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University Library 
 University of California Berkeley 
 
THE FATHER OF NAVIGATION ON THE MISSOURI RIVER.- P 31. 
 
A HISTORY 
 
 OF THF, 
 
 MISSOURI RIVER 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER BY THE JESUIT EXPLORERS; INDIAN 
 
 TRIBES ALONG THE RIVER; EARLY NAVIGATION AND 
 
 CRAFT USED; THE RISE AND FALL 
 
 OF STEAMBOATING. 
 
 BY 
 
 PHIL E. CHAPPELL 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER BY THE JESUIT EXPLOR, 
 ERS INDIAN TRIBES ALONG THE RIVER, 
 
 There is but little doubt that had the Missouri river been dis- 
 covered before the Mississippi the name of the latter would have 
 applied to both streams, and the Missouri would have been con- 
 sidered the main stream and the upper Mississippi the tributary. 
 From the head of the Missouri, west of Yellowstone Park, to its 
 mouth, as it meanders, is a distance of 2,546 miles; and to the Gulf 
 of Mexico the Missouri-Mississippi has a length of 4,220 miles. 
 The Missouri is longer than the entire Mississippi, and more than 
 twice as long as that part of the latter stream above their confluence. 
 It drains a watershed of 580,000 square miles, and its mean total 
 annual discharge is estimated to be twenty cubic miles, or at a mean- 
 rate of 94,000 cubic feet per second, which is more than twice the 
 quantity of water discharged by the Upper Mississippi. It is by 
 far the boldest, the most rapid and the most turbulent of the two 
 streams, and its muddy water gives color to the Lower Mississippi 
 river to the Gulf of Mexico. By every rule of nomenclature, the 
 Missouri, being the main stream and the Upper Mississippi the trib- 
 utary, the name of the former should have been given precedence, 
 and the great river the longest in the world should have been 
 called "Missouri" from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of 
 Mexico. 
 
2 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 The earliest Spanish explorers evidently considered the Lower 
 Mississippi but a continuation of the Missouri, for when Coronado 
 came into Kansas, in 1541, on his expedition from Mexico, he was 
 told of the Missouri by the Indians. He says : "The great river 
 of the Holy Spirit (Esperita Santo), which De Soto discovered in 
 the country of Florida, flows through this country. The sources 
 were not visited by us, because, according to what the Indians say, 
 it comes from a distant country in the mountains, from that part 
 that sheds its waters onto the plains and comes out where De Soto 
 navigated it. This is more than 300 leagues from where it enters 
 the sea." 
 
 MARQUETTE AND JOLIET 1673.* 
 
 The Missouri river was the same ugly, muddy, tortuous, rapid 
 stream when first seen by the early French explorers as it is today. 
 When, in 1673, the Jesuit explorers, Marquette and Joliet the first 
 white men to come down the Mississippi arrived at the mouth of 
 the Missouri, they were astonished to see, flowing in from the west, 
 a torrent of yellow, muddy water which rushed furiously athwart 
 the clear blue current of the Mississippi, boiling and sweeping in its 
 course logs, branches and uprooted trees. Marquette, in his jour- 
 nal, says : "I have seen nothing more frightful. A mass of large 
 trees enter with branches real floating islands. They come rush- 
 ing from the mouth of the Pek-i-tan-oni, (the Indian name for Mis- 
 
 It was more than a century after the discovery of the Mississippi river 
 by the Spaniards before the French made any effort to explore it. In 1634 
 Nicolet, a courier-de-bois. left Quebec, and, ascending the St. Lawrence and 
 Ottawa rivers, passed through the Straits of Mackinaw. Then coasting along 
 Lake Michigan he reached Green Bay. From the Indians in that vicinity he 
 heard of a great river toward the west, which flowed toward the south. 
 Other explorers and Jesuit missionaries followed. Fathers Raymboult, 
 and Jogues, in 1641, and Radismi ]<>r>4. All of these adventurers brought 
 back to Quebec wonderful accounts of a great river flowing over west of 
 Lakes Michigan and Superior, but, into what sea it flowed was unknown to 
 the Indians. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 3 
 
 souri, meaning, ('Muddy Water,') so impetuously that we could 
 not without great danger expose ourselves to pass across. The 
 Pek-i-tan-oni is a considerable stream, which, coming from the 
 northwest, enters the Mississippi/' 
 
 Marquette was informed by the Indians that "by ascending 
 this river for five or six days, one reaches a fine prairie, twenty 
 or thirty leagues long. This must be crossed in a northwesterly 
 direction, and it terminates at another small river on which one miy 
 embark. This second river flows toward the southwest for ten or 
 fifteen leagues, after which it enters a lake, which flows toward the 
 west, when it falls into the sea. I have hardly any doubt it is the 
 Vermillion Sea." 
 
 This was an age of adventure and exploration among the 
 people of the New World, and in 1672 Comte de Frontinac, the 
 Governor of New France, determined to send an expedition to dis- 
 cover the "Great River," in which great interest had now become 
 awakened. Louis Joliet, a man of education, excellent judgment 
 and tried courage, was selected to undertake this hazardous enter- 
 prise. He was besides a rover, and had previously visited the Lake 
 Superior region and spent several years in the Far West. 
 
 Joliet set out from Quebec in August, 1672, and in December 
 arrived at Mackinaw, where he spent the winter in preparing for his 
 expedition. During his stay there, he met a young Jesuit mission- 
 ary Father Marquette a religious zealot, who had devoted his 
 life to the spiritual welfare of the Indians. The missionary, who 
 was somewhat of an adventurer himself, was easily persuaded to 
 join Joliet, and on May I7th, 1673, having laid in a supply of corn 
 and dried buffalo meat, they set out with five Indians in two canoes 
 
4 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 on their perilous voyage. Having reached Green Bay, they as- 
 cended the Fox river to its head, where they made a portage of two 
 and a half miles to the head-waters of the Wisconsin river. They 
 floated down the last named river until on the i/th of June, the 
 little fleet floated out upon the placid waters of the Mississippi. 
 
 Without meeting with any adventure worthy of notice, they 
 arrived at the mouth of the Missouri about the first of July, 1673. 
 It was during the June rise, and the description which Marquette 
 gives of the turbulence of that stream, the color of its waters, and 
 the great quantity of drift-wood and logs, seen floating on its sur- 
 face, is a correct one, and is familiar to every one acquainted with 
 the Missouri when on its annual rampage. 
 
 After paddling their canoes down as far as the Arkansas, the 
 voyageurs became convinced that the Mississippi emptied into the 
 Gulf of Mexico, and not into either the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf 
 of California, as had been surmised. They also learned from the 
 natives that they were approaching a country where they were likely 
 to encounter the Spaniards. They, therefore, very prudently, turn- 
 ed the bows of their canoes up stream and after a tedious voyage 
 arrived at Lake Michigan by way of the Illinois river. Here the 
 two comrades parted company, Marquette to remain with a tribe of 
 Indians, then seated where the city of Chicago is now located, and 
 Joliet to return to Quebec by the route he had come. In descend- 
 ing the St. Lawrence river, Joliet's canoe was upset, and all of his 
 papers, including his maps and journal, were lost. Fortunately, 
 Marquette's papers were preserved, and it is from his journal a 
 priceless manuscript, that the above extracts, referring to the Mis- 
 souri river, have been obtained. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 5 
 
 It seems that Marquette had contemplated a voyage down the 
 Mississippi for several years before he met Joiiet, for in a letter 
 written in 1670 to Father Francis Le Mercier, Superior of the 
 Huron Mission, after referring to the Mississippi river, then only 
 known by reports from the Indians, and to the different Illinois 
 tribes, he says of the Missouri : 
 
 "Six or seven days' journey below the Illinois is another river 
 on which are prodigious natives, who use the wooden canoe. Of 
 these I cannot write now, but will write next year." 
 
 Marquette, having contracted} a malarial fever in the south, 
 died shortly after his return, and his remains, over which a hand- 
 some monument has been erected, repose at St. Ignace, near Macki- 
 naw, Mich. 
 
 LA SALLE'S EXPEDITION 1682. 
 
 The second expedition down the Mississippi was conducted by 
 Robert Cavalier de La Salle in 1682. For several years La Salle, 
 who had been an enterprising trader at Quebec, Canada, had con- 
 templated completing the expedition of Marquette and Joiiet by fol- 
 lowing the Mississippi to its entrance into the Gulf of Mexico and 
 planting there the "Lillies of France." Following the usual course 
 of travel, through the Straits of Mackinaw, and down the eastern 
 shore of Lake Michigan, he arrived about the first of January, 1682, 
 at the mouth of a river called by the Indians Checagou (Chicago). 
 Dragging their canoes over the frozen river they made the portage 
 to the head of the Illinois, down which they descended until the 
 6th of February found them at the mouth of that river, where they 
 were detained for several days by ice in the river. 
 
6 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 La Salle's company consisted of 31 Indians and 23 French- 
 Canadians, and among the latter were several priests, some of whom 
 have left accounts of this famous expedition. 
 
 FATHER ZENOBIUS MEMBRE'S ACCOUNT 1683. 
 
 This account was published in "Discoveries in the Mississippi 
 Valley," (Le Clercq), 1683. He says : 
 
 "The floating ice kept us at this place (mouth of the Illinois 
 river) till the I3th of February, (1682), when we set out and six 
 leagues lower down, found the Osage river coming in from the west. 
 It is full as large as the river Colbert, (Mississippi) into which it 
 flows, troubling it so that. from the mouth of the Osage the water 
 is hardly drinkable. The Indians assure us that this river is form- 
 ed by many others, and that they ascended it for ten or twelve days 
 to a mountain, where it rises. That on the river are a great num- 
 ber of villages of many different nations, arible and prairie lands, 
 and an abundance of cattle (buffalo) and beaver. Although this 
 river is very large, the Colbert does not seem to be augmented by 
 it, but it pours in so much mud that from its mouth the water of the 
 united rivers is never clear thereafter to the Gulf, although seven 
 other rivers of clear water are discharged into it." 
 
 Speaking in another place of the hostilities between the Iro- 
 quois and the Illinois Indians, Membre says: "There have been 
 several engagements, with equal losses on both sides, and at 
 last the greater part of the seventeen villages have retired beyond 
 the river Colbert among the Osages, where a part of the Iroquois 
 pursued them." 
 
 NOTE i. Father Membre calls the Missouri river the Osage, 
 doubtless from the tribe of Indians whose villages were then lo- 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 7 
 
 cated on that stream near its confluence with the Missouri. So 
 imperfect was the knowledge of the country at that time, as it had 
 never been explored, and so little was known of the rivers of the 
 West, even by the Indians, that there was some doubt in the 
 minds of the Frenchmen whether the Missouri or the Osage was 
 the principal stream. 
 
 NOTE 2. As will be hereafter seen, Father Douay also refers 
 to this war between the Iroquois and the tribes of the West. Did 
 the Illinois Indians become absorbed by the Osages and lose their 
 identity, or did they return east of the Mississippi? The facts will 
 never be known; but that the Iroquois pursued these tribes w r est 
 of the Mississippi is attested by the early French writers of that 
 period. The subject will again be referred to. 
 
 NOTE 3. It is difficult to understand how the Indians could 
 have been so mistaken in the length of the Missouri river as to 
 state that it was only ten or twelve days' journey to the moun- 
 tains where it had its rise. And it is equally difficult to compre- 
 hend how anyone of intelligence, on viewing the river, could have 
 been induced to believe that a stream of that size was only 150 
 to 200 miles long. As will be seen, not only in Father Mem- 
 bre's report, but in others, gross misrepresentations were made 
 by the Indians of the country lying along the Missouri river. 
 Whether these stories were told the Frenchmen for the purpose of 
 deceiving them; through ignorance of the Indians of the facts; 
 or whether they were misunderstood from the want of a compe- 
 tent interpreter; it is impossible to determine. 
 
 HENRI TONTY 1683. 
 
 Henri Tonty, who also accompanied La Salle on his famous 
 expedition, in a book entitled, "Enterprise of M. de La Salle from 
 1673 to J 683," published at Quebec in November, 1684, gives the 
 following account of the Missouri river : 
 
 "The Indians having finished three canoes, we descended the 
 river (they were then at the mouth of the Illinois), and found at six 
 
8 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 leagues,* on the right, a river which falls into the River Colbert, 
 coming from the west and appearing as large and important as the 
 great river. According to the reports of the sanvages it is called 
 E-mis-sou-ri-tes. It is abundantly settled with people. There are 
 also on this river villages of sauvages which make use of horses to 
 go to war and to carry the meat of the buffalo, which they kill." 
 
 In "Henri Tonty's Memoirs," published in Paris in 1693, he 
 makes the following reference to the Osage Indians in his return 
 trip up the Mississippi river from the ill-fated expedition of La 
 Salle. He says: "We arrived on the I7th of October, 1683, at an 
 Illinois village at the mouth of their river, (the Illinois river). They 
 had just come from fighting the Osages and had lost thirteen men, 
 but they brought back 130 prisoners." 
 
 In Tonty's petition to the King of France, for recognition for 
 his services, presented in 1693, he says: "The river of the Mis- 
 sou-ri-tes comes from the west, and after traversing 300 leagues, 
 arrives at a lake, which I believe is that of the Apaches. Villages 
 of the Mis-rou-ri-tes, Agovoes (lowas) and Osages are near one 
 another, and situated on the prairies, 150 leagues from the tnouth 
 of the E-mis-sou-ri-tes river." 
 
 Again he says of his downward voyage : "We descended the 
 river (Illinois) and six leagues below, on the right, came to a great 
 river which comes from the west. It is said there are numerous 
 nations on this river. We slept at the mouth and the next day 
 went to the village of the Tamarou, six leagues off to the left." 
 
 NOTE I. Henri Tonty was the trusted friend and lieutenant 
 of La Salle, and in point of energy, intelligence and personal cour- 
 age was not behind his superior officer. In his youth he had lost 
 
 A French league Is two and three-fourths miles. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 9 
 
 an arm in battle, and had supplied the missing member with one 
 of iron. This peculiarity was observed by the Indians, by whom 
 he was universally known as the "Iron Hand." He returned to 
 the Illinois country in 1683, and after La Salle's unfortunate death 
 during his second expedition in 1687, he again went down the 
 Mississippi for the purpose of rescuing the remnant of the ill- 
 fated colony. Of all the members of La Salle's famous expedition 
 Tonty was the bravest, the most loyal and the most trustworthy. 
 
 NOTE 2. Horses were in general use among the Indian tribes 
 above the mouth of the Kaw, at an early day. The stock had 
 been procured from the Spaniards in New Mexico. 
 
 NOTE 3. The tribe of Indians referred to as the "Tamarou" 
 are extinct. As their village was on the east side of the Mississippi 
 river they were probably one of the numerous small tribes of the 
 Illinois Indians, who were exterminated by the Iroquois. 
 
 NOTE 4. The lake spoken of as that of the "Apache" prob- 
 ably referred to the Great Salt Lake, as there was no other in 
 that direction. The reference is another illustration of the very 
 imperfect knowledge of the country and its water courses pos- 
 sessed by the Indians. They had. heard, no doubt, of a great lake 
 toward the west, and supposed that the river had some connec- 
 tion with it. 
 
 NICHOLAS LA SALLE 1685. 
 
 In the narration of Nicholas La Salle, entitled, "The Voyage 
 of Robert R. Cavalier La Salle to the Mouth of the Mississippi/' 
 written in 1685, he says: "The first day we camped six leagues 
 on the right, (from the Illinois river), near the mouth of a river 
 which falls on the Mississippi. It is called the river of the Missou- 
 ries. This river comes from the northwest and is thickly settled, 
 judging from what the savages say. The Panes are on this river 
 very far from its mouth." 
 
 NOTE The "Panes," "Panas," or Aparias as they were called 
 when first known to the French, were afterward known as the 
 "Pawnees." They may have been the same tribe met by De Soto 
 in Southeast Missouri in 1541, called by him the "Quipanas." A 
 
10 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 band of the same tribe was met by Du Tisne in 1719, called by him 
 the "Panas." They were living on the Platte in 1724, when visited 
 by Bourgmont, as will be seen hereafter, although he calls them 
 the "Paducas." The two names, by most historians, are con- 
 sidered synonymous, although it is contended by some that the 
 Paducas were a different tribe, and that they afterward went 
 South and are now known as the "Comanches," a tribe living in 
 the Indian Territory. 
 
 The "Panes," or "Pawnees," were at one time a numerous 
 Western tribe, and roved all over the country from Red River, 
 Texas, to the Platte. They were the same Indians encountered 
 by Lieutenant Pike in Republic County, Kas., in Sept., 1806. In a 
 report to the Secretary of War, made in 1829, their number was 
 estimated at 12,000, and it was stated that there were four bands, 
 the Pawnee Republics, the Pawnee Loups, the Grand Pawnees and 
 the Pawnee Piques. All were then located on the Platte, and they 
 claimed the country as far west as the Cheyennes. In 1836 their 
 number was estimated, officially, by the government, at 12,500, but 
 in a subsequent report, made to the Secretary of War in 1850, 
 it was stated they were still on the Platte, but that their number 
 had been reduced to 6,244. 
 
 This remarkable reduction was caused by that terrible scourge 
 of the American Indian the smallpox. The mortality was not 
 confined to the Pawnees alone, but extended to all other tribes on 
 the Missouri river, one-half of whom, it is said, died during the 
 winter of 1837-1838.* The manner in which this terrible contagion 
 was communicated to the Western tribes, hereafter described, seems 
 
 Father De Smet, In his "Travels among the Rocky Mountain Indians," 
 in 1840 refers to this terrible epidemic among the Minatarees, Poncas, Paw- 
 nees, Aricaras, Blackfeet, Flatheads, Crows, Grosventrees, Cheyennes, Man- 
 dans and other tribes. Of the Mandans he says: "This once numerous na- 
 tion is now reduced to a few families, the only survivors of the small- 
 pox scourge of 1837." Several of these tribes have become extinct. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 11 
 
 providential, and one can almost see in it the hand of God ; remov- 
 ing from the beautiful plains of Kansas and Nebraska an inferior 
 race that they might be peopled by one superior. 
 
 In 1855 the Pawnees ceded their lands in Nebraska to the 
 government, and in the '6os were removed, with other tribes, to 
 the Indian Territory. The remnant of the tribe, now numbering 
 less than 600, are on a reservation near Ponca Agency. They 
 were the most dangerous of all the tribes that infested the Western 
 plains from 1840 to 1860. 
 
 JOUTEL'S ACCOUNT 1687. 
 
 Henry Joutel was a young nephew of La Salle, and accom- 
 panied his uncle on his second expedition through Southern Louisi- 
 ana. He was with him when he was cruelly murdered by one of 
 his own men, and was one of the half-dozen survivors of the ill- 
 fated expedition. After La Salle's death, he made his way up the 
 Mississippi river to old Ft. St. Louis, on the Illinois river, and 
 thence to Quebec and France. 
 
 The following is a reference to the Missouri river. He says : 
 "We stopped on the 3Oth and 3ist of August, (1687), and on the 
 ist of September passed by the mouth of a stream called the Mis- 
 souri, whose water is always thick with mud and to which our 
 Indians did not forget to offer sacrifice." 
 
 NOTE At the mouth of the Missouri several years before, a 
 party of Missourites, pursued by a party of Mataigames had been 
 drowned, and afterwards these Indians, in passing, threw pres- 
 ents into the water in order to appease the Maniteau, whom they 
 suppose' to, dwell there. 
 
 FATHER ANASTASIUS DOUAY 1687. 
 Among the priests in La Salles' party was Father Douay, a 
 
12 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 most devout missionary, who, in his "Voyage of La Salle Through 
 the Illinois Country," published in 1687, (after La Salle's death), 
 says of the Missouri river : 
 
 "About six leagues below this, (the mouth of the Illinois), 
 there is on the northwest, the famous river of the Mis-sou-ri-tes, or 
 Osages, at least as large as the River Colbert, into which it empties. 
 It is formed by a number of other known rivers, everywhere navi- 
 gable and inhabited by many populous tribes, including the Osages, 
 who have 17 villages on a river of their name, which empties into 
 that of the Missourites, to which the maps have also given the name 
 of the Osages. The Arkansas Indians were formerly stationed on 
 the upper part of one of these rivers, but the Iroquois drove them 
 out, by cruel wars, some years ago, so they say. Since then the 
 Osages have taken possession of the country and established their 
 villages on the river which bears their name." 
 
 NOTE The Iroquois were a confederation of Indians occupy- 
 ing the western part of the state of New York. They were called 
 the "Five Tribes" until they were joined by the Tuscaroras (who 
 were driven out of North Carolina in 1712), after which they 
 were known as the "Six Tribes." They were the most warlike 
 of all the northern Indians, and were allies of the English, in their 
 contest with the French for supremacy in the New World. They 
 were continually at war with the Algonquin tribes, who were al- 
 lies of the French (in Canada), and being well supplied with fire- 
 arms, finally drove many of these tribes, including the Hurons, 
 Wyandottes, Sacs and Foxes and others, through the Straits of 
 Mackinaw to the western coast of Lake Michigan, where they were 
 living when Marquette and Joliet passed through that section on 
 their way down the Mississippi in 1763. 
 
 Having driven the Algonquin tribes out of the country the 
 Iroquois turned on the Illinois -tribes, who then occupied the 
 country now included in the state of that name, and finally ex- 
 terminated them. With their thirst for blood still unsatiated, it 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVF.R. in 
 
 will be seen by the statements of Fathers Douay and Membre that 
 they even crossed the Mississippi river a fact not generally 
 known and drove the Arkansas Indians from the Osage river. 
 They were a cruel and blood-thirsty tribe, and deserved the fate 
 which overtook them, for they are now entirely extinct.* 
 
 FATHER COSME 1699. 
 
 John Francis Cosme a Jesuit missionary left Canada in 
 1699 an d descended the Mississippi river by way of Green Bay and 
 the Wisconsin river. He has left the following account of the Mis- 
 souri river: 
 
 "On the 6th of December, 1699, we embarked on the Missis- 
 sippi river and after making about 600 leagues (1,650 miles), we 
 found the river of the Ou-mis-sou-ri-tes, which comes from the west 
 and which is so muddy that it spoils the water of the Mississippi, 
 which down to this is clear. It is said that up this river are a great 
 number of Indians." 
 
 In another place he mentions meeting with the Arkansas! ! 
 Indians. "We told them," he says, "we were going further down 
 the river among their neighbors and friends, and that they would 
 see us often. That it would be well to assemble all together, so as 
 more easily to resist their enemies. They agreed to all of this and 
 promised to try to make the Osages join them, who had left the 
 river of the Ou-mis-sou-ri-es and were now on the upper waters of 
 their own river." 
 
 *A remnant of this tribe fled to the Rocky Mountains and were living 
 with the Flatheads at the beginning- of the Nineteenth century. (See Father 
 De Smet.) 
 
 ||The name "Arkansas" was variously spelled by different early explorers. 
 Du Tisne calls it the "Arcansas," and De Lisle the "Aconsa." It was an 
 Indian name, doubtless, with the final letters "sas" added, (as in Kansas 
 and Petete-sas) by the French. 
 
14 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 THE OSAGE INDIANS. 
 
 NOTE As the foregoing pages contain the first reference to 
 the Osage Indians, preserved in history, the statements of the dif- 
 ferent writers may be worth a comparison. 
 
 Father Membre, writing in 1683, says: "The Illinois tribes, 
 consisting of the greater part of 17 villages, were driven across 
 the Mississippi by the Iroquois who pursued them until they took 
 .refuge with the Osages." Father Douay (in 1687), says: "The 
 Osages had 17 villages on the Osage river," and adds, "The Ar- 
 kansas Indians who had formerly occupied that section, had been 
 driven out by the Iroquois some years before by cruel wars, and the 
 Osages had taken possession of the country." Henri Tonty (in 
 1693) states that "the Osages were then on a prairie country 150 
 leagues from the mouth of the Missouri." This would be about 
 400 miles, which is very near the distance by the river route, to 
 where the prairies on the Osage set in, or between Osceola, in 
 St. Clair county, and Pappinsville, in Bates county, Missouri, 
 This is the locality in which, as will hereafter appear, Du Ttsne 
 found them thirty years afterward (1719) and where they re- 
 mained until they removed to their present location in the Indian 
 Territory about 1830. Father Cosme (1699) confirms the state- 
 ment made by Douay, for he says : "The Osages have left the river 
 of the Ou-mis-sou-ries and are now high up on the waters of their 
 
 own river." 
 
 The map of De Lisle, published in 1703, which gives the 
 location of all the Western tribes, lays down four villages of the 
 Osages on their river. Three are high up on the river, appar- 
 ently near Osceola, the other is located about where the town of 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. ir> 
 
 Warsaw stands. There are none laid down nearer the mouth of the 
 river. 
 
 From this testimony left us by the early explorers, which must 
 be reliable, as it comes from so many different sources, it appears 
 that the Osage Indians at some time previous to 1682, dwelt near 
 the mouth of Osage river, either on the banks of that stream or on 
 the Missouri. There is no question that about that time the lower 
 Missouri tribes were attacked by the wild men from the East 
 the cruel and bloodthirsty Iroquois who, as they were armed with 
 British muskets, and the Missouri tribes had only the primitive 
 bow and arrow, almost annihilated them. By this cruel onslaught, 
 and unequal contest, the Osages were driven higher up their river, 
 and the Missouries to the Mouth of Grand river, a distance of 250 
 miles. The beautiful country near the mouth of the Missouri was 
 forever abandoned by the redman, for it is a noteworthy fact, 
 that as far as we have any information there was never after this 
 raid a wigwam on the banks o*f the river below Grand river, un- 
 less, as there are indications, the Missouris stopped temporarily 
 near Jefferson City, in their westward flight from the mouth 
 of the river. 
 
 In many respects the Osages were the most remarkable of all 
 the Western tribes. They are the oldest tribe of which we have any 
 data; the name "Osage," the origin of which is unknown, has 
 never varied in its spelling or been changed ; they were the largest 
 and most powerful tribe west of the Mississippi, excepting the 
 Sioux ; they have remained longer in the same locality, having been 
 on the Osage river from time immemorial; they have been the 
 
16 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 most peaceable of all the Western tribes and have given the gov- 
 ernment less trouble ; they are the tallest and best proportioned In- 
 dians, physically, in America, few being less than 6 feet ; and finally, 
 they are today the wealthiest people per capita in the world. 
 
 Formerly the tribe was evidently a numerous one, for Douay 
 says they occupied 17 villages. These villages were doubtless 
 scattered all along the Osage river and each contained probably 
 from 500 to 1,000 inhabitants. When first visited by the French 
 (1719-1724) they were estimated at 12,000, but like all other 
 aborgines, contact with civilization rapidly diminished their num- 
 ber, for in 1820 they had decreased one-half. The remnant of 
 this powerful tribe, now numbering only 1,789 souls one-half of 
 whom are still blanket Indians are now on their reservation in 
 the Indian Territory. 
 
 About the middle of the i8th century the Osages were di- 
 vided into three bands: the Great Osages, the Little Osages, and 
 the Black Dog band. The former were seated near Pappinsville, in 
 Bates county, Mo. The Little Osages whose village will hereafter 
 be described were on Petite-sas Plains, in Saline county, Mo., 
 and the Black Dog band was on the Verdigris river, in the Indian 
 Territory. The "Black Dogs" were so called from a celebrated 
 chief a most remarkable man in stature, being nearly 7 feet tall. 
 
 While the Osages were a brave and warlike nation, and were 
 frequently at war with the Pawnees, lowas, Sacs and Foxes and 
 other tribes, they always maintained peaceable relations with the 
 whites. This was no doubt through the influence of the French 
 traders, who from 1785 traded and lived with them and thus 
 acquired a wonderful influence over them. Only on one occa- 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 17 
 
 sion did they take up arms against the whites, and that was 
 during the Spanish regime. In 1794 a war party made an attack 
 on St. Louis, then a village defended by a small Spanish gar- 
 rison. As the village was fortified they dared not make an as- 
 sault, but challenged the Spaniards to come out and fight in the 
 open. This, of course, they declined to do, and they rode off with- 
 out firing a gun. 
 
 The Osages, in their hunting excursions, roamed over all the 
 vast territory from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, and a 
 good story is told by General Rozier, in his "History of the Mis- 
 sissippi valley," of an occurrence that took place at an early day 
 near Ste. Genevieve, where General Rozier w r as born and where he 
 lived and died : 
 
 "In 1797 a wedding party of young people, consisting of the 
 bride and groom and a half dozen other couples, left their home 
 on Big river to go to Ste. Genevieve to be married, there being no 
 priest nearer. On arriving at Terre-Beau creek, near Farmington, 
 they encountered a roving band of Osage Indians, who were out 
 on a prairie horse-racing. The party was soon discovered by the 
 Indians and followed. On being captured they were stripped of 
 all their clothing, both men and women, and turned loose on the 
 prairie as naked as they came into the world. No violence 
 was offered, as the Indians considered it a good joke; but they 
 kept their clothing and the young people were compelled to return 
 home in this terrible plight. The wedding was postponed for a 
 year, but the young couple finally married, and their descend- 
 ants are yet living in St. Francois county." 
 
 The Osages claimed all of the country lying south of the Mis- 
 
18 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 souri river and as far west as the Kaw. On November 10, 1808, 
 a treaty was entered into by which they ceded to the government 
 the territory lying east of a line running due south from Fort 
 Osage (now Sibley) on the Missouri river, to the Arkansas river, 
 and lying north of that stream to its confluence with the Mis- 
 sissippi. One provision of this treaty was that the Indians were 
 to be removed from Bates county to Fort Osage. In 1809 they 
 were so removed, but they did not remain long, for during the 
 following winter they broke away and returned to their former 
 village on the Osage. In 1820 they were granted a tract of land 
 ten miles square, near Pappinsville, for a mission, and a mission 
 called "Harmony Mission" was established. A church and school 
 house were built and a large apple orchard set out. Nothing re- 
 mains today to mark the site of this old village except the trunks of 
 some gnarled apple trees, which have withstood the storms of 
 eighty winters. 
 
 The Osages are one of the very few tribes which have no 
 cause to complain of the treatment accorded them by the gov- 
 ernment. They have been well paid for their lands, and the dif- 
 ferent treaties made with them have been religiously observed. 
 They receive an annuity of $450,000, which is much larger than 
 that received by any other tribe. Capitalized, on a 3 per cent 
 basis, this annuity represents $15,000,000, which apportioned 
 among the tribe would be equal to the sum of $8,384 for each 
 man, woman and child. 
 
 But the time will soon come, under the present alloting system 
 of the government, when the Osages will lose their lands the 
 fairest in the territory. It is the beginning of the end. Then, with 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 10 
 
 their tribal relations surrendered, and the protecting arm of the 
 government withdrawn, their money will, under the influence of 
 civilization, become a curse instead of a blessing. 
 
 BARON LA HOUTAN'S VOYAGE 1699. 
 
 From "Travels in North America from 1689 to 1700," pub- 
 lished in London in 1703. 
 
 La Houtan left the mouth of the Missouri river on March 
 1 7th, 1699, and reached the first village of the Missouri tribe of 
 Indians on the i8th, and the second the next day. Three leagues 
 from there he reached the mouth of the Osage river. After a 
 skirmish with the Indians at that place he re-embarked and started 
 down stream. He landed his forces at night, and destroyed a vil- 
 lage; re-embarked again, and arrived at the mouth of the river 
 on the 25th. There he met some Arkansas Indians, and he says of 
 them: "All that I learned from them was that the Missouries and 
 Osages were numerous and mischievous; that their country was 
 well watered with very great rivers ; and, in a word, was entirely 
 too good for them." 
 
 NOTE As it is 140 miles from the mouth of the Missouri to 
 the mouth of the Osage, the voyage could not have been made 
 upstream in canoes in three days. The statement of the dates and 
 distances made discredits the entire story, and it may be taken with 
 a degree of allowance. If La Houtan actually came up the Mis- 
 souri river he was the first white man to ascend that stream of 
 whom there is any account. 
 
 PENNICANT'S ANNALS 1700. 
 
 The author says, in writing in 1700 of a voyage made from 
 the copper mines of the Sioux country, on the upper Mississippi, 
 down the river : 
 
20 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 "Six leagues (from the Illinois) brought us to the mouth of 
 the Ou-mis-sou-rie. The river has a very rapid current, especially 
 in the spring of the year when the waters are high. In passing 
 beyond the islands, which it inundates, it was up to the trees and 
 ' uproots them and drags them along in its course, and it is from 
 this cause that the Mississippi is filled with floating trees. It also 
 assumes its color from this river, the source of which has never 
 yet been discovered. I will not speak of the Indians dwelling on 
 its banks, because we have not yet ascended it." 
 
 NOTE The writer must have passed the mouth of the river 
 during the annual June rise, as his description indicates that he 
 saw it during a flood. 
 
 FATHER JAMES GROVIER 1700. 
 
 In 1700 James Grovier, a Jesuit priest, made a voyage down 
 the Mississippi. He says : "The Arkansas river runs northwest, 
 and by ascending it they go to reach the river of the Missouries, 
 by making a portage/' 
 
 NOTE Grovier evidently meant to say that the river runs 
 southeast. He was misinformed as to it being customary "to make 
 a portage between the Arkansas and the Missouri rivers," as the 
 distance was too great. He, no doubt, refers to the Coureurs de 
 bois those roving vagabonds who even as early as 1700 had 
 become numerous on the Missouri river and had doubtless invaded 
 the Arkansas. 
 
 LE SEUR 1705. 
 
 Previous to 1705 all explorers of the Mississippi came down 
 the river from Canada, but now the tide began to turn, and a 
 stream came up the river from New Orleans. These two streams 
 met at the mouth of the Missouri, and it was during this period, 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 21 
 
 1710 to 1720, that Vincennes, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Fort Char- 
 tres were established. 
 
 In 1703 Chevalier Le Seur was sent by De Iberville, com- 
 mandant of Louisiana, at New Orleans, on a mining expedition to 
 the upper Mississippi. On returning down the river in 1705, he 
 arrived at the mouth of the Missouri and is said to have ascended 
 that stream as far as the mouth of the Kaw. There is some doubt 
 whether Le Seur ever really came up the river, but there is no 
 question that about this time the Missouri was first explored. In 
 Le Seur's narrative the following allusion to the Missouri river, 
 and the different tribes along that stream, is found. He says: 
 "The Sioux generally keep to the prairies between the Mississippi 
 and the river of the Missourites and live solely by hunting." At 
 another place he says: "We ascertained that the Agovoes (lowas) 
 and Ottoe-ta-tees (Otoes) had gone to station themselves higher 
 up on the side of the river of the Missourites, in the neighborhood 
 of the Mahas (Omahas), a nation dwelling in those quarters." 
 He makes the following reference to meeting some Canadians : 
 "Having gone six leagues, I halted at the mouth of the Ou-mis- 
 souri, where I met three Canadian travelers. I received from them 
 a letter from Father Marest, of the Mission of the Immaculate 
 Conception of the Illinois, informing me that the Longurettes had 
 been defeated by the Sioux and Agavoes, and had joined with a 
 party of the Mascoutans, Foxes and Matiganies to avenge them- 
 selves. Not upon the Sioux, for they fear them too much ; possibly 
 upon the Agovoes; or perhaps the Paducas (Pawnees) ; or more 
 likely on the Osages; for these mistrust nothing and the others 
 are upon their guard." 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 THE OTOES AND IOWAS. 
 
 NOTE i. The place to which Le Seur says the Otoes and 
 lowas went (about 1700) was the mouth of the Platte, not far 
 from Council Bluffs, Iowa; for it was there that the Mahas were 
 seated when first known to the French at the beginning of the 
 1 8th century. Their village was on the east side of the river, and 
 it was from them that the modern city of Omaha took its name. 
 De Lisle's map confirms the statement of Le Seur, for he locates 
 the Otoes, whom he calls by the same name as Le Seur the 
 Ottoe-ta-toes opposite the mouth of the Platte, and the lowas, 
 whom he calls the Aiou-reau-as, above the Platte, w r hich he lays 
 down as the Revier des Mahas. Both tribes were then on the east 
 side of the Missouri, but the Otoes afterward removed their vil- 
 lage up the Platte about 50 miles from the mouth. It is prob- 
 able that about 1 700 the Otoes were seated near the mouth of Grand 
 river, and it was from that locality that they removed at the time 
 Le Seur refers to. They were related to the Missouries, and Dr. 
 Elliott Coues says occupied the same village, which was the one on 
 Bowling Green prairie, below Grand river, as the Missouris had 
 not yet removed to their upper village. It is said that both the 
 Otoes and lowas were offshoots from the Missouries. This is 
 probably true, as it was to the Otoes then on the Platte that the 
 remnant of the Missouris fled (about 1774) when they were driven 
 from Petite-sas-Plains. The separation of the two tribes is said 
 to have been caused by the abduction of a Missouri squaw by a 
 chief of the Otoes. 
 
 The Otoes were a small tribe and did not number exceeding 
 500 souls, 1 20 of whom were warriors. They were always a 
 peaceable tribe, probably on account of their numbers, and main- 
 tained friendly relations with the early fur traders and voyaguers. 
 The remnant of the tribe which includes the Missouries now 
 numbers less than 300. They are now on a reservation in the 
 Indian Territory near Ponca Agency. 
 
 NOTE 2. The village of the tribe mentioned by Le Seur as 
 the "Matiganies" was on the Wabash river. The Mascoutans are 
 located by De Lisle on the west side of Lake Michigan, near Fox 
 river. The Longuerettes cannot be traced. All three of these 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 23 
 
 tribes are now extinct. The Foxes, also called "Renards," were 
 at that time on Green Bay, Michigan, near the Mascoutans. They 
 had formerly lived on Lake Huron, but about 1650 had been driven 
 through the Straits of Mackinaw, with other Algonquin tribes, 
 by the Iroquois. Having become reduced in number they now 
 become united with the Saukees, or Sacs, and ever afterward the 
 united tribes were known as the "Sacs and Foxes." About 1750 
 they removed to the Des Moines river, Iowa. They claimed the 
 country north of the Missouri river, and on Nov. 3, 1804, the 
 government, by treaty, purchased their title. 
 
 NOTE 3. A good deal of latitude has always been admissible 
 in Indian nomenclature. The name of the tribe which Le Seur 
 calls "Agovoes" and De Lisle "Ai-ou-reau-as," was variously 
 spelled by the French, "Agoway," "Agovoe," "Agowa," "loway," 
 "lowae" and finally "Iowa." They were a tribe of wanderers, and 
 their migrations extended during different periods all up and down 
 the Missouri river. Their village was probably somewhere in the 
 territory now embraced in the state of Missouri at the time of 
 their removal, as has been stated, to the vicinity of Council Bluffs ; 
 but it is nowhere shown that they were on the banks of the Mis- 
 souri river. About 1750 they were seated on the Chariton river, 
 in Missouri, near the Iowa line, having doubtless come back to 
 Missouri for which they cannot be blamed. They were living 
 on a creek near Weston, Platte County, Mo., in 1836, when they 
 ceded the country embraced in the Platte Purchase which they 
 claimed to own to the government. 
 
 The lowas were never a numerous tribe, although they were 
 good fighters and made war on all the neighboring tribes, except 
 the ancient Missouri's, from whom it is said they were an offshoot. 
 In 1806 they numbered 1,600; in 1825 they had been reduced to 
 1,000; and in 1852 to 750 souls. The remnant of the tribe, now 
 less than 300, are on a reservation in the Indian Territory, where 
 they receive an annuity of $14,450. 
 
 FATHER GABRIEL MAUSEST 1712. 
 
 Extract from a letter written at Kaskaskia, dated November 
 9th, 1712: 
 
24 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 "Seven leagues below the mouth of the Illinois river is found 
 a large river named Missouri, or more commonly called the Pek-i- 
 tan-oni, that is to say 'Muddy Waters,' which empties into the 
 Mississippi from the west side. It is extremely rapid and soils 
 the beautiful waters of the Mississippi, which runs from there to 
 the sea. It comes from the northwest, very near where the Span- 
 iards have their mines in Mexico, and it is very convenient for 
 the French to travel in the country." Again he says : 
 
 "We are but thirty leagues (83 miles) from the Missouri or 
 Pek-i-tan-oni river. This is a large river which flows into the Mis- 
 sissippi and they pretend to say that it comes from a still greater 
 distance than that river. It is upon the Missouri that the Spaniards 
 have their best mines." 
 
 NOTE It will be observed that even as late as 1712 the French 
 had a very imperfect knowledge of the trans-Mississippi country, 
 for this writer states that the Missouri river had its source in 
 Mexico, for it was there the Spaniards had their mines. 
 
 EXPEDITIONS OF M. DU TISNE 1719. 
 
 In the spring of 1719 Claude Charles du Tisne went up the 
 Missouri river in canoes to the village of the Missouries, near the 
 mouth of Grand river. It was his purpose to go farther, but the 
 Indians would not permit him to do so. He then returned down 
 the river and made his way to the Illinois country, whence he 
 soon thereafter crossed the Mississippi river and set out overland 
 from the mouth of Saline river, near Ste. Genevieve. He traveled 
 westward, through what was then an unexplored wilderness, be- 
 ing the first explorer of the trans-Mississippi territory. 
 
 The following letter, written by Du Tisne after his return from 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 2r> 
 
 his last expedition to De Bienville, the commandant at New Or- 
 leans, throws much light on the different Indian tribes then in- 
 habiting the Missouri valley. It was written at the old French 
 village of Kaskaskia, which was located near the east bank of 
 the Mississippi, about fifty miles below the present city of St. Louis. 
 
 "Kaskaskia, Nov. 2.2, 1710. 
 "Sir: 
 
 "You know that I have been obliged to leave the Missouries, 
 as they did not wish me to go to the Pa-ni-ou-sas (Padoucas). 
 Hence was compelled to return to the Illinois to offer to M. de 
 Boisebriant (commander of the post) to make the journey across 
 the country and be granted permission to do so. The journey was 
 attended with much trouble, as my men fell sick on the way. My 
 own health keeps well. I went to the Osages and was well received 
 by them. They answered me satisfactorily in regard to themselves, 
 but when I spoke of going to the Panis (Pawnees) they all opposed 
 and would not assent to the reason I gave them. When I learned 
 they did not intend to let me take my goods I had brought, I pro- 
 posed to them to let me take three guns for myself and my in- 
 terpreter, telling them, with decision, if they did not consent to this 
 I would be very angry, and you indignant. They then consented. 
 Knowing the character of these savages I did not tarry long, but 
 set out at once, and in four days I reached the Panis, where I was 
 badly received, owing to the fact that the Osages made them be- 
 lieve that our intention was to entrap them and make slaves of 
 them. On that account they twice raised the tomahawk over my 
 head, but on seeing my bravery, when they threatened me, brutal 
 as they are, they consented to make an alliance and treated me 
 
26 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 well. I traded them three guns, some powder, axes and a few 
 knives for two horses and a mule; marked with a Spanish brand. 
 I proposed to them to let me pass through to the Padoucas. To 
 this they would not consent at all. Seeing their opposition, I ques- 
 tioned them in regard to the Spanish. They said the Spanish had 
 formerly been to their village, but now the Padoucas prevented 
 them. They traded me a silver cup, which they had obtained 
 from the Spanish, and told me it would take more than a month 
 to go to the Spanish settlements. It seems to me that we may 
 succeed in effecting a treaty of peace between this tribe and the 
 Padoucas, and thereby open a route to the Spanish (in Mexi- 
 co). It could be done by giving them back their slaves and some 
 presents. We might also attempt a passage to the Missouri river, 
 going to the Pani-Mahas. (The Mahas, a tribe then seated near 
 Council Bluffs). I offered M. de Boisebriant to go there myself, 
 and if you desire it I am ready to execute it. 
 
 "I send this letter by a Manto chief, whom I met among 
 the Osages. He has sold some slaves for me to the Natchitoches 
 (a tribe of Indians on Red river). He has promised me to come 
 to the Illinois and bring some horses. The Panis have also prom- 
 ised to come next spring. As the Osages would give me no 
 guide to return to the Illinois, I was obliged to find my own way 
 with the compass ; having fourteen horses and one mule along with 
 me. I had the misfortune to lose six horses, which is a loss of 
 several hundred francs to me. I refer you to M. Boisebriant for 
 the many difficulties I have passed through. Being one of the 
 oldest officials in the command I hope you will do me the favor to 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 27 
 
 procure me a company. I shall try to meet your kindness by my 
 faithfulness to the service. 
 
 "I am with respects. "Du TISNE." 
 
 "To Gov. De Iberville, New Orleans." 
 
 The following is an extract from the journal of Du Tisne, 
 translated from "Margry's Memoirs," by Mr. E. A. K. Killian, 
 Secretary of the Quivira Historical Society :* 
 
 "From the village of Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi, to the 
 mouth of the Missouri, is 32 leagues (75 miles). The Missouri 
 is very turbid and full of obstacles from driftwood and extensive 
 shallows and a strong current. It flows from the Missouries- (the 
 village of the Missouries), S. E., although it makes many times a 
 complete circumvolution of the compass. It is well wooded with 
 walnut, locust, sycamore and oak trees. Very fine soil and some 
 rocky hills are seen. At intervals on the west side of the stream, 
 two fine rivers flow into it. The first is the Blue river (the Gas- 
 conade) which is not great in importance. The second is the river 
 of the Osages, whose village is 80 leagues (about 220 miles) above. 
 A perogue can go 20 leagues (55 miles) above; S. W. from the 
 village. 
 
 "The river of the Osages is 10 leagues (25 miles) above the 
 mouth of Blue river, and 40 leagues (no miles) above the mouth 
 of the Missouri. In the vicinity of the Osages there are lead mines 
 in abundance, and it is also believed there are silver mines. 
 
 *Mr. Killian is recognized as one of the most scholarly, painstaking 
 and reliable historians of the Missouri valley. The writer is indebted to 
 him for assistance in the preparation of this paper, and especially for notes 
 obtained from the "Memoirs and Discoveries of Pierre Margry"; a collection 
 of documents and journals pertaining 1 to the French occupancy of North 
 America. 
 
28 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 "The prairie begins 10 leagues (27 miles) beyond their vil- 
 lage." 
 
 "The Missouries are jealous because the French go to other 
 nations. Their people stay only in the springtime at their vil- 
 lage, and hunt the wild cattle (buffalo) in the fall and winter. 
 One league south of them is a village of the Osages, which is 30 
 leagues (82 miles) from their great village on their river. (The 
 writer is now referring to the village of the Little Osages, on the 
 Missouri river, near the mouth of Grand river). One can go from 
 the Missouries (near the mouth of Grand river) to the Pani-Mahas 
 (Maha tribe, near Council Bluffs) and from there to the Pacloucas 
 (on the Platte) by the Missouri river." 
 
 "The great village of the Osages is situated on an elevation a 
 
 f 
 
 league and a half (about 4 miles) from their river to the north- 
 west. This village is composed of one hundred lodges and two 
 hundred warriors. They stay in their village, like the Missouries, 
 and pass the winter in chasing the buffalo, which are very abund- 
 ant in these parts. Horses, which they steal from the Panas, can 
 be bought of them, also deer skins and buffalo robes. They have 
 some chiefs of bands but few have absolute authority. They are 
 a well built people, but in general are treacherous and break their 
 word easily. There is a lead mine 12 leagues from here, but they 
 do not know what use to make thereof." 
 
 "From the Osages to the Panas is 40 leagues (no miles) to 
 the S. W., and the whole route is over prairies abounding in cat- 
 tle. The land is fine and well watered. There are four rivers 
 from the Osages to the Panas, which have to be crossed. The 
 most considerable is the Arcansas, which has its source toward the 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 29 
 
 N. W. This river is 12 leagues (33) miles east of the Panis' vil- 
 lage. It is situated on the bank of a creek, on a hill, surrounded 
 by elevated prairies. One league to the N. W. is another village, 
 as large as the first one. There are in these two villages three 
 hundred horses, which they value so much that they do not like 
 to part with them. Their nature is very brutal, but it would be 
 easy to subdue them by making them presents of guns, of which 
 they have only six among them all. There are other Panic villages 
 to the west and northwest, but they are not known to us. According 
 to their reports it is fifteen clays' journey to the Padoucas (on the 
 Platte) but they encounter them frequently in six days' journey. 
 They have a cruel war now between them, so that they nearly eat 
 one another up. When they go to war they harness their horses 
 in a cuirraiss of tanned leather. They are clever with the bow and 
 arrow and also use a lance, which is like the end of a sword in- 
 serted in a handle of wood. Two days' journey to the West, or 
 Southwest, is a salt mine. Every time they give food to a stranger 
 the chief cuts the meat into pieces and puts them into the mouth 
 of those they regale." 
 
 NOTE On the 27th of September, 1719, Du Tisne planted a 
 white flag in the middle of this village and took his departure in 
 a northeasterly direction for the Missouri river. He arrived at 
 that river, 6 leagues (about 17 miles) above the mouth of Grand 
 river, at what is known today as Petite-sas-Plains. This location, 
 one of the most historic in Missouri, has elsewhere been described. 
 It was at that time the home of the unfortunate Missouries, and 
 also a branch of the Osages known as the "Little Osages," or 
 the "Little Tribe." The village of the latter is described by Du 
 Tisne as having been one league, or about three miles, southwest 
 from the former, which was absolutely correct. The locations of 
 these old villages are still sufficiently well defined to be accurately 
 
30 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 determined. When Lewis and Clark came up the river, in 1804, 
 they were pointed out to them. They were well known then, as 
 they had only been abandoned about thirty years. The Osage vil- 
 lage, the larger of the two, was north of the town of Malta Bend, 
 Mo., one mile and a quarter, and a quarter of a mile west. It was 
 on a farm now owned by Mrs. A. G. Dicus. 'The other that 
 of the Missouries -was situated three and a half miles north of 
 the town and the same distance east. It was on a tract of land 
 now owned bv Benjamin McRoberts. 
 
 The location of the village of the Great Osages, on the Osage 
 
 river, when visited by Du Tisne, is not so easily determined. When 
 
 
 
 Pike came up the Osage river, in 1806, they were seated at what 
 was afterward known as "Old Harmony Mission," near Pappins- 
 ville, Bates County, Mo., on the river. The topography of the 
 country, there, does not correspond with the description given by 
 Du Tisne, for it is in a beautiful prairie country, which extends 
 far westward. Du Tisne says that the prairies began 10 leagues, 
 or about 27 miles, westward from the village which he visited. This 
 would fix the location near Osceola, in St. Clair county, which was 
 probably the true location of the village in 1719. The Osages, like 
 all other tribes, were migratory, and may have moved their vil- 
 lage higher up the river, or there may have been more than one 
 village.* 
 
 It is stated by Du Tisne that he traveled four days in a south- 
 westerly direction, in going from the Osage village to the Pawnees. 
 He estimated the distance at no miles. He also says the Paw- 
 nee villages were 12 leagues, or 33 miles, west of the river he 
 calls the "Arcansas." He doubtless meant the Neosho, a branch of 
 the Arkansas. The location of these villages are unknown, but 
 
 *De L.isle'3 map, (1703) lays down four villages on the river. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 31 
 
 from the distance traveled, the course, and the distance, from 
 the Neosho river, they were probably situated on Cabin creek, in 
 what is now Cherokee County, Ind. Ty., near Vinita. 
 
 After Du Tisne had visited the Great Osages and the Pawnees, 
 and had spent some time with the two tribes on the Missouri river, 
 he crossed over to the north side and set out down that stream 
 for the Illinois country, where he arrived about the first of No- 
 vember, 1719. 
 
 
 
 CHARLEVOIX 1721. 
 
 Extract from a letter written at Kaskaskia, October 2Oth, 1721. 
 Charlevoix was the most intelligent and reliable of all the early 
 French explorers and historians. He says : 
 
 "The Osages are a pretty numerous nation settled on the 
 side of a river that bears their name and which enters into the 
 Missouri about 40 leagues (no miles) from its junction with the 
 Mississippi. They send once or twice a year the Calumet among 
 the Kaskaskias, and are actually here at present. I have also 
 just now seen a Missouri woman, who told me her nation was 
 the first we met when going up the Missouri river, from which she 
 has the name we have given her, for want of knowing her true 
 name. It is situated 80 leagues (220 miles) from the confluence 
 of that river with the Mississippi. This woman has confirmed 
 me, from what I have heard from the Sioux, that the Missouri river 
 runs out of some naked mountains, very high up, beyond which 
 there is a great river, which probably rises from there also, and 
 which runs to the west. This testimony carries some weight, be- 
 cause of all the Indians we know none travels farther west than 
 the Missouries." 
 
32 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 "I can make no doubt, in -weighing the information we have 
 had from many places, and which agrees pretty well together, that 
 by endeavoring to penetrate to the source of the Missouri one 
 would find wherewithal to make amends for the charge and the 
 fatigue of such an enterprise." 
 
 Of the Missouri and the Mississippi he says : 
 
 "After we had gone five leagues on the Mississippi we ar- 
 rived at the mouth of the Missouri, which runs north, northwest 
 and southeast. *I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. 
 The two rivers are much the same breadth, each about half a league. 
 The Missouri by far the most rapid and seems to enter the Missis- 
 sippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its dark waters to 
 the opposite shore without mixing them. Afterward it gives color 
 to the Mississippi which it never loses again, but carries it quite 
 down to the sea." 
 
 NOTE It will be seen from this letter that the author had 
 formed a pretty correct conception of the Missouri river, its course, 
 and distances from one locality to another, although it had not 
 even yet been explored, except by the French voyageurs, for any 
 great distance. His reference to the Rocky Mountains applies well 
 to the Black Hills; he had the proper conception of the Columbia 
 river; and a correct knowledge of the course of the Missouri. He 
 states that it was no miles to the mouth of the Osage from the 
 mouth of the Missouri, while the distance is, in fact, 140 miles; 
 and that it was 220 miles to the Missouri village near Grand river, 
 when the correct distance, is, according to surveys of the United 
 States engineers, 250 miles. So it will be seen that the Indian 
 woman's estimate of the distance to her village was very nearly 
 correct. The calumet referred to, or Indian pipe, was the- solemn 
 emblem of peace the token of Indian brotherhood and a formal 
 declaration of entire forgiveness of past injury and a pledge of 
 future good will and friendship. It was universally so regarded 
 among all savage tribes. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 33 
 
 BOURGMONT'S EXPEDITION 1724. 
 During the entire period of the French occupancy of the Mis- 
 souri valley (1673-1763) there was a continuous conflict between 
 Spain and France for supremacy in the country west of the Missis- 
 sippi. In 1720 a Spanish caravan was sent from Santa Fe to the 
 Missouri river to drive back the French, who even then were be- 
 coming numerous among the different tribes along that stream. 
 
 The fate of that expedition will ever be enshrouded in mystery, 
 
 
 for with it was connected one of the darkest tragedies known in 
 
 the annals of the West. By a shrewd piece of strategy the 
 invaders were thrown off their guard by the Indians and massacred, 
 but by what tribe the deed was done, or where, was never known. 
 
 The arrival of this expedition from so great a distance alarmed 
 the French, and M. Du Bourgmont was sent up the Missouri river 
 with instructions to "build a fort somewhere above the mouth 
 of the Osage." He came up in the spring of 1724, and, as this 
 voyage is the first, excepting that of La Houtan's, of which any 
 account has been preserved, it becomes of great interest. 
 
 The fort, called "Fort Orleans," was established opposite the 
 village of the Missouris, near Grand river, the location of which 
 
 has been described. Bourgmont then proceeded up the river di- 
 
 t 
 
 viding his force, part going up the river in canoes and the re- 
 mainder overland. They arrived at the Kansas village located 
 on the Missouri river above the mouth of the Kaw, where the town 
 of Doniphan, Kas., is now situated,* and there held a powwow with 
 the Indians, the following tribes being represented, viz : the lowas, 
 
 *Mr. Geo. J. Remsburo, an acknowledged authority on Western history, 
 has located this old village at Doniphan, Kansas. 
 
34 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 Missouris, Kansans, Otoes and Osages. After a general debauch, 
 continuing several days, the motley crew, consisting of French, 
 half-breed coureurs-de-bois, and Indians, among the latter being 68 
 Osages and 109 Missouris, who had followed Bourgmont from 
 the mouth of Grand river, proceeded to the Platte, where they spent 
 some time in visiting the Pawnees, called by Bourgmont the "Pa- 
 ducas." 
 
 The following extract, taken from Bourgmont' s journal, will 
 prove interesting. He says : 
 
 "Fort Orleans, Sunday, June 25th, 1724. The detachment 
 which is to go by water set out for the Canzas and the Paducas. It 
 is commanded by M. de Saint Ange, ensign at Fort Orleans. He 
 has with him one sergeant, two corporals, eleven privates, five 
 Canadian voyageurs and two Indian servants." 
 
 Saturday, July 8th. 
 
 "Saint Ange sent an Indian runner to the Canzas village to 
 report to me that the perogues and canoes could not proceed on 
 account of several of the Frenchmen having fever, and requests that 
 five additional men be sent to help tow the boats." 
 
 Sunday, July Qth. 
 
 "The five men were sent off down the river." 
 
 Sunday, July i6th. 
 
 "St. Ange arrived (at the Canzas village) at 2:00 p. m. with 
 the boats. Hindered by sickness and low stage of the water." 
 
 THE MISSOURIES. 
 
 NOTE i. The history of the Missouri tribe, "the Qu-mis- 
 sou-ri-tes," as they were called by the early French explorers, aft- 
 erwards known as the "Ancient Missouries," is most pathetic, and 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 35 
 
 illustrates most forcibly the sad fate that befell many tribes of the 
 aborigines. There is no doubt that they were seated near the 
 mouth of the Missouri river when first known to the French (1673- 
 1682), and that they were then a numerous tribe. As has been 
 seen, they were driven higher up the river about that time by the 
 invasion of the Iroquois, and doubtless many of them were killed. 
 This merciless slaughter, with the ravages of that terrible scourge 
 of the American Indian the smallpox must have greatly reduced 
 their number, for they were never a numerous people after the 
 close of the Seventeenth century, when ihecourieurs dc bois first 
 began to visit them. 
 
 On De Lisle's map (1703) their villages are located on the 
 Missouri river a short distance above the Osage, and there were 
 evidences when that section was first settled (1818) of an Indian 
 village and burial ground on the north side of the river, directly 
 opposite Jefferson City, and another at the mouth of Moniteau 
 creek, just above. The writer visited these localities many years 
 ago when a boy and saw, in exhumed skulls and bones, and in 
 broken pieces of pottery, arrow heads and other relics, the evi- 
 dences of which he speaks. 
 
 Henri Tonty (writing in 1699) says the Missouries were 150 
 league (400 miles) up the river, but he was evidently misinformed, 
 as to the distance, for this would locate them nearly at the mouth 
 of the Kaw. The distances given by the Jesuit chroniclers are 
 not always to be relied on, as they received their information 
 solely from the Indians, who were frequently, no doubt, misun- 
 derstood, from the want of an interpreter. 
 
 About 1700 the Missouries came still further up the river, 
 and this time located on Bowling Green prairie, on the north 
 side of the river, about ten miles below the mouth of Grand river. 
 The location of this old village was pointed out to Lewis and Clark 
 
36 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 when they came up the river in 1804 by their half-breed guides, 
 although they state that not a vestige of it then remained. They also 
 say that the Missouries, several years before, had been attacked at 
 this village by the Sacs and Foxes, and having lost 200 of their 
 best warriors, the remnant of the tribe, consisting of only 30 fam- 
 ilies, fled across the river and took refuge with the Little Osages, 
 whose village, as has been seen in the history of that tribe, was 
 on Pe-tite-sas Plains, about 18 miles above Grand river.* There can 
 be no question that both tribes were at this place in 1719 when 
 visited by Du Tisne, and in 1724 when visited by Bourgmont, for 
 the locations of their villages are well known today, and are just 
 where they were described by Du Tisne. 
 
 There has always been a controversy among historians as to 
 the exact location of old Fort Orleans, a matter of some interest, 
 as it was the first fort established west of the Mississippi. All 
 agree that it was on an island in the Missouri river opposite the 
 village of the Missouris; which has long since disappeared. The 
 journal of Du Tisne seems to settle the question. He was at 
 this village in 1719 the one above Grand river for it was near 
 the Osage village. Bourgmont did not come up the river until 
 1724, hence must have built the fort at the upper village above 
 Grand river. 
 
 About 1774 both the Osage and Missourie villages were again 
 attacked by their relentless enemies, and both tribes were almost 
 annihilated. Lewis and Clark state that when they came up both 
 
 *Du Pratz, in his "Historie de la Louisiana." (1755) refers to this 
 battle and says: "The Missouris have been engaged in a war with the Sacs 
 and Foxes and lost 200 warriors." 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 37 
 
 villages which they locate on Petite-sas-Plains had been aband- 
 oned about 30 years, which would fix the date of the exodus about 
 the above year (1774). There is every reason to believe that the 
 final battle fought here resulted in a massacre and a rout and 
 probably in the burning of the wigwams. The number of human 
 skeletons found near the surface of the ground, which have been 
 turned up by the plow r -share, indicates that the bodies did not re- 
 ceive the sacred sepulcher which even savages accorded their dead. 
 That the lodges were burned seems evident from the condition of 
 the relics found, such as gun-barrels, kettles, etc., all of which 
 bear, in their bent and broken condition, evidence of having been 
 subjected to fire. 
 
 After this battle the few Osages left fled to their kindred 
 the Great Osages on the Osage river, and established a village of 
 their own a few miles below Pappinsville, at a place called Balls- 
 town. The remnant of the poor Missouries now few and with- 
 out a home again fled up the river and this time sought refuge 
 with their kindred, the Otoes, or the "Ottoe-ta-toes," as Le Seur 
 called them, whose village was not far above Council Bluffs. There 
 they became merged into that tribe and forever lost their identity 
 as a distinct nation. 
 
 While the story of the unfortunate Missouries is a sad one, and 
 they have long since become extinct, they have left behind them 
 in the grand old river, on whose banks they dwelt, a name which 
 will perpetuate their memory as long as its waters flow to the 
 Gulf. 
 
38 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 THE KANSAN INDIANS. 
 
 NOTE 2. The Kansan Indians have been variously known as 
 "Canse," "Kanzans," the "Kansa," "Kanzas," "Okanas," "Cnn- 
 zas," (as Bourgmont called them) and the "Kaws." When visited 
 by Bourgmont, which was the first known definitely of them, they 
 occupied the territory between the Missouri river and the Kaw. 
 and roved westward ad libitum. They were the most degraded of 
 all the Western tribes, and were in fact a band of robbers and 
 thieves. Their principal occupation was robbing the early fur- 
 traders, and for that purpose they lay in wait, about Cow island, 
 and other localities, above the mouth of the Kaw, and robbed and 
 murdered the unwary Frenchmen as they came up the river in 
 their canoes. To such an extent was this piracy carried, and so 
 dangerous did it become to pass this locality, that during a period 
 about 1750 the traders went up Grand river to its headwaters 
 and from there made a portage across to the Missouri river, coming 
 in above St. Joseph. 
 
 On December 3Oth, 1825, a treaty was made with the Kan- 
 san Indians by which they exchanged their lands near the mouth 
 of the Kaw for a strip thirty miles wide along that river, beginning 
 60 miles from the mouth. Their principal village, in 1840, was 
 near Topeka, but about 1850 they removed to Council Grove, 
 Kansas. During the J 6os they were removed, with other tribes, 
 to the Indian Territory. In 1825 their number was estimated at 
 1,700, and in 1835 at 1,200. The remnant of the tribe, numbering 
 about 200, is now on a reservation near the Osage Agency. All 
 attempts to civilize them have proved futile, and they are today 
 among the lowest and most degraded of the race. 
 
 DANIEL COXE 1726. 
 
 "A Description of the English Province of Carolana, by the 
 Spanish called Florida and by the French La Louisian" printed in 
 London in 1726. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 39 
 
 Coxe was an Englishman and the owner of a grant of 
 land extending from the coast of South Carolina to the Mississippi 
 river or "from sea to sea" ; issued by Charles I. of England. He 
 owned the first ship to enter the mouth of the Mississippi (1699) 
 and made a futile effort to establish a colony on that river. In 
 describing the Missouri river and the country through which it 
 runs, he says: 
 
 "The great 'Yellow River' to the west, is so named because 
 it is yellow and so muddy that though the Mes-che-ce-be (Missis- 
 sippi) is very clear, where they meet, and so many rivers of chrys- 
 taline waters below mix with the Mes-che-ce-be, yet it discolors 
 them all even unto the sea. When you are up that river 60 or 
 70 leagues you meet with two branches, the lesser, though large, 
 proceeds from the south and is called the River of the Osages, 
 from a numerous people who have 16 or 18 villages seated thereon, 
 especially near its mixing with the Yellow river. The other, which 
 is the main branch, comes from the west. The Yellow is also 
 called the river of the Missourites, from a great nation inhabiting 
 many towns near its junction with the river of the Osages." 
 
 "It will be one great convenience to this country if it ever be- 
 comes settled, that there is an easy communication to the South 
 Sea, which lies between America and China, by the north branch 
 of the great Yellow river, by the natives called the River of the 
 Missourites, which has a course of 500 miles navigable to its 
 head, or springs, and which proceeds from a ridge of hills, passable 
 by a horse, foot or wagon, in less than half a day, somewhat north 
 of M.exico. On the other side are rivers which run into a great 
 
40 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 lake that empties itself by another great navigable river into the 
 South Sea." 
 
 NOTE i. Coxe was evidently impressed with the same erron- 
 eous belief that was entertained by most of the early explorers, 
 that there was a waterway somewhere through the Western Hem- 
 isphere by which the South Sea and China might be reached. Mar- 
 quette possessed the same idea when he first discovered the Mis- 
 souri, for he said: "I hope by its means to make the discovery 
 of the Vermillion, or California Sea." La Salle had the same im- 
 pression, for when he discovered that the Mississippi discharged 
 itself into the Gulf of Miexico, "he conceived the hope of reaching 
 the South Sea by the Missouri river." Indeed, Frontenac, when 
 he sent Joliet down the Mississippi, wrote to his home government, 
 in France, "that he would in all probably prove once for all that 
 the great river flowed into the Gulf of California." 
 
 NOTE 2. The description given by the writer of the Rocky 
 Mountains is amusing, and shows how little was known, even as 
 late as 1726, of the geography of the Western country, although 
 both Coxe and Charlevoix must have had some conception of 
 Great Salt Lake and the Columbia river. 
 
 NOTE 3. It will be observed that the early French explorers 
 made repeated efforts to give names to the two great watercourses 
 of the West, which fortunately failed, else they would not today 
 bear the beautiful a.nd poetic Indian names which they do. Mar- 
 quette the religious zealot called the Mississippi the "Concep- 
 tion," La Salle called it the "River Colbert," after the Minister of 
 Marines of France. It was called by Le Page Du Pratz the 
 "River St. Louis," after the French king, and it remained for 
 the Englishman, Daniel Coxe, to restore the musical Indian name 
 "Mes-che-ce-be," by which it was known by the Indians on Lake 
 Superior as early as 1670. The name is a Chippewa word, and 
 means in the dialect of the tribe "The Father of Running Waters." 
 It was an easy transition to the more modern name "Mississippi." 
 
 The Missouri river, it will be remembered, was called by Mar- 
 quette, the "Pek-i-tan-oni," and it is so laid down on many of the 
 early maps. It was an Indian name meaning "Muddy Water." It 
 was also called the "Osage River," being doubtless, confounded 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 41 
 
 with that stream. Coxe calls it the "Yellow river," although he 
 also refers to it by the name by which it was generally known 
 the "River of the Missovtrites." The latter name was very appro- 
 priately given it by La Salle, from the Indian tribe which at that 
 time dwelt near its mouth. This name, as has been seen, was 
 variously spelled by the early French "E-mis-sou-ri-tes," "Ou- 
 mis-sou-ri-tes" and "Mis-sou-ri-tes." In the course of time, 
 through the jargon of the French voyageurs, it passed through 
 many changes, until it finally settled down to the present form 
 Missouri. The word simply meant, in the Indian dialect, and as 
 applied to the stream, "Dwellers at the mouth of the River," and 
 there appears to be no foundation for the general belief that the 
 name was characteristic of the river and meant "Muddy Water." 
 
 FATHER LOUIS VIVIER 1750. 
 
 Excerpt from a letter written at Kaskaskia, Nov. i/th, 1750: 
 "Before its junction with the Missouri the Mississippi is 
 not considerable. It has very little current, while, on the con- 
 trary, the Missouri is larger, deeper and more rapid, and takes 
 its source from a greater distance. Several large rivers flow into 
 the Mississippi, but it seems the Missouri also furnishes more water 
 than all the others together. Here is the proof: The water of 
 the greater part, I might say of all the rivers that the Mississippi 
 receives, is but .moderately good, that of some .positively unwhole- 
 some. That of the Mississippi, even, before its alliance with the 
 Missouri, is not of the best. On the contrary, the water of the 
 Missouri is the best in the world. Now that the Mississippi, after 
 its junction with the Missouri, becomes excellent, therefore the 
 water of the Missouri must be dominant." 
 
42 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 NOTE The statement of Father Vivier, as to the purity of 
 the waters of the Missouri river, and of the Mississippi, after their 
 confluence, is not in accord with the prevailing opinion, but is 
 nevertheless true. While muddy, from, the sand held in solution, 
 the very presence of this sand serves to purify it and render it 
 wholesome. And when clarified, by settling, it is true that there 
 is "no better water in the world." 
 
 Several years ago a test was made in Paris, France, of waters 
 taken from streams in different parts of the world, to ascertain 
 which would continue pure and wholesome for the longest period 
 of time; it being important that this fact should be ascertained for 
 the benefit of ships sailing on long voyages at sea. After a thor- 
 ough test, the water taken from the lower Mississippi, which as- 
 sumes its character from the Missouri, was pronounced the best. 
 
 LE PAGE DU PRATZ 1756. 
 
 Excerpt from his "History of Louisiana," published with a 
 map of the country, in 1756: 
 
 "The Missouri takes its source 800 leagues, as well as can 
 be ascertained, from the place where it empties into the St. Louis 
 (Mississippi). Its waters are muddy, troubled and charged with 
 niter, and it is because of these waters that the river St. Louis is 
 so muddy to the sea. The reason of the color is that the latter 
 takes its course over sand and firm ground, while the former 
 flows over fertile ground where one sees but few rocks; and 
 although the Missouri comes from a mountain, towards New 
 Mexico, we must remember that all the country through which 
 it passes is for the most part rich soil. 
 
 "The river not having been ascended by the French but for a 
 short distance, about 300 leagues, at most, the branches which 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 43 
 
 empty into it are only known to the natives. It makes no differ- 
 ence what name they have at present, being in a country little fre- 
 quented. The best known of them is the Osage, which takes its 
 name from a nation which dwells on its banks. It empties into 
 the Missouri river near its mouth. The largest known river, which 
 falls into the Missouri, is the Canscs. It has nearly 200 leagues 
 course through a beautiful country. From what I have been able 
 to learn of the course of the Missouri it flows from its source to 
 the Canzes river from west to east; there it makes a great elbow 
 which ends in the neighborhood of the Missouries (village of the 
 Missouries) when it retakes its course toward the southeast. Then 
 it loses its name and waters in the River St. Louis. 
 
 "The waters of this river of the Missouries are always thick 
 and muddy, and it seems that its source is not far from the place, 
 where on the map of Die Lisle, they make Fort Dauphin on the 
 Sea of the West." 
 
 NOTE i. Du Pratz lived in New Orleans, then the capital 
 of all Louisiana, and was never up the Missouri river. Neverthe- 
 less, the description he gives of the river, distances, etc. the in- 
 formation of which he had doubtless obtained from the voyageurs 
 was approximately correct. The map which he published at the 
 time was a valuable contribution to the geographical knowledge 
 of the West, and on it are laid down the village of the Missouries 
 and old Fort Orleans, at the exact spot where Charlevoix had 
 located them 35 years before. 
 
 NOTE 2. The author says the Missouri had not then been 
 ascended for more than 300 leagues, or about 825 miles. He prob- 
 ably meant the mouth of the Platte, for that was as high as the 
 fur-traders were accustomed to go in that day, and was considered 
 the dividing line between the upper and lower river. The dis- 
 tance is about 650 miles, or 175 miles less than Du Pratz esti- 
 mated it. He estimates the length of the entire river at 800 
 
44 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 leagues or 2,200 miles. The actual distance from its head the 
 mouth of the Gallatin river to its mouth is 2546 miles. 
 
 NOTE 3. The courses of the river, as stated, are correct. The 
 "elbows" at the mouth of the Kaw and at the mouth of Grand 
 river the latter being "in the neighborhood of the Missouries" 
 are correctly described. 
 
 NOTE 4. The author expresses the belief that the river "has 
 its source not far from where, on the map of De Lisle, they make 
 (lay down) Fort Dauphin on the Sea of the West." He probably 
 did not know how close he came to guessing the truth. In 1738 
 Le Sieur De Verendrye an employe of the Hudson Bay company 
 came down from the British possessions to the Missouri river 
 which he crossed at the Mandan village, near where Bismarck, N. 
 D., is now located. After going westward and spending a year or 
 two with the Rocky Mountain Indians, he returned to the As- 
 siniboine country, and in 1740, established on Lake Manitoba a 
 post, which he called "Fort Dauphin." This fort, which was not 
 more than 250 miles from the nearest point on the Missouri river, 
 was the one referred to, and the "Sea of the West" was Lake 
 Manitoba. 
 
 To Verendrye belongs the honor of having been the first 
 white man to visit the upper Missouri country, and to give to 
 the world the first information of that vast unexplored domain. 
 The result of his exploration was far-reaching, for it is probable 
 that the journal of his travels published after his return to 
 Canada was the awakening cause which impressed on Mr. Jeffer- 
 son the importance of the acquisition of that valuable territory by 
 the United States. 
 
 The tenacity with which Mr. Jefferson clung to that idea, 
 and the persistency with which he followed it up, are matters of 
 history. He induced John Ledyard, in 1785, to "seek the West by 
 way of the East," and pointed out to him the road to the Pacific 
 coast through Russia and Behring Strait. Again, in 1792, he 
 made an effort to secure by private subscription a sufficient sum 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 4T> 
 
 of money to equip and send an expedition across the Rocky Moun- 
 tains by way of the Missouri river. Both of these attempts failed; 
 but when he became President of the United States he did not lose 
 sight of his favorite project, but hastened, with a far-seeing wis- 
 dom, to consummate with Napoleon the fortunate land deal known 
 as the "Louisiana Purchase." This masterly stroke of statesman- 
 ship fixed the destiny of this country, and resulted in placing it 
 among the first powers of the world. 
 
 PHILIP PITMAN 1770. 
 
 In a book entitled "The Present State of European Settle- 
 ments on the Mississippi," published by Philip Pitman, in 1770, 
 it is said : 
 
 "The source of the Missouri river is unknown. The French 
 traders go betwixt three hundred and four hundred leagues up to 
 traffic with the Indians, who inhabit near its banks. From its 
 confluence with the Mississippi to its source is supposed to be eight 
 hundred leagues." 
 
 NOTE A hundred years had passed since Marquette's discov- 
 ery of the Missouri river and yet its source was unknown. The 
 French voyageitrs had ascended the river as high up as the mouth 
 of the Platte, or perhaps to the Mandan village, but beyond, noth- 
 ing was known. The time had now come, however, when the 
 searchlight of a new race the Anglo-Saxon was to be turned on 
 the dark recesses of the Rocky Mountains and the Indian Myths of 
 the "South Sea," the "Vermillion Sea," the "Southeast Passage 
 to China," the "Great Lakes of the West," the "Spanish Mines," 
 and the "Ridge of Hills, passable by horse, foot or wagon in half 
 a day," were all to be exploded. 
 
 In 1792 that intrepid explorer, Sir Alexander MacKenzie, the 
 first to cross the continent blazed a path over the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, floated down Fraser river to the Pacific Ocean, and gave 
 
46 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 to the world the first intimation of the magnitude and grandeur of 
 the Northwest. In 1804 Lewis and Clark, who followed MacKen- 
 zie, traced the great river beyond Yellowstone Park and found 
 the spring from which it flows the fountain head on the great 
 divide. From these discoveries a correct map of the country was 
 produced: its topography and geographical dimensions were made 
 known; and its wonderful possibilities, as a home for civilized man, 
 foretold. These reports showed that the Missouri river, including 
 the lower Mississippi, was the longest river in the world; that the 
 Missouri valley was the most fertile agricultural region in the 
 world; that it was the largest body of tillable land in the world; 
 and finally, that the Louisiana Purchase was the most profitable 
 real estate investment that had ever been made in the world. 
 
 The purchase of Louisiana was the realization of the cherished 
 dream of Thomas Jefferson. With the far-seeing w r isdom for 
 which he was distinguished, he probably foresaw more clearly than 
 any man of his day the great possibilities that would result to his 
 country from the acquisition of this immense and valuable domain. 
 In his message to Congress in October, 1803, urging the Speedy 
 ratification of the treaty with France, he said : "The fertility of the 
 country; its climate and extent; promise, in due season, important 
 aids to our treasury, ample provision for our posterity, and a wide- 
 spread for the blessings of freedom and equal laws." 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 47 
 
 EARLY NAVIGATION ON THE MISSOURI RIVER,* 
 
 It is not known positively in what year the first white man 
 entered the Missouri river, but it was probably between 1700 and 
 1705. The account given by La Houtan of his voyage in 1699,% 
 is not worthy of credence, and it is even doubtful if Le Seur came 
 up in 1705. There can be no question, however, that about this 
 time the lower part of the river, as far up as the mouth of the 
 Kaw, was first explored by the French. 
 
 In the "Gazatteer of the State of Missouri," published in 
 St. Louis, in 1837, the following reference is made to the early 
 navigation of the Missouri river: 
 
 "The French then, in 1705, ascended the Missouri as far 
 as the Kansas river, the point where the western boundary line 
 of Missouri now strikes the river. The Indians there cheerfully 
 engaged in trade with them, and all the tribes on the Missouri, 
 with the exception of the Blackfeet and Arikaras, have since gen- 
 erally continued on friendly terms with the whites. It should be 
 observed that the French, traders have always been more fortu- 
 nate in their intercourse with the Indians than those of other na- 
 tions." 
 
 In 1705 Nicholas de La Salle proposed an expedition of one 
 hundred men to explore the mysterious river, in which great in- 
 
 *Among- the different authorities which have been consulted in the 
 preparation of this paper on the navigation of the Missouri rver, are "Lloyd's 
 Steamboat Directory," "Chittenden's Missouri River Navigation" and "Gould's 
 Fifty Years on the Mississippi." 
 
48 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 terest had now become awakened; but no account has been found 
 of the result of this enterprise. About the same time one Hubert 
 a French Canadian, who had doubtless been up the river laid be- 
 fore the marines of Canada a proposition to explore the river to 
 its source. He said: "Not only may we find the mines worked 
 by the Spaniards, but the river flowing to the west." He advised 
 ' the use of wooden canoes. 
 
 THE COURIERS-DE-BOIS. 
 
 As early as 1700 it was reported that there were not less 
 than one hundred Courier s-de-bois, or trappers, domiciled among 
 the different tribes along the Missouri river. The Conrier-de-bois 
 was a type of the earliest pioneer, now long since extinct. He 
 was a French-Canadian, probably a half-breed, and in his habits 
 was blended the innocent simplicity of the fun-loving French- 
 man and the wild traits and woodcraft of the Indian. Born in 
 the woods, he was accustomed from childhood to the hardships 
 and exposure of a wild life in the wilderness, and was a skillful 
 hunter and trapper. His free-and-easy going manners, peaceable 
 disposition and vivacity, qualified him for association with the 
 Indian, and he adopted his customs, married into the tribe, and 
 himself became a savage. 
 
 It was this roving vagabond who, as he wandered up and down 
 the Missouri river, gave the poetic and^ musical French names to 
 its tributaries and prominent localities which they bear to this 
 day; such as the Marias-Des-Cygnes (River of the Swans), Creve- 
 Ceur (Broken Heart), Cote-sans-des-sein (A hill without a Cause), 
 Petite-sas (Little Tribe), Roche-Perce (Split Rock), now called 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 49 
 
 Rocheport; Bonne- Femme (Good Woman), now called "Bone- 
 fam"; Terre-Beau (Beautiful Earth) now called "Tabo"; Aux 
 Vasse (Blue Mud), Gasconade (Turbulent), La Mine (The 
 Mine), Pomme-de-Terre (Fruit of the Earth), now called Pom-de- 
 Tar; Moreau (Black) and Niangue (Crooked). 
 
 But while the Coureur-de-bois, the feather-bedecked wanderer, 
 has forever disappeared, he will not be forgotten, for 
 
 "He has left his names behind him, 
 
 Adding rich barbaric grace 
 To the mountains, to the rivers, 
 
 To the fertile meadow-place ; 
 Relics of the ancient hunter 
 
 Of a past and vanished race." 
 
 It is true that many of the most beautiful of these early French 
 names have become so corrupted, in their anglicization, as to have 
 lost all semblance to their original meaning. When Lewis and 
 Clark came up the river a hunter killed a bear at the mouth of the 
 creek, not far above St. Charles. Very naturally they called the 
 creek "Bear Creek." The French hunter called the place "L'Our's 
 Creek," "L'Our's" being the French name for bear. Soon there- 
 after the long-haired Tennessean came along, and not knowing the 
 meaning of "L' Oou'r" called it "Loose Creek," and it is so laid 
 down on the maps today. Another instance of the corruption of 
 a beautiful French name occurs just below the Osage. An early 
 French hunter, in passing through the country, gave the name 
 "Bois-Brule" to a certain creek. The words mean "Burnt Woods," 
 and it was probably owing to the fact that the woods had re- 
 cently been burned over that the name was applied. The creek is 
 now called the "Bob Ruly." 
 
50 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THE RIVER IN THE PAST. 
 
 During the entire Eighteenth century the navigation of the 
 Missouri river was confined to the wooden canoe, and its commerce 
 such as it was was limited to the primitive fur-trade. The 
 trader, or trapper, ascended the river singly or in pairs, and after 
 spending the winter with some favorite tribe returned in the spring 
 with his perogue well loaded with furs, which he disposed of in 
 St. Louis. Then, after a protracted debauch, he went to the priest, 
 was granted absolution from, his sins, and returned to the wilder- 
 ness.* 
 
 It is not probable that these early voyageurs ascended the 
 river higher than the Platte, for neither De la Verendrye, who 
 came over from the Hudson Bay Company's posts, in 1738, to the 
 Missouri river at the Mandan village, where Bismarck is now 
 located, Mallett Brothers, who ascended the Platte in 1739, nor 
 Alexander Henry, who followed them, mention having met them. 
 It is very certain, however, that at the time St. Louis was founded 
 (1764) the fur trade on the Missouri had attracted the attention 
 of the French, and the lower part of the river, at least, must have 
 been well known. Indeed, the charter granted Laclede Liguest and 
 his associates, by the Governor of Louisiana, gave them the ex- 
 clusive right to trade on the Missouri river. But little is known, 
 however, of the navigation of the river during the Eighteenth cen- 
 tury. The French voyageur was an illiterate half-savage crea- 
 ture and could neither read nor write; hence no record of his early 
 voyages was preserved. Doubtless he continued to paddle his canoe 
 
 Lewis and Clark met a number of these half-savage adventurers, com- 
 ing down stream in their canoes, ladened with furs, as they ascended the 
 river in the spring of 1804. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 51 
 
 up and down the river, gradually increasing his trade, extending 
 his voyages higher up the river and becoming better acquainted 
 with its tortuous channel. 
 
 To Manuel Lisa,* a Spaniard of St. Louis, is generally ac- 
 corded the honor of being the father of navigation on the Missouri 
 river, although tradition divides that honor with one Gregoire 
 Sarpy, who is said to have been the first to introduce the keel- 
 boat. As early as 1785 Lisa and Auguste Choteau became associ- 
 ated together in trading up the Osage river with the Osage Indians, 
 who were then seated on that river in what is now Bates County, 
 Missouri. They transported their merchandise up the Missouri 
 in perogues to the mouth of the Osage and then up that stream 
 to the Indian villages. The Choteaus continued to trade with the 
 Osages for many years and gained a wonderful influence over the 
 tribe. Indeed, they intermarried with them, and there are descend- 
 ants of this well known family bearing the family name now 
 living with the tribe in the Indian Territory after a period of 
 1 20 years. It was not unusual at an early day for traders to marry 
 Indian wives, and there is more than one wealthy and aristocratic 
 family in St. Louis who have blood-relations living in the Terri- 
 tory who wear the blanket. 
 
 For a hundred years the history of the Missouri river has 
 been the history of the country through which it flows, and its 
 influence on the development of the country cannot now be nnder- 
 
 *Manuel Lisa was not only the father of navigation on the Missouri 
 river, but the pioneer fur-trader on that stream. As early as 1800 he was 
 granted the exclusive right, by the Spanish Government, to trade with 
 the Osage Indians. He made thirteen trips to the Rocky Mountains in keel- 
 boats, traveling not less than 26,000 miles, or a greater distance than around 
 the earth. He died in 1820, and his ashes, over which a monument was 
 erected, rest in old Bellefontain Cemetery, in St. Louis. 
 
52 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 stood. On its dark bosom the Indian paddled his canoe for cen- 
 turies before the advent of the white man.* Then came the French 
 voyageur with his perogue, his batteau, his keel-boat and his mack- 
 inaw boat, without which the fur trade the principal commerce 
 in that day could not have attained the proportions it did attain. 
 At last came the steamboat, the most wonderful invention of the 
 Nineteenth century. 
 
 For half a century the Missouri river was the great thorough- 
 fare from the East to the West, and on its bosom floated the travel 
 and commerce of the trans-Mississippi section. No one can now 
 appreciate its importance in the past. Capitals of states were lo- 
 cated on its banks that they might be accessible. Settlements were 
 made with a view to transporting the products of the farm to 
 market on its waters, and military posts were established that sup- 
 plies by the river route might be easily furnished. 
 
 THE BOTTOMS HOW FORMED THE BENDS AND 
 THE CROSSINGS. 
 
 Perhaps there is not in the world a more difficult stream to 
 navigate than the Missouri river. The French-Canadian, Hubert, 
 was right, when in his report to his government, in 1705, he said 
 the birch-bark canoe could not be used to navigate its waters. The 
 condition of the river has not changed; and it is the same turbulent, 
 muddy, crooked and treacherous stream today that it was when first 
 seen by this adventurous Frenchman -200 years ago. But it has 
 served its purpose well. 
 
 *When, in 1541, Francis Vasques Coronado came into Kansas on his 
 famous expedition in search of Quivira, the Indians told him of a large 
 river "which flowed over toward where the sun came from." "They said 
 that the river (which was the Missouri) was more than a league wide and 
 that there were many canoes on it." (See Winship's translation of Coronado, 
 Chap. XIX) 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 53 
 
 The greatest difficulty encountered, in navigating the river, 
 was caused by constant changes in the shifting of the channel. 
 From the mouth of the Platte to the Mississippi on each side of 
 the river are bluffs which parallel each other at an average distance 
 of two miles. The channel, except during a flood, is confined to 
 from; one-fourth to one-half this distance, leaving the remainder 
 bottom land. This bottom, which is alluvial soil, originally cov- 
 ered with a primeval forest, furnishes a leeway for the channel. 
 It is "made land," caused from accretions, and the river has never 
 relinquished its title to it. It may have been thousands of years 
 in forming, but sooner or later the channel will go back to its 
 original bed and claim its own. When the channel of the river 
 changes it leaves a sandbar, which soon becomes overgrown with 
 willows and young cottonwoods. These catch and retain the silt 
 of subsequent overflows, which continually raises the surface of 
 the accretion, until, together with decaying vegetation, it becomes 
 as high as the adjacent land. This process goes on for centuries, 
 and in this way the bottom lands along the Missouri river have 
 been formed. 
 
 Surveys made along the lower river during the Spanish 
 regime, and even during the early part of the last century, substan- 
 tiate the correctness of this theory; but if 'further evidence is re- 
 quired let a hole be bored down anywhere in the river bottom 
 a mile or more from the present bed of the river and it is 
 probable that at a distance of about twenty-five feet, or when the 
 level of the water in the river is reached, a rack-heap, or an old 
 log, will be struck, that has lain there, imbedded in the clay soil 
 
51 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 for centuries; thus proving conclusively that the channel of the 
 river at one time flowed there.* 
 
 The most dangerous localities on the river were the bends, and 
 it was in them that most of the accidents occurred to the steamboats. 
 They were formed in the following manner: The main channel 
 of the river is disposed to follow the bluff shore, and does so until 
 it meets with some obstruction. A trifling object, such as a rack- 
 heap, or an old steamboat wreck, will sometimes deflect the cur- 
 rent and send it off obliquely to the opposite shore. As the land 
 where it strikes is, as has been stated, underlaid with a stratum 
 of white sand, it melts before the strong current as a snowbank be- 
 fore the noonday's sun. This undermining process goes on at 
 every rise, until in the course of a few years a great bend is 
 formed; thousands of acres of land are swept away; and the 
 channel of the river is a mile or more away from where it formerly 
 ran. 
 
 Some of these bends are as much as twenty miles long and have 
 been many years in forming. The land along the shore was origin- 
 ally covered with a dense growth of large timber cottonwood, 
 elm, walnut, etc. As the banks were undermined these immense 
 trees tumbled into the channel and floated along with the current 
 
 *In 1858 the town of Brunswick, Mo., was situated on the bank of the 
 Missouri river and was the shipping point for all the Grand river country. 
 It is now an inland town and the river flows five miles away. In 189<> 
 a farmer was digging a well in the river bottom, near the town, where 
 the river formerly ran. A Bible was found in the excavation, and on 
 its cover was the name, "Naomi." The book was sent to some of the old 
 steamboat men in St. Louis, to see if they could suggest any explanation 
 at its strange presence where found. It was distinctly recalled by Capt. 
 Jo La Barge, and others of the old steamboat men, that the steamer 
 "Naomi" was wrecked at that identical spot in 1840. It was the custom of 
 the missionary societies to present to each boat, when she came out, a Bible, 
 which was attached to the table in the ladies' cabin by a small brass chain. On 
 the back of the book was lettered the name of the boat. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 55 
 
 until their roots the heaviest part after dragging awhile became 
 anchored in the bottom of the river. There they remained for 
 years, some extending above the surface of the water and others 
 beneath and out of sight. The former, from being continuously in 
 motion, caused by the swift current, were called "sawyers." From 
 the velocity of the current, and the innumerable snags, the bends 
 were a continued menace to steamboats, and no pilot approached 
 one, especially at night, without trepidation and fear. 
 
 Each bend had its own name, sometimes derived from the 
 name of a planter, who lived nearby, or from some steamboat, 
 which had been previously wrecked there. Among the former 
 were "Murray's," "Howard's," "Wolfs," "Penn's," and "Pitman's 
 Bend." Among the later were "Malta Bend," "Diana," "Ber- 
 trand," "Alert," and "Sultan Bend." Among the most noted lo- 
 calities on the river, noted because they were the most dangerous 
 and contained the greatest number of wrecks, were Brickhouse 
 Bend, Bonne-homme Bend, Augusta Bend and Osage Chute. Many 
 a magnificent steamer was wrecked in them, and with them the 
 fortunes of their owners. Each is today a marine graveyard. 
 There were other bends which bore euphonious names, such as 
 "Nigger Bend," and "Jackass Bend," and a good story could be 
 told as to how the latter received its name, if space permitted. 
 
 Where the current changed from one side of the river to the 
 other were called "crossings," and it was there that the greatest 
 difficulty was encountered by the navigator; although, as there 
 were no snags in such places, there were no disasters. The water 
 spreads out over a large space at these crossings, and instead of 
 one main channel there are many chutes, neither of which, in a 
 
56 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 low stage of water, was deep enough to float a boat heavily loaded. 
 The boats ran aground, in low water, in these crossings, and fre- 
 quently were several days in geting over the bar. In such cases 
 the spars were resorted to. They were two long poles, one on each 
 side of the bow of the boat, attached to the capstan by tackle. They 
 were thrown overboard, and by means of pushing on them the 
 vessel was virtually lifted over the bar as with a pair of stilts. It 
 was no unusual sight, in the palmy days of steamboating, to see as 
 many as a half dozen fine steamers aground on a crossing within 
 a short distance of each other. It was push and pull, spar and 
 warp, back and go ahead, night and day, without a moment's cessa- 
 tion until the boat was safely over the bar. The jingling of the 
 bells, the hissing of steam, together with the swearing of the 
 mate, rendered it an animated and interesting scene to the passenger, 
 as he stood on the hurricane deck and looked on, but it was terrible 
 on the crew. 
 
 CRAFT USED ON THE RIVER BEFORE THE DAYS OF 
 THE STEAMBOAT. 
 
 The craft in use in navigating the Missouri river before the 
 advent of the steamboat were the canoe, theperogue, the batteau, 
 the keelboat, the mackinaw boat and the bullboat. 
 
 It is not necessary to describe the canoe, as its universal use, 
 today, has rendered it a familiar object. The birch-bark canoe, so 
 often seen on the northern lakes, was not adapted to the Missouri 
 on account of its frail construction; and besides, the birch tree, from 
 which the bark was taken, is not found on the river. The craft 
 universally used was the cottonwood canoe, or "dug-out," made 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 57 
 
 from a log fifteen to twenty-five feet long and three or four feet 
 in diameter. The cottonwood grows along the river everywhere, 
 and such logs were easily procured. This canoe possessed the re- 
 quisites of strength, lightness of draft and durability, and was not 
 only the primitive craft of the French voyagenr, but had been in 
 use by the Indian from time immemorial. 
 
 The perogue was another craft used by the French in the fur 
 trade, to which it was especially adapted. It was really a double 
 canoe, built in the shape of a flat-iron, with a sharp bow and a 
 square stern. Two canoes were securely fastened together a short 
 distance apart, the whole being decked over with plank or punch- 
 eons. On the floor was placed the cargo, which was protected from 
 the weather by skins. The boat was propelled upstream by oars or 
 a line, and steered by an oarsman, who stood on the stern. A 
 square sail was also resorted to, going upstream, when the wind 
 was in the right quarter, and a distance of from ten to fifteen 
 miles per day could be made under favorable conditions. Such 
 boats were usually from thirty to forty feet long and from six 
 to eight feet beam, and being of light draft were good carriers. 
 They were much safer than the canoe, as from breadth of beam they 
 could not be upset.* 
 
 The batteau, as its name indicates, was still another craft em- 
 ployed by the early French fur-trader. It was a flat-bottomed, 
 clumsily constructed boat, especially adapted to transporting a 
 cargo of furs down stream, and did not differ materially from the 
 flat-bottomed boat. It was usually 50 to 75 feet long and 
 
 *When Lewis and Clark ascended the Missouri river in 1804 their fleet 
 consisted of one keelboat and two perogues. 
 
58 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 10 to 12 feet beam. The gunwales were hewn from cottonwood 
 logs, and the bottom was spiked on to stringers running lengthwise 
 the boat. The bow and stern were square, with a sufficient rake 
 to prevent impeding headway. The oar, the pole, the line and 
 the sail were the appliances relied upon for motive power in as- 
 cending the stream, but in going down the boat was allowed to 
 float with the current, being kept in the channel by the steers- 
 man. 
 
 A very unique craft in use, from 1810 to 1830, on the upper 
 tributaries of the Missouri the Platte, the Yellowstone and the 
 Niobrara by the fur-trader, was the bullboat. It was especially 
 adapted to the navigation of these streams on account of its ex- 
 treme lightness of draft. Indeed, the excessive shallowness of the 
 water in these streams which rarely exceded 12 inches precluded 
 navigation by any other boat. It was probably the lightest draft 
 boat ever constructed for its size, but could carry a cargo of from 
 5, cxx) to 6,000 pounds. 
 
 The framework of the bullboat was constructed of willow 
 poles, 25 or 30 feet long, laid lengthwise; and across these other 
 poles were laid. All were then securely fastened together with 
 raw-hide thongs. Along the tops of the vertical portions of the 
 frame-work, on the inside, was then lashed stout poles like those 
 forming the bottom of the boat, which served as gunwales. To 
 these gunwales were lashed cross poles, to prevent the former 
 from spreading. Not a nail was used in the entire structure, all 
 fastenings being secured with rawhide thongs. The frame, so 
 constructed, was then covered with buffalo hides sewed together 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 59 
 
 with sinews, the seams being pitched with a cement made of buffalo- 
 tallow and ashes. 
 
 A similarly constructed boat, to the one described above, al- 
 though much smaller and of a different shape, was in use on the 
 Upper Missouri by the Mandan Indians when they were first vis- 
 ited by the Hudson Bay traders, about 1790. This boat was about 
 the size and shape of a washtub, and one buffalo hide was suffi- 
 cient to cover it. It could safely carry one person. 
 
 THE KEELBOAT. 
 
 The return of Lewis and Clark from the Rocky mountains, 
 in 1806, and the wonderful account they brought back of the im- 
 mense number of beaver and other fur-bearing animals found in 
 that country, at once gave a new impetus to the fur trade. Com- 
 panies were formed in St. Louis of the most enterprising merchants 
 who invested sufficient capital to prosecute the trade with intelli- 
 gence and vigor. The most skillful and experienced boatmen were 
 employed to command the boats, which were destined for the mouth 
 of the Yellowstone. The distance was nearly 2,000 miles against 
 a strong current, and much of the route lay through a country 
 inhabited by fierce and warlike tribes. The voyage was one of 
 great labor, hardship and danger, and only the most suitable and 
 best equipped craft that could be devised would answer the pur- 
 pose of such a venture. The keelboat was destined to supply this 
 want. It was the steamboat without steam as a motive power. 
 
 The keelboat was usually from 50 to 75 feet long and 15 to 20 
 feet beam. The keelson extended from stem to stern, and it was 
 a staunch vessel, well modeled, sharp bow and stern, and built by 
 
60 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 skillful workmen after the most approved methods of shipcraft 
 of that day. Such a boat had a carrying capacity of ten to twenty 
 tons, a draft of thirty inches light, and cost, usually from $2,000 
 to $3,000. Amidship was the cabin, extending four or five feet 
 above the hull, in which was stored the cargo of Indian merchan- 
 dise. On each side of this cabin was a narrow walk, called by the 
 French "passe-a-vant," on which the boatmen walked in pushing 
 the boat along with poles. The appliances used for ascending the 
 river, were the cordelle, thr pole, the oar and the sail. 
 
 The cordclle, however, was the main reliance. It was a line 
 sometimes 300 yards long, which was fastened to the top of a 
 mast extending from the center of the boat. The boat was pulled 
 along by this line by a long string of from twenty to thirty men, 
 who walked along the shore. When an obstacle was encountered, 
 which prevented the men from walking along the bank, the line 
 was made fast to some object on shore, and she was pulled up 
 by pulling on the line. This process was called "warping." There 
 were shallow places along the river where it became necessary to 
 use the pole, and in such places they were resorted to. The oars 
 came into use in making crossings, when it became necessary to 
 cross from one side of the river to the other, as it frequently did. 
 
 The crew of a keelboat, in the fur-trade called a "brigade" 
 frequently consisted of as many as a hundred men, although this 
 number included many hunters and trappers, en route to the moun- 
 tains, who were not regular boatmen. They went well armed, and 
 every boat carried on her bow a small cannon, called a "swivel." 
 The captain of the boat, called the "patron" did the steering, and 
 his assistant, called the "bosseman" stood on the bow, pole in hand, 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 01 
 
 and gave directions to the men on the cordelle. It was necessary 
 that these officers should be men of great energy, physical strength 
 and personal courage. The sail was seldom used, except in the 
 upper river, where the absence of timber rendered the wind avail- 
 able. 
 
 It required nearly the entire boating season to make a trip 
 to the Yellowstone, and as may well be imagined the labor was 
 most arduous. If a distance of fifteen miles a day was made it 
 was considered a good day's work. It was push and pull, through 
 rain and storm, from daylight to dark ; and it is exceedingly doubt- 
 ful if men could be hired at any price at this day to perform such 
 laborious work. The rations furnished consisted of pork and 
 beans and lye-hominy, and from this allowance the pork was 
 cut off when game could be procured by the hunters. There was 
 no coffee and no bread. 
 
 The boatmen employed on these voyages were French Cana- 
 dians, or Creoles, and many of them were off-shoots from the 
 Courieurde-bois. They were in some respects different from their 
 progenitors, for they were a hard-working, obedient, cheerful 
 class, and were happy and contented under the most discouraging 
 circumstances. They constituted a peculiar and interesting type 
 of pioneer life on the Missouri river, now, like the woodsmen, 
 entirely extinct. Many of the sons of these early voyageurs the 
 La Barges, the Fectos, the Guerettes, the Dripps, and others, be- 
 came pilots on the first steamboats on the river, and their sons, 
 following the occupation of their fathers, stood their "trick at 
 the wheel," as long as there was a steamboat on the river. 
 
62 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 A KEELBOAT RACE. 
 
 In the spring of 1811 there occurred on the Missouri river 
 the strangest race ever run on any river in the West. It was a 
 race between two keelboats from St. Louis to the mouth of the 
 Yellowstone, a distance of 1,790 miles. 
 
 John Jacob Astor was then preparing to establish his trad- 
 ing post Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia river, and in 
 addition to an expedition sent by sea, around Cape Horn, had 
 projected another up the Missouri river to cross over the moun- 
 tains and join them' on the Pacific. The latter was to be under 
 the command of Wilson Price Hunt a partner of Astor's. Hunt 
 wintered on the Missouri river at the mouth of a small stream 
 called the Nodaway, a little above the site of St. Joseph, Mo., and 
 set off up the river early in March. M'anuel Lisa, the pioneer 
 fur-trader who has been referred to, and who, in 1807, took the 
 first keelboat up the Missouri, and also built the first house in what 
 is now Montana was in command of a boat belonging to an 
 opposition company. 
 
 It was important that Lisa should reach the tribe of In- 
 dians on the upper river with whom he proposed to trade ahead 
 of Hunt. He left St. Louis on April 2nd, 1811 a month behind 
 Hunt but by great exertion overtook him on June nth, after 
 traveling 1,100 miles, or about half the distance to the Yellow- 
 stone. He therefore made 1,100 miles in 61 days, an average of 
 1 8 miles per day. The voyage was considered a most remarkable 
 one and the time was never beaten on the Missouri river by a 
 keelboat. The race, which continued on up the river, resulted 
 in bad feling between the patrons and crews of the rival boats, 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 63 
 
 which finally terminated, further up the river, in treachery and 
 a bloody tragedy. But that is another story. 
 
 It is impossible, in this age of steam and electricity, for any- 
 one, unacquainted with the character of the Missouri river, to 
 comprehend the difficulties of such a voyage as these boats made in 
 1811. At the break of day the horn of the patron called the men 
 to the cordelle, and from that time till dark they tugged along 
 the shore where the foot of a white man had never trod before. 
 Half bent, in water, over rocks, and through brambles and brush, 
 they pulled against the swift current for six long months, until at 
 last the glistening snow, on the peaks of the Rockies, gave as- 
 surance that they were approaching their journey's end. 
 
 THE MACKINAW BOAT. 
 
 The mackinaw boat was made entirely of cottonwood plank 
 about two inches thick. They were built about fifty to sixty feet 
 long with twelve foot beam, and had a flat bottom. The gunwales 
 arose about three feet above the water-line, amidship, and increased 
 in height toward the bow and stern. In the bottom of the boat 
 were stringers, running fore and aft, and to these were spiked the 
 bottom plank, in the first years with wooden pins, but later with 
 iron nails. The sides, which were also of plank, were supported 
 by knees, at proper distances. The keel showed a rake of thirty 
 inches, fore and aft, and the hold had a depth of four feet 
 amidship and about five feet on the bow and stern. 
 
 In the middle of the boat was a space partitioned off with 
 bulkheads, similar to the cargo-box of the keelboat, which has been 
 described. In this was stored the cargo of furs (put up in bales), 
 
64 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 which extended several feet above the gunwales. The entire cargo, 
 consisting of beaver and other valuable furs, was then covered 
 over with buffalo skins seucrely fastened to the gunwales by 
 cleats. The poop, on the deck of which the steersman stood, was 
 used as quarters for the men. The voyage was always made on 
 the June rise, and as the current was then swift, and there was 
 no danger from sandbars, a distance of 100 miles per day was 
 made. A crew of five men was all that was necessary, as the 
 boat simply floated down with the current. The only danger an- 
 ticipated was from the snags in the bends and the Indians, and 
 these had to be carefully guarded against. For mutual protection 
 the mackinaw boats usually went down in fleets of from 6 to 
 12, but it was not unusual for a single boat to make the long voy- 
 age alone. A trip down the Missouri river, was to the moun- 
 taineer, an event of a lifetime and one never forgotten. They 
 have been described by such early travelers as Catlin, Hunt, Wyeth, 
 Brackenridge, Lewis and Clark, De Smet and others. 
 
 As the mackinaw boat was only intended for a single voyage 
 down the river they were cheaply built. There was near every 
 large trading post, on the river, a boat-yard, called by the French 
 . a chamtier, where the lumber was gotten out and the boat con- 
 structed. There were no saw-mills in the upper country in that 
 day, and the lumber was sawed out with a whipsaw. It was a 
 tedious process, but answered the purpose. 
 
 In the spring of 1845, as a barefooted boy, the writer stood 
 on the bank of the Missouri, opposite Jefferson City, Mb., and 
 saw what was probably the last mackinaw boat pass clown and out 
 of the river. There were ten or twelve boats in the fleet, and as 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. r>r> 
 
 they passed, at intervals of half an hour or more, they were all 
 the morning in view. It was the last of this primitive mode of navi- 
 gation and marked the end of the fur-trade on the Missouri river. 
 The steamboat had supplanted the keelboat, in the upper river 
 fur-trade, in 1832, but it never supplanted the mackinaw boat while 
 the trade continued, for that craft furnished the cheapest trans- 
 portation in this particular trade for down stream navigation, 
 ever devised. 
 
 THE RISE AND FALL OF STEAMBOATING. 
 
 In following down the evolution that has taken place in the 
 navigation of the Missouri river we come at last to the steamboat 
 the par excellence of all water craft on Western rivers. 
 
 The new craft came none too soon to supply the rapidly in- 
 creasing demand for transportation in the West; and it is a re- 
 markable coincidence that the same year 1807 in which the first 
 Anglo-American settlement was made on the Missouri witnessed 
 the successful application of steam, as. a motive power, on the 
 Hudson. The settlement of the country along the Missouri river 
 was greatly retarded, for several years after the Louisiana pur- 
 chase, by continual conflicts with the Indians; and it was not 
 
 V ' : 
 
 until after the War of 1812, when they were driven out of the 
 country and peace reigned, that immigration from the older 
 states began to flow into the new territory. Previous to the ad- 
 vent of these pioneers, the perogue, the batteau and the keelboat had 
 been sufficient to supply the limited wants of the fur-trader, but 
 the time had now come, with the change of government, the arrival 
 of the Anglo-Saxon, and the. rapid advancement of civilization, 
 
66 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 when better facilities were demanded by the growing commerce 
 of the West. The surplus products of the alluvial soil must find 
 transportation to the markets of the world. Without such facilities 
 the settlement of the country would have been retarded many 
 years, and the rapid development which did occur, would not have 
 been witnessed. The steamboat was destined to supply this want, 
 and prove the great factor, not only in the development of the 
 Mississippi valley, but in revolutionizing the commerce of the 
 world. 
 
 For several years, foreseeing the urgent need of additional 
 transportation, especially on inland waters, the inventive genius 
 of the American mind had been engaged in an endeavor to supply 
 this want by applying steam as a motive power to river craft. As 
 
 early as 1737 Jonathan Hulls an Englishman had made some 
 
 t 
 experiments along this line, but had failed. The first attempt 
 
 made in this country was by James Rumsey. He was so far suc- 
 cessful as to construct a boat, in 1786, which he propelled on the 
 Potomac river at the rate of four or five miles an hour; but the 
 experiment, for some reason, proved a failure. Others, during the 
 same period, were endeavoring to accomplish the same object 
 Symington, in Scotland, John Stevens, at New York, and Oliver 
 Evans at Philadelphia. Each partially succeeded, but all failed, 
 either from the want of proper facilities for manufacturing the 
 machinery, from a proper conception of the application of the 
 power of steam, or more likely from the want of sufficient means 
 to advantageously prosecute their experiments. Without an excep- 
 tion, having exhausted their resources, they died poor. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 67 
 
 In 1786 the same year in which Rumsey was experimenting 
 on the Potamac John Fitch, a Connecticut Yankee, was making 
 similar experiments on the Delaware; and was so far successful 
 that in 1789 he built a boat that ran for several miles on that 
 stream. He, however, finally, like his co-workers, failed for want 
 of sufficient means to carry forward his efforts to a successful 
 termination. He died a pauper, and the following record, found 
 in his diary, after his death, is pathetic. He said: "The day will 
 come when some man, more fortunate than I, will get fame and 
 riches from my invention. But nobody will believe that poor John 
 Fitch can do anything." 
 
 The dying prediction of John Fitch proved prophetic, for 
 twenty years after his death, a young mechanical genius of Phila- 
 delphia Robert Fulton came into possession of Fitch's plans and 
 drawings, and with the financial assistance of Chancellor Livings- 
 ton of New York, who became associated with him, carried into 
 practical effect the ideas and plans of the man who was, in fact, 
 the inventor of the steamboat. The world has given to Fulton 
 the honor which justly belongs to the unfortunate genius whose 
 ashes repose at Bardstown, Ky. ; where he was buried on the 
 banks of the Ohio. He requested on his death-bed that he might 
 be buried there, that, as he said: "The future traveler on that 
 stream may point to my grave and say, 'there lies the man who 
 invented the steamboat'." 
 
 It was in August, 1807 that the Clermont Fulton's boat 
 made her first successful trip on the Hudson; and from that day 
 and that trip steamboat navigation became an assured fact and 
 the trade and travel of the world entered on a new era. 
 
68 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 The complete success attending steam navigation on the Hud- 
 son immediately turned the attention of the principal projectors, 
 and others, to its application on the Western rivers, and in April, 
 1809, Nicholas Roosevelt, a great-uncle of President Roosevelt, 
 who had become associated with Fulton, went to Pittsburg and 
 there built a boat called the "New Orleans" 
 
 The history of this boat the first built west of the Alleghen- 
 ies is interesting. She was a lubberly craft, 138 feet keel, 20 feet 
 beam and had a measurement of 370 tons. She had an upper deck, 
 a small cabin, in the hold, and was built at a cost of $38,000. Be- 
 fore risking his boat on the perilous voyage to New Orleans, 
 Captain Roosevelt, the principal owner, went down the river on a 
 flat-boat, for the purpose of determining if his steamboat could 
 stem the current of the Mississippi. The voyage required six 
 months, and it was not until the loth of December, 1811, that the 
 New Orleans cast off her moorings at iPttsburg. As she pro- 
 ceeded down the river her appearance created a mixture of fear 
 and surprise among the settlers along the banks, many of whom 
 had never heard of such an invention as a steamboat. The vessel 
 reached Louisville, a distance of 700 miles, in four days, and 
 shot the Falls under a full head of steam. She passed New Madrid 
 on the night of December 6th, just as the great earthquake oc- 
 curred, the most astounding convulsion of nature ever known on 
 this continent. Finally, after a long and tedious voyage, she ar- 
 rived at the* city of New Orleans, and there, while lying at the 
 levee, caught fire from the upsetting of a stove and was burned. 
 
 While other boats, of crude and imperfect construction, fol- 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 69 
 
 lowed the New Orleans, such is the velocity of the current in the 
 Mississippi that it was not until 1815 that sufficient improvement 
 had been made in their machinery as to enable them to overcome 
 this obstruction to navigation. In that year the "Enterprise" made 
 the first successful trip up the river. She left New Orleans on 
 May 6th and arrived at Louisville on the 3ist, making the voyage 
 in twenty-five days; a remarkable achievement in that day. 
 
 Owing to the difficulty that has been referred to the swift 
 current of the Mississippi it was not until 1817 that any steam- 
 boat succeeded in ascending that stream above the mouth of the 
 Ohio. On August 2nd, 1817, the steamer "Gen. Pike" a side 
 wheeler came up the river and landed at St. Louis, being the 
 first steamboat to land at that place. Her arrival was attended 
 with great demonstrations of joy among the inhabitants, who 
 justly considered the event as the beginning of a new era in the 
 destinies of the Mississippi valley. 
 
 THE FIRST STEAMBOAT ON THE MISSOURI. 
 
 It was not until 1819 that any attempt was mae to navigate 
 the Missouri river by steam. The voyctgeurs and traders up that 
 stream had long given it as their opinion that the tortuous channel, 
 the strong current, and the innumerable snags and sandbars would 
 render steam navigation impossible. Such, however, were the in- 
 creasing demands of commerce that Col. Rector, and others, of St. 
 Louis, in the spring of that year, chartered a steamboat called the 
 "Independence" John Nelson, master, to make a voyage to Old 
 Chariton, the name of a town then located near the town of Glas- 
 gow, Mo., but which has long since disappeared from the maps. 
 
70 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 The Independence left St. Louis May I5th, 1819, and arrived at 
 Old Franklin another abandoned town on the 28th. She con- 
 tinued her voyage to Chariton and returned to St. Louis on June 
 5th. It was a slow and tedious voyage, but it solved the question 
 of navigating the Missouri river by steamboat. 
 
 During June of the same year 1819 a fleet of steamboats 
 left St. Louis on a voyage up the Missouri river under the com- 
 mand of Major Stephen H Long, a United States Army officer. 
 This expedition, which was partly scientific and partly military 
 the troops being under the command of Gen. Atkinson is known 
 in history as "Long's Expedition." He was instructed to proceed 
 as high up the river as the mouth of the Yellowstone, to ascertain 
 if the upper river could be navigated by steamboats, and also 
 to establish military posts. It was intended to make a grand 
 military display, and thus, by overawing the Indians on the upper 
 river, withdraw them from the influence of the British, who were 
 then contending for the fur trade in that region. 
 
 The names of the four steamboats which constituted the fleet 
 were "Thomas Jefferson" "R. M. Johnson" "Expedition," and 
 "Western Engineer" The Jefferson struck a snag in Osage Chute, 
 at the mouth of the Osage, and sunk; being the first steamboat 
 of the many wrecked on the Missouri river. The Western Engi- 
 neer had been built expressly for this expedition, and from her 
 unique construction is worthy of a description. She was a small 
 stern-wheeler, being perhaps the first boat of that kind built. 
 She was 75 feet long, 13 feet beam and drew twenty inches light. 
 She was .intended to impress the Indians with awe, and there is 
 no doubt she did so. On her bow, running from her ke'ls'n for- 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 71 
 
 ward, was the escape pipe, made in imitation of a huge serpent 
 painted black and its mouth and tongue painted a fiery red. The 
 steam escaped from the mouth of the serpent, and in its passage 
 at intervals created a loud wheezing noise, or puff, like the dying 
 groans of a great sea-monster. The noise could be heard for 
 miles, and we can readily imagine that the Indian, who saw this 
 
 4 
 
 wonderful piece of marine mechanism, recognized in it the power 
 of the Great Maniteau.* 
 
 The Johnson, the Expedition, and the Jefferson left St. Loub 
 on June 5th, 1819; the Jefferson, on account of her name, being 
 given precedence, was the first to enter the mouth of the Missouri. 
 After many delays, caused by breaking of machinery, the two first 
 mentioned boats arrived at Cantonment Martin* on Sept. i8th. 
 The Western Engineer left St. Louis on June 7th, arrived at 
 Franklin on the 24th, where she laid by several days. She then pro- 
 ceeded on her voyage, and, being of lighter draft, passed the other 
 two boats and arrived at the same destination on August 28th. 1 1 
 
 On their arrival at Cow Island the Expedition and Johnson 
 tied up, and the troops went into winter quarters. As their boats 
 were found to be entirely unfit for the river they returned to St. 
 Louis in the spring. The Western Engineer, which proved to be 
 the only boat of the fleet at all adapted to the navigation of the 
 river, although she could only make three miles an hour, up 
 stream,, proceeded up the river, and on the i/th of September ar- 
 rived at Ft. Lisa (a trading post established by Manuel Lisa) 
 
 *Cantonment Martin the first military post established on the Missouri 
 west of the Kaw was located on an island just below Atchison, Kas., 
 called by the French "Isle Au Vache" and by the Americans "Cow Island." 
 
 I! Judg-e W. B. Napton, of Marshall, Mo., has in his possession a great 
 number of old letters written by Capt. Martin, Col. John O'Fallon, Gen. Atkinson 
 and other officers of this expedition, at different points on the river, to 
 Gen. Smith, thd general in command of the District, who' was then at 
 Franklin. From this correspondence the above data has been obtained. 
 
72 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 five miles below Council Bluff. Here she also went into winter 
 quarters and returned to St. Louis in the following- spring. It 
 having become apparent that the marine part of the expedition 
 was an unqualified failure, the river was abandoned, and Major 
 Long, with his troops, went overland to the Platte. The machinery 
 of the boats was so imperfectly constructed that it was continually 
 breaking, and besides, the boats, excepting the Engineer, were so 
 slow and drew so much water, that but little headway could be 
 made.* To the little Engineer, however, belongs the distinction of 
 being the first steamboat to ascend the river as high as Council 
 Bluffs. 
 
 THE STEAMBOAT FROM 1820 TO 1850. 
 From the sparsely settled condition of the country, the limited 
 demand for transportation, and the difficulties of navigation, 
 there were but few steamboats on the Missouri river previous to 
 1840. Sidewheelers were the favorites then, and have ever been 
 since, as they were more easily handled in a swift, crooked channel 
 among snags. The .boats in use during this period were heavy, 
 clumsy craft, built of strong timbers, and were usually from 100. 
 to 130 feet in length, 20 to 30 feet beam and 6 to 7 feet hold. But 
 little attention was paid to the model, and they drew, with an ordi- 
 nary cargo, from 5 to 6 feet. They carried a single engine, with 
 one or two boilers. Of course, with such heavy draft and imper- 
 fect machinery, the progress of such boats, up stream, was ex- 
 ceedingly slow. Indeed, they did not make more than five or 
 six miles an hour, and the puffing of the steam from their escape 
 
 See Niles Register, Vol. XVI. Also Missouri Intelligencer, June, 1819. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 73 
 
 pipes could be heard for miles. There were no steam whistles in 
 that day, they were not invented until 1844, nor were they needed 
 on these primitive boats. 
 
 During the period from 1820 to 1840 the entire traffic ou 
 the lower river was confined to the small towns, the Santa Fe 
 trade, at Westport Landing (now Kansas City), and the govern- 
 ment trade at Fort Leavenworth. As early as 1829 there was 
 a regular packet between St. Louis and the latter place, which con- 
 tinued in the trade for several years. There were no settlements 
 above except at St. Joseph and Council Bluffs. There was but 
 little travel on the river during that period, and the modern cabin 
 was not adopted until 1836. Previous to that time the only ac- 
 commodation for passengers and crew was a small cabin placed 
 on the stern of the boat in the hull. During 1831 there were only 
 five regular boats on the Missouri river, but by 1836 the number 
 had increased so rapidly had the country become settled to 15 
 or 20, which made 35 round trips to Boonville and Glasgow.* 
 
 Among these pioneer boats were the following the "Naomi" 
 "Mustang;' "Tamerlane;' "Halcyon;' "Mandan," "Little Red;' 
 (the sobriquet of U. S. Senator Barton), "Mary Tompkins" "To- 
 bacco Plant," "Nodaway," "Far West,"\\ "Amelia," "Corvette," 
 "Anthony Wayne" "Falcon" "Pirate" "John Hancock" "Wa- 
 pello," "Weston" "Yucatan," "Whirhwnd" "Undine" and "John 
 Go Long" 
 
 The name of the last mentioned boat is so peculiar, and the 
 
 *Gazeteer of Missouri. 
 
 ((Several of these boats were built on the Missouri river, although for 
 the most part they were built at Pittsburgh. The F ^^ est ^^ s * l f Jg 
 mouth of the Bonne Femme, was launched Oct. llth, 1834. 3 was or tne 
 following dimensions: 130 feet long, 20 feet beam and 6 feet hold. She 
 had a tonnage of 200 tons. 
 
74 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 circumstances under which she was named so strange, that it may 
 be worth mentioning. A gentleman in St. Louis, who was just 
 about completing a boat, found some difficulty in selecting a name. 
 He had a friend named "John," who was in the habit of coming 
 around every day, and in a teasing manner, suggesting names. 
 The owner, at last, becoming annoyed on being again asked what 
 name he intended giving the boat, said, "John, go long." The 
 name was suggestive, and when the boat was completed she bore 
 on her wheelhouse the name "John Go Long." 
 
 About 1840, the rapidly increasing population along the Mis- 
 souri river caused a corresponding demand for additional trans- 
 portation facilities. A better class of boats were built; full length 
 cabins were adopted; and 1 double engines, with a battery of boilers; 
 in place of the single engine one boiler "dingey." Great improve- 
 ments were also made in the model of the hull, and they were so 
 constructed as to have the same carrying capacity and draw much 
 less water. The same inventive genius that had invented the steam- 
 boat was continually making improvements, both in the machinery 
 and hull, so as to add to the speed of the boat and also increase 
 her carrying capacity. 
 
 During the year 1842 there were 26 steamboats engaged 
 regularly in the lower river trade. They were a much better class 
 of boats than were formerly built, and were generally from 140 
 to 1 60 feet long, about 30 feet beam, with a*6 foot hold. They 
 had full length cabins and side wheels. There were 312 arrivals 
 and departures from Glasgow (where the following record w r as 
 kept), during the year, and the latan the regular Glasgow packet 
 made 24 weekly trips from St. Louis. During the season 4^,000 
 tons of different kinds of freight were transported.* 
 
 *See "Missouri Intelligencer" and "Patriot." 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 75 
 
 Among the names of the boats on the Missouri river in 1842 
 were the following: "Shawnee," "Emiline," "Col Woods/' "Gen. 
 Leavenworth" "Bowling Green/' "latan," "Platte" "Thames," 
 "Gen. Brady;' "Oceana," "Roebuck," "Manhattan" "Malta" 
 "Lehigh," "Osage Valley," "Gloster," "Amazon," "Huntsville," 
 "Lewis F. Linn," and "Warsazv." 
 
 THE STEAMBOAT IN THE FUR TRADE. 
 
 It was during this period that the steamboat superseded the 
 keelboat in the upper river fur-trade. This trade had so increased 
 as to require a better method of transportation, and besides, such 
 improvement had been made in the construction of the steam- 
 boats as to lead the fur companies to believe that they could suc- 
 cessfully be used in navigating the upper river as well as the lower. 
 In 1831, Pierre Chouteau, who was then at the head of the 
 American Fur Company, built a boat called the "Yellowstone" 
 intended for the mountain trade. She was 130 feet long, 19 feet 
 beam, 6 feet hold; good model; side wheel; single engine, two 
 chimneys; fly-wheel; cabin in the stern-hold; boiler-deck open; no 
 hurricane roof; pilot house elevated; and drew 6 feet loaded to 75 
 tons. The Yellozvstone left St. Louis April i6th, 1831, on her 
 maiden voyage, and arrived at the mouth of Milk river, in South 
 Dakota, on June iQth. After discharging her cargo of Indian 
 goods she took in a cargo of furs and buffalo robes and returned 
 to St. Louis, where she arrived July i5th. She was the first 
 boat to ascend the Missouri river above Council Bluffs. 
 
 In the following year 1832 the Yellowstone made her sec- 
 ond trip "to the mountains;" as the old river men always called 
 
76 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 the upper M'issotiri. This will be ever memorable as the year in 
 which the cholera first made its appearance in the United States. 
 The terrible scourge followed the water courses, where at that day 
 the population dwelt, and in proportion to the inhabitants was 
 
 more fatal than it has ever been since. The Yellowstone did not 
 
 \ 
 
 escape the plague. She left St. Louis on March 26th, and by the 
 time she arrived at the mouth of the Kaw one-half of her crew 
 were dead. There was no Kansas City there then, but only a land- 
 ing at Choteau's trading post, just below the present city. While 
 lying there eight more of the crew died the first night, and were 
 buried in a single trench on a sandbar. It being impossible to 
 proceed further with a diminished crew, Capt. Bennett the com- 
 mander manned the yawl with a few men, and returned to St. 
 Louis for the purpose of obtaining an additional crew. During 
 his absence the boat \vas left in charge of Joseph La Barge, then 
 1 8 years old, who was just beginning his long career of more 
 than 50 years as a steamboatman on the Missouri river. The 
 scourge soon spread among the few inhabitants, who were then 
 living near the landing, and created such an alarm that they 
 threatened to burn the boat. La Barge, perceiving the danger, 
 raised steam himself during the night, and taking the wheel, ran 
 the boat above the mouth of the Kaw, where, as there were no 
 inhabitants, she remained undisturbed. On Capt. Bennett's return 
 the boat proceeded on her voyage and arrived at the mouth of 
 the Yellowstone on June I7th. On her return she arrived at St. 
 Louis on July 7th. She was the first steamboat to ascend the 
 Missouri to the mouth of the Yellowstone, and demonstrated what 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 77 
 
 Major Long had attempted to establish, that the upper Missouri- 
 was navigable by steamboats as high up as the Yellowstone. 
 
 It was the custom of the American Fur Company, which by 
 1830 had obtained a complete monopoly of the fur trade, to send 
 up annually to the mountains, one boat. Occasionally two were 
 despatched, but usually one was sufficient to carry up the supply 
 of goods. These voyages were always attended with great danger 
 and hardship and required the most skillful navigation. The lurk- 
 ing savage, as he lay concealed in the grass on the banks of the 
 river, ready to fire on the unsuspecting boatmen, was a continual 
 menace, and many a brush occurred betwen the redman and his 
 white brother. The greatest difficulty encountered in navigating 
 the boats was from the scarcity of fuel. There were no settle- 
 ments above St. Joseph at that day, and above the Platte there 
 was but little timber. The only wood to be obtained was from the 
 rack-heaps, and this, being drift-wood, wet and sodden would 
 scarcely make steam at all. But it was the only dependence for 
 fuel, and while half the crew were engaged in .cutting wood, the 
 other half stood guard, muskets in hand, to protect them from 
 a surprise by the Indians. 
 
 There were other difficulties to be overcome by these early 
 navigators. The diminished quantity of water in the upper river, 
 and the narrowness of the channel, made it absolutely essential 
 that the trip should be made on the June rise. This rise, caused 
 by the melting of snow in the Rocky Mountains, begins in May 
 and continues to the latter part of July. It required quick work 
 and skillful navigation to take a boat from St. Louis to the Yel- 
 
78 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 lowstone a distance of nearly 2,000 miles and back before the 
 subsidence of the annual rise. 
 
 During the period from 1831 to 1846, after which the fur 
 trade ceased to exist, the navigation of the upper Missouri was 
 confined almost entirely to the boats belonging to the American 
 Fur Company. Among these boats the following made the annual 
 voyage in the years enclosed in brackets: "Yellowstone" (1831-2 
 and 3), "Assiniboine" (1833) "Diana" (1834), "Antelope" 
 (1835), "Trapper" (1836), "St. Peters" (1837), "Elk" (1838), 
 "Platte" (1839), "Emelia" (1840), "Otter" (1841), "Shawnee" 
 (1842), "Omega" (1843), "Nimrod" (1844), and "latan" 
 (1845). Other boats which made trips to the mountains during 
 this period, some of which belonged to opposition companies, were 
 the "Astoria," "Big Horn," "Dacota," "Cheyenne;' "St. Croix," 
 "St. Ange," "St. Anthony,"* "A. S. Bennett," and "W. H. Ash- 
 ley." 
 
 The voyage of 1843 was made by the Omega. She left St. 
 Louis April 25th and the following incident, taken from her log, 
 which has been preserved, furnishes a living picture of the dangers 
 to which these early boatmen were exposed. A band of Indians, 
 hidden in the tall grass, opened fire on the boat as she passed 
 along close to the shore. Capt. La Barge, who has been referred 
 to, was at the wheel, and a negro called "Black Dave," who stood 
 
 *Many of the early steamboatmen, on the Upper Missouri, were French 
 Catholics, hence we find the names of their patron saints given to their 
 boats. The "Bennett" was named for the first commander of the Yellow- 
 stone. The "W. H. Ashley" for Gen. Ashley, a successful fur trader, 
 Lieutenant Governor of Missouri, Brigadier General of State Militia, Member 
 of Congress, and in his day the most popular man in Missouri. His remains 
 are interred on the banks of the Missouri river, near the mouth of the Lamine 
 river, ten miles above Boonville, Mo., in a forgotten and an unmarked grave. 
 Such is fame. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 79 
 
 the alternate watch, was also in the pilot house. Both were French- 
 men, as were most of the early boatmen on the upper Missouri, and 
 Dave could scarcely speak the English language. He was as black 
 as the ace of spades, always dressed well with a profusion of 
 jewelry and might well have been taken for the King of Da- 
 homey. Dave, whose real name was Jacques Desire, had but one 
 fault his timidity caused by fear of the Indians. But he knew 
 how to handle a wheel, and was recognized as one of the best 
 upper river pilots in his day. When the bullets crashed through 
 the pilot house, shattering the glass, Dave deserted the wheel, 
 ran out of the pilot house, and took refuge behind one of the 
 chimneys, where he remained until the battle was over. On being 
 reprimanded for his cowardice, in deserting his post in time of 
 danger, he replied that it was not from fear of the bullets, but 
 that his eyesight was all he had to depend on to make a living, 
 and he was afraid the flying pieces of glass would strike him 
 in ,the eyes and put them out. 
 
 The year 1846 saw the end of the fur trade on the upper 
 Missouri, but by that time 'the government had established military 
 posts in that section and a few straggling settlements had sprung 
 up. The supplies necessary for these posts were transported up 
 the river on steamboats, which thus supplanted the fur company 
 boats. The number, however, was still limited to one or two a 
 season. The principal points, above Council Bluffs, during this 
 period, were Fort Pierre, Fort Clark, Milk River, La Chapelle, 
 Cheyenne, Fort Union, Yankton, Fort Randall, and Fort Benton.* 
 
 *Ft. Benton was the head of navigation on the Missouri river, and was 
 in the da3^s of steamboating- a place of great importance. The Yellowstone 
 was formerly navigated as high up as the mouth of the Rig Horn. 
 
80 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 Many of these places, once so well known, have since been wiped 
 off the map. 
 
 The voyage of 1844 was made by the Nimrod. She was a 
 new boat, built by the American Fur Company, and her log of 
 the voyage, like that of others during this period, has been pre- 
 served. This was the year of the great flood in the Missouri 
 river, the greatest, except that of 1903, that has ever occurred 
 since the settlement of the country. When the Nimrod arrived at 
 the village of the Maha Indians, a short distance below 'the pres- 
 ent location of Sioux City, she found the water so low that she 
 was compelled to tie up and wait for a rise. After a delay of sev- 
 eral days she proceded on her voyage. As this was in June, it 
 is a noteworthy fact, and refutes the popular impression that the 
 overflows of the Missouri river always come from the annual 
 mountain rise, caused by the melting of snow. It is true that the 
 melting of the snow in the mountains serves to augment the flood, 
 by keeping the stage of the water high, and thus becomes an im- 
 portant factor in an overflow, but no great flood in the Missouri 
 was ever caused by the melting of the snow alone. They are 
 invariably accompanied by unusual precipitation in the vast water- 
 shed of the Kaw, and other tributaries, flowing into the lower 
 part of the river, just as the annual June rise reaches that part of 
 the river; which is about the first of June. 
 
 THE GOLDEN ERA 1850 TO 1860. 
 In the history of steamboat navigation on the Missouri river 
 the decade between 1850 and 1860 may be properly termed tho 
 "Golden Era." The improvements which had been made, both in 
 
A HISTORY or TTTE MISSOURI RIVKR. 81 
 
 the machinery and the construction of the hull, the adaptation of 
 the stateroom cabin, and the systematizing of the business, all 
 tended to lessen the danger, of navigation and increase the profits. 
 The advancement made in navigation on the Missouri river had 
 kept pace with the march of commerce in other parts of the world. 
 
 The first navigator on the Missouri river was the little blue- 
 winged teal duck; the next the Indian, with his canoe. Then 
 came the half-civilized French-Canadian voyageur with his pcrogue, 
 paddling up stream or cordclling around the swift points. At a 
 later day came the fur trader with his keel-boat; still later there 
 came up from below the little "dingey" the single engine one boiler 
 steamboat which has been described. At last the evolution was 
 complete and there came the magnificent passenger steamer of 
 the '505 the floating palace of the palmy days of steamboating 
 combining in her construction every improvement that experience 
 had suggested, or the ingenuity of man had devised, to increase 
 the speed or add to the safety and comfort of the passenger. 
 
 The fully equipped passenger steamer, in the hey-day of steam- 
 boating on the Missouri river, was a magnificent specimen of 
 marine architecture. She was generally about 250 feet 'long, 40 
 feet beam, and had a full length cabin capable of accommodating 
 from 300 to 400 people. The texas, occupied solely by the officers, 
 was on the hurricane roof. In addition to her passenger accommo- 
 dation she had a freight capacity of from 500 to 700 tons. She 
 was well proportioned, symmetrical, trim, fast and sat on the 
 water like a thing of life. Her two tall chimneys, with ornamental 
 tops between which was usually suspended some gilt letter or 
 device added much to her beauty. The pilot house, on top of the 
 
82 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 texas, was highly ornamented with glass windows on every side, 
 a fancy railing of scroll-work surrounded the guards of the boiler 
 deck and texas. The entire boat, excepting the chimneys, was 
 painted a dazzling white. 
 
 The cabin of the boat a long, narrow salon was a marvel 
 of beauty in its snow-white splendor. The floors of the cabin 
 were covered with the softest Brussels carpets, and the state- 
 rooms were supplied with every convenience. Indeed, the bridal 
 chambers were perfect gems of elegance and luxury. The table 
 was elegantly furnished, and the menu unsurpassed by that of any 
 first-class hotel. Each boat had, in the ladies' cabin, a piano, and 
 generally a brass band and always a string band was carried. After 
 the table was cleared away at night a dance was always in order, 
 the old Virginia reel being the favorite dance. The social feature 
 of a trip on one of these elegant boats was most charming. 
 
 The machinery and boilers of the boat were on the main 
 deck. The latter, consisting of a battery of six or eight cylinders, 
 was placed over a huge furnace. The machinery, consisting of 
 two ponderous engines, ran as smoothly as the movements of a 
 watch, and furnished the motive power to turn the two immense 
 wheels, one on either side of the boat. The cost of such a boat as 
 has been described, was, during the period between 1850 and 1860, 
 from $50,000 to $75,000. 
 
 The crew of a first class passenger steamer consisted of a 
 captain, two clerks, two pilots, four engineers, two mates, a watch- 
 man, a lamplighter, a porter, a carpenter and a painter. There 
 were besides a steward, four -cooks, two chambermaids, a deck 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 8-1 
 
 crew of about forty men, and a cabin crew generally colored of 
 
 about twenty. There were also a barber and a barkeeper, for a bar 
 was always an indispensable attachment to a first-class steamboat. 
 The entire crew consisted of from 75 to 90 people. 
 
 The wages paid were commensurate with the) labor \ancl 
 danger, as well as the profits of the business. Captains received 
 from $250 to $300 per month, clerks from $125 to $250, mates 
 from $100 to $250, engineers about the same as mates. Of course, 
 these wages included board. 
 
 It was the pilot, however, who divided the profits with the 
 owner, and sometimes received the larger share. He was the auto- 
 crat of the boat and absolutely controlled her navigation. It was 
 for him to determine when the boat should run at night and when 
 she should lay by. He received princely wages, sometimes as mucH 
 as $1,000 or $1,500 per month, and he spent it like a thoroughbred. 
 These exorbitant wages were demanded and paid as a result of a 
 combination among the pilots called the "Pilots' Benevolent Asso- 
 ciation." It controlled the number of apprentices, and, as no man 
 could "learn the river," as it was called, without "being shown," 
 it absolutely controlled the number of pilots. It had a "dead sure 
 cinch," and in compactness, in rigid enforcement of rules, and in 
 keeping wages at high-water mark, it was a complete success, 
 and continued to maintain its organization as long as steamboating 
 was profitable. 
 
 Piloting on the Missouri river was a science, and the skillful 
 pilot was a man of wonderful memory of localities. No man, 
 indeed, ever became a first-class pilot who was not endowed with 
 this peculiar faculty. He was required to know the river through- 
 
84 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 out his entire run as a schoolboy knows the path to the school- 
 house. He had to know it thoroughly, upside down, endways, in- 
 side, outside, and crossways. He had to know it at midnight of the 
 darkest night when called on watch as well as in daylight. He 
 was expected to know every sandbar, every crossing, chute ,tow- 
 head and cutoff; the location of every wreck and every dangerous 
 snag, from one end of the river to the other. He had also to be 
 able to determine the location of the boat on the darkest night 
 from the reverbration of the sound of the whistle, as the echo 
 resounded from the adjacent bluffs. He was expected to know 
 every landmark on the shore, the location of every cabin, and the 
 peculiar bark of every squatter's dog. 
 
 THE PILOT AND THE DOG. 
 
 On one occasion a pilot attempted to make a crossing near 
 Hill's Landing, on the lower river, on an exceedingly dark night. 
 He missed the channel and ran the bow of the boat square up 
 against a bluff sandbar. On being scolded by the captain, he ad- 
 mitted that he could not recognize a single landmark, so extreme 
 was the darkness, but had guided the boat solely by the familiar 
 bark of a dog, wHich belonged to a wood-chopper whose cabin 
 stood near the head of the crossing. The dog was accustomed 
 to come out on the bank of the river, whenever a boat approached, 
 and saluting it vigorously, by barking, until it had passed. Un- 
 fortunately, on this particular night, the dog had changed his posi- 
 tion, and was farther up the river than his usual location, which was 
 in front of his owner's cabin. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 8~> 
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF NAVIGATION. 
 
 As has been stated, the dangerous localities on the Missouri 
 river, were the bends on account of the snags, and it was in them 
 that most of the accidents occurred. Often has the writer stood in 
 the pilot house, in going down stream, when, on looking ahead it 
 seemed impossible to find a space sufficiently wide for the boat 
 to pass between the snags. Good judgment, a keen, quick eye, and 
 an iron nerve were prerequisites in a pilot; for there were times 
 in the experience of every one when a miscalculation as to the 
 power of the wind, the force of a cross-current, or even the wrong 
 turn of the wheel, would have sent his boat to the bottom of the 
 river. It was the custom, in running such dangerous localities, to 
 straighten the boat at the head of the bend and then "belt her 
 through/' by throwing the throttles wide open and pitting on every 
 pound of steam. Only in this way would the boat respond to the 
 rudder, and thus prevent flanking on the dangerous snap's. 
 
 On one occasion, on a down-stream trip, which the writer 
 recalls, there were two pilots on the boat Capt. "Bob" Wright 
 and his son-in-law, Gates McGarrah. The former was an old, ex- 
 perienced pilot, and was recognized as one among the best on the 
 river. The younger man, who was scarcely of age, was also a 
 skillful pilot, but a reckless, nervy, dare-devil. It was Capt. Wright's 
 watch, when we came to the head of the bend, and he was at the 
 wheel. McGarrah was in the texas asleep. The old man was 
 generally cool and collected, but on this occasion, as the boat was 
 heavily loaded and full of people, he seemed to realize his respon- 
 sibility. His hands trembled like a leaf and, as I watched him, I 
 saw that he had lost his nerve. The boat was held back, and he 
 
86 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 sent for McGarrah. The young fellow came running into the pilot 
 house, laughing and whistling, took the wheel, and putting on a 
 full head of steam ran through the snags without a scratch. 
 
 Such was the amount of business done on the river during the 
 '505, and such the skill of the pilots, that boats in the lower trade 
 ran day and night. No night ever became so dark as to render it 
 necessary for the boat to tie up, especially in going up stream. A 
 speed of ten miles an hour, up stream, was not unusual, and a 
 distance of, 150 miles was made down stream in a day. In July, 
 1856, the James H. Lucas, one of the fastest boats on the river, 
 ran from St. Louis to St. Joseph, a distance of 600 miles, in sixty 
 hours and fifty-seven minutes. In 1853 the Polar Star, another 
 remarkably fast boat, and a great favorite, made the same run in 
 sixty hours. When the difficulty of navigating the river, the 
 swiftness of the current, and the crookedness of the channel, are 
 considered, the time made by these boats is remarkable, and shows 
 what was accomplished, in the way of speed, in the hey-day of 
 steamboating on the Missouri. 
 
 From the peculiar character of the Missouri river, and the 
 many obstacles to navigation, racing was never practiced on that 
 stream as it was on the lower Mississippi. As in the case of the 
 Lucas and the Polar Star, a particularly fast boat would sometimes 
 make a run against time the wager being a large pair of gilded 
 elk -horns, which were carried by the successful boat until some 
 other beat her time. But racing was risky in any case, especially on 
 the Missouri, for the temptation always existed to increase the pres- 
 sure of steam above the safety limit. Of all the disasters that ever- 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 87 
 
 occurred on the river the most terrible were those caused by boiler 
 explosions. 
 
 The next most fatal cause of accidents on the Missouri, after 
 snags and sunken wrecks, was fire. The cabins of the boats were 
 constructed of white pine, as light as they could be built, and 
 were thoroughly saturated with lead and oil. Constructed of such 
 combustible material, when once on fire the flames could not be 
 extinguished, and the vessel burned with such rapidity as often to 
 cause the loss of life. 
 
 Accidents from explosions of boilers were frequent in the 
 early days of steamboating on the river, and the fatality in some 
 cases was appalling. The boat always caught fire after the ex- 
 plosion, and those who escaped immediate death were confronted 
 by the flames. The improvement in the material and construction 
 of the boilers, however, and the more rigid enforcement of the in- 
 spection laws, by the government, tended to materially decrease 
 the number of disasters from this cause in the last years of steam- 
 boating. 
 
 THE EXPLOSION OF THE SALUDA. 
 The most terrible disaster that ever occurred on the Missouri 
 river was that of the explosion of the Saluda at Lexington, Mo., 
 in 1852. The Saluda was a side- wheel steamer with a battery of 
 two boilers, and was on her way up the river with her cabin and 
 lower deck crowded with passengers, the most of whom were 
 Mormons. The river was unusually high and the current at that 
 place exceedingly swift. Capt. Francis P. Belt, the commander 
 of the boat, had made repeated efforts to stem the current, but hav- 
 ing failed fell back to the levee. At last, on the morning of April 
 
88 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 9th, after waiting several days for the flood to subside, he again 
 ordered steam raised for a final effort. He went to the engine room, 
 and looking up at the steamgauge, asked the engineer how much 
 more pressure she could stand. On being answered that she had 
 already every pound of steam that it was safe to carry, he said : 
 "Fill her up. Put on more steam," and remarked to the engineer 
 that he would "round the point or blow her to H 1." He then 
 returned to the hurricane roof, rang the bell, and gave the 'order 
 to "cast loose the line." 
 
 The bow of the boat swung, gently out into the stream and 
 was caught by the current. The engine made but one revolution; 
 then came the terrible crash! and all was chaos, darkness and 
 death. The number of those who lost their lives was never known. 
 About one hundred bodies were recovered, and it was supposed 
 that there were as many more victims whose bodies were blown 
 into the river and never recovered. Nearly all of the officers of 
 the boat were killed, among them Capt. Belt. He was at his post, 
 on the hurricane roof, standing with his arm resting on the bell, 
 when the explosion occurred, and was blown high up on the bank. 
 His body, when found, was a mangled mass of flesh and bones. 
 The bell, which had just sounded the death-knell of so many souls, 
 was sold with the wreckage to an old German, who afterward sold 
 it to the Christian church, at Savannah, Mo., where it has hung 
 in the belfry for more than half a century. On any Sabbath morn- 
 ing its clear silvery peals can be heard, but it is doubtful if there 
 is one among all those who are called to the house of God, who 
 knows anything of its tragic history. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. RD 
 
 A partial list of boats wrecked on the Missouri river has been 
 preserved, with the names of the captains and owners, the date 
 and place where wrecked, the cause, and many other particulars. It 
 contains the names of 300 boats, but is not complete, as no regu- 
 lar record was kept of the number. 193 were sunk by coming in 
 contact with snags; 25 by fire, and the remainder by explosions, 
 rocks, bridges, storms and ice. More than three- fourths of the 
 number were wrecked between Kansas City and the mouth of the 
 river, as most of the boats ran in the lower trade. In fact, that 
 part of the river is a marine grave-yard, and there lie buried in the 
 bends the wrecks of more than 200 steamboats, covered with the 
 accumulated sands of half a century. 
 
 GAMBLING ON THE RIVER. 
 
 Marvelous tales of gambling on the river, in old times, have 
 been told, and it is to be regretted that many of these stories have 
 not been exaggerated. There were 'boats on which gambling was 
 permitted, and it was not unusual for a professional gambler to 
 travel on a boat and run his game openly and above-board. Indeed, 
 there were certain boats on which it was, said the captain or clerk 
 "stood in" with the gambler, and shared his nefarious profits. I 
 never saw a planter bet his negro servant on a game of cards 
 that is said to have occurred on the lower Mississippi but I have 
 witnessed scenes equally as pathetic and sad. I have seen men, 
 after losing their last dollar, take their watches and jewelry and 
 cast them into the jackpot. Poker was the game universally played 
 on the river big games they were, too and the excitement fan 
 high, as the passengers crowded around the table, in the cabin, 
 on which the gold and silver were stacked up. 
 
90 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 The steamer John D. Perry left St. Louis one evening, in 
 July, 1858, with her cabin crowded with passengers. Among the 
 number was an old gentleman a farmer from a lower river county 
 who had gone down on the previous trip with his crop of hemp, 
 which he had sold. The writer was clerk of the boat, and just as 
 the lines were cast off the old gentleman came to the office and 
 handed me a well-filled pocketbook, which he requested me to 
 place in the safe. About 9 o'clock that night, after the boat had 
 gotten several miles above the mouth of the Missouri, he came to 
 the office again and requested me to return him his pocketbook. I 
 did so; and being busily engaged at the time did not give the mat- 
 ter any further attention. It soon occurred to me, however, that 
 it was strange that he should want his money at that time of night, 
 and I walked back in the cabin to see what was going on. There 
 I saw my old friend, sitting at a table, on which was stacked up a 
 pile of money, playing poker with two men, who, from their ap- 
 pearance, I immediately suspected were professional gamblers. 
 
 We did not permit gambling on our boat, and our captain 
 was violently opposed to it and utterly abhorred a professional 
 gambler. I went at once to the hurricane roof, where I knew the 
 "old man" was on watch, and informed him of what was going on 
 below. He came down in a hurry, and walking back to the table, 
 said, "This game must stop right here. You sports can't make a 
 gambling house out of this boat. Mr. - ," calling the old fanner 
 by name, "get up from that table and take your money. These 
 men are professional gamblers and are robbing you. Now," he 
 said, turning to the other two men, "you fellows get your baggage 
 and get ready to go ashore." 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 01 
 
 The gamblers first undertook to bluff the captain, and then 
 began to beg, but it was all in vain; he was inexorable. It was a 
 dark and stormy night and the rain was pouring down in tor- 
 rents, but, notwithstanding the storm, the boat was landed along- 
 side a dense forest and the two sporting gentlemen were made to 
 walk a gang-plank. We shoved off and left them standing there 
 in the dark woods, miles from any human habitation, and as the 
 buckets of the wheels struck the water we could hear their curses, 
 loud and bitter, as they swore eternal vengeance against the boat 
 and her officers. 
 
 CHOLERA ON THE RIVER. 
 
 In the early days of steamboating, and even as late as the 
 '505, the cholera often became epidemic on the river and caused 
 many deaths. In such cases, when a passenger died especially a 
 deck passenger who was generally an immigrant the body of the 
 unfortunate victim was hastily placed in a rude wooden box, the 
 boat run alongshore, where a shallow grave was dug in which 
 the body was hastily interred. There it remained, unmarked, until- 
 the shifting current of the river invaded the sacred spot and swept 
 away all that was mortal of the unfortunate stranger, whose friends, 
 perhaps, never knew his fate. There were many such graves along 
 the river in olden times, and it was not unusual for a coffin to be 
 seen protruding from the bank, where the current had encroached. 
 
 The rough wooden boxes used as coffins, were made by the 
 boat's carpenter, who worked day and night in preparing them in 
 advance of the death of the victims; so that when a death occurred 
 there might be no delay in disposing of the body. On one occa- 
 sion a boat was ascending the river with the cholera on board. 
 
92 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 Death was stalking the decks, and one morning, among those who 
 had died during the previous night, was a man of unusual height. 
 No box was found of sufficient length to contain the body. What 
 was to be done ? The captain, whose name need not be mentioned, 
 although he has been dead for more than forty years, called for 
 an axe, and deliberately cut the man's legs off and laid them be- 
 side the body in the box, and thus the poor fellow was laid away 
 in his hastily dug grave. 
 
 In the spring of 1849 tne steamer James Monroe left St. Louis, 
 bound for the Missouri river, crowded with people, who, for the 
 most part, were Mormons en route for Salt Lake. On approaching 
 Jefferson City the people of that town such was the fear of the 
 epidemic forbade the boat landing, and to enforce their command 
 planted an old cannon called the "Sacramento" on the bank of the 
 river, and threatened to blow the boat out of the water if she at- 
 tempted to touch the wharf. The boat stopped about a mile below 
 town, and the poor unfortunate passengers, in their effort to es- 
 cape from the plague-ridden vessel, came up the bank of the river, 
 where many of their dead bodies were found. Finally, the com- 
 passion of the citizens overcame their fear, the churches were turned 
 into improvised hospitals, and the best care possible was given 
 those who had survived. Those of the unfortunate crew who es- 
 caped death, fled from the pestilence, and the ill-fated boat, after 
 lying there for several months, was taken back to St. Louis. 
 
 The most unfortunate trip that was ever made by a steamboat 
 up the river, and the most far-reaching in its results, and in the 
 sacrifice of human life, was that of the St. Peters. She was a 
 single engine boat, built by Pierre Choteau and Peter Sarpy for the 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 9,, 
 
 fur-trade. She left St. Louis in the spring of 1837, bound for the 
 mountains, loaded with supplies for the different posts. Her deck- 
 crew was composed of negroes, and before she arrived at St. Jo- 
 'seph, then called the "Blacksnake Hills," the smallpox had broken 
 out among them, and, one, who had died, was buried there. The 
 contagion immediately extended to other members of the crew, and 
 the danger of communicating the disease to the Indians who were 
 then numerous along the river became apparent. Runners were 
 sent forward to give the alarm and warn the Indians to keep away 
 from the banks; but notwithstanding this precaution the terrible 
 contagion spread, and was communicated to every tribe east of 
 the Rocky Mountains. The fatality as the Indians knew no 
 way to treat the disease was appalling, and among some tribes 
 amounted to annihilation. In the case of the Mandans, a tribe 
 then seated near where Bismarck, Dakota, is now located, a popu- 
 lation of 1,700 was reduced to 31. Among the Pawnees, who 
 were then on the Platte, the death- rate was so great that according 
 to the official report made to the government, they were reduced, 
 within a year, from 12,500 to 6,244 one-half the tribe had died. 
 Utter dismay pervaded all the tribes, and they fled from the pesti- 
 lence, in every direction, leaving the bodies of their dead to be 
 devoured by the wolevs.* 
 
 HIGH WATER MARK REACHED. 
 
 The year 1858 may be taken as the year in which steamboat- 
 ing on the Missouri river reached the summit of its prosperity. 
 There were then not less than 60 regular packets on the river, be- 
 sides perhaps 30 or 40 transient boats, called "tramps/' which came 
 
 *Reference has heretofore been made to this epidemic of 1837. 
 
94 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 into the river from other streams and made one or two trips during 
 the season. Packet lines were established to Miami, Kansas City, 
 St. Joseph, Omaha, and even to Sioux City. They carried the 
 United States mail and express freight, and the semi-weekly or 
 daily arrival of the regular packet was looked forward to with the 
 same degree of certainty as we now look forward to the arrival of 
 a railroad train. So numerous were the boats on the lower river, 
 during this period, that it was no unusual sight to see as many as 
 five or six lying at a landing at the same time, and at no time 
 was a boat out of sight during the boating season, w 7 hich continued 
 from March till November. The prosperity which this great traf- 
 fic brought to the river towns was phenomenal, and the population 
 of many of them was greater fifty years ago than it is today. 
 
 The usual life of a steamboat, barring accidents, was from 
 eight to ten years, and she was expected to make money from the 
 first turn of her wheel. If she did not she was considered a failure, 
 for the depreciation was estimated at ten per cent the first year f 
 and twenty-five per cent each year thereafter. There were many 
 boats in the regular trade which paid back their cost the first year, 
 and at the end of the second year, at furthest, they were expected 
 to show a clean balance sheet. Steamboating was a hazardous busi- 
 ness and one attended with great risk, both to life and property, 
 but the. profits, with the rates of freight from fifty cents to one 
 dollar per hundred pounds, and passage from St. Louis to Kansas 
 City $25, were commensurate with the risk. No insurance could 
 ever be obtained against explosions, and the hull risk was from 
 12 to 15 cents per hundred. 
 
 But the business of Steamboating, notwithstanding all its draw- 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 95 
 
 backs, was both profitable and pleasant, and there was a fascination 
 about it which prevented those who had once followed the river 
 ever becoming exactly satisfied on shore. The continual change 
 of scenery, the panoramic views of forests and farm houses, the 
 meeting with interesting people, and above all the social feature 
 of steamboating, rendered the avocation a pleasant one. The 
 most pathetic feature connected with steamboating on the Missouri 
 river was the tenacity with which the old steamboatman clung to 
 the river. He seemed never to be able to realize the changed con- 
 dition in the method of transportation which came, but continued 
 the unequal contest with the new method, hoping for the return 
 of the good old days, until the fortune he had acquired was lost. 
 There were but few instances in which they did not die poor. 
 
 It cannot be expected that in so brief a paper the names of all 
 the steamboats that navigated the river in its palmy days can be 
 given, but among the finest and most popular which were on the 
 river in 1858 the banner year were the following "Kate How- 
 ard;' "John D. Perry;' "David Tatum," "Silver Heels," "Clara!' 
 "Kate Suinney," "B. W. Lewis," "Platte Valley;' "Asa Wilgus," 
 "Alonzo Child;' "Australia;' "F. X. Aubrey," "Admiral," "D. S. 
 Carter" "Eclipse" "Emigrant" "E. A. Ogden," "Empire State" 
 "Hesperian," "Isabella," "Jos. H. Lucas," "New Lucy," "Jenny 
 Lewis," "Meteor;' "Minnehaha," "Polar Star" "Peerless," 
 "Spread Eagle," "War Eagle," "South Western," "C. W. Som- 
 bart," "Tropic," "Tztnlight," "Thomas E. Tutt," "White Cloud," 
 and "Edinburg." 
 
 Among those which came later, and which were built for some 
 special trade, were the "R. W. Dugan," "E. H. Durfce," "Phil E. 
 
96 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 Chappell," "Montana'' "Dakota," "A. L. Mason." "State of Mis- 
 souri" and "State of Kansas" Some of these ran as late as 1888. 
 They were the last boats built for the Missouri river. 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 
 
 But steamboating on the Missouri river is dead. Like the 
 cowboy and the prairie schooner, the steamboat is a thing of the 
 past. The whistle of the first locomotive, as it reverbated through 
 the Blacksnake Hills, on the completion of the Hannibal and St. 
 Joseph railroad to the Missouri river at St. Joseph, in 1859, sounded 
 the death-knell of steamboating on that stream. It was the be- 
 ginning of the end. Steamboating began in 1819. At the end of 
 twenty years it had grown to large proportions and continued to 
 grow for the succeeding twenty years. Then it began to die and 
 in another twenty years was dead. As the different railroads pene- 
 trated the interior, touching the different points on the great water- 
 course, its commerce began to wither and die, and it became evident, 
 to those who watched the trend of events, that river transportation 
 could not compete successfully with the cheaper and more rapid 
 method. 
 
 Then came the war of 1861, causing the loss of many boats, 
 driving others out of the river, and from the presence of the guerilla 
 rendering navigation even more hazardous than it had been. A few 
 boats remained, but even they, for the most part, went higher 
 up the river to escape competition with the railroads, and ran be- 
 tween Sioux City and Ft. Benton. 
 
A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 97 
 
 THE LAST STAND. 
 
 It was during this period (1862) that gold was discovered in 
 Montana, and, as is usual in such discoveries, a great rush of popu- 
 lation began to flow into that country. As the only means of 
 transportation was by way of the Missouri river, this unexpected 
 demand for transportation caused a wonderful revival in steam- 
 boating. There were but few regular boats on the Missouri, at 
 that time, but others began to crowd in from every stream west 
 of the Alleghenies sidewheelers, sternwheelers, and old tubs. The 
 voyage to Fort Benton, the nearest point to the mines, was 2,200 
 miles, and it was beset with danger, both in the navigation and from 
 the Indians. 
 
 This trade, which was of short duration, proved to be ex- 
 ceedingly profitable, as the rates demanded and paid were exorbi- 
 tant. The usual rate on freight was from ten to fifteen cents per 
 pound, and a first class passage to Fort Benton cost $300. Enor- 
 mous profits were made by some of the boats. On one trip the 
 "St. John" cleared $17,000, the "Laconia" $16,000 and the "Oc- 
 tavia" $40,000. The "W. J. Lewis," a new boat, built in 1865, 
 went to Fort Benton in 1866, and when she returned to St. Louis, 
 after an absence of 60 days, had cleared her cost, which was $60,- 
 ooo. The "Peter Eden," an old tub, not worth over $15,000, but 
 a good carrier, made a profit of $80,000 on one trip.* 
 
 But this rich harvest only continued ten years, for like a 
 Nemesis the railroad pursued the steamboat. In 1872 the Northern 
 
 *The writer has in his possession a list of more than 600 steamboats 
 that navigated the Missouri river. It is not complete, as it probably does 
 not contain half the names, but it is perhaps the most complete list that 
 has been preserved. 
 
98 A HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 
 
 Pacific railroad reached Bismarck, and for a second time the steam- 
 boat was forced to surrender to its invincible enemy. It was the 
 last stand of the steamboat, on the Missouri river, in its battle with 
 the railroad. 
 
 There is not today a single steamboat engaged in navigating 
 the Missouri river. All are gone. The glory of the past is gone. 
 The evolution is complete. The Indian canoe, the perogue, the 
 batteam, the keelboat, the mackinaw boat, the steamboat, have all 
 passed away, and there now remains, on what was once the great 
 commercial thoroughfare of the West, only the original navigator 
 the little blue-winged teal duck. The recollection of steamboating 
 on the Missouri river, is, to the old steamboatman, but a pleasant 
 dream of the past.