The Great Salt Trail | Page 3

Location of the Military Post of D. A. Russell and
the Town of Cheyenne —Driving the Last Spike.
FOOTNOTES.
PUBLICATION INFORMATION.

CHAPTER I.
EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS.

As early as a hundred and thirty-five years ago, shortly after England
had acquired the Canadas, Captain Jonathan Carver, who had been an
officer in the British provincial army, conceived the idea of fitting out
an expedition to cross the continent between the forty-third and
forty-sixth degrees of north latitude. His intention was to measure the
breadth of North America at its widest part, and to find some place on

the Pacific coast where his government might establish a military post
to facilitate the discovery of a “northwest passage,†or a line of
communication between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific Ocean.
In 1774 he was joined in his proposed scheme by Mr. Richard
Whitworth, a member of the British Parliament, and a man of great
wealth. Their plan was to form a company of fifty or sixty men, and
with them to travel up one of the forks of the Missouri River, explore
the mountains, and find the source of the Oregon. They intended to sail
down that stream to its mouth, erect a fort, and build vessels to enable
them to continue their discoveries by sea.
Their plan was sanctioned by the English government, but the breaking
out of the American Revolution defeated the bold project. This was the
first attempt to explore the wilds of the interior of the continent.
Thirty years later Sir Alexander Mackenzie crossed the continent on a
line which nearly marks the fifty-third degree of north latitude. Some
time afterwards, when that gentleman published the memoirs of his
expedition, he suggested the policy of opening intercourse between the
two oceans. By this means, he argued, the entire command of the fur
trade of North America might be obtained from latitude forty-eight
north, to the pole, excepting in that territory held by Russia. He also
prophesied that the relatively few American adventurers who had been
enjoying a monopoly in trapping along the Northwest Coast would
instantly disappear before a well-regulated trade.
The government of the United States was attracted by the report of the
English nobleman, and the expedition of Lewis and Clarke was fitted
out. They accomplished in part what had been projected by Carver and
Whitworth. They learned something of the character of the region
heretofore regarded as a veritable terra incognita.
On the 14th of May, 1804, the expedition of Lewis and Clarke left St.
Louis, following the course of the Missouri River, and returning by the
same route two years later. There were earlier explorations, far to the
south, but none of them reached as high up as the Platte. Lewis and
Clarke themselves merely viewed its mouth.
In 1810 a Mr. Hunt, who was employed by the Northwest Fur
Company, and Mr. Donald M'Kenzie, with a number of trappers under
their charge, were to make a journey to the interior of the continent, but,
hampered by the opposition of the Missouri Fur Company, they were

compelled to abandon the enterprise, and it was not until the beginning
of 1812 that their historic journey was commenced.
On the 17th of January, while their boats landed at one of the old
villages established by the original French colonists of the region then
known as the Province of Louisiana, they met the celebrated Daniel
Boone, who was then in his eighty-fifth year, and the next morning
they were visited by John Coulter, who had been with Lewis and
Clarke on their memorable expedition eight years previously.[1] Since
the return of Lewis and Clarke's expedition, Coulter had made a
wonderful journey on his own account. He floated down the whole
length of the Missouri River in a small canoe, accomplishing the
passage of three thousand miles in a month.
On the 8th of April Hunt's party came in sight of Fort Osage,[2] where
they remained for three days, and were delightfully entertained by the
officers of the garrison. On the 10th they again embarked and ascended
the Missouri. On the 28th the party landed at the mouth of the Platte
and ate their breakfast on one of the islands there. After passing the
mouth of the river Platte, they camped on its banks a short distance
above Papillion Creek. On the 10th of May they reached the village of
the Omahas, camped in its immediate neighbourhood, and on the 15th
of the same month they started for the interior of the continent. Their
route lay far north of a line drawn parallel to the Platte Valley, but they
entered it after travelling through the Black Hills, somewhere near the
headwaters of the river from which the beautiful valley takes its name.
After untold hardships and sufferings the party arrived