From Orion: Sunday, Aug. 4.—Crossed Green River. It is something like the Illinois, except that it is a very pretty clear river. The place we crossed was about 70 miles from the summit of the South Pass. Uinta mountains in sight, with snow on them, and portions of their summits hidden by the clouds. About 5 P. M arrived at Fort Bridger, on Black’s Fork of Green river, 52 miles from the crossing of Green river, about 120 miles from the South Pass, and 1025 miles from St. Joseph.
From Burton:
We were not under way before 8 A.M. Macarthy was again to take the lines, and a Giovinetto returning after a temporary absence to a young wife is not usually rejoiced to run his course. Indeed, he felt the inconveniences of a semi-bachelor life so severely, ‘that he often threatened in my private ear, chemin faisant, to throw up the whole concern.
.....
After the preliminary squabble with the mules, we forded the pebbly and gravelly bed of the river—in parts it looks like a lake exhausted by drainage—whose swift surging waters wetted the upper spokes of the wheels, and gurgled pleasantly around the bags which contained the mail for Great Salt Lake City.[1] We then ran down the river valley, which was here about one mile in breadth, in a smooth flooring of clay, sprinkled with water-rolled pebbles, overgrown in parts with willow, wild cherry, buffalo berries, and quaking asp. Macarthy pointed out in the road-side a rough grave, furnished with the normal tomb-stone, two pieces of wagon-board: it was occupied by one Farren, who had fallen by the revolver of the redoubtable Slade. Presently we came to the store of Michael Martin, an honest Creole, who vended the staple of prairie goods, Champagne, bottled cocktail, “eye-opener,” and other liquors, dry goods—linen drapery—a few fancy goods, ribbons, and finery; brandied fruits, jams and jellies, potted provisions, buckskins, moccasins, and so forth.(p 173)
.....
Resuming our journey, we passed two places where trains of fifty-one wagons were burned in 1857 by the Mormon Rangers: the black stains had bitten into the ground like the blood-marks in the palace of Holyrood—a neat foundation for a structure of superstition. Not far from it was a deep hole, in which the plunderers had “cached” the iron-work which they were unable to carry away. Emerging from the river plain we entered upon another mauvaise terre, with knobs and elevations of clay and green gault, striped and banded with lines of stone and pebbles: it was a barren, desolate spot, the divide between the Green River and its western influent, the shallow and somewhat sluggish Black’s Fork. The name is derived from an old trader: it is called by the Snakes Ongo Ogwe Pa, or “Pine-tree Stream;” it rises in the Bear-River Mountains, drains the swamps and lakelets on the way, and bifurcates in its upper bed, forming two principal branches, Ham’s Fork and Muddy Fork. (p 173-4)
.....
Presently we entered a valley in which green grass, low and dense willows, and small but shady trees, an unusually vigorous vegetation, refreshed, as though with living water, our eyes parched and dazed by the burning glare. Stock strayed over the pasture, and a few Indian tents rose at the farther side: the view was probably pas grand' chose, but we thought it splendidly beautiful. At midday we reached Ham's Fork, the northwestern influent of Green River, and there we found a station. The pleasant little stream is called by the Indians Turugempa, the "Blackfoot Water." (p 174)
.....
The station was kept by an Irishman and a Scotchman - "Dawvid Lewis": it was a disgrace; the squalor and filth were worse almost than the two - Cold Springs and Rock Creek - which we called our horrors, and which had always seemed to be the ne plus ultra of Western discomfort. The shanty was made of dry stone piled up against a dwarf cliff to save back wall, and ignored doors and windows. The flies - unequivocal sign of unclean living! - darkened the table and covered every thing put upon it: the furniture, which mainly consisted of the different parts of wagons, was broken and all in disorder; the walls were impure, the floor filthy.
(p 174-5)
.....
Again we advanced. The air was like the breath of a furnace; the sun was a blaze of fire - accounting by-the-by for the fact that the human nose in these parts seems invariably to become cherry-red - all the nullahs were dried up and the dust-pillars and mirage were the only moving objects on the plain. Three times we forded Black's Fork, and then debouched once more upon a long flat. The ground was scattered over with pebbles of granite, obsidian, flint, and white, yellow, and smoky quartz, all water-rolled. After twelve miles we passed Church Butte, one of many curious formations lying to the left hand or south of the road. This isolated mass of stiff clay has been cut and ground by wind and rain into folds and hollow channels which from a distance perfectly simulate the pillars, groins, and massive buttresses of a ruinous Gothic cathedral. The foundation is level, except where masses have been swept down by the rain, and not a blade of grass grows upon any part. An architect of genius might profitably study this work of Nature: upon that subject, however, I shall presently have more to sa.y The Butte is highly interesting in a geological point of view; it shows the elevation of the adjoining plains in past ages, before partial deluges and the rains of centuries had effected the great work of degradation. (p 176)
Again we sighted the pretty valley of Black's Fork, whose cool clear stream flowed merrily over its pebbly bed. The road was now populous with Mormon emigrants; some had good teams, others hand carts, which looked like a cross between a wheel barrow and a tax cart. There was nothing repugnant in the demeanor of the party; they had been civilized by traveling, and the younger women who walked together, and apart from the men, were not too surly to exchange a greeting. The excessive barrenness of the land presently diminished; gentian and other odoriferous herbs appeared, and the greasewood, which somewhat reminded me of the Sindhian camel thorn, was of a lighter green than elsewhere, and presented a favorable contrast with the dull glaucous hues of the eternal prairie sage. We passed a dwarf copse so strewed with the bones of cattle as to excite our astonishment: Macarthy told us that it was the place where the 2nd Dragoons encamped in 1857, and lost a number of their horses by cold and starvation. The wolves and coyotes seemed to have retained a predilection for the spot; we saw troops of them in their favorite location, - the crest of some little rise, whence they could keep a sharp look out upon any likely addition to their scanty larder. (p 176)
After sundry steep inclines we forded another little stream, with a muddy bed, shallow, and about thirty feet wide; it is called Smith's Fork, rises in the Bridger Range of the Uinta Hills, and sheds into Black's Fork, the main drain of these parts. On the other side stood Millersville, a large ranch with a whole row of unused and condemned wagons drawn up on one side. We arrived at 5 15 PM, having taken three hours and fifteen minutes to get over twenty miles. The tenement was made of the component parts of vehicles, the chairs had backs of yoke bows, and the fences which surrounded the corral were of the same material. (p 176-7)
.....
We breakfasted early the next morning and gladly settled accounts with the surly Holmes who had infected - probably by following the example of Mr Caudle in later life - his pretty wife with his own surliness. Shortly after starting - at 8 30 AM - we saw a little clump of seven Indian lodges, which our experience soon taught us were the property of a white; the proprietor met us on the road, and was introduced with due ceremony by Mr Macarthy. "Uncle Jack" (Robinson really) is a well known name between South Pass and Great Salt Lake City, he has spent thirty four years in the mountains, and has saved some $75,000, which have been properly invested at St Louis; as might be expected, he prefers the home of his adoption and his Indian spouse, who has made him the happy father of I know not how many children, to good society and bad air farther east. (p 177)
Our road lay along the valley of Black's Fork, which here flows from the southwest to the northeast; the bottom produced in plenty luxuriant grass, the dandelion, and the purple aster, thickets of a shrub like hawthorn (cratcegus), black and white currants, the willow and the cotton wood. (p 177-8)
.....
Fort Bridger lies 124 miles from Great Salt Lake City; according to the drivers, however, the road might be considerably shortened. The position is a fertile basin cut into a number of bits by Black's Fork, which disperses itself into four channels about 1 5 mile above the station, and forms again a single bed about two miles below. The fort is situated upon the westernmost islet. It is, as usual, a mere cantonment without any attempt at fortification, and at the time of my visit was garrisoned by two companies of foot, under the command of Captain F Gardner of the 10th Regiment. The material of the houses is pine and cedar brought from the Uinta Hills, whose black flanks supporting snowy cones rise at the distance of about thirty five miles. They are a sanitarium, except in winter, when under their influence the mercury sinks to -20d F, not much less rigorous than Minnesota, and they are said to shelter grizzly bears and an abundance of smaller game. (p 178)
The fort was built by Colonel James Bridger, now the oldest trapper on the Rocky Mountains, of whom Messrs Fremont and Stansbury have both spoken in the highest terms. He divides with Christopher Carson, the Kit Carson of the Wind River and the Sierra Nevada explorations, the honor of being the best guide and interpreter in the Indian country: the palm for prudence is generally given to the former; for dash and hard fighting to the latter - although, it is said, the mildest mannered of men, Colonel Bridger, when an Indian trader, placed this post upon a kind of neutral ground between the Snakes and Crows (Hapsaroke) on the north, the Ogalalas and other Sioux to the east, the Arapahoes and Cheyennes on the south, and the various tribes of Yutas Utahs on the southwest. He had some difficulties with the Mormons, and Mrs Mary Ettie Smith, in a volume concerning which something will be said at a future opportunity, veraciously reports his barbarous murder, some years ago by the Danite band. He was at the time of my visit absent on an exploratory expedition with Captain Raynolds. (p 178)
Arrived at Fort Bridger, our first thought was to replenish our whisky keg: its emptiness was probably due to "the rapid evaporation in such an elevated region imperfectly protected by timber," but however that may be, I never saw liquor disappear at such a rate before. (p 178-9)
...........
We left Bridger at 10 AM Macarthy explained away the disregard for the comfort of the public on the part of the contractors in not having a station at the fort, by declaring that they could obtain no land in a government reservation; moreover that forage there would be scarce and dear, while the continual influx of Indians would occasion heavy losses in cattle. (p 179)
Horace Greeley:
Eighteen miles more of perfect desolation brought us to the next mail company’s station on Black’s Fork, at the junction of Ham’s Fork, two-large mill-streams that rise in the mountains south and west of this point, and run together into Green River. They have scarcely any timber on their banks, but a sufficiency of bushes—bitter cottonwood, willow, choke-cherry, and some others new to me —with more grass than I have found this side of the South Pass.
...
We passed yesterday the two places at which a body of Mormons late in 1857, surprised and burned the supply-trains following in the rear of the federal troops sent against them. The wagons were burned in corral, and the place where each stood is still distinctly marked on the ground.
...
We have for the last two days been passing scores of good log or ox-chains—in one instance, a hundred feet together—which, having been thrown away by California emigrants to lighten the loads of their famished, failing cattle, have lain in the road for months, if not years, passed and noted by thousands, but by none thought worth picking up. One would suppose that the traders, the herdsinen, the Indians, or some other of the residents of this region, would deem these chains worth having, but they do not.
...
On the other side of the Pass, we had mainly clear, hot days; on this side, they are cloudy and cool. We had a little shower of rain with abundance of wind night before last, another shower last night, and more rain is now threatened. Yet all old residents assure me that rain in Summer is very rare throughout this region.
We stop to-night at a point only one hundred miles from Salt Lake, with two rugged mountains to cross, so that we are not to reach that stopping-place till Monday.