling,

Dawson declared he had heard his skull break, but as he was cheerful this was supposed to be imagination, yet on the second day he grew delirious, and then a hole, supposed before to be slight, was found to be so deep that the brain was oozing out. The man died on the third day and was buried, of course, on the spot. They were all sorry, but there was no time for lamentations, nor necessity for them. The bear was skinned, the oil tried out, Dawson's effects sold to his companions, and the party proceeded, having painted another picture of the risk of breaking the Wilderness with a flint-lock gun. The disaster, however, like many another, was the result of rashness,—in this case the plunging into a thicket where a grizzly lay concealed.

A noted trapper and scout, belonging to what may be termed the freebooter class, of which Edward Rose was another but worse example, was James P. Beckwourth, who years afterward, 1854-55, dictated a somewhat bombastic but highly interesting story of his adventures, from which we learn something about Ashley, in whose employ he was for several years.[85] Beckwourth was a mulatto, part French, and Parkman describes him,[86] from hearsay, as "a ruffian of the worst stamp, bloody and treacherous, without honour or honesty," a rather extreme and apparently unjust description. He performed valuable services at times, and, while wild and reckless, seems to have possessed a fair amount of honour and honesty. He knew the Amerinds well, particularly the Crows, in which nation he became a chief, and he declares the natives knew that the whites cheated them; an important point in judging the course of the various tribes. He was young when he first went with Ashley—twenty-six,—but was one of the most active men in the party—at least from his own story. At this time Ashley's main camp was placed at or near the lower end of Green River Valley, and the General determined, 1825, to descend the river through the canyon to search for fresh beaver ground. It has been stated that he intended returning to St. Louis by this route, thinking the Colorado (Green) discharged into the Gulf of Mexico, but this is disproved by the fact that he did not take his fur packs along. He was merely searching for more beaver. The boats were rude affairs made of buffalo hides and were not at all adequate to the demands of the fierce current, which carries one along with great impetuosity. Just below the camp was some rapid water called "Green River Suck," and this was probably at the mouth of Henry's Fork, where the river first breaks into the rocks of the Uinta Mountains, extending across its path, forming Flaming Gorge and other canyons. For several miles below this the canyons are short and not difficult to get in or out of, then Red Canyon suddenly closes in and for twenty-five miles the bounding rocks are high, steep, red sandstone, reaching at the highest twenty-five hundred feet for a long distance, while the water is torrential. Ashley's was the first attempt to navigate the upper waters of the Colorado, a reckless procedure with such boats, for they had no idea what might be encountered. The stream falls about 450 feet before emerging into Brown's Park, or "Hole," as it was originally named, after Brown, a trapper who once lived there. From the term "Hole" some writers have been misled into supposing that this is a very dangerous part of the river, and that it was there that Ashley met his great danger; but, on the contrary, the Hole is one of the few openings, or wide valleys, on the Colorado, and the river meanders through it quite tamely, with level banks and cottonwood groves. Therefore it was between the foot of Green River Valley and this Hole, now Brown's Park, that Ashley lost two of his boats, risked his life in the rapids, and nearly starved to death. Some have laid his trail through the Canyon of Lodore, but this follows Brown's Park, where escape is easy.

The men grew weak and disheartened, and after six days without food they reached the limit of endurance. They proposed drawing lots, according to Beckwourth, to see which one should die to create food for the others. But Ashley implored them to postpone this hideous alternative at least another twenty-four hours, and meanwhile led them rapidly forward in the hope of coming to the end of the gorge. This fortunately they did, and came out into Brown's Hole to find Provost camped there with abundant provisions and horses. With him they went across the mountains to Salt Lake, and thence back to the rendezvous.

Owing to frequent battles between the Hudson Bay Company and the North-west Company, both of which operated mainly north of the 42d parallel west of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the 49th east of them, these companies in 1821 were merged under the Hudson Bay title. Astoria had been abandoned and their chief fort in the Columbia region was Vancouver, just above the mouth of the Willamet. Their trappers ranged the whole northern country, and at Salt Lake Ashley met one of their chief men, Peter Skeen Ogden, with a large quantity of furs which he succeeded in buying at rates that much pleased him, especially as he was now heavily in debt. With these he returned to the rendezvous, where soon the trappers came in with splendid packs of furs, which, could they be safely delivered in St. Louis, would immediately retrieve the General's fortune and enlarge it.

The fact of his entrance into Red Canyon and the date are recorded, apparently by Ashley's own hand, "Ashley, 1825," on a large rock on the left bank of the river, over a sharp drop in the water, in the upper portion of the canyon. Of this I made a copy in 1871 and append a reproduction. The rapid, or fall, at this point is named after the bold General, Ashley Fall. The account of the canyon trip is from Beckwourth, to whom the General told it. I have never seen any other. I cannot understand why they did not climb out, which could have been done in many places; and the heights abounded in game. Perhaps the reason was that, constantly expecting the end of the gorge, they went on till hunger caused the high walls to seem unscalable; or perhaps they were not in such desperate straits for food as Beckwourth declares.

His rich cargo of pelts Ashley took to St. Louis by way of the Yellowstone and the Missouri, building boats for the purpose. On the way he met General Atkinson, an old friend, who had been sent by the Government up the Missouri for the purpose of driving out Hudson Bay trappers. These did not then much intrude into that region, so his task was a light one. Ashley reached St. Louis at last with the furs and from being in debt became rich. He treated his men handsomely, putting them up at the best hotel with carte blanche as to orders, paid wages in full, and for faithful service gave each a present of three hundred dollars and a suit of clothes. Ashley thus was more successful with his enterprise than Lord Selkirk was with one he embarked in to settle the Red River country in what is now Manitoba. He obtained in 1811 a large grant there, but the North-west Company opposed him, not desiring to see the country civilised, and finally after battles and bloodshed the colony collapsed.

The year following his very successful return, Ashley, 1826, went again to the mountains, taking a six-pounder with him all the way to Utah Lake, then called Ashley's Lake, where he built a fort. His men had ramified in every direction, busily trapping during his absence. It was in the winter of 1824-25 that Bridger, to decide a bet between two comrades as to where Bear River emptied, was selected to trace the stream from their camp in Cache Valley, to find out. Thus he came to Salt Lake and tasted its waters. The report he took back to the camp caused the men to believe that this salt water was an arm of the sea, an idea which was not dispelled till the spring of 1826, when four of the men circumnavigated it in a skin canoe, searching for beaver streams. Robert Campbell, who was in Cache Valley when the party came back, is firm in awarding the honour of discovering Salt Lake to Bridger, but as Provost had been in that neighbourhood as early as 1820 he may have seen the lake before Bridger, and it has been asserted that he did.

The treatment of the natives was often abominable, and each year the breach between whites and Amerinds widened. Clarke, of the Astoria enterprise, had hung a Nez Perce in full view of his comrades because he stole a silver mug, and it was such treatment as this, and the shooting of them for "fun," that convinced them they must eternally fight the white man's advance. They therefore adopted various methods. One favourite exploit was to run away with horses, to accomplish which they would sometimes pretend friendship. These incidents were sudden and startling. Beckwourth relates this one: "We encamped that night, keeping a strong guard, and saw all round us, as far as the eye could extend, numerous signal fires." At daylight operations began. The cry went up:

The Blackfeet were always hostile to everybody, white or red, and the Arapahos and Sioux were apt to be. Some tribes were friendly most of the time; others were friendly all the time.

Beckwourth describes numerous bloody engagements, especially when he was a chief among the Crows, but doubtless these accounts must be somewhat discounted. Once he and Sublette dragged a wounded Amerind away from the enemy's lines, although the desperate fellow clung to the grass and made it a difficult task. They placed him for execution before one of their own men, who had been wounded, in order that this man might have the satisfaction of killing one of the hated race. "But," says Beckwourth, "the poor fellow had not strength sufficient to perforate the Indian's skin with his knife, and we were obliged to perform the job ourselves."

Ashley finally sold out his interest to Sublette, Fitzpatrick, and others, who made up the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and himself returned to St. Louis to settle down and enjoy the large income now his from the success of his energy and judgment. He never went to the mountains again. He had "handsome grounds" about his house, and enclosed within them one or two of the ancient mounds which then were common on the site of St. Louis. At this time in St. Louis there was a variety of architecture. There were broad, steep-roofed stone houses of the French; tall stuccoed dwellings with tiers "of open corridors above them, like a once showy but half-defaced galleon in a fleet of battered frigates,"—the houses of the Spaniards; and the "clipper-built brick houses of the Americans—light as a Baltimore schooner and pert as a Connecticut smack." The population was seven or eight thousand, extremely varied with plenty of trappers and frontiersmen, who "think as much of an Indian encounter as a New York blood does of a spree with a watchman."

Ashley was a popular man in every way and was twice elected to Congress from his State. Beckwourth relates the parting incidents when Ashley left his men in the mountains: "We were all sorry to part with the General.... There was always something encouraging in his manner; no difficulty dejected him; kind and generous in his disposition, he was loved equally by all.... He left the camp amid deafening cheers from the whole crowd." The Rocky Mountain Fur Company prospered under Sublette and Fitzpatrick, though the enormous returns of the first years could not again be secured. As every company had from forty or fifty to several hundred men constantly at work, the beaver ranks were rapidly thinned, and profits correspondingly diminished.

The Blackfeet were the greatest scourge to the region, occupying toward the country around the headwaters of the Missouri something the same relation that the Iroquois did to the Ohio valley, and the Apaches to the New Mexican territory. Sometimes they were met in the most unexpected way, as in the case of a trapper named Clyburn, who with one companion was on his way to the rendezvous of his company with the furs of a whole season. As they turned through some timber to cross a stream they rode squarely into a Blackfoot camp. Escape was impossible. Clyburn did not waver for a second, but rode calmly to the head chief's tipi, where he proclaimed himself a friend who wished to pass the night under his protection. The chief received them coldly, ordered his women to unpack the horses, and demanded from the men an account of themselves, also how they dare intrude on his hunting-ground. These questions were evaded and the men tried to swallow some of the food placed before them, though they felt little like eating. Clyburn overheard the chief say they must be killed. He told his mate and instructed him to watch closely and follow every move he made. When it grew nearly dark and the warriors were somewhat off their guard, Clyburn suddenly broke for the river, a hundred yards off, with his companion beside him. There were wild yells, shots, confusion. Clyburn swam the stream, hid beneath a shelving bank, and when the search was abandoned looked about for the other man. He was nowhere to be found and was never heard of again. Clyburn succeeded in reaching the rendezvous, where he refitted and once more went to the beaver grounds. He had engaged for five years, and when his time was up he started for the East. Going to hunt where the river made a large bend, he missed the boat, and as they never waited for any one he was alone on the plains and struck out on foot for Council Bluffs, a thousand miles away, where he finally arrived with barely strength enough to creep on all fours. These men never gave up. Never did their nerve give way, never did they admit defeat; it might crush them, but as long as a heart throb remained they fought against it. Death alone could check their efforts to retrieve a desperate situation. Two fine examples of the highest type of the Wilderness breaker were a father and son by the name of Pattie. Sylvester, the father, was about forty-four, who had moved to Missouri from that State famous for great hunters,—Kentucky. He was familiar with frontier warfare, having served as lieutenant in the army against Amerind foes. Courageous and intelligent beyond the average, he was held in high esteem. The death of his wife induced a species of melancholia, and on the advice of friends he sold his property and fitted out, in 1824, a trapping expedition to divert his mind. Distributing his children among relatives, he yielded to the pleadings of his son, James O., then about twenty, and added him to his party. His goal was the upper Missouri, the region then most talked about, but on arriving at Council Bluffs with his men and ten horses loaded with materials for a trapping and trading campaign, the commanding officer of the post refused him permission to proceed as he had no license, not having known that one would be required.

He was not to be easily thwarted. The Santa FÉ trade was growing and he decided to turn his course in that direction. Selling his extra arms he bought more goods for this trade, and then joined one Pratte, whom they had met on the way to Council Bluffs, and who was preparing for the Santa FÉ journey. Sylvester Pattie was elected to command the combined parties, many of the men having served as rangers under him. There were 116 all told, with several hundred horses and mules. Pattie conducted the affairs of the caravan methodically and skilfully and they went up the Platte without any drawbacks. The Pawnees welcomed them cordially, even affectionately, and their intercourse would have been altogether agreeable had not a war party come in at a village of Pawnee Loups having with it a child captive, whose mother had been killed and scalped. This harrowing spectacle of the unfortunate little redskin probably brought Pattie's own children more vividly before him, and he offered to buy the boy, but the Pawnees prepared to burn him as a part of their victory celebration. The chief was unreasonably greedy in negotiating to spare the child, so the Pattie outfit decided to take the little prisoner away by force. The thongs binding him, over which the flesh had swelled till they were not visible, were removed, and he was sent to their camp. With arms in readiness, Pattie told the chief they meant to keep the boy. He asked if they thought they could do it, to which Pattie replied that they would or every man would die in the attempt. "Save your powder and lead to kill buffaloes and your enemies," the chief said, and accepted the offer of goods. The incident is worth relating as it shows the temper of the Patties, and many other trappers, who would lightly risk their lives and all their possessions to save an unfortunate little Amerind child.

One day farther on they met with some other natives. The little boy was playing about the camp as usual when the attention of the white men was suddenly attracted by loud screams and cries.

This was the father of the boy.

White bears were met and one of their men was "literally torn to pieces" by one and died five days after. Pattie counted in one day 220 of these grizzlies. A few days farther on they witnessed a great battle between Comanches and Iotans. "The discharge of their firearms and the clashing of their different weapons, together with their war yell and the shrieks of the wounded and dying, were fit accompaniments to the savage actors and scene. The contest lasted about fifteen minutes,"—the Comanches being vanquished.

At last they arrived at San Fernandez de Taos and then at Santa FÉ, which had a population of about five thousand.

With some trouble they obtained permission to trap on the Gila, "a river," says Pattie, "never before explored by white people." They soon came into the country of the Apaches, and one of the men was killed in an advance party. When the Patties came to the point they saw the remains. "They had cut him in quarters after the fashion of butchers. His head with the hat on was stuck on a stake." It was full of arrows.

After considerable manoeuvring around New Mexico, James O. Pattie again went trapping down the Gila and its branches to the Colorado River in 1826. Up the Colorado he went to the Grand Canyon, the first American apparently to see it, then across country not far from the great gorge, probably on the north, till they came to Grand River, Colorado, and in April, 1827, they crossed the Continental Divide to the head of the Platte near Long's Peak, whence they proceeded to the Yellowstone, terminating there a remarkable traverse of this part of the Wilderness. Pattie then went back to Santa FÉ, where his father had remained, and once more started out, going to the Colorado, where they trapped beaver down to the mouth, intending to go this way to the Spanish settlements, which they thought existed there. Encountering the great tidal bore they were nearly wrecked.[87] They finally struck across for the California missions, suffering greatly for water, and reached St. Catherine's in 1828. Here they were arrested and Pattie the elder at length died in prison. James O., with great difficulty after long captivity, succeeded in freeing himself and returned to his home by way of Mexico, arriving far poorer than when he started with such rosy hopes and his father's strong support. The book which he published is one of the most interesting in the whole range of this literature.[88] Had he chosen to remain in the Wilderness there is no doubt that he would have become one of the most famous of trappers, but the death of his father took the romance out of the life and he cared no longer for adventure.

William Becknell, in 1824, went far west of Santa FÉ, and in August of the same year William Huddart, with fourteen men, went from Taos to Green River, and in so calling the stream used the term for the first time on record. Green seems to have been a denizen of Green River Valley before 1820. They probably followed the old Escalante trail approximately. A battle with Arapahos finally compelled Huddart to return to Taos with a part of the company, the others having previously gone north along Green River.

The afterwards celebrated Christopher (Kit) Carson now appears on the scene in New Mexico, 1826, only seventeen years old, but full of that courage, energy, and good judgment which finally placed his name at the top of the list of Wilderness breakers. 1826 was a fruitful year in exploration. Lieutenant Hardy of the British navy came up the Gulf of California in a schooner and entered the Colorado for some distance.

Pattie, the first American to see the Grand Canyon, so far as I can ascertain, had in a general way explored the Colorado from its mouth to the head of its Grand River branch. He had not been able to enter the deep canyons, but he had seen them from above, and had ascertained the character of the great river which for the distance from at least White River to the mouth of the Rio Virgin remained unbroken wilderness for more than forty years longer, the last portion to be vanquished.[89] Pattie's name has been little known in this connection, and his extraordinary journey has not received the recognition it deserves, for it actually holds a place alongside the achievements of great explorers. The same year, 1826, that Pattie made the successful traverse from the mouth of the Gila to the Yellowstone by way of the Colorado and Grand rivers, Jedediah Smith started from Salt Lake with fifteen men and, proceeding south to Utah Lake, thence went southwesterly about on the same trail apparently that Escalante had followed in 1776, till he came to the Virgin River, which he called Adams in honour of the President. He followed it down to its junction with the Seedskedee or Colorado. The Seedskedee or Green River was also known as the Colorado, hence when Smith speaks of the Seedskedee in this region his meaning is perfectly clear.[90]

The Mohaves were kind to him and provided food and horses with which he went on to the Mission of San Gabriel in California, the first American on record to go there. He spent the winter trapping, and early in May, 1827, tried to cross the range, probably near the head of the Merced, without success. Another attempt on the 20th of the same month, with two men, seven horses, and two mules, occupied eight days and, with the loss of one mule and two horses, they came down on the eastern flank. In twenty days they were again at Salt Lake. Chittenden thinks they crossed near Sonora Pass. On July 13th of the same year Smith returned to California by his former route down the Virgin. This time the Mojaves, prompted by Spaniards it is said, set upon his party as they were crossing the Colorado, killing ten of his men and capturing everything. Smith at last reached the Spanish settlements where he was thrown into prison. In November he was allowed to go on condition that he would leave Mexican territory. He had left the bulk of his party behind in California, and now brought them together again. He led his men to San Francisco and thence up to the Columbia, meeting with success in trapping all the way. Finally he had accumulated furs worth about twenty thousand dollars and prepared to take them back to Salt Lake. He camped in the Shasta country one night on the south bank of the Umpqua. The Shastas seemed to be entirely friendly and Smith was apparently thrown off his guard. They hung about camp, and in the morning when Smith was on a raft searching for a fording-place for the pack animals, having with him a little Englishman and one of the natives, the latter suddenly seized Smith's gun and jumped into the water. At this moment a wild commotion at the camp indicated an attack there. Smith quickly shot the Shasta with the Englishman's gun, and knowing it would be death to return now to the camp made for the opposite shore and at length succeeded in reaching Fort Vancouver, the North-west-Hudson Bay post on the Columbia at the mouth of the Willamette,—the fort which had taken the place of Astoria, or, more correctly, of Fort George. Besides the Englishman who was with him, only two of his men escaped, Black and Turner, the latter having killed four Shastas with a half-burnt stick which he snatched from the camp-fire at the moment of attack. They were well received at the British fort, and everything was done that was possible to relieve their unfortunate situation. A party was sent to punish the Shastas according to the Hudson Bay Company policy, and the furs and goods were recovered. Sir George Simpson, in charge, offered to send Smith with his furs to London the next summer in the supply ship, but Smith preferred to sell out to Simpson on the spot and in March, 1829, made his way across by way of Snake River toward the rendezvous. Sublette about this time sent out a party to look for him, and they came together in Pierre's Hole. The journey back to Salt Lake from here was easy after what Smith had accomplished. He had executed two circuits around the remaining Unknown; journeys that must ever stand in the front rank with those of Lewis and Clark, Wilson Price Hunt, Robert Stuart, and James O. Pattie, in the breaking of the Wilderness.