Our trip west following the Oregon Trail was more tedious and boring than it was dangerous or exciting as the route we followed was well established from over twenty years of westward migration. It was dotted with army posts and we were careful and experienced travelers, so our hardships were few. The only events of significance that interfered with our march were mostly weather related. It snowed on us a couple of times and we were forced to stop twice because heavy rains had made fording a creek inadvisable for a day or two.
The Oregon Trail did not lead straight towards the northwest. Instead, it followed the easiest to travel route that generally headed in that direction. The route we actually followed was mostly through river valleys and flat stretches of featureless prairie between rivers. We cut across the northeast corner of Kansas following the Little Blue River on up to the southeastern corner of Nebraska. When we reached the south side of the Platte River we turned west and followed it until it reached the North Platte River. Three weeks travel found us deep in the Nebraska territory. From that point forward we stopped at the small towns that had sprung up along the trail looking for a place for us to settle. We were sorely disappointed at every stop. The vast, featureless prairie was bereft of trees and uninviting to us, as were the sod huts of the homesteaders, so we kept moving further westward.
One of our few pleasant diversions along the way were the two occasions we encountered a huge herd of bison grazing directly in our line of march. The first time we ran up on a herd we were all in awe at the sight as buffalo stretched out before us in every direction as far as we could see. JC estimated that there were at least twenty thousand animals in the herd. The large shaggy creatures were magnificent to behold. More importantly, they represented an excellent source of fresh meat. I felled one of the beasts both times we encountered them with long range shots from my Enfield.
We stopped for a day at the site of each kill to skin and butcher the buffalo. Butchering the bisons was a large task even with many hands doing the work. Ma was appalled at the amount of meat we had to bury beside the trail. I regretted it too, but we did not have the time or resources to properly cure or render the meat. Instead, we slice off the best cuts and hung them from a rope we stretched between two wagons to bleed them out. Each of our kills provided us with a week worth of nourishment. We turned the night of each encounter into a feast and celebration of our good fortune. We saw evidence along the trail that others did not feel the same respect for the buffalo that we did. At one point we had to actually turn and skirt around the site of a mass buffalo hunt. We were forced to turn from the horrible stench of scores of bloated dead and skinned buffalo right in our path. My mother actually cried at the senseless waste of food.
Our only other excitement came when we were chanced upon by a party of twenty or so Red Indians four weeks after we departed Missouri. The Indians blocked our path and I was nervously preparing for a fight. JC calmed me somewhat by telling me they were probably not interested in a fight or they would have already attacked us. We halted our small convoy and JC nonchalantly rode out to powwow with the braves. JC could communicate with the savages in the sign language the Indians employed because of his service with the 2d Cavalry.
I shooed the women and children into the wagons. I stood by with my Enfield at the ready and watched as JC and one of the Indians gesticulated back and forth. After a few minutes the red man handed JC something and JC in turn passed the brave the Spencer rifle from his scabbard and a double handful of cartridges from his saddlebag. The two men exchanged some sort of ritualistic grasping of the forearms then the braves wheeled their horses and thundered off with a great deal of whooping and yipping. JC sat motionless astride his mount until the Indians were well away from us before he turned around and cantered back to the wagons.
"Those were Comanche, Jeb my boy, the fiercest of the redmen. If they can not find anyone else to fight they will wage war on each other. Because of their nature the tribe is relatively small and they roam from Canada to Mexico making it exceedingly rare to encounter them. They are on their way to count coup on a band of Kiowa about a days ride south of here. The War Chief saw my Spencer and wanted to trade. I did not have much choice about taking his deal, but it was a good one."
The deal JC was forced to take was a fancy gold Elgin pocket watch on a beautifully wrought chain. It was about the nicest timepiece I had ever seen, even discounting the blood still staining the gold tasseled fob. The watch was easily worth four times the money the Spencer was worth, but the watch was a luxury we did not need while, as our experience with Pollard Cummins' hired killers proved, we probably needed every weapon and round of ammunition we had.
Little Alice Coleen McDougal was also a cure for some of the tedium we experienced. Alice was not Joshua's eight years of age as I had thought. She was in fact, ten-years-old. She was smart as a whip and a tomboy of the first order. She had no interest in anything that Ruth, Rose or Carol fancied, even though they were all close to her in age. Alice was also a bundle of mischievous energy. We soon learned that it was best to keep her occupied lest she find some way to amuse herself. Alice and I became boon companions somehow and spent many an hour walking together or sitting together in the driver's seat of the wagon when it was my turn at driving. It was exceeding strange to me that she singled me out because, next to Curtis, I was the quietest person in the family and she was hands down the most talkative. Yet there we were, plodding along with her talking a mile a minute and peppering me with questions.
Ma organized classes for the children that she taught in the back of the wagon that Curtis drove. She held classes for the girls in the morning for two hours and for the boys two hours in the afternoon. Curtis was included in the boy's class and enthusiastically participated. Ma had purchase a half dozen small wood framed slates and a few boxes of chalk before we left Saint Joseph on which the children and Curtis did their ciphering and scribing. The classes made the time go faster for the children and the trip a little less boring. It also kept them out of our hair for a few hours a day.
We spent most of our evenings around a buffalo dung fire. We were all full of plans and ideas. Sean played his accordion and I sawed on my fiddle some as everyone else sang along. I spent my nights with sweet Rachael cocooned in blankets under our wagon as carol slept inside it. We made a curtain of canvass for the sides that gave us our privacy. Rachael and I did not have a relationship of burning passion. We had love between us, but the love I felt for her was not intensity that I felt with Mille Silvestry. Fool that I was, I thought Rachael felt the same about me. I found out later that her feeling were much different.
We continued moving west trying to find an alternative to the broad flat prairie. We finally found such a place when we passed out of Nebraska and into the Utah Territory in the area called Wyoming. We stopped at a trading post where the high plains butted into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in June of 1866 to lay in provisions and to rest our stock and ourselves. We had been traveling steadily for six weeks and had covered at least six hundred miles.
On our first visit to the trading post, JC, Sean and I met General Grenville Dodge. Dodge was a gregarious fellow and as full of himself as an overstuffed goose. Dodge was in the area surveying the route of the much ballyhooed Transcontinental Railroad. JC and Dodge were kindred spirits and in minutes were yakking away as if they were long lost brothers.
I left JC, Sean and Dodge in the trading post, with them having a drink and deeply absorbed in conversation. I did not want much to do with the former Union General once I found he had served under Sherman during the siege of Atlanta. JC was as excited as I'd ever seen him once he returned to our camp. He pulled me aside for a talk straight away.
"Jeb, from what the General was telling me, this might be the place we have been seeking. He told me of a low mountain valley north of here with forests, creeks, meadows and even a few lakes. The valley is unsettled because most of the territory is open ranch land and most of the settlers here run cattle for a living. The valley is too heavily forested for cattle ranching but it would be perfect for raising horses and mules. We can each file a claim to a section (six hundred and forty acres) for a hundred dollar fee. I figure that if we like the place, Sean, you and I can file for adjoining sections. Even Curtis might be able to file a claim. Dodge told me that the railroad was coming right through here in a year or so and that he had already commenced surveying a town on this very spot. He figures that soon people will be flocking here because of the railroad."
As I said, I did not share JC's enthusiasm for Dodge so it was harder for me to believe even a small part of his pronouncements. However, I was not about to dismiss what JC told me out of hand. For one thing, JC had an uncanny knack in finding good deals; for another, if this area did boom with the arrival of the railroad, my dream of a freight business could become reality.
"I have my doubts about the General's veracity, JC, but I'm willing to look at the land he mentioned. If it is suitable for us, we can show it to the family and see what they think," I said noncommittally.
Dodge magnanimously escorted us to the valley the next morning. It was located about ten miles from the trading post and I was exceedingly surprised when it turned out to be everything he described. As we rode through the valley beside the snow melt swollen, burbling creek, I could envision the family living here quite easily. As I explored on my own, JC, Sean and Dodge were in a serious discussion about the money to be made if Dodge's prediction of a boom in the area occurred. Discussions about money and becoming rich did not interest me. Sure, I wanted to be comfortable, but, more than that, I wanted my family and me to be happy and at peace for a change.
JC and I loaded the family up in a couple of wagons the next day and took them to the tranquil little valley. It was love at first sight for the women so we started making plans right there by the creek. Ma, Anne, Rachael and Florence were ecstatic about the spot and were happily planning on where our houses would be as we ate the picnic lunch they had prepared earlier. I was perfectly content to sit and watch as everyone else made plans. It was not that I did not care; I simply had nothing to contribute. I could not think of a single thing I could add at this point. I was alive, healthy and surrounded by those I loved. I even managed to drag a nice collection of books out here with me. That was plenty enough for me.
We moved our camp up hill about fifty feet from the creek's high watermark the next day and set about building a house. The plan called for there to be three houses eventually, but for now we needed to concentrate on one so we would have a place to survive the winter. We also needed a barn and fenced enclosure for the livestock and ma wanted a garden tilled for her to plant yesterday. Ma had brought vegetable seeds, seed corn and even some nuts to plant. She had the idea of transforming our place into a small slice of Georgia, complete with Hickory and Black Walnut trees.
One thing we weren't lacking was building materials. We had a thriving evergreen forest for lumber and all the stone we could ever use. The local stone was perfect for building because pieces flat on the top and bottom were commonplace and the stone was easy to shape with only a peening hammer and cold chisel. We dug a foundation about a foot wide and a foot deep and started carefully dry stacking the stones we had been gathering and shaping. Curtis and I fetched and squared the ends of the stones while JC and Sean fitted them together in the foundation trench. We had an ambitious plan to build a house twenty feet wide and forty feet long so we needed plenty of stone just for the foundation. Also, because we did not have mortar to bond the stones together, we had to spend considerable time fitting and leveling as we went.
Sean had built a couple of houses previously so he took charge of our building efforts. JC had been involved in constructing army forts and fortifications so he had some construction experience as well. I knew beans about any of it, but I was young, strong and willing so I pulled my share of the load. Building the house was a family affair as the women and children pitched in enthusiastically.
We finished the foundation in five days. Curtis, Alice and I went into the forest on that fifth day and started felling tress for the exterior walls. While we were looking for and cutting long, straight, eight inch diameter logs, JC and Sean finished the foundation and helped Ma and the other ladies level and pack the dirt floor. Curtis and I dropped the trees with a big two-man crosscut saw then the three of us used axes and hatchets to clean the tree of limbs and bark. When three logs were ready I would hook them to the pair of mules we had with us and Alice would walk them back to the creek. We averaged about four trees an hour that way. It wasn't a torrid pace by any means, but the logs we were sending were all thirty to forty feet long and every inch of them was usable.
We had been building for seven days and were resting on the Sabbath when we received our first visitors and met our first neighbors. It was about two in the afternoon and we were all sitting in the shade of one of the big wagons discussing how large to make the barn when a young man not much older than I, two women about the same age, two toddlers and a swaddled baby rolling up in a farm wagon. The women in our family were especially happy to meet the two younger women and dragged them and their children off straight away. The young man, Abraham Tellers, walked over to our home site and took an appraising look around.
"You have made a good start but you still have much to do," he commented.
JC asked him what exactly needed to be done past what we had planned. He asked the right man, because Abraham was a wealth of information. Abraham's father had been a woodwright and Abraham had learned enough from him to become a competent carpenter and sawyer. With Abraham's guidance, we installed an interior load bearing wall that let us add a loft for the children to sleep in. The loft was built over the three bedrooms that were at the back of the house. Even better, Abraham offered to help and opined that the owners of the other two spreads near us would be happy to lend us a hand also. Abraham and his family stayed for dinner and we all got along famously. We men folk were sitting around in the shade of the canvass we strung between the two big wagons while the women and children were down by the creek. Abraham answered a question I'd been thinking when he said his wives and ours seemed to be getting along famously. I was set to ask him why he had two wives when JC answered for him.
"They are Mormonites, Jeremiah," he said, as if that explained everything. Abraham saw my quizzical look and explained further.
"We are followers of the Prophet Joseph Smith and we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We follow the example set by the prophets in the Old Testament such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who each had more than one wife. My wives, Sarah and Mary are sisters who wanted to stay together as family and, since I loved them both, I married both of them."
I nodded my understanding of what he said and expressed an interest in knowing more about his beliefs. Abraham laughed and clapped me on the back.
"I will see to it you learn more Jeremiah. After all, every Latter Day Saint is a missionary. But I warn you, plural marriage is only a small part of our teaching and a flimsy excuse to join us."
I felt my skin flush red hot in embarrassment and stammered out that I only wanted to learn more about his religion, not find an excuse for more than one wife. Abraham laughed and said he had understood me the first time and was only teasing me. I thought my mother might take exception to the Tellers' beliefs, but that was not the case at all.
"They are Christians, Jeremiah," she told me later, "and they worship the same Savior I hold in my heart. As far as I'm concerned, anything else matters not a whit."
Abraham showed up a couple of days later with two older men he introduced as our other neighbors Caleb Johnson and Joseph Barton. The back of the wagon the three men were riding in was filled with tools and the men certainly knew how to use them. Caleb latched onto Sean and began teaching him how to split shakes from eighteen inch long pieces of Mountain Juniper Tree. Abraham took Sean's place setting logs on the walls and Joseph went with Curtis and me to fell more trees. Joseph was also an Elder in the church. While we worked he talked to me about the Book of Mormon, the Prophet Joseph Smith and the man whose vision moved the church to Utah, Brigham Young. Brother Smith accepted the fact that I wanted to know more out of curiosity not from a desire to convert.
Our neighbors showed up two days a week for the next month. In that time we finished and moved into the house, fashioned some rough but serviceable furniture and completed the walls and roof of the barn. We threw a cookout on the Saturday following the roof going on the barn for our neighbors and their families to show our appreciation for their help. They accepted our invitation but they refused to accept any money for the work they did. Instead, they extracted a promise from us to help them next time they were building anything. We gladly agreed to that.
Throughout the summer, JC and Sean went to the trading post every two weeks to meet with Grenville Dodge. I was invited but I had absolutely no interest in their plans to establish a town here. It was enough for me that there would be a railroad station and an opportunity to haul freight. Dodge saw immediately that JC was just the man to ride herd on establishing the town. By the end of the summer the town of Cheyenne, Wyoming was surveyed and laid out. Dodge laid out the town so that the Union Pacific Railroad tracks formed the southern border. Our homesteads were seven miles northwest of the proposed location of the railroad's station house.
The rest of the summer passed rapidly. We had much to do to prepare for our first Rocky Mountain high plains winter but with everyone pitching in we settled in for the cold in excellent shape. We had a smoke house full of meat, plenty of game to hunt, a root cellar full of fruits and vegetables and a pantry laden with paraffin sealed jars of preserved vegetables. Ma and the wives of our neighbors traded their specialties back and forth and we still had dry goods we had brought west with us. Our house was snug as a bug in a rug with the log walls chinked inside and out to keep out the wind and leave in the heat. The windows of the house did not have glass in them yet, but we had tightly fitted shutters both inside and out. We had plenty of fire wood, cut, split and stacked near the back of the house. The barn and corral were completed and we had laid in quite a bit of hay for the animals.
In late August, General Dodge came out and surveyed our land claims. Afterward, he and JC rode down to Denver to file them with the territorial government. With Dodge along, JC had nary a problem filing the four claims. While they were in Denver, JC and Dodge filed the paperwork for the incorporation of Cheyenne. The plat was approved and JC and Dodge were given the deed to the nine sections of land (one six hundred and forty acre section equals one square mile) that made up the proposed town. JC and Dodge were equal partners in the land. It was a good deal for Dodge, as he would receive one half of the proceeds from any land sales or improvements without lifting a finger, and he hadn't spent a dime on the entire project. It was an even better deal for JC because within two years he was one of the richest and most powerful men in Wyoming.
We had a beautiful autumn complete with nine gorgeous days of Indian summer after our first frost in mid October. The arrival of cold weather gave us time to rest and catch up with ourselves. Unfortunately, it also heralded the arrival of my problems. My problems started about the time I felt comfortable about the future of my extended family for the first time in over five years. Without them to worry about, I started to examine my own life and consider my happiness for a change. Try as I might, I could not think of a thing I wanted to do beyond having a small freight business. Even worse, my mind was a complete blank when I tried to think of something I wanted to accomplish personally. I did not want a wife and the thought of children scared me to death. I started feeling guilty that I was having my way with Rachael without a thought of marrying her. Rachael was a wonderful woman and she deserved a chance to start another family. Even though she insisted that she was fine with the relationship we had, I firmly believed that I was holding her back.
I began to fret that my lack of ambition coupled with my contentment with playing my fiddle and reading, made me pretty much of a no account. I was the high plains Nero, fiddling while all around me people burned with ambition. That feeling was exacerbated when I listened to JC, Sean and the women speak of all their plans for the future. Even my mother, now in her early sixties, talked about opening up a school for the children of the new neighbors we were expecting. I became even quieter and more withdrawn as November came and the first snow fell. I started spending most every day in the forest hunting and thinking. I was much more successful at hunting than I was at reaching conclusions.
Ma and Rachael sat me down near the middle of November and expressed the family's concern about me. It embarrassed me that I was causing the family to worry and it also irritated me that anyone thought it was any of their business. I didn't give a hint of either emotion though and stoically heard them out. Instead, I told them I was just in the doldrums because of the winter but that other than that I was fine. Ma said she thought I was suffering because the war had caused me to miss being young. I shrugged off that idea and repeated that I was fine. As I arose from my chair at the end of our little meeting, I decided that I was not going to stick around and inflict my unpleasant self on my family any longer.
Over the next week I was even more withdrawn and uncommunicative. I even moved out of the house and started sleeping in the barn. I secretly assembled those things I would need when I left and hid them in the barn. I wasn't taking all that much. I packed my fiddle, the folio of music, one pistol, my Enfield, A Spencer Carbine with fifty cartridges and one hundred dollars in gold and silver coins. I made myself a nice winter bedroll with a couple of blankets and one of our buffalo hides. I wrapped the bedroll in a six feet by six feet piece of canvas oil cloth and secured it with a twelve foot long piece of rope. From the kitchen, I took a frying pan and a small stew pot. I would purchase my provisions at the trading post as I passed by it. I did not have a specific destination in mind other than heading south.
I did not slip away from home this time as I had when I left to join the Army. Instead, on the morning of my twenty-first birthday, November 29, 1866, I announced that I was leaving for a while as we sat at the table eating breakfast. My announcement did not surprise any of the adults and of the children, only Alice was affected in any measurable way. While my plan to leave did not surprise anyone, everyone at the table opposed it and tried to talk me into staying. I was resolute though, and thirty minutes later I rode Zeke out of the barn leading a second mule loaded with my pack.
Everyone was standing on the porch as I walked by the house. Ma, Rachael and Alice were crying as I said goodbye. I promised I would return then rode off without a backwards glance.
Joe J