Seventy Years on the Frontier Part 23

A resident now of La Crosse, Wis., Doctor Powell has a large practice there, resides in an elegant home, and is for the fourth time mayor of that beautiful city, and one of the most popular men in the State, socially and politically.

The doctor has been a most extensive traveler, in this country and abroad, and yet each year, for a couple of weeks, entertains as his guests the tribe of Winnebago Indians, of whom he is still the medicine chief, and who make a pilgrimage to see him, consult him as to the affairs of their people, and show him devoted respect during the time they are encamped upon his grounds, where he has a place set apart for them.

A handsome man, of splendid physique, one who has known a strange life of adventure, he is yet as gentle as a woman, and ever generous to those with whom he comes in contact; and this tribute to his worth as a man and skill as physician and surgeon he most justly deserves.

CONCLUSION.

A SUMMING UP OF THE HAPPENINGS THAT OCCURRED OR TRANSPIRED IN EVERY DECADE, COMMENCING WITH THE TWENTIES AND ENDING WITH NINETY.

There was but little occurred of very great note west of the Mississippi during the twenties. The State of Missouri was admitted into the sisterhood of the States in the beginning of the twenties; after that there was very little of note that transpired during the twenties, with the exception of a few Indian scares on the frontier of Missouri, which, as a rule, were brought about without any real cause, and some trapping expeditions going west to the Rocky Mountains to trap for beaver fur, and also trading expeditions to Santa Fe, in New Mexico. With those exceptions, everything went along as quiet and almost as calm as a summer morning. In those days the entire community west of the Mississippi River, as well as the States east of it, were self-sustaining, producing all that they consumed in clothing and food, in their own homes, and I might say that this state of things also existed during the term of the thirties. Very little of note occurred outside the regular course of events save the Blackhawk war upon the Upper Mississippi and the appearance of steamboats in the Missouri River, as far west as the west border of the State of Missouri, which commenced in the early thirties, and became a very large source of transportation and pa.s.senger travel, and there was also, in the commencement of the thirties, some Mormon elders that came to the county of Jackson, in Missouri, bringing with them the revelations of their prophet Joseph Smith, and claimed that they had been sent to that county by the direction of the Lord to their prophet to establish the Zion of the Lord, or a "New Jerusalem," and, of course, a new church, which has since kept its existence until the present time, with its headquarters now in Salt Lake City, Utah. With the arrival of steamboats in the Upper Missouri, farmers commenced to raise hemp and other commodities that they could s.h.i.+p to St. Louis and New Orleans upon the steamers, which was the commencement of the people in that State to market the surplus that they could produce upon their farms; but the advantage of this trade or business only applied to the farmers and producers living in the river counties (I mean the counties located on the river), as it was too costly to haul their products upon wagons and with teams for any great distance; so the steamboat transportation could only be very beneficial to the counties, as above stated, the interior portions of the State having to plod along very much as was the case before steamboats came into use. There was no finer pa.s.senger travel ever inaugurated than the accommodations that travelers enjoyed as pa.s.sengers upon those floating palaces, and I have lived to see them come and go, so far as their operations upon the Missouri is concerned. The Missouri afforded nearly 3,000 miles of water navigation, measured by the windings of the river. I have traveled on steamboats from its mouth, or St. Louis, to the head of navigation at Fort Benton, in Montana.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RETREAT ON THE COLORADO OF MAJOR JOHN D. LEE, THE MORMON.]

Now, commencing with the forties, there was nothing of great moment happened until the great freshet of '44, which was the largest flood that has been known in the Missouri, about the mouth of the Caw, in the last seventy-five years, and I think that there never has been in the history of the country as great a flood in the Missouri at that point.

In '46 the Mexican War came up, and produced quite a stir among the business men upon the west border of the Missouri, as at that time there was no Kansas and Nebraska, the whole country being called "the Indian Territory" west of the State of Missouri. The Santa Fe trade, by this time, had become a regular annual business, and men had learned how to outfit wagons and teams so as to carry large amounts of merchandise and Government stores from the Missouri River to Santa Fe, N. M. and when General Donathan organized his regiment of troops, by the authority of the Governor of the State of Missouri, to march to Santa Fe, N. M., he found no trouble, neither did the Government, in securing all the transportation necessary to meet any emergency that might arise, with a plain and well-beaten road the entire route that they had to travel, this road having been opened by the merchant-trains in previous years.

In '47 the Mormon leader, Brigham Young, with a company of his elders and members of the church, left the Missouri River in the early spring and traveled 1,000 miles into the interior of the country, and formed a colony in that year in Salt Lake Valley, and named the city that they found Salt City, which proved to be a half-way house, as we might call it, between the Missouri River and the Pacific Coast, which proved of great advantage to the emigrants who left the Missouri in the spring of '49 to reach the gold-fields of California; for it was in '49, or rather the winter of '48, when the placer gold in California was discovered, and it was on this account that '49 became one of the most eventful years of the forties, the Mexican War having closed, and peace negotiations established in '48, which gave the United States the entire domain of the Pacific Coast lying north of the line now dividing Old Mexico from the United States. There were vast numbers of brave and daring citizens from almost every State in the Mississippi Valley who attempted to reach California by the overland route, and at no time, not even during the Mexican War, up to '49, had there ever been any overland travel to compare with that of '49. Tens of thousands of emigrants or gold-hunters left the west border at that time, outfitting themselves, some with ox-teams and some with mules and the best wagons that could be found in the market, loaded to the guards with supplies of food and clothing to make the trip and return, for at that time none of them expected to remain or make their homes in California; if so, it must have been a very small percentage of the number. Many of them died with cholera on the way; the large majority, however, reached their destination, but many of them through great suffering and privation from one cause or another. One of the misfortunes that attended the majority of them was want of experience in traveling their animals; they started off in too big a hurry, and pressed their teams too much at the outset, the result of which was, many of their animals died from fatigue, caused by overtraveling, long before they reached the Pacific Coast, the result of which was to leave on the road, or rather in the road, often the valuables that they had secured in the outset for their comfort and preservation when they reached the land of gold.

The year '50 was also a very fatal year to emigration, for it did not cease with '49, but the success of the "forty-niners" in gathering gold proved to be a great inducement to the country to continue the movements of '49 in the way of outfitting and emigrating to the Pacific Coast; in fact, it continued in a greater or smaller degree during the entire fifties; but in the year '50, as in '49, there were great numbers died with cholera. It was fatal among the emigrants from their starting point from Missouri till they would reach the Rocky Mountains, after which time the cases of death from cholera were very few compared with what they suffered upon the plains before reaching the mountains. There were but few cases that occurred after they reached the Sacramento Valley in California. Instead of returning, as the most of the gold-seekers intended to do on leaving their homes, they found California a delightful climate, with rich and fertile valleys, and many, very many of them concluded, after having a year's experience in the country, to become citizens, and a little later in the fifties, there were a great many people in the Western States who sold their homes and started with their families for the golden sh.o.r.es of the Pacific--in other words, for California--in view of adopting that State for their future homes. I was acquainted with numbers who did so, and who I have since met at their homes in California, who were delighted with the change that they made, and it is a very common thing now, after the country has been settled so many years, to find numbers of people there who think that California is the only country fit to live in.

Returning to the fifties, there was nothing of great note happened until the admission of Kansas and Nebraska in 1854, when floods of emigrants, mostly from the Northern States, pa.s.sed into those Territories. A number, however, were from the Southern States, and held pro-slavery views.

In '56 what is known as the Kansas war occurred, from the invasion of men from Missouri and other States.

In '57 and '58 the Mormon war occurred, when Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston was sent to Utah with an army of 5,000 regulars.

In 1859 the great Comstock mine was developed, and it added to the currency of the world between one and two hundred millions of dollars in gold and silver. Also in '58 began the Pike's Peak excitement, which resulted in the settlement of Denver.

In 1860 the election of Abraham Lincoln was followed, in '61, by the breaking out of the Civil War.

In '62 the initial steps for the establishment of the Union and Central Pacific railroads were taken, and the idea was fulfilled in '69. Daily stages were put on in 1859 from the Missouri River to Denver and Salt Lake.

It was during the sixties that the telegraph was established across the continent, following in the track of the Pony Express.

Gold was discovered in Montana in the sixties, resulting in the settlement of that Territory.

During the seventies and eighties, the most important happenings in our country were the remarkable growth of the railroad interests.

THE END.