The SANTA FE TRAIL
And Other Poems
Joseph R. Wilson

“CREEPING CLOSER TO THE TRAIL.” ([P. 15])

“The Santa Fe Trail”
And Other Poems

By
JOSEPH R. WILSON, LL.B.

International Printing Company
Philadelphia
1921

Copyright
1921
By Joseph R. Wilson

TO MY WIFE

INDEX

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FAMOUS SANTA FE TRAIL

The early history of the Santa Fe Trail, which runs parallel with the Santa Fe Railroad for hundreds of miles, is somewhat obscured by mystery and tradition, but from historical data in possession of the Museum of New Mexico, at Santa Fe, it can be stated with a large degree of accuracy that the trail was started by Spanish explorers three hundred years ago.

The first known expedition by Americans over the trail was made by the Mallet brothers, who arrived in Santa Fe, July 22, 1739. The first trader to follow the trail reached Santa Fe in 1763. It was not until 1804 that LaLande, a trapper and hunter, crossed the trail and made Santa Fe that year. Kit Carson was one of those who struck the trail in 1826, when he was but sixteen years of age.

The camping stations along the trail at that time were Diamond Spring, Lost Spring, Cottonwood Creek, Turkey Creek, Cow Creek (now Hutchinson, Kansas), and further on was Pawnee Rock, a famous landmark of sandstone, twenty feet high.

From the year 1820 many caravans made their way over the trail to Santa Fe, then, as it is to-day, the seat of government. It was here in the old palace that some of the early governors had lived in a semi-royal state, maintaining a little court and body-guards whose lives were by no means a sinecure, since they were called upon to fight the Indians on many occasions.

These Indians developed great hostility to the white man, and caravans on the trail were so frequently attacked, and so many tragedies stained the trail with the blood of women and children, that in 1823, Colonel Viscarra, Jefè Politicio, of New Mexico, commanded a battalion of Mexican troops in protecting the caravans on the Santa Fe trail. His hand-full of men, and the predatory and blood-thirsty character of the Indians, made it impossible for him to protect any large part of the trail, and soldiers, traders and their families were massacred by overwhelming numbers, the victims including many women and children. The members of one caravan met their fate in sight of Santa Fe, forty-six days out from St. Louis.

Colonel Viscarra had not only to deal with one tribe, but many. There were the Navajos, Pawnees, Arapahos, Kiowas, Comanche, Apache and Cheyenee. There was only one tribe friendly to the traders, and that was the Pueblo Indians.

In August, 1829, a particularly vicious attack on a caravan on the Santa Fe trail, bound for Santa Fe, caused the traders to petition the government for military protection, and as a result this year, under agreement with the Government of the United States and the Republic of Mexico, four companies of United States troops guarded the great caravans moving from Western Missouri to Santa Fe, as far as the Arkansas River. In spite of this protection, however, attacks by Indians were a common occurrence, and every caravan had to carry arms and ammunition, and vigilance was never relaxed from the time they left the Arkansas River until they struck the plaza at Santa Fe.

Colonel Viscarra, a handsome, picturesque Spaniard, always mounted on a mettlesome thoroughbred, was probably the most dashing figure in the history of the Santa Fe trail. Tales of his gallantry and daring became folklore among the traders, pioneers and their descendants.

In 1843, the American traders commenced to establish regular communication between Missouri and Santa Fe and in 1849, started to run a stage from Independence, Mo., to Santa Fe. The fare was $250. Each passenger was allowed forty pounds of baggage. The capacity of the coach was ten passengers in addition to the driver and messenger. Relays of horses were stationed along the trail every fifteen to twenty miles.

The vehicles used by the traders and pioneers were for the greater part Conestoga wagons drawn by horses or mules. As they proceeded westward it was a common sight to see on the trail, “creoles, polished gentlemen magnificently clothed in Spanish costume, exiled Spaniards escaping from Mexico, and richly caparisoned horses, mules and asses, and a courtesy of the road grew out of a common danger”.

The most terrible part of the trail was the great plain between the Arkansas River and Cimarron Spring. It was over three thousand feet above sea level and sixty-three miles without a water course or pool. The soil was dry and hard and short buffalo grass and some cacti were the only evidence of the parched vegetation. There was not a shrub or tree of any kind. It was a sandy desert plain and it was here the traveler saw the mirage, a beautiful lake which disappeared as he approached it.

Breakdowns on this plain were frequent, and the Indians most dangerous. Dry, hot weather prevailed with the blue sky overhead, and over these parched wastes of the desert, exposed to attacks by Indians both night and day, the caravans finally reached Cimarron Spring, which was in a small ravine.

After leaving Cimarron Spring (445 miles from Independence, Missouri), the caravans struck the following camps:

• Willow Bar;
• Cold Spring;
• Rabbit Ear Creek;
• Round Mound;
• Rock Creek;
• Point of Rocks;
• Rio Colorado;
• Ocaté Creek;
• Santa Clara Spring (Wagon Mound);
• Rio Mora;
• Rio Gallinas (Las Vegas);
• Ojo De Bernal Spring;
• San Miguel;
• Pecos Village;

and finally Santa Fe, a distance of 750 miles from Independence, Missouri, the starting point.

The old Santa Fe Trail led from Franklin, Missouri, through Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and New Mexico. It followed the Arkansas River to Cimarron Crossing (Fort Dodge) to La Junta, Colorado; then south, crossing the Raton Pass, joining the main trail at Santa Clara Spring.

The passenger looking out of the window of the train on the Santa Fe Railroad will see this trail running for miles parallel with the track, and will be able to people it with the historic traditions which have made the Santa Fe Trail one of the most romantic and, withal, one of the most tragic national highways in the United States.

Note.—The greater part of the information given in this brief history is taken from Twitchell on Leading Facts of New Mexico History.

THE SANTA FE TRAIL.

There are moanings on the trail,

From west and eastward bounders,

The host that’s passed forever,

That shall never know it more;

From men and fragile women,

From pioneers and traders,

Whose dying word was “Never,”

Whose pale souls went on before.

And its ruts flow deep with tears

For the countless lowly biers,

Of those who died upon it,

In the agony of fears.

Oh! the rumbling caravan—

The women under cover,

While the men before them scan,

For Indians or water,

For the’re mounds along the trail,

It’s thousand miles of stretches,

Of man, and child and mother,

Fair flowers and hardened wretches;

Where the sandstorms blow and blow,

And obliterate all traces.

Moving twenty miles a day,

With mules and horses straining

Through the deep and parching sand,

The wagon wheels a-squeaking,

With the hot sun beating down

On whitened bones a bleaching.

Stretching all along the trail,

From Fort Dodge to San Miguel,

From caravans forgotten,

Where none lived to tell the tale.

Oh! the tide of misery,

And tears forever flowing,

From the women folk inside,

Through the long, dark hours of night,

Or moonlight’s eerie bleaches,

Praying God to send the light.

The grey of early morning,

While a rifle shot rings out,

The Indians are coming,

And the men go driving on,

The tired horses running,

For the goal they never reach.

Oh! that never ending trail,

Through canyon and arroya,

And that cursed, cruel plain,

The parched wastes of the desert,

A mile above sea-level,

Not a tree or shrub upon it,

Without a drop of water,

’Tween the Arkansas river

And the spring at Cimarron,

Where they’ll never drink again.

Pushing on to Willow Bar,

Round Mound and Rio Moro,

Through buff’lo grass and cacti,

To ruins of the Pecos,

With the blue skies overhead,

And the horses breathing hard,

Rolls the caravan along.

A country in the making,

And the women try to sing,

God bless them, they are helping,

Those tender friends of man,

To keep his heart from breaking,

With the wagon broken down,

And not a blade for grazing.

There are ghosts upon the trail,

The myriads that trod it,

And they pass without salute

In a never ending line,

In wagon and on horseback;

Some going West, some Eastward.

Strange spectres in the moonlight,

Brave men and noble women,

Young girls and little children,

All long ago forgotten.

And the past rolls back again,

With Indians approaching,

The Navajos and Pawnees,

Kiowas and Comanche,

Creeping closer to the trail.

The children and the women,

Oh! ’tis hard that they should die.

Then the musket shots ring out

From cool men bent on killing,

Fighting for the ones they love,

Though ten to one outnumbered,

Until morning tints the sky

And with it ends the combat.

Then the town of Santa Fe,

Oh! Father, in Thy mercy—

And the women laugh and sing,

The tired men are weeping,

A thousand times repeated,

As men entered Santa Fe.

The cursed trip was over,

Save to those left on the way,

The pioneer martyrs

Of the trail to Santa Fe.

BLIND BEGGAR OF ALBUQUERQUE

There are faces that pass in a moment,

But his face will live till I die.

He’d a beard and blue eyes like the Saviour,

At least like the face we all know,

And we met in the cool of the morning,

We met about two years ago.

And my heart bade me call out “Good morning,”

“Good morning,” he answered to me.

But I saw his blue eyes looking elsewhere,

Like one who was trying to see.

He had come from a hut without windows,

A mud hut with only a door,

Yet his face was the face of the Saviour,

And I fain would speak to him more.

So I stopped, for his smile had a sweetness

That entered the gates of my soul;

I was hungry to know where it came from,

That I might its wonders extol.

And we talked of the beautiful morning,

The scent of the grass and the flowers,

And he spoke like a man of refinement,

Like one to whom knowledge was power,

Of the glory of God and His wonders,

And we talked for more than an hour.

I forgot that the speaker was sightless,

Or a mud hut his dwelling here.

Could it be he was just a blind beggar?

Was a greater One standing near?

And he talked of the hills in their grandeur,

As sentinels watching mankind,

Of the plains and vales, of sunshine and flowers,

Which he only saw in his mind.

And he spoke of the poor and the lowly,

Of God’s mercy to such as he,

Of his gratitude to his Creator,

Gratitude, though he could not see.

And I stretched out my arms to that beggar,

From Syria, over the sea,

With the beard and the eyes of our Saviour—

At least they looked like that to me.

He had taught me a wonderful lesson,

The burden a Christian could bear,

Who from out the dark caverns of blindness

Saw only the things that were fair.

And I asked my dear Father forgiveness,

My fetters of sin to unbind,

That he’d make me to see like that beggar,

For I was the one who was blind.

SUNRISE FROM THE ALVARADO HOTEL,
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO.

“The Alvarado,” on the Santa Fe,

Here oft my eyes have met the break of day;

The red sun rising through the morning mist,

Over the mountains, and the mesa kissed,

Down to the valley, where the shadows deep

Dissolved, and woke the city from its sleep.

Facing the East, the first faint streak of dawn

Sought my closed eyes and ope’d them to the morn.

Then like the passing shadow of a cloud

Revealed the world beneath the lifted shroud,

The glories of the proud Sandia Range,

Whose rugged grandeur God alone can change.

Sweet was the air that in my casement swept,

And in the court below a fountain leap’t,

Which on the harp of life sweet music made,

And soothed me in my slumbers as it played.

The songs of gentle rain, of woodland stream,

Entranced me nightly in a murmuring dream.

The doves upon the roof made music too,

And sweet it was to hear them bill and coo.

Into my open window Nature smiled,

And all the world seemed pure and undefiled.

Naught can describe those joys of early morn,

When from the night another day was born.

When cares that come oppress and burden me,

I’ll pray to God to send me memory,

Where precious moments came at break of day,

“The Alvarado” on the Santa Fe.

Thither my soul shall fly where’er I be,

And bring that joy of morning back to me.

THE LILACS OF SHAWMONT.

In our home in the West, on the edge of the mesa,

When our day’s work is done, and the voices are still,

Comes faintly the scent of the lilacs of Shawmont

We knew in our youth, at the house on the hill.

Back to those halls, now so silent and empty,

Where voices of children once merrily rang;

To those dear dead windows still facing the garden,

Where the woodthrush, the robin and oriole sang.

Back to the solemn old bell in the tree forks,

Which summoned us home to the noonday repast;

Whose music had rung in the morning of centuries,

And yet was as sweet as the day it was cast.

From our home on the mesa we still hear it calling,

Long, long is the journey, o’er mountain and plain;

But it’s only in memory—past to the present—

And only in fancy we hear it again.

The scent of the lilacs, the voices of children;

The chirp of the tree-toad, the song of the stream;

The path through the woods, where as lovers we wandered,

Confusingly call like a voice in a dream.

Call to us here in our home on the mesa,

From out the dear past in the house on the hill,

And in fancy we dwell in the home by the Schuylkill,

When our day’s work is done and the voices are still.

A JOLLY FELLOW IS THE WESTERN TUMBLEWEED.

Oh! what a jolly fellow is the western tumbleweed,

As he rolls across the mesa with the breeze;

He’ll even try to race a train, no matter what it’s speed,

You can see him from the window jump the trees.

Just where the fellow’s bound for it’s a little hard to say,

For his heart seems full of joyousness and life,

As he capers like a schoolboy out for a holiday—

Some say the beggar’s looking for a wife.

THE GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA.

Methought ’twas God, Himself,

For as I reached the “El Tovar”

And passed toward the Canyon’s brink,

I seemed to stand upon the bar

Of Heaven—too dazed to think.

THE MELODIES OF MEMORIES.

The melodies of every clime

Ring out so true and sweet,

They make the world akin in song,

Bring joy with every beat.

They breathe the incense of the morn,

The fragrance of the night,

They weave the mystery of love,

In garlands of delight.

Oh! sweet uplifting melodies,

That soothe the human soul;

The young and old, the rich, the poor,

Are one ’neath their control.

The melodies of younger days,

The sweetest ever sung,

The melodies of memories

That make the ages young.

Oh! crowd us, blessed melodies,

Come to us one by one;

Bring back the tender thoughts of life,

When it had scarce begun.

And in one long, delicious dream

We live the past again,

In melodies of memories,

In happiness and pain.

THE HARVEY HOUSE CHIMES ON THE SANTA FE RAILROAD.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!”

Better hurry—do not be late.