The Yellowstone National Park: Historical and Descriptive. Hiram Martin Chittenden
ever seen or heard of them. It is probable that the Indians visited this country more frequently in earlier times than since the advent of the white man.
(3.) The Indians avoided the region of the Upper Yellowstone from practical, rather than from sentimental, considerations.
The legal processes by which the vast territory of these various tribes passed to the United States, are full of incongruities resulting from a general ignorance of the country in question. By the Treaty of Fort Laramie, dated September 17, 1851, between the United States on the one hand, and the Crows, Blackfeet and other northern tribes on the other, the Crows were given, as part of their territory, all that portion of the Park country which lies east of the Yellowstone River; and the Blackfeet, all that portion lying between the Yellowstone River and the Continental Divide. This was before any thing whatever was known of the country so given away. None of the Shoshone tribes were party to the treaty, and the rights of the Sheepeaters were utterly ignored. That neither the Blackfeet nor the Crows had any real claim to these extravagant grants is evidenced by their prompt relinquishment of them in the first subsequent treaties. Thus, by treaty of October 17, 1855, the Blackfeet agreed that all of their portion of the Park country, with much other territory, should be and remain a common hunting ground for certain designated tribes; and by treaty of May 17, 1868, the Crows relinquished all of their territory south of the Montana boundary line.
That portion of the Park country drained by the Snake River was always considered Shoshone territory, although apparently never formally recognized in any public treaty. By an unratified treaty, dated September 24, 1868, the provisions of which seem to have been the basis of subsequent arrangements with the Shoshonean tribes, all this territory and much besides was ceded to the United States, and the tribes were located upon small reservations.
It thus appears that at the time the Park was created, March 1, 1872, all the territory included in its limits had been ceded to the United States except the hunting ground above referred to, and the narrow strip of Crow territory east of the Yellowstone where the north boundary of the Park lies two or three miles north of the Montana line. The “hunting ground” arrangement was abrogated by statute of April 15, 1874, and the strip of Crow territory was purchased under an agreement with the Crows, dated June 12, 1880, and ratified by Congress, April 11, 1882, thus extinguishing the last remaining Indian title to any portion of the Yellowstone Park.
CHAPTER III.
JOHN COLTER.
Lewis and Clark passed the second winter of their expedition at the mouth of the Columbia River. In the spring and summer of 1806 they accomplished their return to St. Louis. Upon their arrival at the site of their former winter quarters among the Mandans, an incident occurred which forms the initial point in the history of the Yellowstone National Park. It is thus recorded in the journal of the expedition under date of August 14 and 15, 1806: [K]
“In the evening we were applied to by one of our men, Colter, who was desirous of joining the two trappers who had accompanied us, and who now proposed an expedition up the river, in which they were to find traps and give him a share of the profits. The offer was a very advantageous one, and, as he had always performed his duty, and his services might be dispensed with, we agreed that he might go provided none of the rest would ask or expect a similar indulgence. To this they cheerfully answered that they wished Colter every success and would not apply for liberty to separate before we reached St. Louis. We therefore supplied him, as did his comrades also, with powder, lead, and a variety of articles which might be useful to him, and he left us the next day.”
[K] Pages 1181–2, Coues' “Lewis and Clark.” See Appendix E.
To our explorers, just returning from a two years' sojourn in the wilderness, Colter’s decision seemed too remarkable to be passed over in silence. The journal continues:
“The example of this man shows us how easily men may be weaned from the habits of civilized life to the ruder but scarcely less fascinating manners of the woods. This hunter has now been absent for many years from the frontiers, and might naturally be presumed to have some anxiety, or some curiosity at least, to return to his friends and his country; yet just at the moment when he is approaching the frontiers, he is tempted by a hunting scheme to give up those delightful prospects, and go back without the least reluctance to the solitude of the woods.”
Colter seems to have stood well in the esteem of his officers. Besides the fair character given him in his discharge, the record of the expedition shows that he was frequently selected when one or two men were required for important special duty. That he had a good eye for topography may be inferred from the fact that Captain Clark, several years after the expedition was over, placed upon his map certain important information on the strength of Colter’s statements, who alone had traversed the region in question. In another instance, when Bradbury, the English naturalist, was about to leave St. Louis to join the Astorians in the spring of 1811, Clark referred him to Colter, who had returned from the mountains, as a person who could conduct him to a certain natural curiosity on the Missouri some distance above St. Charles. Colter had not seen the place for six years. In the Missouri Gazette, for April 18, 1811, he is referred to as a “celebrated hunter and woodsman.” These glimpses of his record, and a remarkable incident to be related further on, clearly indicate that he was a man of superior mettle to that of the average hunter and trapper.
Colter’s whereabouts during the three years following his discharge are difficult to fix upon. It may, however, be set down as certain that he and his companions ascended the Yellowstone River, not the Missouri. Captain Clark’s return journey down the first-mentioned stream had made known to them that it was better beaver country than the Missouri, and Colter’s subsequent wanderings clearly indicate that his base of operations was in the valley of the Yellowstone near the mouth of the Bighorn, Pryor’s Fork, or other tributary stream.
In the summer of 1807, he made an expedition, apparently alone, although probably in company with Indians, which has given him title to a place in the history of the Yellowstone Park, and which was destined in later years to assume an importance little enough suspected by him at the time. His route appears upon Lewis and Clark’s map of 1814, and is there called “Colter’s route in 1807.” There is no note or explanation, and we are left to retrace, on the basis of a dotted line, a few names, and a date, one of those singular individual wanderings through the wilderness which now and then find a permanent place in history.
The “route,” as traced on the map, starts from a point on Pryor’s Fork, the first considerable tributary of the Yellowstone above the mouth of the Bighorn. Colter’s intention seems to have been to skirt the eastern base of the Absaroka Range until he should reach an accessible pass across the mountains of which the Indians had probably told him; then to cross over to the headwaters of Pacific or gulf-flowing streams; and then to return by way of the Upper Yellowstone.
Opp. page 22.
Colter's Route in 1807.
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Accordingly, after he had passed through Pryor’s Gap, he took a south-westerly direction as far as Clark’s Fork, which stream he ascended for some distance, and then crossed over to the Stinkingwater. Here he discovered a large boiling spring, strongly impregnated with tar and sulphur, the odor of which, perceptible for a great distance around, has given the stream its “unhappy name.”
From this point Colter continued along the eastern flank of the Absaroka Range, fording the several tributaries of the Bighorn River which flow down from that range, and finally came to the upper course of the main stream now known as Wind River. He ascended this stream to its source, crossing the divide in the vicinity of Lincoln or Union Pass, and found himself upon the Pacific slope. The map clearly shows that at this point he had reached what the Indians called