Belt Valley times. [volume], April 10, 1924, Page Page Seven, Image 7

About Belt Valley times. [volume] (Armington, Mont.) 1894-1977

Image provided by: Montana Historical Society; Helena, MT

                
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In "The Covered Wa^on "?
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By JOWN CH-CKtNSON SHERMAN
COMPEER—AND RIVAL
O "OLD JIM" BRIDGER. "Teller ol
Tall Yams—"
They're classics still, these latte»
days—
Sir George Gore, straight-faced, r~ad
"Munchausen's Tales"
By Rocky Mountain campfire's blaze
Sale "Old Jlrn," scornful : "Rassel o'
big lies!
That critter's dogoned bad mistook.
An' suyl Some tilings I seen myself
__ w'd read
More hlfulutln' In a book—
Tellcrstun cliff o' rock ye kin see thru;
HuU herd o* pickled huffier in Salt Lake;
Gran' Canyon, where the moon Is always full.
Wake-np Gorge—echo comes back nex' mornln';
Boilin' water runnln' from Ice-col' spring,
V An - Alum Crick, what shrunk my pony's feet—
They'd make a man sit up and look."
A
V
You may know much or little or nothing about
James Bridger. You probably know considerable.
If you belong—
Out where the world Is In the making.
Where fewer hearte with despair are aching—
That's where the West begin!
Where there's mere of singing and less of sighing,
Wi.ere there's more of giving and lesa of buying
Anl a man make's friends without half trying—
That's where the West begins.
For that Is the West of today, ns Arthur Chap
man has sung It, and there Bridget's name, though
he has been dead these forty years und mure. Is
still one to conjure with.
— If you are n stuoem of Americana you know
that the history of the United States cannot bo
told without the story of Bridger and tils fellow
explorers, trappers and fur-traders west of the
Mississippi -*-*
If you are a "movie fan," you may have seen
"The Covered Wagon," and know Bridger as pre
sented In that motion picture production.
The Immediate motive of this article is the fact
that Mrs. Virginia Bridger Hahn of Kansas City,
Kans., Brldger's only surviving child, has brought
«suit for damages of a million dollars against "The
Covered Wagon" because of its presentation of
her father. According to the petition In the suit.
It Is reported, the motion picture production de
picts Bridger as a heavy drinker and a person who
often became Intoxicated and as living with two
squaws. Mrs. Hahn charges that her parentage
Is brought Into question; that her name is dis
graced, and that she suffers great humiliation be
cause her father la shown In several carousals.
She asserts that her father was an upright, honor
able man, who was never known to drink to excess.
The purpose of this article Is not to try out of
court the case of Mrs. Hahn against the Famous
Flayers-Lasky corporation and the Paramount Pic
tures corporation. It* sole purpose Is to show that
James Bridger, drunken or sober, Is an American
Immortal—and why.
"The Covered Wagon" is a picture based upon
historical novel of thçt «»me name by the late
Emerson Hough, an American novelist and nature
writer. It depicts fae progress of a caravan over
the famous %>reeln Trail." Aa a whole It Is S
»
\
powerful and touching picture of the times—in
Portland the people In the theater rose In response
to some of Its most stirring scenes.
presented
on the screen by Tully Marshall Is disconcerting
and perplexing, to say the least, to both hero-wor
shlper and student of history. He drifts In from
the desert, shabby, uncouth, rather msudltn and
quite grotesque, with a predilection for hard liq
uor and squaws. His prod u est achievement seems
to be symbolised In his ability to shoot a tin cup
of tlqnor from tbe head of a boon companion after
• drinking-bout
James Bridger and his tiroes roust be seen in
perspective. I The history of tbe United States
weat of tbe Mississippi begins with the Spanish
explorations of the Sixteenth centnry In the South
west The French of the Seventeenth century at
tempted to build on Iplsnd empire along tbe St.
Lawrence, Great Lakes, Mississippi and the Gulf
of Mexico, They lost the St. Lawrence region to
4 mi British. The RevelaJtoo fixed tbe western
I
Rwanda r f of (he American Colonies 81 the Mlaato
sippl The French, under Napoleon, staged a second
attempt at emplre-hulldlng. thU time from New
Orleans
forced to choose between war and colonisation,
sleeted to fight fie ha sold to the United Sts tea
UfaOOO.OOO the territory between the
weat at t be Mteataolppf Napoleon.
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JSrtdÿer Shown in"T/t& Cbrerredh&fon"
Texas, the Southwest and California were Span
**h- Canada
w «s "No Man's Lund," with Russian, Spaniard.
Britain md American all striving for a foothold.
The "Undiscovered Country" of the Louisiana Pur
chase was American.___—
The French trl-color came down and Old Glory
went up over St Louis March 10, 1804. With a
cheer, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, waiting
impatiently on the American side of the Mlssls
slppi, «et forth on Its historic exploration to aee
what the United States hud got for Its fifteen mil
lions. It wintered the mouth of the
British. The Pacific Northwest
I&hJCWZTioCR J&VM
Columbia and arrived at St. Louts lute In 1800,
returning us from the dead.
The nation rejoiced. And thereupon, the Ameri
can people, with the realization that the Louisiana
Purchase was In truth a "Delectable Land,"
thrilled with their first full vision of their destiny
and resolutely set their faces toward the setting
sun—thenceforth- to b e cont ent-w ith n o thing l ess
alive with beaver clear to Its headwaters ta n»
Rockies. And thereupon began the Age of the
Trapper which was to lust for forty years.
The trapper, os blind In his wuy as the Span
iard who saw nothing unless gold, saw nothing but
fur—and trod on the gold thut In the next stage
of development was to call out the prospector, to
be followed In turn by the settler and civilization.
It was the American free tra
out the land and established t
of travel. By 1830 the trapper knew the West;
any geographical discovery after that was a dis
covery only In the sense that It resulted in pub
licity.
The return of Lewis and Clark In 1806 spurred
American fur-traders to activity. Manuel Lisa of
St. Louis—adroit ami masterful "Father Manuel—"
than a clean sweep from ocean to ocean,
Lewis and Clark reported the Missouri to be
made a successful trip up the Missouri and In 1808
organized the Missouri Fur Company. John Jacob
Astor organized In New York the same year tbe
American Fur company. Astor's plans were of
world-wide scope—the founding of Astoria on the
Columbia ; the shipping of furs to Chinn ; return
cargoes of tea and silk to New York. Lisa died
In his prime In 1820; the Missouri Fnr Company
lasted until 1830, when it was crowded out by ths
Rocky Mountain Fur Company and the American
Fur Company.
James Bridger, born in 1804 in Virginia, sp
pears upon the scene In 1822, when the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company was organized in St. Louis
by Oen. William H. Ashley. A youth of eighteen,
he was one of Ashley's profit-sharing associates,
with Smith, Jackson, Provost, tbe Subiettea. Fltz
Patrick, Campbell and Beckwourth— «H of whom
r who first spied
practicable routes
r.
became famous.
•Bridger gained his title of respect—"Old Jim"—
before he was thirty. In twelve months of 1828-4
he made a circuit of S.000 miles, extending from
the Mississippi to California and from Kansas to
Montana. He discovered Booth Pass through the
Wyoming Rockies In 1823 and Great Salt Lake In
1824. He rediscovered, about 1880, the Yellow
stone, first seen by John Colter In 1807 and
laughed off the map as "Colter's HelL"
It was Ashley who superseded the stationary
trading post by the caravan and annual rendes
By 1830 Bridger was a directing partner.
tzpatrick
it of the
•h bad
ver la
vous.
In 1832 he and Milton Souhlette and
bought out Ashley. In 1884 Astor got
American Fur Company because tbe I
Invented a way to substitute silk for
top-bats. HU successors bought ont Bridger and
!,!» Has.- *,i. ■* n, ... Mountain Fur Coin
mOB/fr- -
In 1848 Brtdger established Fort Brtdger In ths
ralley of tbe Black Fork at the Groan river In
Utah. Fort Brtdger was not an Indian tradtag
poet but was a hones of accutnmodatkia for set
tlors pressing weat over the Oregon Trail It was
the first of Its kind and marked the passing at
the trapper and tha beginning at a new era.
Brtdger opened tha Overland Route by »rtdgeris
pm to Sait Lake. Be guided Oen. Albert fltadnsy
jobnoou's punitive «pedRloa
With a buffalo skin and a piece of charcoal, he
will m«p out any portion of this Immens, region,
and d.lln.al. mountains, streams and the circular
valleys called "holes' with wonderful accuracy.—
Capt. J. W. Gunnison. U. 8. A.
Bridger sold out at Ft. Brtdger In 18r>0 and
moved Jo Jackson County, Miaan nrl,—U*- bought
• big farm and built a large residence. He had
an Indian wife and several children. He kept
open house. Vlrglnla Brldger was married there
Ia lS84 to Capt. Albert Wachsman. The wedding
was a big social event Captain Wachsman died
In 1883 and In 1892 she married Frank Hahn.
Bridger died In 1881 and his grave In Washington
Park cemetery, Kansas City, Is marked by a mon
ument erected nnd Inscribed by General Dodge.
According to General Dodge, Bridger had three
Indian wives—one at a time and all regular—a
Flathead, a Ute and a Snake. Mrs. Hahn 1# the
daughter of the second wife, the Ute, to whom
Bridger was married at Ft. Bridger by the famous
Jesuit, Father de Sroet
Brldger's career reads like a fantastic romance
and the roost fantastic thing about It Is this:
"Old Jim'' Bridger Is an American Immortal be
cause of his fantastic "Tull Yarns." The West
may forget hin» as "the uncrowned king of ail
the Rocky Mountain scouts, guides, trailers. In
dlan fighters, trappers and plainsmen from the
Thirties to the Seventies,'' But his "Tall Yarns''
will always be told In lbs West to each succeeding
generation.
"Old Jim" led a dual life. He was apparently
equally devoted to fact and fiction. When he
told fact he was exact. His spoken work had
the confidence of white man and Indian alike.
His maps were invariably correct. When he
swapped yarns with old cronies or could get the
ear of a tenderfoot, his adventures were limited
only by the powers of his Imagination. And he
never played n bigger joke on a greenhorn than
be played on himself, for when be told of the won
ders of the Yellowatone an admiring public burst
into laughter over "another of 'Old Jim's' tail
yarns"—and refused to believe a single word,
go Jim. making the best of a bad joh, concoct
ed the "obsidian cliff" yarn and added It os the
crowning wonder of the Yellowstone. It Is prob
' ably the most popular of all h's "Tall Yarns" and
is too well known to need telling here. The "herd
o' pickled buffler" was snowed in by a seventy-day
storm and frozen solid. In the spring Jim rolled
the carcasses Into Salt Lake and supplied the
Utes with meat for two years. The Ice-cold spring
was high up and the water ran down-hill so fast
that It was boiling by the time ft reached the foot
of tt« mountain. The alum creek shrunk up hl»
pony's feet to points, so that the animal stuck
when he hit the trail.
Can Imagination conceive of a situation more
unique than Sir George Gore, with a perfectly
straight face, reading "Munchausen's Tales" tc
Jim Brtdger beside a Rocky Mountain campfire?
Yet the Incident Is strictly true, as Is Jim's corn
most and rival boast. Sir George was a noted
Irish sportsman who hunted for two year» In the
Hock lea. 1854-5. with J
for guide, philosopher
and friend. Tbe Gore
He traveled with « refine# of fifty and outfit
to correspond. He dlnel In state late la tbe
evening and ft was bU practice after dinner fa
rand to Jim from ths groat books of the world.
Imagine bis Inward delight In reading from the
biggest liar at all print to the champion Unr sf
Is named for him.
th# ffm
In 1857.
companion of Gen. Grenville M
Dodge in hla Union Pacific surveys
•nd in his Indian cam paigns of
1805-0.
These
He waa the guide nod
•re some of the things
James Bridger did. They do not
real on tradition, but are recorded
In standard contemporaneous his
torical works,
llere is a bit from General
Dodges description of Bridger:
Bridger was a very companion
able man. in person he was over
al* feet tall, spare, straight as an
arrow, agile, rawboned and of pow
srful frame, eyes gray, hair brown
and abundant even In hla old age.
with expression mild and agreeable
He was hospitable and genaroua and
waa aiwaya trusted and reaped*A
Here nre two other contemporary
expressions of opinion about-Bridg
er:
A born topographer and cartog
rapher.—Capt. W. F, Reynold«, U.
8. A., topographical engineer.
V
i
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Turk s Rest on Friday
The Turks have at lust effected a
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Booklet FBSB has tMTw.at»«*.,
BILLINGS, NO. 18-1924.
W. N. U
Moa
The moa was a wingless bird found
In New Zealand, somewhat like aa
ostrich in appearance. It varied from
the site of a turkey to birds 12 feet
in height. Th«y were edible and thetr
extermination more than 500 years
ago Is probably due to thtit fact.
Even at this stage of the game Um>«
nre men who deny that George Wash
ington ever owned a hatchet.