Adventures on the Bozeman Trail

Adventures on the Bozeman Trail

Fort Hall trading post, in 1849, courtesy National Archives

The Idaho and Montana mines were easily reached from Fort Hall by the way of the Oregon and California Trails, which connected with a newly established road running northeastward from the old fort. In 1862 gold was discovered in Boise Basin (Idaho) the richness of this camp creating a stampede from other camps. By the spring of that year the trails and roads leading to Boise Basin were crowded with eager miners coming from the camps of California and Nevada; the agriculturalists from Oregon and Washington and all sorts and conditions of emigrants from the country east of the Rocky Mountains.

In the year following the finding of the gold, at least thirty thousand people, in their frenzied desire for the yellow metal, arrived at the diggings in Idaho. The gold excitement in Montana and Idaho were concurrent making the living conditions in that northwestern part of our country one of intense activity, great richness and lawlessness.

Supplies poured into these camps from Walla Walla during the month of November, 1863, twenty thousand dollars worth of dry goods being shipped over the trails into camp, while Utah rushed over the Salt Lake and Virginia City road a pack train loaded with provisions. Gallatin Valley (Montana) was a favored spot for home seekers with an agricultural inclination, from where were grown quantities of grain and vegetables which were used to feed those who toiled, not in the soil, but in the sands. The Gallatin Valley was an extensive meadow in which, in 1867, were grown wonderful crops of wheat, oats, barley, buckwheat, and vegetables, crops more than sufficient to supply the growers who sent provisions to places in Montana where crops were not grown.

The changing, feverish population in the camps was first composed of earnest and respectable people who had come to work for their gainings; following these came those who did not toil nor spin, but who lived illicitly off of the earnings of others; the gamblers, the road agent, the murderer. The time soon came when decency asserted itself, and another class arose which believed that some semblance of law and order should be established, and having the courage of their convictions, organized themselves into Vigilance Committees. The people who had moved from regions where there was an established government did not long tolerate the law of the gun and organizations of desperadoes and road agents. Public opinion gradually began to crystallize for law and order. These vicious bands were perfectly organized, raiding into all camps and operating along the roads between the camps. In Montana the insignia of this red handed band was a peculiar knot tied in their neckties, so that outlaws' identity might be easily established. Often hundreds of thousands of dollars were taken at one haul from the miners and merchants by these "desperate, crack shot bands of robbers and cut-throats." In order to protect life and property the vigilantes were forced to organize, arrest members of the outlaw band and act as judge, jury, and executioner. The hanging of a few of the se robbers would always check, at least temporarily, the lawlessness of the outlaw bands.

Vigilante Notice The people of Montana did not resort to a vigilance code until forced to take drastic measures in order to disorganize and drive from the country the band of rapidly increasing desperadoes, which had created a reign of terror that was spreading over the camps. It was hardship enough to wash the sands of the stream, working under the hostile eyes of Indians, but to have the fruits of toil taken by bandits could not long be tolerated. No one individual dared to punish the guilty who openly and publicly boasted of their crimes. True, high handedness continued until regularly established courts were created and laws made by the legislature, but a wholesome fear of the vigilantes made living conditions more peaceful and bearable.

Into Montana had come many deserters from the South and many who were not in sympathy with the cause for which the Civil War was being fought. Some measures were taken to test their loyalty to the Union, the first being made when the emigrants and miners arrived at Fort Bridger, where each member of a party that was going over the Salt Lake-Virginia City Road had to take the "iron-clad" oath of allegiance to the United States. Anyone refusing to take the oath was not permitted to advance.

In order to facilitate transportation through the country situated between the Yellowstone and the Columbia, Congress, early in 1857, made an appropriation for a proposed wagon road which was to run from Fort Benton, the western end of navigation up the Missouri, to The Dalles, the head of navigation on the Columbia. It was believed that the mining camps would be helped in the district covered by the proposed roads if supplies coming from Missouri and California, as well as from Oregon to Montana, could be more easily and quickly transported over a constructed road than one that was not much more than a trail. The construction of this military wagon road from Fort Walla Walla to Fort Benton, was supervised by Lieutenant John Mullen, hence the name, who did his preliminary work in 1858, the hostilities of the Indians preventing the early completion of the road. The first work on the road was from Fort Benton to the Snake River; in 1860 the road was put into operation, though not entirely completed until 1862." Thus was established a connecting line for transportation of supplies to forts, camps and homes from the Missouri to the Columbia, which might be called a rival transcontinental road of the Oregon Trail. As a matter of fact, the operation of the road relieved to a degree the congestion of freight on that central trail. Three reasons existed for the Mullen Road: it shortened the distance to be traveled by wagons, lessened the hardships of the emigrants and avoided the Indian raids along the Sweetwater and North Platte Route. "There was a large migration in 1862. Some stopped on the eastern flank of the Rocky range in what is now Montana. . . Four steamers from St. Louis ascended to Fort Benton, whence three hundred and fifty emigrants traveled by the Mullen Road to the mines of the Salmon River.

For many miles the Mullen Road followed the old trail made by the Indians on their annual hunts from the Pacific on the way to the east of the mountains for buffalo. Some places in the old trail were twelve inches deep, made so by the centuries of travel back and forth to and from these annual hunts.

Bozeman City, just west of Bozeman Pass, was established in 1864. Fort Ellis was built in 1867 to guard the Pass, which was within sixteen miles of the ground of thousands of hostile Indians to the east. Before the fort was used in April, 1867, the governor of Montana, when Fort C.F. Smith was infested by Indians, called for six hundred mounted volunteers for service for ninety days to go to the pass and hold back the red men. Many members of these militia or Mounted Volunteers, when started on an offensive campaign, had a pan and other implements of the best quality for digging gold while clearing the road of Indians. These men were finally equipped for fighting by the government until the regular soldiers took their places. In 1867 a messenger brought word to the soldiers guarding the pass of the desperate condition of the garrison at Fort C.F. Smith. The alarming information started Bozeman and his companion over the trail to the besieged fort, on the way to which Bozeman was killed by Blackfoot Indians.

By 1865 Montana had a population of one hundred and twenty thousand, which had to be fed and furnished with supplies that were not produced within that territory. Gold seekers had come over the mountains from the Pacific into the gold-fields of Montana, a population producing nothing but gold; a population totally dependent on the outside for things to eat, clothing to wear and supplies for their mining outfits. Products could be brought by way of the South Pass and Fort Hall, but the continental divide had to be twice crossed before reaching Montana. By boat on the Missouri to the head of navigation at Fort Benton was another way of transportation, but this road, after leaving the river to the camps, was through three hundred miles of Indian territory, and about five hundred miles longer than a proposed road to go east of the Big Horn Mountains.

The mines of Idaho and Montana were the point of greatest traffic, and, to make them more accessible, steps were taken in 1865 to establish a new road running north from the North Platte west of old Fort Laramie. This road, which has been called the Montana Road, the Jacobs-Bozeman Cut-off, the Bozeman Road, the Powder River Road to Montana, the Big Horn Road, the Virginia City Road, the Bonanza Trail, the Yellowstone Road, the Reno Road, the Carrington Road, ultimately became known as the Bozeman Trail.

In the fall of 1860 and the spring of 1861, the Stuart brothers, James and Granville, found gold while prospecting in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. Writing to their brother Thomas, who was then mining in Colorado, they told glowing tales of the rich finds in that land to the northwest, urging him to come to the new gold-fields. Thomas showed this letter to other young men who were there with him digging for gold.

Continued Next Page

A wagon train on the Bozeman Trail, 1883.

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