Читать книгу Vigilante Days and Ways. The pioneers of the Rockies; the makers and making of Montana and Idaho онлайн

111 страница из 135

JAMES STUART

Who set the first sluices in Montana

“On the twenty-fifth of June, 1862, news reached us that four steamboats had arrived at Fort Benton loaded with emigrants, provisions, and mining tools, and on the twenty-ninth Samuel T. Hauser, Frank Louthen, Jake Monthe, and a man named Ault, who were the advance guard of the pilgrims to report upon the country from personal observation, came into our camp. After prospecting on Gold Creek for a few days, Hauser, Louthen, and Ault started for the Salmon River mines by way of the Bitter Root Valley. Jake Monthe, that harum-scarum Dutchman who wore the hat that General Lyon had on when he was killed in the battle of Wilson’s Creek, continued prospecting along Gold Creek.

“Walter B. Dance and Colonel Hunkins arrived on the tenth of July, and on the fourteenth we had the first election ever held in the country. It was marked by great excitement, but nobody was hurt—except by whiskey.

“On the fifteenth, Jack Mendenhall, with several companions, arrived at Gold Creek from Salt Lake City. They set out for the Salmon River mines, but having reached Lemhi, the site of a Mormon fort and the most northern settlement of the ‘Saints,’ they could proceed no farther in the direction of Florence owing to the impassable condition of the roads, so they cached their wagons, packed their goods on the best conditioned of their oxen, and turned off for Gold Creek. They lost their way and wandered about until nearly starved, when they fortunately found an Indian guide, who piloted them through to the diggings. On the twenty-fifth Hauser and his party, having failed to reach Florence, also returned nearly starved to death.”