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The river below is the Green. The mountains to the west are the Wyomings (Bear Rivers). Those to the east, the Windrivers. Along the river banks below are the Rendezvous sites of 1833, 1835 (New Fork), 1836, 1837 (Cottonwood), 1839, 1840, and Fort Bonneville. Trappers, traders and Indians from throughout the west here met the trade wagons from the east to barter, trade for furs, gamble, drink, frolic, pray and scheme. The Indians, Delaware and Iroquois brought in by the Hudson Bay Company, Snakes, Bannocks, Gros Ventre, Flatheads, Nez Perce, Crows, and Chinooks here made their first contact with the white man. The warring Blackfeet did not participate. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company, Hudson Bay Company, Captain Bonneville, Wyeth and free trappers controlled the trade. The people of God, Marcus and Marcissa Whitman, Mr. and Mrs. Spalding, Samuel Parker, Father DeSmet, Jason Lee, and W. H. Gray tempered the hilarity. Jim Bridger, Milton and Bill Sublette, Tom Fitzpatrick, Joe Walker, Joe Meeks, Kit Carson, Baptiste Gervais, Bob Jackson, Moses (Black) Harris, Lucien Fontenelle, Etienne Provost, Henry Fraeb, Andry Dripps, Robert Campbell, Henry Vandenbury, Sir W. D. Stewart and the artist A. J. Miller were all part of this and left their names imbedded in the annals of the West. Scattering for the value of a beaver plew and to see what was beyond the horizon, their trails became the highways of an empire at the cost of many a violent death. |
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