Transcriber's note: Cover created by Transcriber, using illustrations from the original book, and placed in the Public Domain.

Very truly yours
Robt Vaughn
(handwritten dedication and signature)

THEN AND NOW;
OR,
Thirty-Six Years in the Rockies.

Personal Reminiscences of Some of the First Pioneers of the State of Montana.

INDIANS AND INDIAN WARS.

The Past and Present of the Rocky Mountain Country.
1864–1900.

BY
ROBERT VAUGHN.

MINNEAPOLIS:
Tribune Printing Company.
1900.

Copyrighted, 1900.
BY
ARVONIA ELIZABETH VAUGHN.

DEDICATION.

Arvonia Elizabeth Vaughn,
Great Falls, Montana.
My Dear Little Daughter:

The following series of letters, which include a short history of Montana’s early days, together with a brief sketch of your father’s life and a copy of my letter to you, giving an obituary of your dear mother, I dedicate to you, knowing that they will be appreciated, and hoping that you will have the pleasure of reading them after I am gone.

Your affectionate father,
Robert Vaughn.

Great Falls, Montana, May 15th, 1900.

PREFACE.

It may not be out of place to explain how this book came to find its way into print. It was written for my little daughter, in the form of letters at various times, and not intended for publication, but many friends after reading them insisted that they should be published. One said: “You must not wait until you are dead before these letters are given to the world.”

As my desire is, by the grace of God, to live many years yet, I now present these letters to the reader, supplemented by others from old time friends who braved the perils and dangers of pioneer life; and as they are intended to be a part of the history of this great state, care has been taken to keep strictly to the truth.

It is hoped that a line here and there will be appreciated by those who ride in palace cars as well as the old pioneers who came west in prairie schooners.

Robert Vaughn.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Then and Now;
Or,
Thirty-Six Years in the Rockies.

FROM HOME TO THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.

I was born in Wales June 5, 1836, and was reared on a farm until I was nineteen years old. My parents’ names were Edward and Elizabeth Vaughan. There were six children—Jane, Hugh, Robert, Edward, John and Mary. Edward lives in the old home at the present time. His address is: “Dugoed Bach, Dinas Mowddwy, Mereoneth Sheir, G. B.”

My parents were of good family; by that I mean they and their ancestors were good Christian people, father and mother were members of the Episcopal Church. Father was a warden as long as I can remember. Mother was my only teacher. She taught me to obey, to tell the truth, to be kind, to respect others, and above all to fear God.

I left home when I was between nineteen and twenty. At this time I could speak but the Welsh language. I had a great desire to learn to acquire English; therefore I went to Liverpool, where sister Jane lived. I secured employment from the Hon. Benjamin Haywood Jones to work in a flower garden at his beautiful home on the West Derby Road. He was a rich banker in the city. I remained there over a year. Brother Hugh had gone to America a year before I left home, locating near Rome, N. Y. In the fall of 1858, instead of going home as I intended, I concluded that it would be a good idea for me to go to America and see my brother; then return in four or five months. So, without the knowledge of my parents, I took passage on board a steamship named the “Vigo” bound for New York. I was on the ocean twelve days and a half. As soon as I landed I wrote home and stated what I had done, and that I would be back home in four or five months, and at that time it was my honest intention to do so. From New York City I went to my brother’s, and stayed with him about three months; then I went to Palmyra, Ohio, to see Aunt Ann, my father’s sister. I was right at home now, and my father was satisfied since I was in the care of his sister. I was there over a year, going thence to Youngstown, Ohio, where I worked for Joshua Davies on a farm, and in the coal mines. From here I proceeded to McLean county, Illinois, where my brother had been for two years. I farmed with him one summer, then I went to Fairbury, Livingston county, and mined coal until 1864. During all this time I wrote home regularly and received letters in return. Instead of going home I was continually getting further from it. Somehow I could not resist the desire of venturing into the unsettled regions of the West. I kept drifting further and further until I found myself in the heart of the Rocky mountains, six thousand miles from home.

LEAVING HOME.

In this way forty-one years elapsed since I left my childhood home, but the picture remains in my memory as though it were but yesterday; everything appears to me as it was the last time I saw it. The house still seems the same; the ivy creeping up its walls; the sycamore, alder, birch and spruce trees stand there like sentries guarding it. The rose bushes and the evergreens in front, the hollies where the sparrows huddled together at night, the orchard and the old stone barn; and I imagine that—

“I see the quiet fields around,
I stroll about as one who dreams;
’Til each familiar place is found,
How strangely sweet to me it seems.

“The old and well known paths are there,
My youthful feet so often pressed;
Gone is the weight of manhood’s care,
And in its place a sense of rest.

“The broad expanse before me lies,
Checked here and there with squares of green;
Where, freshly growing crops arise,
And browner places intervene.”

I see the dancing rill flowing by the garden gate, and the great arch of white thorn overspanning the passage way that led to the main road. There my mother embraced and kissed me and bade me good-bye for the last time. Here my “only teacher” gave me her last instruction, it was this: “My dear son, be careful in selecting your companions to go out with in the evenings. God be with you, good-bye.”

Oh, how sweetly her voice fell on my listening ear,
And now, I imagine those soft words I hear;
If I ever view her silent grave,
My tears will flow like tidal wave.

There she stood staring at her wandering boy leaving home. We watched one another until a curve in the road took me out of sight; that was the last time I saw my mother. Father came with me about a quarter of a mile. We spoke but very little; we were both very sad. Suddenly father turned to me and took me by the hand and said: “Well, my son, fare thee well, be a good boy.” I was weeping bitterly and after I had gone a little way I looked back and saw father leaning against a gate which led to the meadow, with both hands on his face; this caused my tears to flow faster than ever. I shall always believe that father was praying for me then. And that was the last time I saw him. Father and mother are now sleeping in the silent tomb. But in my memory they appear like statues as I saw them last, and that was forty-one years ago. Mother standing at the gate with tears in her eyes waving the kind and tender hand that soothed and fondled me when I was a babe, and father leaning on that rude gate with his face buried in his hands offering a prayer in my behalf. Nothing can efface that vision from my memory. Mother more than once said in her letters to me that she always remembered me in her prayers. I often think that I might not have fared so well and perhaps be a worse man than I am, were it not for the prayers of my father and mother.

Robert Vaughn.

Great Falls, Mont., March 20, 1898.

CROSSING THE PLAINS.

I left Fairbury, Livingston county, Illinois, March 4, 1864, in company with James Gibb, John Jackson, James Martin, and Sam Dempster and wife, destined for the new gold fields in Idaho, for the Territory of Montana had not then been created.

Our mode of traveling was with a four-horse team and a farm wagon. A great portion of Illinois and Iowa was then but sparsely settled; we would travel for hours without seeing any signs of habitation. The roads were very bad through those states; and it took us twenty-five days to come to Council Bluffs, which was then but a small frontier settlement. An old man, one of the inhabitants of the place, called my attention to two small hills on the bluff above the village and said: “It was there General Fremont, with his men, held a council before crossing the river to traverse the plains to California, and from this incident the town derives its name.” We crossed the Missouri on a ferry boat. Omaha had scarcely twelve hundred people. Here we made up a train of sixty-five wagons, some drawn by oxen. It was a mixed train as far as the destination was concerned. Some were going to California, Oregon, Washington, and Salt Lake, but mostly to the new gold diggings in Idaho. We were to travel together as far as Utah.

Our trail was on the north side of the North Platte river as far as Fort Laramie, following most of the way the surveying stakes on the line of the Union Pacific Railway. For several hundred miles, while we traveled in the Platte river valley, we passed over fine land for agriculture. Here we met a great many Indians of the Pawnee tribe, but all appeared to be friendly. I was approached by one of them, who came and asked me to give him some coffee; he was over six feet tall, and had a very large bow and arrows. I made a mark on a big cottonwood tree and stepped off fifty paces and told him if he put an arrow in that mark I would give him some coffee. At once he began sending his arrows, every one piercing the tree about two inches in depth, and the fourth one into the center of the mark. I gave him his coffee. On another occasion I put my hat on a bunch of sage brush for two Indian boys to shoot at for a piece of bread; the next thing I knew there was an arrow through my hat. Several days, when traveling in this valley, not a stick of timber of any kind could be had; the only fuel we could obtain was buffalo chips which were abundant.

The mail carrier told us that after passing a place called “Pawnee Swamp,” which was about fifty miles west of Fort Kearney, we would be in the Cheyenne and Sioux country, and that those Indians were very hostile to the whites. It was two days after we crossed this line before we saw an Indian. The third morning at day break, when I was on guard, I discovered one from a distance who was coming towards our camp. I kept watching him; finally he came to me and spoke, at the same time making signs; of course I did not understand either. While going on with his gibberish and making those motions with his hands he stepped up and patted me on the breast and on my vest pocket. I told him in plain English that he was getting a little too familiar for a stranger, and to keep away from me. Then he picked up a stem of some dried weed about the size of a match and scratched it on a stone as a person would when lighting a match. This convinced me that he wanted some matches. I gave him half a dozen and he thanked me, or at least I thought he did, for he gave a kind of grunt with a faint smile and went back in the direction he came from.

In the afternoon of the same day we crossed a small creek; on its bank there was a newly made grave in which a young woman twenty-two years of age had been laid to rest. At the head of the grave, for a head-board, a round stick, which had been used at one time for a picket pin, was placed, and on this some unskilled hand had written with a pencil “In memory of ——,” the name I could not decipher, but the words “dear daughter” were plainly written, which indicated that there was a parent present to kiss her marble brow before it was lowered into the silent tomb. This instance made a deep impression on me then when viewing that lonely grave in the heart of the wilderness and thinking of its occupant, who possibly was once the center star in some lovable family, but was left there alone in her earthen couch to sleep and rest forever; and when, on the coming of spring, no one would be there to even pluck wild flowers and lay them on the grave of the unfortunate young traveler. What more sorrowful sight could there be than witnessing those parents leaving that sacred spot before continuing their westward journey, and, when on that ridge, taking the last look at the little mound by the winding brook in the valley below? Here the curtain drops on this pitiful scene; the emigrant train is out of sight and all is over.

At Fort Laramie we met the noted frontiersman, John Bozeman, after whom the city of Bozeman, Montana, was named. He sought to organize a train to take a cut-off route east of the Big Horn mountains. There was also a man by the name of McKnight, who was a trader at this place. He had two wagons loaded with goods for Alder Gulch, each wagon being drawn by four fine mules, and he was getting up a train to go west of the Big Horn mountains and through the Wind River country. McKnight said to me that he wanted about one hundred wagons and about five hundred good, resolute, determined men and they would get through all right. I told him that there were five of us, and that we would accompany him. There were scores of wagons passing Laramie every day and most of them were bound for the new gold diggings.

The first day we got twenty wagons to join the McKnight train, and we pulled out about a quarter of a mile in the direction we were to travel. This new camp was a kind of “refinery;” here one and all might consider the perils, dangers and privations likely to be encountered. The faint-hearted ones took the safer route by way of the South Pass. However, in a few days we had four hundred and fifty men and over one hundred wagons. We were aware that we were going to travel through several hundred miles of an untrodden wilderness, where Red Cloud and Sitting Bull reigned over twenty or twenty-five thousand savages, so it was very necessary for us to be well armed and organized. Before starting we took a vote and selected a captain and two lieutenants, and a committee of three to examine every one and see if he was prepared with guns, sufficient ammunition, and if his outfit was substantial enough to make the trip. A paper was drawn in which was inserted a provision that we were to stand by and defend each other at all hazards; to this we all signed our names. We realized that it was a perilous undertaking, but we pressed onward. We depended a great deal on our guide. He was a tall, well-built, straight, dark-complexioned, resolute and intelligent man; he was reared in Canada and had been in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He was a famous scout and versed in the language of every Indian tribe from the Platte to the Saskatchewan, and was both feared and respected by all. He was a brave and true man, whose tact and courage, on more than one occasion, resulted in avoiding trouble with hostile redskins.

Roll was called every evening. Each man had to be on guard in his turn for four consecutive hours during the night. To form the camp the first wagon had to make a circle until it faced the hindmost one, and each one followed forming thus a stockade, the horses being driven past the inside hind wheel of the wagon in front; after unhitching the tongue was thrown over the wheel and rested on the axle. At night all the horses and the tents were on the inside and those standing guard being on the outside. We invariably formed our camp in this way, and were always on our guard, for no man can tell when danger may be near in an Indian country. When there is not an Indian to be seen it is the time they are the most likely to make an attack. An incident I well remember. The writer and Gibb were ahead of the train and about half a mile on one side from the direction we were traveling. Crossing a small ravine we saw two Indians hiding under some willows. They pretended not to see us. It is probable that there were many more in that vicinity, although there was no indication of the kind.

One day we came through a Sioux village of eighty-five tepees; there were from two to three hundred Indians, chiefly women and children. On a slope of a hill near by were over eight hundred horses in charge of six Indians. Though we camped at noon but a short distance from them, only two approached us, and their actions were different from those of the other Indians whom we met. When the Sioux came to our camp they would go from one tent or wagon to another in a sullen manner with a contemptible look as if they were going to massacre every one of us, and likely the reason they did not was that we had taken them unawares and before they had time to prepare, besides we were as good as an equal number of soldiers if it had come to fighting. But by the year following they were better prepared, for they had obtained guns and ammunition from the traders. They killed many immigrants. And the year succeeding traveling through that part of the Sioux country was entirely discontinued, and Fort Phil Kearney was established. A few months later all the soldiers, eighty-one in number, were killed by the Indians—not one was left to tell the story. And, these savages kept up their murderous deeds until the Sioux war of 1876.

Many times I thought of the perils and dangers that we escaped on that eventful journey, of which I now give an account.

It was against the rules of our camp for any one to kindle a fire after dark. The object was to prevent the Indians from locating us at night. We were obliged to camp where an abundance of water could be obtained. A small spring would not meet our requirements, for we had nearly three hundred horses, sometimes we had to make long drives to the next stream or a place where there was plenty of water. Other times we had to stop, from early noon until next day, for we could not make the drive in one afternoon. For the balance of the day we frequently had considerable sport by playing several games, shooting at a mark, short and long distance jumping, wrestling and foot racing; but as the journey grew longer the contraction of the muscles put a stop to the latter three. On one of those long evenings we saw a torch light at the base of a mountain not far off. It was swung back and forth for several minutes. It was an Indian sign, and that put a stop to all games for that evening. We looked for trouble that night, but had none. We were all happy and had no sickness on that trip. There were six or seven men from the southern part of Illinois who had the ague at the time they joined the party, but as we came nearer to the mountains all traces of it disappeared and returned no more. It was hard for us to secure game of any kind, for the Indians kept driving it away as we went, and it was not prudent for us to venture far from the course we were pursuing to look for any. We saw many deer and buffaloes, but they were a long ways off; occasionally we would get some of the smaller game. We traversed much good grazing land where water was plenty; also many valleys with rich lands for farming and an abundance of good timber.

MY FIRST VIEW OF THE ROCKIES.

The atmosphere was very clear when we first saw the Rocky mountains. They were several hundred miles distant; an old Californian pointed them out. They appeared to be of immense height and it was difficult to convince many of us that they were mountains, for they looked more like thunder clouds to us who came from the prairie states. Every day brought us nearer, and soon the perpetual snow was visible, then the green pines and the rocky cliffs above the timber line, where no vegetation exists, were plain to be seen, and, as I gazed at those high rocky peaks, reaching above the clouds, it was plain to see why the Rocky mountains were called “The Rockies.”

It did not take many days to skirt those lofty mountains and wind our way through their canyons, listening to the rebounding echo of our wagons rattling over the rocks and boulders as we went.

In one of those narrow valleys in the mountains we camped one June day for dinner. Trout was abundant in the creek. On both sides there was a dense growth of pine. Thinking that it was a good place to look for deer, I took my gun and climbed the mountain side until I reached where the land was almost level. After I had gone about a mile, I arrived at an opening in the woods; two or three hundred yards away I saw a large brown bear and elevating my gun I took aim at the big brute; just then a second thought came to me, and I said to myself: “If I kill it, all well and good; if I only wound it I’ll get the worst of it.” I paused for a minute, looking at the bear, and the longer I looked the larger it seemed; the bear stood and looked at me, and finally he walked away slowly, occasionally looking back. I was walking as the bear did, only in the opposite direction. Soon the bear stopped and faced towards me and I made a bee-line for the camp, for I was not looking for that kind of game that day.

We frequently passed trees in the branches of which a dead Indian was placed on a kind of scaffold eight or ten feet above the ground. This place of burial was constructed of poles and branches of trees tied together with strips of rawhide. The remains were carefully wrapped in beaded and painted robes, in Indian fashion, and secured with rawhide ropes to the scaffold. Thus the dead Indian rested, high and dry, on his sacred roost until his gorgeous couch was destroyed by the elements and his bones picked by birds of prey. We also passed several scaffolds built on four forked stakes, on which remains of Indians were placed, and wrapped in the same manner as those on the trees.

Very often some aged Indians would visit our camps and go from one tent to another and peep in as if they were counting to ascertain how many there were. We treated them kindly and gave them something to eat; they always asked for matches and were very fond of tobacco. Our guide warned us that they were spies and for us to have our guns in a conspicuous place so they could see our strength. We had many obstacles to contend with on our journey. One day we had to travel forty miles without water. It was very hot; many of the horses giving out, their tongues being swollen until they protruded from their mouths. At another time we had to let the wagons down the mountain with ropes, with the hind wheels locked; and we had to cross rivers on rafts and wagon boxes; again fording streams where there was great danger of being taken down by the surging waters. Four of our men came very near losing their lives in this way; but being good swimmers they avoided drowning. We crossed the Powder, Clark’s Fork, Rosebud and Yellowstone rivers and many other streams. The first we came to were very high, for at that time the snows were melting off the mountains.

AN INDIAN GRAVE.

Upon reaching the Rosebud we pitched our tents and camped till the next morning. It was in the latter part of June; the trees and shrubs were in full foliage and the wild flowers perfumed the air. The Rosebud is one of the prettiest rivers I ever saw; like all mountain streams the current is swift and its water as clear as crystal. Its beds are inlaid with pebbles of all imaginable colors, with occasional large boulders, where the speckled trout hides as one approaches the water’s edge. Along its banks are groves of ancient trees, with underbrush of many varieties and wild roses in great profusion. The bottom lands for miles are but nature’s meadows, while the rolling hills, as far as the eye can see, are a vast pasture land dotted here and there with clumps of timber. Although away from civilization, the small birds flutter among the branches, singing their sweet songs with as tender cadence as if in somebody’s front yard in the civilized East. The same can be said of nearly all of the streams and valleys that we crossed and came through on our journey. On first view of these beautiful landscapes a person would think that some prehistoric race had cultivated these fertile valleys and planted those ancient trees and groves that grew as uniform as if the ground had been laid out by some expert landscape gardener. On further observation, we could see high, tempest tortured towers of grand masonry work, which had withstood the elements for ages. All is but the handiwork of nature, directed by the Great Architect of the Universe.

IN THE ROCKIES.

NATURE’S GRAND MASONRY WORK.

When in the Yellowstone valley we saw from a distance a party of Indians all mounted and coming towards us. Our captain at once gave orders to form into a camp, and, before the Indians got near, we were formed into a stockade and ready for battle, if necessary. As the Indians approached our guide stepped forward about two hundred yards to meet them. They were eighty-five in number. Then they whipped their horses to greater speed and began yelling. When within about two hundred yards of him, he lifted his hand and the Indians stopped as if they were shot. The chief of the party and our guide had a sign talk for a few minutes; the chief came forward and stated that they were “Crows” and he wished to know who we were. He was informed who we were and where we were going. They talked for about ten minutes, then the balance of the Indians came forward and were invited to come to our camp. They were mounted on good horses and had on their war paint and all were stripped to their waists. We gave them bread and coffee and took a smoke with them. Smoking with an Indian signifies that he is friendly. They all left very peaceably and never came back. They were the last Indians we saw until we got to Alder Creek.

Some distance after crossing the Yellowstone river the writer and two others were considerably ahead of the wagons and crossing our course was a ripple of clear water. The sun was hot and the effect of the heat made us thirsty. All three, nearly at the same time, got down to quench their thirst with the sparkling water. The first one cries at the top of his voice: “My God, it is hot;” the second remarked: “Well, boys, we must be near to the jumping-off place,” while the third thought that we were getting near to the infernal regions. However, it was a great wonder to us, for this was the first hot spring that we had ever seen.

This spring is to-day the renowned Hunter Hot Springs, a place of resort for its mineral properties, where hundreds of people are treated every year for rheumatism and kindred diseases. It has fine hotel accommodations and all modern conveniences and improvements for the comfort of its patrons. What was “then” but a ripple of hot water is “now” a Western Saratoga.

After a journey of two thousand miles over plains and sandy deserts, up the hills and down the canyons, crossing rivers and through many beautiful valleys, fatigued by much suffering, hardships and dangers, we arrived in Alder Gulch July 13, 1864. We found it to be a great camp, and were told how many dollars to the pan and how rich the mines were, and of the “road agents” robbing and killing people; of the organization of the vigilance committee and the good work they were doing by hanging the desperadoes, and suppressing lawlessness. Not until we arrived did we learn of the organization of the Territory of Montana, for it was completed May 26th, while we were in the wilderness. Truly, Montana “then” was but an infant in its cradle.

Robert Vaughn.

Feb. 11, 1898.

ON A STAMPEDE TO THE YELLOWSTONE.

In September, 1864, James Gibb, Jack Williams, Charles Howard, myself and a man named Wilson, left Alder Gulch on a “stampede” to the upper Yellowstone country. It was reported that a rich gold discovery had been made not far from the canyon at the Yellowstone river. Each of us procured a saddle pony, and a pack horse. We undertook to follow the base of the mountains; crossing the headwaters of the Madison, Jefferson, and Gallatin rivers. We were traveling by direction of a map and the use of a compass, but made the mistake of keeping too near the mountains, for we were delayed several times by the dense pines that grew so thick in some places that we had to chop our way through. In one small valley there was a great quantity of petrified wood, and in the bed of the creek nearly all the stones were petrifactions. I remember that we stopped on the banks of this creek for dinner. The mountains were very steep. On a cliff about one hundred yards off stood a Rocky mountain goat. At first we thought it a domestic sheep, for it was very white, bleated, and acted as if it was glad to see us. But then, as there were no settlers within several hundred miles, we could not imagine how a sheep could get to such a place. While we were discussing the matter, the animal leaped over cliffs and up the mountain as if it was on level ground, and this satisfied us all that it was a Rocky mountain goat. Not one of us had seen one previously. The next day we came to a small lake on top of a mountain, on approaching which we could see a big black bear rooting in the edge of the water, but it disappeared before we had a chance to shoot. After that we were on the watch for bear. Sometimes we would travel for several miles on a well-beaten trail made by wild animals. At one time Jack Williams was considerably in advance of the balance of the party, and on one of these game trails, at a point where the ground was a little marshy so an impression of any kind would show very plainly. Suddenly we could see Jack coming around the bend helter-skelter as fast as his pony could carry him, saying that he had seen the track of a grizzly bear coming straight towards him. I asked, “Do you mean to say that you saw a grizzly bear coming straight towards you?” “No,” said Jack, “I saw its track coming this way.” “And you went after the bear, did you?” Jack studied a minute and said: “I’ll be hanged I never thought of that, but I’ll tell you, boys, those tracks are fourteen inches long and eight inches wide; I don’t care what direction they point to, the sight of them is enough to convince a man when he is alone that he has not lost any bears.” On the seventh day we camped on the Yellowstone and stayed until the next morning. The river was not wide, but the current was very swift and the banks and the bed of the stream were very rocky. It was a fine place for trout fishing, and we caught some that weighed two pounds. We could not see any indications of travel up the river, but we went as far as the canyon. Wonderland was not known then. We concluded that the new Eldorado was not in that direction, so we turned back and went down the valley for many miles; we did some prospecting along the route. Finally we found about fifty men working in a place which had been named Emigrant Gulch. There were but few taking out gold in paying quantities; most of them were prospecting in the gulch and on the bars. We remained there several days, but found nothing that we thought would pay, although a great deal of gold has been taken out of this gulch since. Consequently we decided to go home. This time we took the lowland until we reached the emigrant trail. On our way, on the divide between the Yellowstone and Gallatin valleys, we saw about one hundred and fifty elks all in one herd, on a slope of a hill, grazing. Grass was abundant and game was plentiful; wherever we traveled we had all the trout and deer meat that we could eat. At the crossing of the Gallatin we met Mr. John Bozeman, for whom the City of Bozeman, Montana, is named, as I have [mentioned] in a previous letter. The last time that I met him was on the North Platte. There were with him three or four Indian people. He was returning from Alder Gulch, having made a successful trip with a train of emigrant wagons, of which he was guide. He brought this train, which was about one hundred and twenty wagons, from the North Platte river and by his “New Bozeman route,” east of the Big Horn mountains, to the Yellowstone valley and thence to the gold fields; now he was on his way back to organize another train for the same place and by the same route. Some time afterwards and but one day’s travel from the place where I met him last he was murdered by the treacherous Indians, for whom he had done many kind acts. Thus the brave pioneer and frontiersman John Bozeman, came to the end of his route. We had been very lucky; we saw but few Indians; the weather had been delightful, and all enjoyed the trip. We saw grand scenery, groves of lofty pines, natural parks stocked with wild deer and elks, brooks of clear water where the speckled trout played among its pebbles and had all the harbor to themselves; beautiful springs bursting forth from the mountain side, still higher the majestic peaks stood in bold relief above the mountain pines, where lay the perpetual snow; and to render man’s enjoyment complete, his lungs are filled with pure mountain air perfumed with scent of pines and herbs that grow everywhere. I know of no place like the mountains for one that loves nature in all its glory.

After twenty-nine days of “roughing it” we returned to Alder Gulch, not any richer, but wiser, men.

Robert Vaughn.

Feb. 12, 1898.

THE DISCOVERY OF ALDER CREEK, THE RICHEST GULCH ON THE GLOBE.

On April 9, 1863, several courageous miners met at Bannock City, and formulated plans to organize an expedition to the country of the Yellowstone and Big Horn rivers for the purpose of prospecting for gold, and if successful, the idea was to lay out townsites, and so forth. James Stuart, a brother of Granville Stuart (now of Butte), and William Fairweather, were the prime movers in getting up the expedition. It was agreed that those who were going to join the expedition should meet at Rattlesnake creek the next day. There the form of organization was to be adopted; the original manuscript, which is now in the possession of the Historical Society of Montana, reads thus: “Having determined to explore a portion of the country drained by the ‘Yellowstone’ for the purpose of discovering gold mines and securing townsites, and, believing this object could be better accomplished by forming ourselves into a regularly organized company, we hereby appoint James Stuart captain, agreeing upon our word of honor to obey all orders given or issued by him, or any subordinate officer appointed by him. In case of any member refusing to obey an order or orders from said captain, he shall be forcibly expelled from our camp. It is further understood and agreed that we all do our equal portions of work, the captain being umpire in all cases, sharing equally the benefits of the said labor both as to the discovery of gold and securing townsites.

“(Signed.) James Stuart, Cyrus D. Watkins, John Vanderbilt, James N. York, Richard McCafferty, James Hauxhurst, Drewyer Underwood, Samuel T. Hauser, Henry A. Bell, William Roach, A. Sterne Blake, George H. Smith, Henry T. Greery, Ephraim Bostwick.”

George Ives overtook the party the next day; he had not yet signed the agreement, but he intended doing so.

William Fairweather, Lewis Simons, Bill Sweeney, Thomas Cover, Barney Hughes, Henry Edgar and Rogers intended to meet Stuart and his party at a given place, but on account of losing their horses they failed to make the connection, but arrived there three or four days after Stuart and his party had passed. They took their trail, making as good time as possible, with the expectation of overtaking them in two or three days. But, on the upper Yellowstone, they were met by a large party of Crow Indians who took them prisoners. And this is the reason why the “Bill Fairweather party” and “the James Stuart party” became separated. The consequence was that Fairweather and his men were forced to turn back, and, when returning from what they thought was an unfortunate trip, they discovered Alder Gulch, which proved afterwards to be the richest gulch in the world. And it appears to a man in the moon that the Crow chief had a hand in making this discovery, and likely if Bill Fairweather had thought of it he would have staked him a claim.

When the news reached Bannock that Fairweather’s party had made a rich discovery everybody rushed for the new Eldorado, and in a few days Bannock was almost deserted. June 6, 1863, the Fairweather district was organized (in Alder Gulch), with Dr. Steele president and James Fergus recorder. And then and there the sills and rafters of the State of Montana were hewn.

Since then over $85,000,000 has been taken out of this remarkable gulch.

Recently a correspondent of the Anaconda Standard had an interview with the Henry Edgar referred to, which interview was published in the “Standard” Sept. 5, 1899, from which the following extracts are taken. Mr. Edgar said:

“In February, 1863, I sold my claim, which was No. 8 on Stapleton’s bar at Bannock, and went to Deer Lodge to get an outfit for this expedition. We intended to join Stuart’s party, which left Bannock about the same time we departed from Deer Lodge. That was the latter part of April or the first part of May. We were in reality bound for the Black Hills. Simmons accompanied us as our guide. There were six in the party. We had got two days’ travel below the mouth of Clarke’s Fork in the neighborhood of Pompey’s Pillar, when we were captured by the Indians. There was no fighting. That would have been sure death, they so far outnumbered us. They took us into camp and made medicine over us for three days.

“It was jointly through Bill Fairweather and Lewis Simmons that we were saved. I do not understand why it was, but a rattlesnake would never bite Bill. When he saw one he would always take it up and carry it along with him. They never seemed to resent anything he would do with them and he never killed one. As we were going towards the Indian village he picked up a rattlesnake, and just at the outskirts of the village he picked up another. When the Indians saw him come in with a rattlesnake on each arm they were awed. He put the snakes in his shirt bosom and Simmons told the Indians that he was the great medicine man of the whites.

“They took us into the medicine lodge, where a large bush was placed in the center. They marched us around that several times and finally Bill said if they repeated it he would pull up the sacred medicine bush. They marched us around again and Bill pulled up the bush and walloped the medicine man on the head with it. We then were formed three to three, back to back. We had refused all along to give up our guns and revolvers. The old chief drove the other Indians back with a whip. They had a council which lasted from noon till midnight. In the meantime we were sentenced. If we proceeded they would kill us. If we turned back and relinquished our horses we would not be harmed. It was Hobson’s choice. I received for my three horses an old horse, blind in one eye, and a yearling colt. For my three pairs of Oregon blankets a buffalo robe and a half, and for my grub, consisting of flour, bacon, coffee, beans, etc., a dozen dried buffalo tongues. Simmons remained with the Indians.

INDIAN WAR DANCE.

“We came back on the north side of the Yellowstone, after one day’s travel. We met an old squaw, who warned us not to cross the river. We took up into the mountains and camped there until morning, fearful of the Indians. We then saw thirty or forty of them looking for our trail. We remained until night and then crossed to the south side of the river. We came up pretty near to Shield’s river or Twenty-five-Yard creek, where we crossed to the north. There we found the Indians were ahead of us and had gone over the hills toward West Gallatin. We came on over the pass where the city of Bozeman now lies, and saw the Indians coming up the valley. We concealed ourselves in the brush along the creek and exchanged shots with them. There was a parley. They agreed that if we came out they would not harm us, but we wouldn’t trust them. We waited until dark and then struck for the Madison river, crossed it and went into the hills between the Gallatin and the Madison. The following day we crossed the Madison river and came up what is now known as the head of Wigwam gulch. We camped beside a lake at the foot of Bald mountain. We killed an elk there, and remained during the afternoon and over night to dry and smoke the meat.

“The day after we came down by the lake and over the bridge to Alder gulch. That was on May 26, 1863, about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun was shining brightly. Fairweather and I were to make camp and stand guard. The other four proceeded up the gulch, to what is now Highland, prospecting. About sundown Bill went across the creek to picket the horses.

“‘There is a piece of bed rock projecting,’ said Bill, ‘and we had better go over and see if we cannot get enough money to buy a little tobacco.’ So Bill took the pick and shovel and I took the pan and we crossed the creek. He dug the dirt up and shoveled it into the pan. I went down to the creek to wash it. While I was washing the dirt he scratched around in the bedrock with his butcher knife and picked out a piece of gold and called: ‘I’ve found a scad.’ I had the pan about half washed down and I replied: ‘If you have one I have a thousand.’ And so I had. That first pan weighed about $2.30. We washed three pans before dark and the three aggregated twelve dollars and some cents. As we finished, the other four returned tired and hostile because we hadn’t taken care of the horses. They had only found a color. I showed Sweeney what we had and asked him what he thought of the pan. ‘Salted, by G—d,’ exclaimed Sweeney. ‘You know well enough if you pike me down and run me through a sluice you couldn’t get a color,’ said I. Then all were in good humor. We had dried elk meat for supper.

“The next morning, as soon as daylight, we were all out. Sweeney’s first pan weighed five dollars. Hughes and Cover went up the gulch. Fairweather, Rogers, Sweeney and I went down. We staked two claims apiece, two hundred feet to the man, all connecting. We took fifty feet adjoining the claims on each side of the creek.

“We obtained about $180 that day altogether. We were tired and hungry and all out of provisions. As we panned the last gold we saw five antelope on the hill. Bill said to me: ‘Old man, if you ever looked straight for your supper, look straight now.’

“He went around one way and I went up the hill the other side, and each of us secured an antelope. We had neither coffee nor bread. Our supper consisted of antelope straight and visions of gold. We spent the next morning measuring the ground and staking it off. I wrote out the notices. The first I wrote was for Barney Hughes.

“‘What shall we call the gulch?’ I asked. ‘You name it,’ he said. So I called it Alder Gulch on account of the heavy clump of alders along the banks of the creek.”

Mr. Edgar was born in Dumfries, Scotland. He came to the United States when eighteen years of age. In 1850 he was in the Michigan lumber region; in 1857 he lived at Fergus Falls; in 1858 he was at Fort Geary, in the British possessions; in the fall of 1862 he was mining in Bannock and the following spring joined the party that discovered Alder gulch. Mr. Edgar is now past seventy-four years of age, and lives with his wife in a cozy mountain home near Plains, in Missoula county, in this state.

Robert Vaughn.

Sept. 25, 1899.

THE JAMES STUART PROSPECTING PARTY.

This expedition had the most desperate experience of any party of men in the Rocky mountains. They were chased by hostile Indians for hundreds of miles, endured untold privations, perils and hunger, some being killed; and during all this time they were in an unexplored region where assistance could not be obtained.

The first part of the history of this expedition has been given in the foregoing letter. The day the Fairweather party discovered Alder gulch the James Stuart party was being chased by Indians. The following are extracts from Captain Stuart’s diary, which he kept on that eventful prospecting trip in the “Yellowstone Country” in the spring of 1863.

“April 28, 1863.—We have traveled twenty miles today. About an hour before sundown, while lying around camp resting from the fatigues of the day, we were startled by hearing several guns fired from a clump of cottonwoods across the river, and immediately afterwards we saw about thirty Indians fording across. They came on a run, vociferating ‘How-dye-do,’ and ‘Up-sar-o-ka,’ which latter means ‘Crow Indians,’ in their language. By the time they were fairly in camp we had our horses all tied up, and every man prepared for emergencies. They first inquired who was our captain. I told them, and asked which was their captain. They showed me three, one big and two little ones. The large chief told me to have my men put all our things in the tents, and keep a sharp lookout or we would lose them. I then gave him a small piece of tobacco to have a grand smoke, and I also found that one of them, a very large man with a big belly, could talk the Snake Indian language, and he was at once installed as interpreter. They (the interpreter and chiefs) sat down in a circle and requested the pleasure of my company. I accepted the invitation, and our party soon stood guard over our horses. Meanwhile the other Indians began disputing with each other about who should have our best horses. I requested the chief to make them come from among the horses and behave themselves, which he did. At eight p. m. I put on double guard, and at ten p. m. all except the guard retired to rest. The Indians wandered around camp all night, like evil spirits; and such an odd night’s sleep as we had! Every few minutes somebody would have to rush out of his tent and capture something which the Indians would steal from under the tents, in spite of the guard, and this, too, when it was bright moonlight. At daylight I aroused the party, and we proceeded to ascertain our losses; each had lost something. As soon as we began to pack up they at once proceeded to forcibly trade horses, blankets, etc., and to appropriate everything they wanted. I saw that the time had come to do or die; therefore I ordered every man to be ready to open fire on them when I gave the signal. With one handful of cartridges and my rifle in the other, I told the Indians to mount their horses and go to their camp. They weakened, mounted their horses and left. Two of the chiefs, however, very politely requested to accompany us, which we refused, but they came along. After the Indians fed on the fragments of the breakfast, the chiefs and five others offered their robes, which we refused, I saying to keep them until we met again. After breakfast they went back and we traveled on down the river. After sundown we saw two Indians.

“April 29.—Started at sunrise accompanied by the two chiefs and six others. One of them had a letter from Agent Schoonover of Fort Union, which stated that the bearer was ‘Red Bear,’ one of the principal chiefs of the Crow nation. We gave them some supper, etc. He then presented me with a black horse; said he was all right; friend of ours, etc. Had a long talk with him, in the course of which he asked about old Jim Bridger, and also Peter Martin, desiring to know where they were and why they never came to see the Crows. The other Crows had told me that the Sioux had attacked the Fur Company’s express boat from Fort Benton, near Fort Union, and some said they had taken it, and others said they had killed some of the crew, but had not captured the boat. I asked Red Bear if it was so, and he replied that a rumor to that effect was current among the tribes, but he did not know whether it was true or not. When we retired to rest I gave orders to the guards not to kill, but take prisoners, any Indians which they might discover prowling around after our horses, and sure enough, about eleven p. m. they discovered one crawling up to two of our best horses that were tied to the same tree. They watched and waited until they got dead wood on him, and then captured him and called me up. I introduced him to Red Bear as one of his good Indians, who, he had just been telling me, would not annoy us any more, as he had told him not to, etc. He said the man was crazy and had no ears, etc. The old story, anything to excuse him. We had already had a practical illustration that stealing or attempting to steal is far from being considered a crime by even the best of them. We turned the thief loose, and early in the morning they all started back, leaving us alone in our glory. Traveled eighteen miles.

“April 30th.—Traveled all day down a valley between terraced table lands and buttes; valley about eight miles wide; snowy range to the west about eighty miles distant; no other snowy mountains in sight; low, open country around base of mountains. Camped three miles below the mouth of a large stream coming in on the south side; suppose it to be Clark’s Fork. I accepted Red Bear’s black horse last night and presented him my white mare in return. I thought at the time I had a little the best of it, but I found, during the day’s travel, that I was mistaken. We are so far away from any high mountains that all the party feel discouraged and lonesome. Give me the mountains in preference to plains, where one can see more level ground than he can ride over in a day. The ground is literally covered with young crickets. Between them and the grasshoppers I am afraid the grass will soon be used up. Course of river, six degrees north of east. Traveled fifteen miles.

“Friday, May 1, 1863.—About one o’clock last night Bostwick had his roan horse stolen while he and Greery were on guard. It was taken by two Indians, one of whom showed himself, but not plain enough to shoot at; while the guards were both watching to get a shot at him, his companion crawled into the other end of the camp and cut the horse loose and got away with him without attracting their attention; and this, too, when the moon was nearly at the full and without a cloud. Verily, the Crows are world-beaters, and words cannot do the subject justice. Fortunately, Bostwick was on guard himself, so he cannot charge anybody with carelessness. Course of river nearly northeast.”

The summary of the journal for the next eleven days is as follows: May 2d they saw large herds of buffalo and elk. May 3d they camped a few miles from Pompey’s Pillar. Arriving at this natural monument, they found the names of Captain Clarke and two of his men cut in the rock with the date, July 25, 1806. There were also two other names inscribed—Derick and Vancourt—dated May 23, 1834. On May 6th five men were detailed to cross the Big Horn river and survey a townsite and ranches, and another party of four was sent out prospecting for gold. On this day James Stuart and four others engraved their names on a sandstone up the river. On the 7th the party went up the west bank of the Big Horn, traveling eighteen miles that day. On the 8th they traveled fifteen miles through a desolate country. On the 9th the remains of an Indian were found buried up a tree. On the 11th a party of three white men was observed a little ways across the river; they would neither answer nor halt. It proved afterwards that this party were J. M. Bozeman and John M. Jacobs and his daughter, eight years old. They were on their way from the Three Forks of the Missouri river to Red Butte, on the North Platte river, and were then selecting a route for a wagon road, which was afterwards located and known as the “Jacobs and Bozeman cut-off.” This party had been chased by a party of Indians a few days before, and when they saw the Stuart party they at once mistook them for Indians. But two days afterwards they met about eighty mounted Indians. Knowing that they would be plundered of everything they had, if not murdered, Jacobs dropped his rifle and ammunition into a bunch of sage brush. Sure enough, the Indians did capture and stripped them of nearly everything they had and many were for killing them on the spot, but, after holding a kind of council, they let them go after giving them three miserable ponies for all their horses; most of their clothing and what provisions they had were taken away from them. They started off slowly until the Indians were out of sight, then returned and got Jacob’s gun and ammunition, but, unfortunately, there were but five bullets. Soon these were exhausted, and when they got through to North Platte they were in a famishing condition.

Again Mr. Stuart says: “May 13, 1863.—Last night Smith and I had the first watch, and about eleven o’clock the horses at my end were scared at something, but it was very dark and I could not see anything. I thought it might be a wolf prowling around the camp. A few minutes before eleven o’clock I sat up and lit a match to see what time it was, and also to light my pipe, but at once lay down again; we were both lying flat on the ground trying to see what made the horses so uneasy, and to this we owe our lives. Just then I heard Smith whisper that there was something around his part of the horse herd and a few seconds later the Crows fired a terrible volley into the camp. I was lying between two of my horses and both were killed and nearly fell on me. Four horses were killed and five more wounded, while in the tents two men were mortally, two badly, and three slightly wounded. Smith shouted, ‘Oh, you scoundrels!’ and fired both barrels of his shotgun, but, as far as we could tell next morning, without effect; he most probably fired too high. I could not fire, for the horses were in the way. I shouted for someone to tear down the tents to prevent their affording a mark for the murderous Indians a second time. York rushed out and tore them down in an instant. I then ordered all who were able to take arms and crawl out from the tents a little way and lie flat on the ground, and thus we lay until morning, expecting another attack each instant and determined to sell our lives as dearly as possible. When, at last, day dawned we could see a few Indians among the rocks and pines on a hill some five or six hundred yards away watching to see the result of their bloody work.

“An examination of the wounded presented a dreadful sight. C. D. Watkins was shot in the right temple, and the ball came out at the left cheek bone; the poor fellow was still breathing, but insensible. E. Bostwick was shot in five different places—once in the back of the shoulder, shattering the shoulder blade, but the ball did not come out in front; three balls passed through the right thigh, all shattering the bone, and one ball passed through the left thigh, which did not break the bone; he was sensible, but suffering terrible agony. H. A. Bell was shot twice—one ball entered at the lowest rib on the left side and lodged just under the skin on the right side; the other entered near the kidneys on the left side and came out near the thigh joint. D. Underwood was shot once, but the ball made six holes; it first passed through the left arm above the elbow, just missing the bone, and then passed through both breasts, which were large and full, just grazing the breast bone. H. T. Greery was wounded in the left shoulder blade with an arrow, but not dangerously hurt. George Ives was shot in the hip with a ball—a flesh wound; S. T. Hauser in the left breast with a ball, which passed through a thick memorandum book in his shirt pocket and lodged against a rib over his heart, the book saving his life. Several others had one or more ball holes through their clothes.”

Mr. Stuart continued his diary until they arrived at Bannock on June 22, 1863.

As the “Standard” man always camps on the trail of the pioneers, again, November 5, 1899, he met John Vanderbilt, who was with the James Stuart expedition of which I have spoke. During his conversation with the “Standard” reporter, Mr. Vanderbilt consented to give an account of that historical event. He said:

“We left Bannock on April 9, 1863. Our principal object was to explore the Wind, Big Horn, and the Stinking rivers. We got down among the Crows on the Yellowstone, when our troubles began. As we went into camp they tried to rob us of this thing and that, whatever happened to strike their fancy. We had a parley, but it did no good. They became so desperate that we had to show we were ready for action. There were probably thirty or forty Indians in the party, but they all gave in after we showed fight. That was in the latter part of April. They put down their bows and arrows and retreated. We immediately packed our camp and moved on. They followed along some distance behind. It was this band of Indians who turned back the Edgar and Fairweather party, which was just one day behind us.

“After that trouble we followed on down the Yellowstone, keeping guard at night. We frequently saw signs of the Indians, but had no more trouble for a few days. We camped seven days at the mouth of the Big Horn and laid out a townsite which we called Big Horn City. It still bears that name. We merely took a survey and platted the town, but took up no land. On May 3d we camped at Pompey’s Pillar, where we were much interested in reading the inscription bearing the names of Captain Clarke and two men, and the date, July 25, 1806.

“Then we started up the east side of the Big Horn river, crossed the Little Horn and went further up as far as the canyon. That was probably seventy-five miles from the mouth. On that night—the night of May 12th to 13th—took place our great fight with the Indians.

“It was just about midnight when the Indians attacked us. Stuart and Smith were on guard. They didn’t hear the Indians until they began firing on us. They first fired one or two shots and then a volley. Bostwick was the first one wounded. Then Watkins was shot through the head. Bell was shot in the side. A ball went through Underwood’s arm and into his breast. Another ball struck a memorandum book in Sam Hauser’s pocket and glanced onto a rib, saving his life.

“After this attack the Indians withdrew. Stuart told us, however, to lay low, as it is a common custom with Indians to attack again just before daylight. Some of our men were groaning, and in the darkness we could not tell the full extent of our casualties, nor could we tell at what moment the attack might be renewed. It was, indeed, a terrible night.

“Morning came without any further attack. Watkins died just about daylight. We found that three or four of our horses had been killed. Bostwick was badly wounded in the side. Bell was also severely injured. We held a consultation. To remain meant the certain extermination of the entire party. Yet we were reluctant to leave the wounded behind, and it was impossible to take them along. Sometime before we had all agreed that, in case we had a battle, each man would reserve one bullet for himself, so that he could not be captured and tortured. It was also agreed at that time if any were wounded he would not permit the others to remain behind to help him, but would end his own existence. It was, however, decided that if a man’s wound was not mortal the others were to stay with him. It was decided that Captain Stuart should be sole judge as to whether a man’s wound was mortal or not.

“That being the previous agreement, it was decided to wait until noon to see how serious the wounds of Bostwick and Bell might be. It was not considered possible to delay longer and save any of the party. All the forenoon the Indians were in sight on the side of the canyon. Stuart approached them and challenged them to come out and fight, but they made no response. As noon approached Bostwick asked us to go on and leave him, as he could not live long. We did not want to leave him while life was left in his body. He then asked Greery for a revolver, and at the last moment it was given him. He put the revolver up to his head and killed himself.

“We started at noon, leaving all our camp except provisions, for eight days. Bell said he couldn’t travel and didn’t want to kill himself, so we left him on the ground. We got about a quarter of a mile away, going toward the east, when we saw Bell motioning us to wait. We went back, put him on a horse, and he kept along with us. He got through all right.

“That same evening Greery accidentally shot himself with his rifle. We made the practice of laying our guns in the same place. His rifle, as he picked it up, became entangled in the sage brush, exploded and shot him. After fifteen or twenty minutes he begged us to kill him, as he said that he was suffering intensely and could not live. We refused, however. Finally, when it was necessary for us to go on, we let him have his revolver. He asked Stuart where the surest place for him to shoot himself was situated, and Stuart told him in the ear. All bade him good bye. I was the last to see him alive. I pleaded with him not to, but he said he couldn’t live long anyway. I stood on a little raise. He was behind it. He was very weak. He pulled the trigger, but it didn’t go off. Then he pulled a second time and killed himself. We dug a hole in the ground and buried him in his blanket. The Indians were constantly in sight during this time.

“We then packed up and continued that long and terrible journey. We traveled nights and rested part of the day. In that way the Indians following our tracks would almost overtake us, but we would get ahead again during the night. We suffered hardships that can never be told. We took only eight days’ provisions along after the battle, and that was soon consumed. One night we had nothing to eat. Then Stuart killed an antelope. The next day we had nothing but a fawn two or three days old, which made us all sick. After that we had plenty of buffalo meat, and for eight or ten days we had nothing else, and only alkali water to drink. For a long distance we traveled through snow two or three feet deep and would sometimes sink down into pools of ice water. While crossing the Big Horn range we were wet nearly all the time. We hadn’t been able to buy boots or shoes at Bannock and had nothing on our feet except moccasins. Crossing the Big Horn mountains we were guided by the stars, changing our course a good deal.

“We struck the Wind river above the canyon and followed it up, going in a southerly direction. Bell complained of pain all the time, so we could only go at a walk. When we crossed the divide we saw emigrant wagons on the road twelve miles away. Hauser felt so overjoyed he tied his handkerchief to a stick and hurrahed. Then we traveled rapidly along towards the road, which we soon reached. The emigrants thought we were Indians; we were so black and dirty, and they came out to fight us. We soon convinced them that we were all right. They let us have flour, potatoes and everything we wanted. They didn’t want to charge us, but we had plenty of money and so paid them for what we obtained. We went on to Pacific Springs, on the California road, by the Snake river to Bannock, which we reached sometime in June. We left Bell at a soldiers’ station, where the bullet was extracted, and he remained until he had recovered.”

Mr. Vanderbilt has made his home for several years past in New York state, but recently he returned to this state, where he has met many of his old-time friends. He says that the changes made in the “Rockies” by “Then and Now” are great, but that the old mountains that he used to climb in search of gold are the same; and that the high peaks that reached to welcome him back to his old camping ground are the same “now” as they were “then,” otherwise he would have thought that he was still in the East.

Robert Vaughn.

Nov. 14, 1899.

FROM ALDER GULCH TO LAST CHANCE.

Having remained in Alder gulch all summer working in the mines for Boon and Vivian at ten dollars per day in gold dust, in December, 1864, four of us made a bargain with a man who had two small Mexican mules and an old spring wagon, to take us and our baggage to the new gold mines called Last Chance (now Helena). It was understood that we were to walk, and help the mules (or “Jerusalem ponies,” as one of the boys called them) up the hills. The little animals were not over thirteen hands high, and would weigh about 400 pounds each. We came down the Prickly Pear creek, where now the Montana Central railway is. “Then” there was no town of Clancy, nor a quartz mill nor a smelter on the creek; not a sound could be heard there, except that of the pick of the prospector on the mountains, hunting for gold. We kept on the trail until we got to the new Eldorado, where several hundred miners were at work; many were taking out gold in great quantities, others were prospecting their claims.

Before going any further we will stop a minute and listen to “Now” telling a short story in connection to the creek referred to. “A few days ago I was invited to go to the roundhouse at this place to see two new locomotives which had just arrived from the East. They were the largest in weight and dimensions ever built in any country up to that time, each weighing one hundred and fifty-four tons. Mr. Bruce, the master mechanic at the railway shops, informed me that they were to run on the Montana Central railway from Clancy, on Prickly Pear creek, and over the Rocky Mountain divide. Although this is one of the heaviest pulls in the country, the big engines each are to draw six hundred and seventy tons. Several hundred passengers are drawn over this divide every twenty-four hours, besides about seven thousand tons of freight, principally coal from Cascade county to Butte and Anaconda, and copper ore from the Butte mines to the copper smelters and refiners at the falls of the Missouri river, near Great Falls, and lead and silver ores to the East Helena smelter.

When looking at those two great locomotives I could not avoid thinking of the contrast between them and the two Mexican mules, and of the motive power on the old trail, and the motive power on the new. The little mules were thirteen hands high and drew one thousand pounds; each of the big locomotives is fifteen feet, or forty-five hands, high, and draws six hundred and seventy tons. It is to me like a dream to think of the great changes that have taken place since that time.

Then Helena was but a mining camp, consisting of but a few log cabins. There is where I helped to run a drain ditch, commencing at Discovery Claim, near where now stands the Montana Club building. We reached bed rock in the upper end of the city. Among the gravel in this drain ditch, about forty-five feet from the surface and near where the Helena fire department building is, a mastodon tooth was found; it was a grinder, three inches on top, six inches deep and eight inches lengthwise; it was as perfect as it was when it came from the monster’s mouth, when this northern country was a tropical region. In another claim a tusk was found like that of an elephant. Many other remains of animals have been found in mines and rock formations in the Rockies, showing that the Rocky mountain region has, at one time, been the home of animals that are not now in existence, at least not in the western hemisphere. It is estimated that thirty millions of dollars have been taken out of Last Chance gulch and its tributaries, and most of it from where the streets of Helena now are.

From Painting by C. M. Russell.

A PRAIRIE SCHOONER CROSSING THE PLAINS.

Miners’ wages were then ten dollars per day; common laborers seven dollars. During the winter of 1865 eatables of all kinds were very dear, except meat, for game was plentiful; flour sold for one hundred and twenty-five dollars per one hundred pounds. “Then” my friend Charley Cannon was an humble baker, and was selling dried apple pies that were not sweetened, with crusts as thin as a wafer, for one dollar a piece. “Now” he is an honored and respected citizen and one of the wealthiest men in the state. “Now” Helena is a city of twelve thousand inhabitants and the capital of the state. The capitol building is in course of construction, and, when completed, will be one of the finest in the West. Where the log cabins stood, handsome business blocks and pleasant homes are everywhere visible.

Besides the Montana Central, which runs north and south and through Helena, the transcontinental line of the Northern Pacific connects the Atlantic and Pacific by extending east and west. Their freight and passenger depots are located on the old mining claims, where husky miners, in their overalls and flannel shirts, swung the picks and tossed the shovels with their brawny arms and contributed thousands of dollars to the world’s treasury. Today railroad conductors and other officials are skipping over the same ground in broad cloth, with pen and pencil behind ears that are braced up by high collars attached to boiled shirts.

And so it goes—the miner, the mechanic, the herdsman and plowman, the conductor, the railroad official and the man with the pencil, yes, the tie ballaster and the newsboy, all are linked in the endless chain of Western progress. And now a commerce is created which brings a revenue to our government amounting to millions of dollars annually, besides many millions more to the laborers and those who furnished the money to carry on these industries and enterprises that are continually developing and adding to the wealth of the nation.

Thus the wheel of progress has moved forward with tremendous speed since my first arrival in Helena in 1864 with the man who had the two “Jerusalem ponies.”

A SCENE IN THE CITY OF HELENA.

From Helena I went to Nelson gulch, where there were some very good diggings. The richest was that owned by the Maxwell & Rollins company, near the head of the gulch. In July, 1865, this company had a crew of ten men running a set of sluice boxes in very rich gravel. The man who used the fork to throw the stones which were too heavy for the water to carry out of the boxes, noticed that one small stone that he cast away was very heavy for its size. Wishing to know what kind of a stone it was, he went to the pile and examined it. To his astonishment it was a nugget of gold worth two thousand and seventy-three dollars. All hands quit work to see the big nugget, and the men on the adjoining claims came also to view it. Finally three cheers were given, and repeated several times until the echo went up and down the canyon. I was about a quarter of a mile down the creek at the time. Hearing the yelling, many thought that a serious accident had occurred. Soon the men came down the gulch with the big nugget suspended from the center of a pole, with the crowd following, and, as they marched down the gulch, everybody joined the mob: and when they reached the town which was near the lower end of the gulch where there were two stores and as many saloons, besides several miners’ cabins, the crowd numbered three hundred or more. From two to three hundred dollars was spent by the Maxwell & Rollins company in treating the boys. The nugget was pure gold with no quartz. It was the shape of a hand with the thumb turned under. In 1877 another nugget worth one thousand and fifty dollars was found in the same gulch by Mr. Rogers. The gold of the Nelson and Highland gulches is the purest of any ever found in Montana.

The largest nugget was found in Snow Shoe gulch in 1865, which weighed one hundred and seventy-eight ounces and was worth three thousand two hundred dollars; there was some quartz attached. This nugget was long in shape, more like a foot than a hand. Snow Shoe gulch is located on top of the main range of the rockies, and near the Mullen tunnel on the Northern Pacific railway.

Deitrick and Brother found a nugget on their claim in Rocker gulch in 1867 worth eighteen hundred dollars. Many other large nuggets were found in different gulches, but these were the largest. The placer gold varies in size from microscopic powder to the monster slugs spoken of, and in quality from 600 to 990 in fineness.

Several hundred bars and gulches were in operation in the years 1865–1866, and were producing thousands of dollars daily. Those mines extended through a region one hundred and twenty-five miles square. The greatest producer of all was Alder gulch, with thirteen miles of pay ground. It is estimated that from seventy to eighty-five million dollars have been taken out of this gulch. Last Chance ranks next. Many other gulches were as rich, but not so extensive. It is safe to say that Confederate gulch produced more gold from the same number of square yards and in less time than any other placer mine ever found in the state. In the summer of 1866 a party of men took out of this gulch two and one half tons of gold worth one and one half million dollars. Early in the fall of the same year it was hauled by a four-mule team, escorted by fourteen armed men, to Fort Benton for transportation down the Missouri river. Mr. Lindiman and Mr. Hieediman, the two men who were the owners of most of the gold, accompanied the outfit.

Robert Vaughn.

Dec. 18, 1898.

FROM THE MINES TO THE FARM.

I remained in Nelson gulch over three years; during this time I did some mining, afterwards kept a meat market.

I had not the least idea of establishing a home in Montana, and, in truth, the field was not, just then, an inviting one for the homeseeker. All of us then were seeking gold and nothing else. Nearly everyone had made up his mind as to the specific amount he wanted, after which he was ready to return to the states to enjoy the same. Many made fortunes and carried out precisely this programme, but others were not so successful—among the latter myself. I was not ready to return at the end of the first or second year. I observed, with others, that our ponies and work cattle fattened readily on weathered bunch grass, and would live on this provender through the winter without care or shelter; that the meat of the deer, elk and buffalo was in prime condition, even in the dead of winter; and that experiments on a small scale in growing vegetables and grain in the valleys were very successful, and that the climate of the country gave health and vigor to both man and beast. In view of these observations, I concluded that Montana was a good enough country for me to live in.

In the fall of 1869 I came to the Sun river valley and located a ranch on the north side of the river, nine miles down the valley from Sun River Crossing, and near the Leaving Stage Station (now Sunnyside), on the Helena and Benton road. I remember well when I made the entry in the land office at Helena, that the register said to me: “Well, Vaughn, this is the first entry made in Choteau county.”

A few weeks later Colonel Baker made a raid on the Indians on the Marias river. During the years 1867, 1868 and 1869 the Blackfeet and Piegan Indians caused a great deal of trouble by attacking freighters, killing settlers and stealing their horses. These outrages became so frequent that the war department finally decided that those bands of bloodthirsty Indians must be taught a severe lesson.

General Sheridan was in command of the military division of the Missouri, which embraced Montana. Direct telegraph communication existed between General Sheridan’s office and Fort Shaw. In December, 1869, all the minutiae of the campaign were worked out at the division headquarters, and the necessary details sent to the commanding officer at Fort Shaw. Cavalry from Fort Ellis and infantry from Fort Shaw were detailed for the expedition, and the forces were under the command of Colonel Baker of the Second cavalry, with Joe Kipp, Henry Martin and Joe Cobel as guides. Every effort was made to keep the destination of the troops secret. It was late at night when they marched to the point where the guides intended to take them. On account of frost in the air and a few inches of snow on the ground they had some difficulty in keeping the right course. Finally the command arrived at the bluffs overlooking the Marias river; the tepees of the enemy were hardly observable, but the scouts had located the Indian villages, and, before daylight, they were completely surrounded by the soldiers. At an early hour the firing commenced and before the bugle called a halt nearly two hundred Indians had joined their ancestors in their happy hunting grounds. Two soldiers were killed in this terrible battle. When the news reached the stations along the Helena and Benton road, there were a few who became alarmed for fear that retaliation would be made by the Indians. But they did not retaliate; the battle was the best thing that ever happened to Northern Montana at that time. For several years afterwards the Indians were very shy, although some roving war parties of different tribes would cross the country and kill people and steal horses and cattle.

William Sparks and myself were only farmers in Northern Montana for several years, although some farming had been done in Sun River valley as early as 1858, by my namesake, Colonel Vaughn, who built the first agency for the Blackfeet Indians, which was located on the north side of the Sun river, about one-half mile above the crossing, and was known as the “Government Farm.” Here is where Colonel Vaughn, as an experiment in behalf of the government, cultivated a number of acres of land, several acres of which were sowed in wheat. It proved to be a grand success. The colonel estimated that the wheat crop would average seventy-five bushels to the acre, and so reported to the department at Washington. A story is told on the colonel that, in addition to his agricultural report, he also reported that the beavers were so numerous that the wheat crop was in danger of being destroyed by them, and to send him immediately five hundred beaver traps. The traps were sent at once by the fastest express then in existence, and arrived at the “Government Farm” after the wheat was threshed and put in the granary. The traps were used during the following winter by trappers, as they were intended in the first place. It was a good joke on the officials at Washington, for who ever heard of a beaver eating wheat.

In 1861 Mr. Sam Ford settled and located two miles above where now stands Fort Shaw. In 1862, also, the following named people were living on the government farm: J. H. Vail and family, a sister of Mrs. Vail’s, Miss O’Brien (who, in 1863, married Henry Plummer, the only sheriff then in what is now Montana; but he was a traitor, for at the same time he was the leader of a gang of desperadoes, although unknown to the young lady).

The following is from a letter written by Judge F. M. Thompson of the probate court for Franklin county, Massachusetts, to a friend in this city:

“It would give me great pleasure to visit your city, the site of which I first saw June 5, 1863, under somewhat interesting circumstances. I was at that time stopping with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Vail, at the ‘government farm’ on Sun river, awaiting the arrival at Fort Benton of the St. Louis steamers. Besides us at the farm were Joseph Swift, who had wintered there, my partner, Mr. C. E. Wheeler, Henry Plummer, Miss Electa O’Brien, two Vail children, and a hunter-herdsman. I quote from my diary: ‘June 5, 1863.—About 3 p. m., with Mr. and Mrs. Vail, Miss O’Brien and the two children in the government ambulance, and the remainder of the party on horseback, we left the stockade in charge of the hunter and started for the ‘Great Falls’ of the Missouri river. The Indians are very saucy and are cleaning out small parties of the whites, whom they can intimidate and steal from. We feel somewhat the risk we run in taking the women and children on the trip. Near sundown we had a scare, as Plummer, Wheeler and Swift in advance climbed the top of a knoll and suddenly stopping made signs of Indians, but, fortunately, the moving figures proved to be antelopes. Arriving at the lower falls after dark, we camped in a ravine, so that the light of our campfire might not be seen by the Indians. The next forenoon was spent in fishing and viewing the falls and building a large stone cairn, in which we deposited a paper claiming that the ladies of our party were the first to view the falls. (In this I think we were mistaken, as probably Mrs. La Barge and a friend visited the falls in the summer of 1862.) After dinner we started upon our return to the Fort, and, coming within sight of the farm, we found that the bottom was covered with a large number of Indian ponies grazing, under the charge of a guard.

Recognizing them as Spokanes, and friendly, we found a large party of their warriors visiting the farm. Finding that only one man was in possession, and he having locked the gates, they parleyed with him at the front, while some young bucks scaled the walls in the rear and took possession of the premises, compelling the hunter to cook from the stores of the station dinner for the whole crowd.

After a full discussion of the situation, by aid of the little ‘Chinook’ I had picked up, and a vigorous exhibition of sign language on our part, we finally persuaded the chief that it was best for him to ‘clatawaw,’ which he did much to our relief. (Clatawaw means go away.)

On the 20th of June, 1863, at Sun river, Henry Plummer and Miss Electa O’Brien were married by Rev. Father Minatre of the mission of St. Peter, Mr. Swift acting as best man, and, for the only time in my life, I acted as “bridesmaid.” The happy couple immediately left the farm in the government ambulance, to which were attached four green Indian ponies.

A few months later Henry Plummer had ended his career upon the gallows at Bannock.”

There was no farming done by those settlers except gardening on a small scale. In 1867 John Largent bought a cabin from a trader named Goff, and built another one near where now stands his fine residence. The same year Joe Healy built a cabin where now is H. B. Strong’s residence. Those two men were the first settlers of the town of Sun River.

In 1872 Ed Dennis, Hod Maine, James Strong and Charley Femeston farmed in Sun river valley. John Largent had then a store and blacksmith shop at Sun River Crossing; J. J. Healy and Al Hamilton kept a trading post on the north bank of the river, near the bridge. They had a large trade with the Indians.

In 1871 R. S. Ford and Thomas Dunn brought the first range cattle to the Sun River country, and, for that matter, to Northern Montana. They had 1,100 head. The following year O. H. and D. H. Churchill brought eight hundred head. These cattle were turned out on the range north of Sun River, between the Leaving and the falls of the Missouri river. The following winter thousands of buffaloes came from the north and we had to cross all domestic stock to the south side of the Sun river, and herd them, to some extent, to keep the buffaloes away. A few years later two brothers named Rock settled near the mouth of the Sun river and were engaged in chopping wood. Near where now stands the Montana Brewery plant was an empty cabin which had been built by hunters (the same cabin, which is made of logs, has been removed and now stands half a mile southwest of its first location, and is the property of the Great Northern Railway company). One morning, as one of the brothers was going to his work, twelve Indians, who had been secreted in the old cabin, rushed out and murdered him. The other brother was on the opposite side of the river, the present site of the city of Great Falls, and saw the Indians perpetrate this cold-blooded murder, but could render no assistance. After shooting him, they all made a rush to see which one would get there first to secure his scalp. Just then the brother, who was across the river, fired several shots. This scared the Indians and they fled before reaching their victim, who was killed instantly by eleven bullets, ten through the body and one in the head. “Scalping” is a cruel practice that these savages commit after capturing an enemy. They take off the crown of the head; sometimes they do this first and the killing afterwards. They preserve the scalp, and the one who has the greatest number to his credit is considered the bravest and is promoted in his tribe, and often obtains the chief’s daughter in marriage. It was not long after the killing of Rock that an Indian, while in the act of skinning a young domestic cow, was shot by one of the settlers. At this point on the Missouri river, where now stands the railroad bridge, there was a good ford. Here the Flatheads, Pend d’Oreilles, Nez Perces, Bloods, Piegans and Black feet crossed to get to the Judith and the Musselshell country en route to their winter hunting grounds; returning in the spring laden with dried meats, buffalo robes and pemmican. It was also a lurking place for the Blackfeet warriors when on their way to steal horses from the Crows. In returning the Crows would follow them up and commit all sorts of depredations upon the settlers along the line of their forays. As the buffaloes were getting scarce and more cattle were being put on the range the Indians became more troublesome by killing cattle. Once, as a party of Sun River settlers were crossing the country, they met eight young warriors on foot and among the cattle. They were on a horse-stealing expedition and well equipped with lariats and guns. The settlers, all well armed and mounted, made a swoop on the Indians and rounded them up. They took their arms and marched them out about five miles on the prairie towards the agency; then they gave back their guns and released them, telling them to make quick tracks for the reservation. As the Indians expected to be shot, they lost no time in getting away. This put a quietus on their cattle killing, and from that time they became more peaceable.

As more mines were discovered and operated, the population of the territory rapidly increased. The traffic on the Helena and Benton road was very great during the boating season on the upper Missouri, and before there was a railroad nearer than Ogden, Utah, consequently more settlers came into the valley. There were twelve locations between the Sun River Crossing and The Leaving. We joined together and constructed an irrigation ditch. We succeeded in growing a large crop of oats, wheat and barley; as high as eighty to one hundred bushels to an acre were raised by the writer and others. Also the largest and finest crops of potatoes I ever saw were raised there.

Now the Sun river valley and its tributaries have developed into some of the most extensive and wealthy settlements in the state. It has several towns with populations ranging from one hundred to thirteen thousand, having schools, churches, railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, flouring mills, refineries and smelters, electric lights and power and many public works.

The once hostile Indians have been subdued and are now on their reservations cultivating the soil by following the plow, running the mower and self-binder, raising horses, sheep and cattle, and are fast becoming civilized. Fort Shaw military post has become an Indian school. The parade ground, where the soldiers used to drill and prepare for Indian wars, is now used for picnic grounds and for the young Indian students to hold their Fourth of July celebrations.

Robert Vaughn.

Jan. 29, 1898.

A LETTER TO MY LITTLE BABE.

My Darling Little Babe—Your mother died January 13, 1888, when you were but thirteen days old. Today you are seven weeks old. Your tongue and communicative powers are tied with the tie of infancy. You can’t tell papa how dear mamma was loved and how sweet her last kiss was. You can’t tell papa that mamma said, “Take good care of darling babe,” and how she embraced you to her bosom and blessed you for the last time. Neither can you comprehend papa telling you how happy papa and mamma lived together. You are now sleeping in the cradle, and I am sitting alone by your side thinking of your dear mother and how she loved you before you were born, and the pleasure she had when making your little clothes during the last four months, before she was confined to her bed.

But she has gone to that land where rivers flow over golden sands; where pearls and many a gem deck the shores. Last night as I was mourning over her and thinking of her loving companionship and her kind words, a still voice came to me saying: “Tell our darling babe that we lived happy.” This set me to thinking that I may have passed through the “valley” before you will be old enough for me to tell you this happy tale. But, by the grace of God, I comfort myself with the hope that you and I will be companions to each other for many years to come, and that I will have the pleasure of listening to you reading me this letter which I am now writing. God bless you, sweet angel!

Your dear mother was born near Toronto, Canada, March 19, 1855. She was the daughter of Matthew and Jane Donahue. We were married August 25, 1886, at the home of Uncle and Aunt Spencer (where also she made her home), by Rev. J. H. Little. The same morning we left for Helena. We arrived there next day. It was fair week. We remained five days and met many friends. Here we had our photos taken and purchased our household goods—the organ, sewing machine, etc. And this is the time I had her ring made out of a nugget of gold I had taken from the mines twenty years before. We came home happy and went to work and organized our little home, and in about three weeks we had it—to us, a little palace. And oh! such a welcome she always gave me when I came home! What a heart she had! So large and pure, so kind and womanly! She always kept everything so neat and nice. She made me love home and gave me new thought—how very little happiness depends upon money. Often in the still hour of the evening we would stroll away through the meadows, sometimes down along the banks of Sun river, and carelessly hold each other’s hands. She walked closely at my side, telling me some sweet words and sometimes rhymes, and often we sang some favorite hymn. And now it seems to me how beautiful those happy days were. They are like dreams.

Your dear mother was always pleasant. I never left the house to be away all day without her giving me a kiss before I left, and she never failed to meet me at the door to give me a kiss and a welcome on my return. We truly loved each other. No wedded couple ever lived happier. Whatever I would do she always thought was done right, and whatever she would do I could not improve. It was impossible. Anything in the house, if it was moved from the place she had for it, I could preceive it at once. Even a picture on the wall could not be moved anywhere else to look as well as the place she already had selected for it. She was a perfect mechanic. She was genial. She was gentle and polite in her manners. A more faithful partner never lived. A more true, affectionate wife and more loving mother never existed. Your dear mother was a Christian. She lived and died as such. The first time we met in our little chamber to go to rest for the first night together, your dear mother knelt by the bedside and prayed to God to give us grace and bless us as we started on the voyage of life together. She asked Him to give us grace to live a happy life, to live so we could die happy. And many, many times I have thought of her prayers during our happy life, and of her sweet words, “Tell the folks I die happy.” From that time until she went to her final rest she always prayed before she retired at night. Also in the morning she kneeled before the Throne of Grace and thanked the Lord for his loving kindness. She always had her bible on the dresser or on the table in our bed room and perused it with care. She said one day: “If we can’t attend church regularly in this country, we can be good by prayer to God and read our bible regularly.” And her motto, in her own handiwork, is now over our bed-room door, chosen by herself years ago. It is this:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Simply *
* To Thy Cross I Cling. *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

She illustrated on her death bed how this beautiful motto was engraved on her heart, for among her last sayings was: “Blessed be the Saviour who died on the cross, and I cling to that cross.” Oh, what a treasure she was! Our short life together was but a holiday, and a happy one. And here now, I ask you, my dear babe, let your creed be the bible and your example your dear mother. If your father is not with you, ask some one to teach you to pray when you are young, for He said: “I love them that love me, and they that seek me early shall find me.” “The same God who moulded the sun and kindled the stars watches the flight of an insect. He who balances the clouds and hung the worlds upon nothing notices the fall of a sparrow. He who gives Saturn his rings and placed the moon like a ball of silver in the broad arch of the heaven, who gives the rose leaf its delicate tint and makes the distant sun to nourish the violet, the same being notices the praises of the cherubim and the prayers of a little child.”

It is He who is the father of the orphan; He whom your dear mother placed her trust in and who comforted her through life and death.

The following is her testimony on her death bed of a happy life ending in a happy death. She said to your sorrowful father: “My dear, do not let this worry you. Trust in the Lord and he will support you. I have trusted in Christ through all my life; now I trust in Him and He comforts me, for the Lord doeth all things well. I am ready to meet Him. I am ready to die. Take good care of our darling babe and tell her that we lived happy. God bless the little angel. It seems hard to us that we must part after living but a little while together, but it is God’s will; it is well. Do not be sad! be happy. The ring you made for me in Helena I will take to the grave with me. Call my loved ones to my side and let me kiss them and bid them good bye. Tell the folks I die happy. Blessed be the Saviour who died on the cross. Oh Lord! I am ready—take me, Oh Lord! Take me at midnight or in the dawning of the morning. Dear Lord, take me. Let me go home in peace. The valley is lighter. I see the great white throne. I want to go home.” She frequently said: “I want to go home” or “Take me home,” during her last hours on earth. Thus your dear mother passed away in peace, prepared to meet the God in whom she had placed her trust. I imagined hearing the soft wings of the angels fluttering in the room when they came to take her home and their soft whisperings saying: “She is dying happy. She is clinging to the cross;” then a voice: “Open the gates of heaven; she is coming home.” Her remains are sheltered safe from sorrow in the cemetery at Great Falls. Dear is the spot where she sleeps. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.”

Now, my dear little daughter, I am about to close this joy-mingled-with-grief letter, hoping that you and I will be loving companions to each other to scatter flowers over your dear mother’s grave for many decoration days to come.

Remember dear mother’s words, her Saviour’s cause extend—
Live pure and holy here, as through life’s way you wend—
And when the journey is over and you come to the valley,
May her words be your words: “Tell the folks I die happy.”

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. May He be your guide. Put your trust in Him. And that He will comfort you in life and in death is the prayer of your affectionate father,

Robert Vaughn.

P. S.—This letter and your mother’s jewels, which she willed to you, I will deposit in the First National Bank of Great Falls for safe keeping for you.

R. V.

Sun River, Mont., Feb. 18, 1888.

FROM THE FARM TO THE CITY OF GREAT FALLS.

GREAT FALLS, MONTANA.

In the year 1889, after meeting with my great loss in the death of my wife, I sold my farm in the Sun river valley and came to Great Falls, and built the “Arvon Block,” and the “Vaughn Building,” in which I now live, in rooms fifteen and sixteen, with my dear little ten-year-old daughter. Like the man who chased his shadow, I have chased myself from place to place for the period of sixty-one years, and for the distance of six thousand miles, and at last have caught up with myself. Now it is in order to give a sketch of my first visit to this spot where I now reside. It was in the winter of 1870, and it was rather a cold day, when, mounted on my gray mustang and looking down from the summit of the hill on the west side, where now stands the residence of Hon. T. E. Collins, I first saw the beautiful landscape, the site of the city of Great Falls. As I bent in my saddle to view the panorama before me, I longed to be an artist, that I might portray it. It was a picture that I shall never forget. On the south side of Sun river lay an Indian village, two tepees were on the north side, and one on Indian hill. The latter, I was afterwards told, sheltered a lookout who watched for the approach of an enemy and to observe in what direction the buffalo herds were moving. On Prospect Hill was a band of antelope, and through the low divide, west of J. P. Lewis’, a herd of buffalo were slowly moving in single file towards the river. In the grove some of these monarchs were rubbing against the trees, and, I should judge, were enjoying themselves immensely. Further east, on what is now Boston Heights, several hundred more were feeding on the grasses of the bench lands. While viewing the open plains, stretching on to where the Highwood and Little Belt ranges rose, covered with the first fall of snow, the winding rivers, the confluence of the Sun and the Missouri, following the latter in its course until lost to view between high bluffs, I forgot all save the scene before me, hearing only the roaring of the waters as they rushed over the Missouri falls further down the river. Just then I saw an Indian about half way between myself and the two tepees; he was on foot and coming towards me. As I had not lost any Indians, I put the spurs to my horse and headed for home. When I had gone about a mile I looked back and saw the Indian standing where I had been but a few minutes before. Today I once more looked down from the summit of the same hill, but what a changed picture was spread before me! The plains that were “then” dotted with buffaloes are “now” covered with pleasant homes and imposing business blocks. Where was once an Indian village, today the stock farm of Hon. Paris Gibson is located. The two tepees are replaced by The American Brewing and Malting company’s plant, and at the foot of Prospect Hill, where the antelopes were, a water plant for a city of fifteen thousand inhabitants is in full operation. On the commanding bluff, “then” occupied by the lookout tepee, “now” the lofty smokestack of the Boston and Montana copper smelter stands in bold relief against the blue background of the sky, a landmark for hundreds of settlers for many miles around. The Missouri river is spanned by several steel bridges which carriages and locomotives cross at will. The buffalo trails have given place to electric railways, and the grove, where these shaggy-looking animals used to rub their coats, is now a beautiful park echoing with children’s laughter. But the greatest change of all has been wrought at the falls of the Missouri. Its mighty voice “then” paramount, “now” has been overpowered and well nigh silenced by the humming of dynamos and the sound of the great ore crushers as they labor on day and night, the slaves of the white man’s civilization. A brief sketch of these falls is proper at this time. The falls of the Missouri river were first made known in 1805. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, was a leading figure in the purchase of Louisiana, which embraced the country west of the Mississippi from its mouth north to the forty-ninth parallel at the Lake of the Woods. The forty-ninth parallel constituted the northern boundary to the Rocky mountains; the western line was the summit of the Rockies to the Arkansas river, to the one-hundredth meridian, thence south to the Red river, thence down that river to the ninety-fourth meridian, thence southerly along that meridian to the Sabin river, thence down the Sabin river to the Gulf of Mexico.

COPPER SMELTER AT GREAT FALLS, MONTANA.

In 1803 Jefferson sent a message to congress, asking for an appropriation of $2,500 for the exploration of the Missouri and Columbia rivers. The result was that the amount was granted. Lewis and Clark were chosen to take charge of the expedition.

The expedition spent the winter of 1803–1804 near the mouth of the Missouri river. The Northwest was then a wilderness. The expedition ascended the Missouri river to Fort Mandan north of Bismarck, where they laid over during the winter of 1804–1805. Their means of transport were several rowboats. July, 1805, they arrived at the falls of the Missouri river, where they spent two weeks surveying and making a portage. Lewis and Clark were the first white men who visited the falls of the Missouri river, or at least they were the first to make its existence known to the world.

The lower falls, known, as the Great Falls, is a perpendicular fall of about ninety feet. The river at this point is estimated to contain a volume of water about three times greater than that of the Ohio at Pittsburg. This immense volume is here confined between rocky walls on either side, from two hundred to five hundred feet in height and about three hundred yards in width. Next to the right bank nearly half the stream descends vertically with such terrific force as to send continuous and always beautiful clouds of spray sometimes two hundred feet or more in the air. The other side of the river is precipitated over successive ledges of from ten to twenty feet, forming a magnificent view some two hundred yards in breadth and ninety feet in perpendicular elevation. A vast basin of surging, foaming waters succeeds below, its deep green color and commotion betraying a prodigious volume and depth.

From Painting by C. M. Russell.

LEWIS AND CLARK MEETING THE MANDAN INDIANS.

Five miles above are the Crooked and Rainbow Falls, the latter fifty feet in perpendicular descent. Here the entire river, one thousand two hundred feet wide, hurls itself over an unbroken rocky rim, as regular in its outline as a work of art, into a vast rock-bound amphitheater, where when the sun is shining a rainbow spans the river from bank to bank. This with the sprays, the roar and commotion of the water make a fascinating scene. From this rainbow the falls received its name.

Another two miles up the stream is the Black Eagle Falls. Here the entire river takes a vertical plunge of twenty-six feet. On an island, and just below this falls, there formerly was a large cottonwood tree, in the branches of which a black eagle had built its nest. It is from this that the Black Eagle Falls received its name.

The river where these falls are located flows through a grand natural canyon, where in its ceaseless flow, has cut a path for itself through the rock of the plains, sometimes to a depth of five hundred and fifty feet. The series of falls and cascades add a wild beauty to the scene.

In no place has there been found so great a water power. Within a distance of ten miles, including falls and cataracts, there is a descent of five hundred and twelve feet.

Robert Vaughn.

June 27th, 1899.

MONTANA’S PIONEERS.

Who were the pioneers of Montana? They were the brave men and noble women who came here first; they were descendants of many countries, and were the most courageous of the nations from which they came. They were the heroes who rescued this beautiful mountain land from the hands of the savages and laid the foundation and moulded the destiny of this great state.

The cut-throats, robbers and murderers who were here in the early days were not worthy of being called pioneers, for they made a desperate effort to demolish what the real pioneers were building up. To expose their kind, I will refer to two of this class who were hung at Virginia City in the presence of several hundred citizens. They belonged to a gang of highwaymen and murderers. Each stood on a separate box with a rope around his neck, which was attached to a crossbeam, and, while in this position, one was using the most profane language and cursing every one present; just then a friend of the victim whom he had robbed and killed shoved the box from under his feet; while this one was dangling in the air the other one looked at him, and with an oath said: “Kick away old boy, I will be in hell with you in a minute,” then jumped off the box himself and into eternity. Though these men were human beings, the wicked and vicious habits they had contracted had destroyed all the humanity they possessed. Now, in consequence, nothing was left of them but the brute, for they neither feared God nor respected their fellowmen. Between those ruffians and the Indians the pioneer had his hands full. He had to work for himself, and at the same time he was ready at a moment’s notice to defend the right and his fellow-man with as much pluck and bravery as any soldier ever displayed.

A GROUP OF PIONEERS.

Many think that most of the early settlers of Montana were of the rough element, but this impression is wrong. Most of the old pioneers were of the best law-abiding citizens that could be found in any country, men of culture as well as courage. Many of them afterwards helped to frame the constitution and the laws that govern the state at the present time (1899). Edgerton, her first governor, was here before the name “Montana” was thought of.

Ex-Governor S. T. Houser is now carrying a scar which he received at the time the James Stuart party, of which he was a member, had that terrible battle with the Indians on the Yellowstone in 1863. W. A. Clark, recently elected United States senator, and Ex-United States Senator Wilbur F. Sanders, and others who have already represented Montana in the halls of congress, also have worked in the prospector’s hole. Granville Stuart, who was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Paraguay and Uruguay in 1894, and served a term of four years, were here among the first comers. Nathaniel P. Langford (now of St. Paul, Minn.), the author of “Vigilante Days and Ways,” and who at one time was bank examiner for Montana, Idaho and Washington, was one of the first pioneers. Ex-Chief Justice W. Y. Pemberton was one of the pick and shovel brigade. Judge Knowles, Judge Hedges, and many others who are now holding high positions were with us. Judge Frank H. Woody is a Montana pioneer, for he came to what is now Montana in 1856, when the western portion of this state was a part of Washington Territory. Many of the leading lawyers that are now pleading at the bar of the state also have spoken in those “miner’s courts which were held in the open air.” Jack Fisk, Will H. and Robert N. Sutherlin and others who are to-day among the leading journalists of the state, were here before a single type was set. And there are scores of the veterans of early days, who, when the opportunity was given, have ranked themselves with the best business men of the state. When the roll is called of the self-made men of Montana, her pioneers will head the list.

And there were men who held divine services wherever the opportunity was given them; they were no cowards, either, for it took a pretty good man to fight the devil on his own half acre and whip him, too. I am glad to state that there are some of these old reverends “still in the ring.”

Peace be to the memory of those who have gone to receive their rewards for the good work they have done. With all respect to the Christian people, Catholics and Protestants alike, they did considerable for Montana in the early days and more than anyone knows, for a great deal of their work was done in the “Sacred chamber” without making any noise. I now recall two old prospectors who were up in the mountains searching for gold. After delving all day, they cooked and ate their supper, and then sat by the camp fire. One was telling about the dear ones at home, and that he was almost certain that they were thinking of him that very night. The other one spoke of his wife and three little children whom he had not seen for four years, but that he was writing to them constantly and he was receiving letters in return, and said he was in hopes of “striking it” soon and then he would go home. They sat up rather late that night; the moon had gone down, and the shade of the dark green pines made it still darker. It was in autumn when the leaves were falling. As the fire was getting low, they both went to bed side by side. It was a calm, still night; the rustling of the dead leaves that were strewn on the ground could be heard as some wild animal was passing their silent chamber, with occasionally the rumbling sound of a piece of rock which had broken loose from some distant cliff and went rolling down the mountain to the canyon below, re-echoed by the screeching of night birds, while the cataracts of many ripples swelled the midnight melody. Not a word was spoken for some time, each thinking that the other was asleep. But one began saying his evening prayers in a low, murmuring voice, which was as follows:

“Near the camp fire’s flickering light
In my blanket bed I lie,
Gazing through the shades of night
At the twinkling stars on high;
O’er me spirits in the air
Silent vigils seem to keep,
As I breathe my childhood prayer
Now I lay me down to sleep!

“Sadly sings the whippoorwill
In the boughs of yonder tree,
Laughingly the dancing rill
Swells the midnight melody;
Indians may be lurking near
In the canyon dark and deep,
Low I breathe in Jesus’ ear
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

“’Mid the stars one face I see,
One the Saviour called away,
Mother, who, in my infancy,
Taught my baby lips to pray,
Her sweet spirit hovers here
In this lonely mountain brake,
Take me to her, Saviour, dear,
If I should die before I wake!

“Fainter grows the flickering light
As each ember slowly dies,
Plaintively the birds of night
Fill the air with saddening cries;
Over me they seem to cry,
‘You may nevermore awake,’
Now I lisp, if I should die,
I pray the Lord my soul to take!

“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

These things that I have mentioned indicate that there was much of the better element here in the early days, and also a great deal of intelligence among those who wore the buckskin shirt, and to them a large portion of the credit should be given that Montana is today one of the brightest gems in our star spangled banner.

Robert Vaughn.

March 4, 1899.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE LIFE OF THE PIONEER.

In another letter giving an account of Indian depredations, [I stated]: “I will not attempt to follow their war path, for it is too long,” but allow me at this time to vary a little from that assertion. My object in doing so is to add to the already written history of this portion of the Northwest, where I have lived from my early manhood, and this portion of the country which was then in its infancy as far as civilization and settlement were concerned, therefore, to use a common expression, “we growed up together.”

Though a frontier life is free and fascinating, still, like everything else, there is a dark side to it, and this letter is principally intended to show the “dark side” of the life of the pioneer.

As a frontiersman, I, myself, may not care to again experience what I have passed through, yet, with all its perils and dangers I would not give my pioneer days in the West for all the balance of my life.

The following events occurred in Northern Montana. All are facts, and some of them I know of my own personal knowledge. Some of those whose names appear hereafter were killed by Indians, others died from exposure. I have often thought of the many victims that have fallen in the West; even their death never has been known nor heard of by anyone. Many remains of white men have been found without a trace of anything to lead to their identification.

Once there were three of us in the mountains prospecting. In a sheltered place under a projecting cliff there lay the skeleton of a man. It appeared that he had laid down to rest or to sleep. Nothing could be found to indicate whose remains it was. The clothing was weatherbeaten and torn, and an old silver watch and a gun laid on the ground with the scattering bones. The hair was light in color. It was one of those instances of “somebody’s boy” dying without even a stranger to record his last words.

By examining the following list the reader will find that the identification or names of twenty per cent of the unfortunate victims herein mentioned were not known, and that all included in the list, except six or seven, were killed in what was then Choteau county. They are but few in comparison to all that were killed in what is now the state of Montana.

First on the list is Little Tex, who was killed in 1866 by Blood Indians at the agency on what was then known as the government farm, on Sun river; then Indians set fire to the buildings. There is no certainty as to the number that perished.

Early in the spring of 1866 three men were murdered by Blackfeet not far from old St. Peter’s mission, which was then located on the Missouri river near Ulm on the Montana Central railroad. April 6th of the same year John Fitzgerald, an employe of the mission, was killed almost in sight of the buildings by Bloods. His grave and that of a man by the name of Johnson, a blacksmith, who was formerly at Fort Benton, and about fifteen other graves, mostly of Indians, are at the foot of the hill and near the Montana Central track, about half a mile from Ulm. The next day after the killing of Fitzgerald, Father Giorda, and all the inmates of the mission left for Helena, fearing that more trouble might come.

Lagree and Hunicke were murdered by Blackfeet and Bloods at Three Tree Coulee, Jan. 9, 1866. James Chembers was killed by Blackfeet at Dearborn in 1866, and old man Thebeaw killed at Dearborn the same year.

The murder of the builders of the town of Ophir occurred in May, 1865. Ophir was a new place located at the mouth of the Marias river, twelve miles below Fort Benton. At this period there had been only one or two houses built. The men, eleven in number, were about one mile above the location cutting logs and some of them were chopping wood for the steamers that were coming up the Missouri to Fort Benton. They were at work when the Indians killed them; not one escaped. When the news reached Fort Benton a party went and buried the unfortunate victims on the bank of the Missouri river near where they were killed. Thirty-four years have passed since then and the gradual cutting of the bank by the swift current has washed away that little graveyard, and now the resting place of these founders of states and builders of cities has been swept from the face of the earth and its occupants swallowed up by that mighty stream.

Six men were killed by Bloods on Old Man’s river early in 1865. The victims came from Fort Garry (now Winnipeg), and were reported to possess a large amount of money. Their leader was an old white-haired man.

William Berry was killed by Bloods on Elbow river, and Joe Monroe was killed by Bloods on Old Man’s river in 1874.

Miller was killed by Bloods on Old Man’s river in 1872.

McMillan was wounded by Assinnaboines, near Bow river, in 1874.

Two unknown men were killed by Assinnaboines, near Milk river, in 1874. The bodies were found tied to trees and riddled with bullets. Cottle and another man were killed in their house on Flat creek in 1877. The Nez Perces were supposed to be the murderers, as a few stragglers of that tribe were seen in the vicinity about the time the deed was done.

A party of men, women and children were killed by Bloods near Porcupine mountain in 1865. Their identification could not be obtained.

A soldier was killed by Piegan Indians on Marias hill, not far from Fort Benton, in 1873.

Wey and Mitchell were killed by Piegans on Badger creek in 1875. Five days before they were killed, both stayed over night at my ranch and bought some oats to feed their horses while on this unfortunate prospecting trip.

Joe Day and Howard were killed by Piegans, near the Marias river, in 1875.

John Rock was killed by Blackfeet, at the mouth of Sun river, in 1875. An account of him I have given in [my letter] “From the Mines to the Farm.”

Jack Gorman and Frank Keisser were killed by Assinnaboines, on the Milk river, the same year.

Frank Robinson was killed by Gros Ventres Indians, near Cow creek, in 1877.

Joseph Spearson was killed by Bloods, on Belly river, in 1870.

Nelse Kyse, George Huber and one man, name unknown, were killed by Sioux Indians, on Squaw creek, near the mouth of Musselshell river.

Andy Harris was killed by Assinnaboines on Milk river in the winter of 1867, and a soldier was killed by Piegans at Camp Cook in the spring of that year.

Bozell A. Bair was wounded by Piegans on Eagle creek in 1867.

Paul Vermette was killed on the Teton river in 1866.

Champion was killed by Arrapahoe Indians at Fort Hawley in 1867.

Malcolm Clark was killed by Piegans in 1869. Clark had been a classmate of General Sherman’s at West Point. The former, after finishing his term, instead of entering the army, came west as an employe of one of the fur companies which operated in the upper Missouri river country. After following the Indian trading business for many years he located in the Prickly Pear canyon, about twenty miles north of Helena, and kept a stage station. The place is now known as “The Mitchell Ranch.” Once a party of Piegan warriors came to the premises. One of the Indians, who was well acquainted with Clark, approached the door and asked for the latter; just as Clark stepped into the door he was shot and killed by this Indian. Several shots were fired into the house. A bullet struck Clark’s wife, and one of his sons was shot in the nose; in course of time both recovered from their wounds, but the tragedy caused the mother to go insane and she died a few years ago still in that condition. Clark is buried near the house, and now his resting place is marked by a railing crowning the grave. A few months later the “Col. Baker Indian Massacre on the Marias river” occurred. And when the firing commenced on the Piegan camp the murderer of Clark was there sick in bed; when he was told that the soldiers had come there to kill him, he took a long knife and plunged it into his heart.

When General Sherman passed through this section in 1875 on his tour of inspection of the government posts at Fort Shaw and Benton, he stopped for dinner at Clark’s old ranch. The general inquired for Malcolm Clark. He said that Clark had been a schoolmate of his at West Point, but had gone west to trade with the Blackfeet Indians while he was yet but a young man. When the story of Clark’s career and of his death had been told, and the grave of his early associate shown him, he had been but a few moments on the spot when he showed signs of grief and requested to be left alone for a while. He stayed for some time and when he came away traces of tears could be seen on the cheeks of the brave old warrior.

Charles Carson was killed by Piegans, near Dearborn river, in 1866. He was a nephew of Kit Carson, of frontier fame. He was killed and buried near the ford on the Dearborn.

Mrs. Jennie Smith, who at one time lived in Helena, was scalped alive by Sioux Indians at the mouth of Musselshell river in 1869. The unfortunate woman recovered and was still living in 1879.

Jack Leader was killed by Sioux at the mouth of the Musselshell river in 1869.

A man named Lowe was killed by Blackfeet. His remains are buried on the old Helena and Benton road at the crossing of what is now known as “Deadman Coulee.” The place received its name because it is the place of the death and burial of Mr. Lowe.

Macgregor and Tabor were killed by Sioux, and another man wounded, near Fort Peck in 1868. Also two unknown men were killed by Sioux near the same place and in the same year.

Ross and McKnight were killed in 1868, by Sioux, at the mouth of Musselshell river. McKnight was a brother to the Hon. J. H. McKnight of this city. At the time the tongue of their wagon had broken, and, while they were cutting a tree to make a new one, they were killed.

Nat Crabtree was killed by Piegans, near Camp Cook, in 1868.

Old man Lee was killed, and Charley Williams and Drew Denton wounded by Sioux, near Carroll, 1870. Denton’s life was saved by the bullet striking his pocket in which he had a plug of tobacco and some letters.

A Frenchman was killed by Piegans in the summer of 1868 on Sun river, south of where now stands Pressle Rowls house.

McArdle and a comrade were killed by Crow Indians near Benton in 1869.

Tom Ross was killed by Sioux near Fort Peck in 1873.

Michael Thebault was killed by Piegans on the Teton in 1868.

James Quail was killed by Piegans, near Silver creek, in 1869. He was killed only half a mile from where I was mining at the time, and about nine miles from Helena. He was getting his horse, which was grazing on the slope of a hill near his cabin, when he was shot and killed by an Indian who robbed him of his horse and of a gold watch on which his name was engraved. The watch was seen afterwards in the possession of an Indian in a Piegan camp on the Marias river.

Clark was killed by Piegans on Sun river in 1868, of whom I have given an account in [my letter], “Indian wars and tragedies on Sun river.”

Dauphant was killed by Sioux near the mouth of Milk river in 1865.

Charley Desronin was killed by Indians near the Bear Paw mountains in 1870.