ROBIDOUX PASS AT SCOTT'S BLUFFS
The Last Fort Robidoux and the Overland Period
The classical fur trade era had come to a close by the early 1840's. The mountain men of the previous two decades, many of them descendants of the old voyageurs and coureurs du bois of the previous two centuries, had little choice but to seek other opportunities on the North American frontier. The demand for Buffalo, which had been abundant in great herds of millions along the central plains, replaced that for beaver and other small fur bearing animals. From the 1840's until the demise of the buffalo by the 1880's, buffalo hunting became a major form of exploitation upon the plains, to the point of near extinction of the North American Bison. Freighting of goods from the east to the new cities in California, Colorado and Utah, became another major occupation of the day before the advent of the railroads during the 1870's. The Conestoga wagon, the old "prairie schooner" became the new ship of the plains. The Conestoga complemented the Steam boat which could transport large quantities of goods to major collection-distribution centers along the major streams. From there, the great mule and oxen trains ferried the supplies across the long trails to the west. Rivers had to be crossed safely, and ferries were established at major crossings. Between the great wagon trains, stage coaches daily carried people, mail and money back and forth across the plains. Of course, the railroads brought an end to this entire era, and with the railroads, came a different kind of settler--no longer the homesteading pioneer, but the immigrant worker, the industrialist, and the city person.
About the same time the curtains came down on the Mountain man era, a new era dawned--the great westward migration had begun in earnest. Hunters and explorers led by the mountainman, made maps and wagon ruts that were soon followed by emigrants in increasing number who were following these same maps and roadways. Once famous mountain men acted as guides and scouts for these trains, or turned to freighting or ranching. A few staked themselves claims at river crossings and began operating ferries for the benefit of the pioneers who were charged a fee for the passage. Many mountain men once famous for their exploits "settled down" in relatively innocuous obscurity and became the proprietors of what were referred to as "road ranches"--combining horse and cattle ranching with providing services to greenhorn pioneers. These early sites represented the establishments of some of the first settlers of Nebraska, Kansas, and Wyoming--they were a curious amalgam of Indian, Creole and White, and of trading post, post office, cattle and horse ranch, and repair shop for the passing wagons.
It was in the early 1840's that the curtain came down on Antoine Robidoux's entire trade network in the Southwest. Growing hostilities by both and between the Indians and Spanish made further business there untenable and insecure. White settlers in California and Texas, and later into Utah, began encroaching more and more upon the old system. Louis Robidoux sold out his ranch and businesses at Santa Fe and took his family to Southern California the same year that the bottom fell out on Antoine, in late Fall of 1844. By this time, Joseph Robidoux had just platted his new town of St. Joseph and was seeing yearly diminishing returns from his furs and Indian trading. Brother Michel was upon the plains of Kansas and Nebraska, trading with the Pawnee and Iowa and other groups. According to folk legend, the post he had set up somewhere in Eastern Kansas was also attacked and destroyed by a hostile band of Indians. Brothers Francois and Isidore are little known during this time, but it is reasonable to conclude that they, with their sons, were still engaged in hunting, trapping and freighting upon the plains. In her early and in many ways seminal history of the Oregon-California, (The Wake of the Prairie Schooner: 1953), Irene Paden left the following account:
About the last week in May, along the valley of the Little Blue, early day pioneers were thrilled to the core by encountering the cortege of the returning fur traders. Not, of course, those from the famous yearly rendezvous on Green River--they would not return until late in the summer. These wagons were from the North Platte country and carried buffalo hides. They were often found to be the "Robidoux outfit"; and one of the famous brothers sometimes accompanied them, riding comfortably in a special equipage like a potentate. The rest of the concourse consisted of a long line of clumsy, ox-drawn carts piled with stiffened hides. These top-heavy cargoes of greasy wealth had high rounded contours that resembled marching elephants--and smelled worse. The piratical aspect of the attendant drivers was not reassuring; but they were generally helpful and willingly gave reports on road conditions, camp grounds, and Indian eccentricities. They also accepted letters (for a stipend) to carry back to the States and the nearest post office--and sometimes mailed them. (66)
But by this time, an established network of Meti's and Creole families had established their road-ranches within the region of the plains--from Oklahoma and Kansas as far north as Canada. They were into their third or even fourth generation by the time that the first California and Oregon pioneers began making their way in the early to mid-1840's. The Robidoux family was clearly a part of this nexus, especially as it existed triangulated by the trails which stretched along the western bank of the Missouri River as far north as Fort Pierre, westward to Fort Laramie, and from Fort Laramie further west along the Platte and all the way into Utah, and from Fort Laramie, South and South East along the North and South Plattes to where they meet, and from there down to Kansas and across again to the Missouri. To the north of this were more than 30,000 Sioux and Cheyenne in many independent Bands and their sacred lands of the Black Hills, to the East and North were the Blackfeet, the Arapaho, the Utes and Payutes.
One of the most successful and interesting of these later establishments was the Robidoux trading post near Robidoux Pass at Scott's Bluff. It was the last major enterprise of the always enterprising Robidoux brothers, before their exits and before their numerous progeny drifted the way of the wind. It came at the close of a near 80 year involvement in the early west--it represented an end at the very juncture that the new pioneer represented a beginning of a new west--one that was settled by farmers and townspeople, with well defined maps, with new laws, platted townships and land claims and government protection, and without the Indian warrior.
In the canyon, by the big spring, those travelers who passed between 1848 and 1852 found a blacksmith shop displaying the sign: "Tinware, by a. Rubidue." Proably this was Antoine, one of the famous Robidoux brothers. It was a real home, meant for permanence, and many diaries mention it..." (Paden, 149)
Robidoux's post at Scott's Bluff is interesting because it offers us a brief glimpse of the workings of the family as a quasi-business company in one point in place and time. As always, they strategically positioned themselves in a prime location in order to capitalize upon the trade and traffic that was available there. The choice of prime locations appears to have been a characteristic of the Robidoux story--whether this was at St. Louis, in Blacksnake hills, or across the continental divide in Taos, Fort Uncompahgre or Forts Ouray and Uintah. Just fifty miles east of Fort Laramie, they became essentially the first major trading post where emigrants could buy and sell, and repair their wagons, along the eastern side of the emigrant trails. They thus also became the new pioneers first introduction to the ways of the west--Christian pioneer families often startling and sometimes repulsed by the eating of dogs and the nakedness of Indian women
The Robidoux brothers seem to have chosen prime locations for other factors as well, including accessibility to Indian trade, availability of timber, water, and other local resources. Not the least of which is the scenic beauty of the locations thus chosen--which seems to have been a factor. It is not coincidental that most of these locations are now located on prime agricultural land.
Scott's Bluff represented a period of transition in a number of ways. It was not only a transition from the old beaver trapping expeditions to one of buffalo hides and robes, or of one from fairly amicable relations between Creoles and Indians to that of conflict between land-hungry white settlers and native Americans who viewed the land as the possession and creation of spirits and Gods. It was also a cultural transition from one style and mode to another, relatively alien way of life, and an historical transition that involved the demise of an early conception of the West and its bounties and opportunities, and the birth of a new conception of the West as something to be settled, developed and harnessed to human willpower. It was a transition for the Indian, who was systematically circumscribed onto reservation lands of ever decreasing areas, and for the Creoles who also felt their way of life, based upon the openness of the streams, forests and fields of the plains and mountains, increasing encroached upon and bounded by white settlement.
Many historians have superficially alluded to the business operations of the Robidoux brothers as a semi-organized enterprise, one that encompassed a vast region of the Western United States. From a cultural standpoint it is probably better to understand this sense of organization as one that is self-organizing in principle--there were few charters or explicit plans made between the brothers. Joseph was never elected president by the board. It was probably a case where they all pursued similar sets of interests, both collectively and individually, and when these interests became focal in a common or shared place and time--then they acted in unison and to some degree with a sense of organic solidarity. Different roles were mutually understood and often taken for granted. The six brothers were, by and large, cut from the same bolt of trade cloth, and they lived and acted within a larger cultural-historical context which structured, constrained and shaped their reactions and their behavior. That the brothers could and often did act independently is quite evident in the record.
The Robidoux post at Scott's Bluff is important not only for having been a period of transition, but it represented a nexus--a meeting ground of diverse and different ways of life. It was the fluorescence of the Western creole culture on the plains that had been probably twenty years in the making--this way of life is all but vanished today, but that it was well marked, distinctive and different from all that came after is clear.
The Scott's Bluff period lasted approximately from the mid-1840's until the mid-l850's. Evidence points to Robidoux's in the same region well before and well after this period, but it is during this decade at this place that the interests and activities of the Robidoux family became most focused.
The first and last historical source on the Robidoux's at Scott's Bluff are Merril Matte's publications, especially his Great Platte River Road and his article ""Robidoux's Trading Post at 'Scott's Bluffs'" in the Nebraska History Magazine, dated June, 1949. He chronicled more than three hundred emigrant accounts of the post, and conducted in-depth research of the area and on the Robidoux's of the area. Understanding of the Robidoux at Scott's Bluff is critical for it helps us not only to comprehend the style of business organization which they successfully utilized, but it provides a fairly detailed biography of the life of a trading post that was the direct outgrowth of the earlier trading posts and fur-trade forts of an early era.
Today, the exact locations and dates of the original sites are confused and unknown--it appears as if the Robidoux's had created several such posts in the area. At least two are definitely known. There was probably a Horse Creek Road Ranch, and possibly one or two more Robidoux sites at the other end of Scott's Bluff as well. According to a report in the Cragin Papers by one O. B. Wiggins, the Robidoux trading post on the Platte was the most easterly of the "Robidoux mountain forts" and was "on the south side of the Platte, close to the river and about opposite Chimney Rock. It was a square house of yellow clay adobe, with heavy walls. It was a better building than the fort of the French Canadian Beauvais, 5 miles east of Fort Laramie, and it faced north, toward the river." Besides this single report which is apparently a first hand account, no other piece of evidence associated with this post is known to exist. Though the date of this account is not known, it is presumably after the period of the Gold Rush in 1849. The detail of the description and location suggest the authenticity of the account. This account also interesting because it fairly precisely locates Beauvais ranch as being five miles east of Fort Laramie, presumably along the Platte River as well.
Only one journal account that I have found suggests the existence of a Robidoux trading post in the Scott's Bluff vicinity well before Robidoux Pass or Carter Canyon are reached.
The actual framework of involvement of the Robidoux's within this nexus, stretching from Fort Laramie and possibly down to the South Platte, may date from as early as 1835 until about 1865, and actually encompasses a span of about thirty years. The original Robidoux brothers were the grandfathers and patriarchs of this era, their sons and nephews, some of which were probably half-breeds, were the fathers, and there were several half-breed grandchildren. The grandfathers appear for the most part to have been active in their trading activities down to the days of the their death.
The site at Robidoux pass has been more or less identified and markers were placed at the site in 1994. On the marker for the Trading post it reads:
Evidence from several emigrant diaries, together with artifact found at the site, confirm the location of his new post at a point about 300 yeards north-northeast of here at the intersection of the big spring-fed ravine to your right, flowing north, and the smaller drainage descending eastward from the crest of the pass.
An article from the Mitchell Index, taken from the scrap book of one Paul Henderson, and which is dated May 31, 1928, goes into some depth in regard to the possible locations of the Robidoux sites in Scott's Bluffs. The author, generally credited to the editor of the paper, Mr. George Mark, set out in company with several others, his wife and another couple, for the purpose of locating the exact site of the blacksmith. They found in Robidoux pass "cinders yet reaming from the forge of that early day." The author ascribes this post to one "Basil Robideaux".
One of the early trappers was Jacques LaRamie, who trapped on what is now the Laramie River, murdered by Indians presumably in 1820 on the river which has since born his name, Robideaux, Robideaux, Bisonette, Gonneville and Hiram Scott were other early trappers... ("Location of Robideau's Smithy")
According to this author, "We have reliable information, however, that Robideaux abandoned his shop in Roubadeau Gap in about 1850 and that the Indians accomplished its destruction in 1852."
Apparently, there were two blacksmith shops in Roubadeau Gap, or, more likely, the blacksmith may have changed his location so at different times to occupy another place, as blacksmith forge cinders are to be found in two places. Through the valley formed by the hills both north and south of the Roubadeau valley opening into Cedar Valley at the east end terminating in the gap at the west there extends a canyon eastward from the gap. In this canyon there is water. Toward the west end of the valley and heading from the south wall there descends another canyon which empties into the main channel at a distance of possibly a mile. This lateral canyon is about half a mile west of houses occupied by the Oberlander family. The old trail ascends the valley from the east till near this lateral canyon from the south. This canyon is now crossed by a graded road over a bridge under which a rivulet flows from springs at near the upper end of the canyon but during the time of the use of the old trail this canyon could not be crossed, so the travel turned here to the south to the walls of the south hills, and circling the head of the canyon turned back north and then northwest to continue its course through Roubadeau Gap and on into the open Kiowa country.
The ascent from the east to circumvent this lateral canyon is very steep. Passing around the head of this canyon the trail descends for a short distance until it approaches more nearly the center of the main valley. Where the trail ascends the steep incline to circumvent the lateral canyon, there is a knoll with an excavated section in which the blacksmith shop and store was located and in which we picked up charcoal cinders. This place answers exactly the description of Howard Stansbury who made the trip in 1850.
It is noteworthy that the author believed Stansbury to have been mistaken, that "south" in his report must have meant "north" and that Robidouxs must have moved their post westward on the trail to Kowa creek or Horse creek, "and more particularly the former since the name Robideaux was associated with this creek. If the traffic at this time was being divided between the routes what more natural than that he should move to a point at or near the junction to catch the trade of both. This, of course, is only conjecture. It is related by other authorities that the day after Indians had destroyed Robideaux' abandoned blacksmith shop in Roubedeau Gap in 1852 the same band destroyed the trading post on the Kiowa."
The author notes precisely the record of travel by Howard Stansbury on his return from his expedition, but states the following:
But the shop in Roubadeau "at the top of the first hill" was not the only shop or the only trading post in that section, although it may have been the only one while it was in use. There are signs of another shop and another trading post. These are not near the trail as it winds above the head of the lateral canyon we have described, but are about a mile northwest from there down in the valley near the main canyon just above where the canyon from the south empties into it. Here there must have been a trading post for traffic with Indians, all of whom in their migrations would have to pass that way, that being the thoroughfare of those early days for passage between east and west on the south side of the river. Here by closely scrutinizing the ground there were discovered small beads such as the traders used in their dealing with Indians for their peltries. Charcoal cinders indicated there had been a blacksmith shop here--possibly another one to Robideaux' locations. Also there are remaining on the ground pieces of iron much rusted from exposure to the elements for upwards of a hundred years.
....Also at the site of the trading post above the angle where the two canyons come together someone has dug a deep hole because of so-called spiritualistic revelations that Robideaux had buried treasure there. So far as is generally known no treasure was uncovered, but the dirt from the well does cover the ground where the trading post stood and may hide a lot of such things as beads and the like which otherwise might be picked up.
...Near the site of the trading post in the valley there protrudes above the surface of the ground the stub of what appears to have been a cedar post. Cedar posts are a long time in decaying. The post was probably in use at the same time as the store. We know that Robideaux had his blacksmith and grog shop on the knoll by the spring in 1850, but so far the writer has not been able to ascertain when the other store was in operation."
This may have been the original site of the American Fur Company when it relocated to the Roubidoux pass area sometime in July or August of 1849, under the direction of Bruce Husband--it was clear that this site, perhaps too close to the Robidouxs, was not satisfactory to Andrew Drips, and it was later removed to the Fort John site in the Helvas Canyon during the following year.
Numerous visitors left interesting descriptions of the Bluffs, both before during and after the period of the Robidoux pass trading post. The area is a scenic by-way, noteworthy for the curious formations of the cliffs that run in a couple of ranges for a length of about 10 miles. It is also frequently remarked upon both for the existence of a spring within the area circumscribed by the bluffs, and for the frequent afternoon thunderstorms which blow up over them. The view from the top of Robidoux Pass or from Mitchell Pass is remarkable for the vista which it affords of the Platte River Valley and the mountains beyond.
One of the earliest accounts left of Scott's Bluffs comes from John Anderson's Diary and narrative, who was in company with William Sublette. They camped at what later became known as "Robidoux Spring." His diary dated May 28th, 1834 notes:
We are encamped a little below Scotts hill. Violent winds all day. So much so that we have a very short days travel. We have but 3 days to the Black hills--Scott an old trapper, was left here in sickness and died upon the plains to glut the maws of the merciless wolves. His companions reported him dead, when they left him, but confessed afterwards that he was living, but to much reduced to be carried any longer, hunger, that cold hearted monster, compelled them to desert him.
It is apparent that Hiram Scott was with the Ashley Fur Company when he was hired to lead a caravan to Bear Lake in 1827. He fell ill at the mouth of Labonte creek on the return journey. James Bruffee decided to make a buffalo boat and launch Scott down-river with two compatriots. The boat capsized at the rapids and the men lost their guns and equipment in some rapids. Bruffee passed them by and did not wait for the men. Bruffee reported that Scott had died some one hundred miles from where his bones and a blanket were found near the Bluffs in the following seasons. The Journal account expands a little upon this entry:
This place bears the name of an old mountaineer, who died here from sickness and starvation. The desertion and abandonment of this poor man, by his leader and employer, was an act of the most cruel and heartless inhumanity, uncalled for and unnecessary. His death has left here a traveller's land-mark, which will be known when the name of the canting hypocrite and scoundrel who deserted him, will be forgotten, or remembered only in hell. Two of his companions remained with him for several days, bearing him along as his weakness increased, and only left him when compelled by the want of food. The unburied corpse of poor Scott was found at this spot, having crawled more than two miles toward his father's cabin and his mother's home. The only witness, the only watcher of his death-agony, was the dark raven and the ever hungry wolf. And keen, sharp and eager was the watch. I know the name of the soulless villain, and so does God and the devel. I leave him to the mercy of the One, and the justice of ____. Had such a being a father? I know not; for the sake of humanity, let us hope that he never had a mother, but "dropped from the tail of a dung-cart." (Morgan, 105)
In 1839, the German explorer Wislizenus gave another early account of Scott's Bluffs:
Heavy down-pourings of rain often interrupted our journey. Almost daily we had thunderstorms, for which the Platte is notorious. One time we had to stay in camp almost all day on account of the rain; but by way of compensation we found a quantity of pine wood and cedar wood, washed down from the rocks on which it grows sparsely; and beside the blazing fire we laughed at the weather and forgot all discomfort. The next day the sky cleared. We travelled somewhat away from the river, toward the left, and enjoyed a picturesque landscape. All about were rocks piled up by Nature in merry mood, giving full scope to fancy in the variety of their shapes. Some were perfect cones; others flat round tops; others, owing to their crenulated projections, resembled fortresses; others old castles, porticos, etc. Most of them were sparsely covered with pine and cedar. The scenery has obvious resemblance to several places in Saxon Switzerland.
At noon we halted in a little valley where rocks from either side confronted each other at a distance of half a mile. A fresh spring meanders through the valley. We encamped on the hill from which the spring flows. the place had something romantic about it. All around grew pine and cedars, wild roses, gooseberries and currants; from the top of the hill one enjoyed a wide prospect. On the one side the Chimney and the whole chain of rocks we had passed showed themselves; on the other side, fresh hills. Before us lay the Platte. The magnificent surroundings, the clear sky and fresh antelope meat put us all in good humor. But increasing sultriness reminded us soon that we had not yet received our daily allowance of thunder showers. We traveled twelve miles in the rain that afternoon, and camped by the stream, at whose spring we had our noon rest. It was so swollen by the rains that we had to postpone crossing till the next day. The next morning we crossed it, as well as Horse Creek, only a few hundred steps further on, and then turned, over a long uninteresting hill, again toward the river. From the top of the hill we saw in the western distance the Black Hills, a chain of mountains we must cross later on. (63-65)
According to some historians (Thomas Green, 1940), and to Rufus Sage's account, Hiram Scott's bones were found not at the spring at Scott's Bluffs, but almost 10 miles due South of this at the Robidoux Springs in Robidoux pass.
John Bidwell, instigated by Antoine Robidoux and led by Fitzpatrick, visited the bluffs on June 19th, 1841:
We gradually receded from the river in order to pass through a gap in a range of high hills, called Scot's Bluff's, as we advanced towards these hills, the scenery of the surrounding Country became beautifully grand and picturesque--they were worn in such a manner by the storms of unnumbered seasons, that they really counterfeited the lofty spires, towering edifices, spacious domes and in fine all the beautiful mansions of Cities. We encamped among these envious objects having come about 20 miles.
Here were first found the mountain sheep; two were killed and brought to camp. These animals are so often described in almost every little School Book that it is unnecessary for me to describe them here.
Sunday, 20th. Passed through the Gap--came into an extensive plain, the beautiful scenery gradually receded from view--came to a creek called Horse--passed it, reached the river again--cool and winding--having come about 23 miles (33-4)
In 1842 Charles Preuss, cartographer of John C. Fremont visited Scott's Bluff, and his was the first accurate map of the area. He left the following description:
Fifteen miles from the Chimney rock we reached on of those places where the river strikes the bluffs, and forces the road to make a considerable circuit over the uplands. This presented an escarpment on the river of about nine hundred yards in length, and is familiarly known as Scott's bluffs. We had made a journey of thirty miles before we again struck the river, at a place where some scanty grass afforded an insufficient pasturage to our animals. About twenty miles from Chimney rock we had found a very beautiful spring of excellent and cold water; but it was in such a deep ravine, and so small, that the animals could not profit by it, and we therefore halted only a few minutes, and found a resting place ten miles further on. The plain between Scotts bluffs and Chimney Rock was almost entirely covered with drift wood, consisting principally of cedar, which, we were informed, had been supplied from the Black hills, in a flood five or six years since. (38-9)
James Clyman, old trapper who had traversed the area some twenty years before, left the following account of these Springs dated July 30th, 1844:
....Left the River and struck S. of W. 14 miles and encamped in the midst of Scotts bluffs By a cool spring in a romantic & picturesque valley surrounded except to the E. by high & almost impassably steep clay cliffs of all immagenary shapes & forms supped on a most delicious piece of venison from the loin of a fat Black taild Buck and I must not omit to mention that I took my rife and walked out in the deep ravin to guard a Beautifull covey of young Ladies & misses while they gathered wild currants & choke chirries which grow in great perfusion in this region and of the finerst kind
Roled out over the last ridge of Scotts Bluffs which is a ridge or connection of highland commencing on the river & running Southwardly as far as visably rising in many places from 600 to 1000 feet high formed of clay & a verry fine dead sand & occasionly a thin layer of Soft Limestone which las mentioned layers protects the Softer parts from the raves of Storms of wind & rain. The whole range apears to have been once the common level of the country but owing to solible Qualities of the earth the main Bulk now forming the low grounds have been carried away with the water which opperation is still in active opperation these hills are finely stored with game Such as Black tailed deer antelope mountain Sheep & some times Buffaloe Elk & grisled Bear I must not omit to mention a singular-Quantities of dry logs & wood the only reasonable conjecture with me was that the vally some 10 or 12 miles in (l)ength & 8 or 10 wide has no channel for the discharge of the water from the surrounding hills occasionally in winter become deeply frozen considerable snow falling which goes off with a sudden thaw all the mountain torrents come rapidly down charged with drift the water filling the wally diposits its drift on the Shores & Islans of the newly formed lake which soon finds a pasage through the sandy soil on which it rests we had a destinct & clear but distant view of the Black hills from the hights this morning made 14 miles & encamped on the river crossedhorse creek about noon.
On June 22nd, 1844, Joel Palmer visited Scott's Bluffs and left the following:
Since the 20th, we have traveled about sixty-two miles, and are now at Fort laramie; making our whole travel from Independence about six hundred and thirty miles. On the 22d we passed over Scott's Bluffs, where we found a good spring, and abundance of wood and grass. A party who had been trading with the Indians were returning to the States, and encountering a band of hostile savages, were robbed of their peltries and food. As they struggled homeward, one of the number, named Scott, fell sick and could not travel. The others remained with him, until the sufferer, despairing of ever beholding his home, prevailed on his companions to abandon him. They left him in the wilderness, several miles from this spot. Here human bones were afterwards found; and, supposing he had crawled here and died, the subsequent travelers have given his name to the neighboring bluff.
Lieutenant J. Carleton, under Kearney who with the mounted dragoons visited Fort Laramie and just missed Antoine Robidoux on his flight from the mountains, noted on June 12th, 1845:
The ground between Scott's Bluffs and the river, being too wet to be travelled over with wagons, we were forced to make a large detour to the left to pass through a gorge in rear of them. This was a hard day's work, it being thirty miles around--that is, we were obliged to travel fifteen miles south-west to the gorge, and then fifteen miles northwest before we could find grass enough for a night.
The weather being extremely hot, and there being not a single drop of water to be obtained before we got to the gorge, we suffered a great deal from thirst, as did our poor animals. Our whole distance there lay up one of those beautiful bays before spoken of; and every rod we advanced, the bluffs seemed to assume some new and interesting shape--or, open to the view some pretty vista running away in perspective to a mere point. Arrived near the gorge, we found a little stream of tepid water that oozed from the marl, at the bottom of a ravine some forty feet in depth--and then, after running a half mile, lost itself in the hot sand, where the ravine debauched to the prairies. here we found a little grove, consisting of stunted pines, scraggy cedars, diminutive hackberrys (celti crassifoloa) with here and there a small ash, and wild cherry tree, with an undergrowth of wild currant bushes, and an over-growth of grape-vines, matted and snarled up, and running over the whole like a net. Such ravines are famous for grizzly bears when the cherries are ripe! (243-4)
From the "gorge" which was "half-way up the bluffs" they found a view of the mountains. That evening, camping by Horse Creek, they were "visited by a perfect tornado of a blow from the north, which prostrated many of our tents. The mercury must have fallen all of 30 (degrees) in a half an hour after it first struck us." (244-5)
On June 12th, 1845, Captain Philip St. George Cooke rode through Scott's Bluff, leaving an apt description of the site that is unmistakably the place where the Robidoux's later built their post, but of no trading post yet there.
It had been determined, rather than cross the river...to take to the hills and turn Scott's Bluff: accordingly we this morning marched three miles nearer to that mysterious mountain--and, without being disenchanted of its colossal ruins and phantom occupants, turned toward the left, and ascended the wild sandy hills. I anticipated a dull ride over the ground as uninteresting as barren; but a new surprise was in store for us: having ascended about sixty feet, we saw before us a plain, more than a mile wide, but narrowing, winding, and walled in: the ascent was slight, and it was apparently a river-bottom; in fact, it was marked everywhere with drift, cedar-logs &c.--the thought, "Can this be the Platte bottom?" came intruding on us with its absurdity. Thus we continued, winding round "Gibraltar," ascending insensibly this smooth inclined plain, mile after mile, thirteen, fourteen miles! Then, before we were aware, or we hardly knew how, we found ourselves riding above--looking into--a deep glen, with large trees, cedars, shrubbery, rocks and crystal waters! And where is its outlet?---nowhere, but high up, to, on the smooth grassy plain, on which, in flood times, it had cast its drift; yes, all over its twenty square miles. We had got very high up, without observing it; but to complete even a faint idea of the remarkable scenery, I must add that this singular flat valley is walled in everywhere by lofty bluffs; their gray sand, and clay, and marly sides, often vertical; their tops crowned by cedar forests. This ravine is very precipitous; our horses could with much difficulty be led down to the water; wild fruits grew luxuriantly amid its rocks and trees. Its heads very near the mountain top, at a spring of icy coldness, and without exaggeration.
Thus after winding, as one might have though, through a strange opening around Scott's Bluffs, the surprise that we were at the top of a mountain gap came with an almost boundless view;--on our right--to which we must now direct our course--far below and twelve miles off, were the grassy meadows of Horse Creek: beyond, its blue hills--then, far away above many a treeless hill and plain, rose to view the famous "Black Hills," and Laramie Mountain, their highest peak, towering at eighty miles.
We turned then to descend another plain, of twelve miles, inclined to the southwest; a puff of air from the west came now and then cool and refreshing; but the reflected sunshine was literally scorching; without sensible perspiration, great blisters were burnt over our faces. It was paying dear for the avoidance of a little quicksand--so thought, doubtless, all the animals. We pitched camp in the pleasant meadows of Horse Creek, near its mouth; it is sixty yards wide, and resembles the Platte, but has clearer water. We are enjoying the rarity of good fuel, from some dead cedars. (328-9)
In 1846 (June 25th), J. Quinn Thornton left the following account:
We left the north branch of the Nebraska, and wound round into a little valley presenting more of the extraordinary bluffs before described and characterized by the same general appearance of the ruins of numerous edifices, sometimes washed by the rains and winds into the most fantastic shapes. We saw a species of insect here in great numbers which was new to us, and which is known among the emigrants as the sand-cricket, from the circumstance of their being found in sandy and arid districts. They were however really a sort of grasshopper. It is black, thick, and short, about thrice the weight of the hearth-cricket. About 2 o'clock we found a little rainwater in a ravine. We encamped at a place known as Scott's Bluff. At this place are two small springs of water, one of them is under a high hill, where the emigrant road crossed the head of a small ravine. The other is better, more abundant, but one mile farther on, and at the head of a very deep ravine. We also had an abundance of cedar wood here, which grew in the ravine last mentioned. Indeed, the whole plain was covered with dry cedars, which a tremendous flood is reported to have brought down from the Black Hills about ten years before.
I saw here the wild wormwood tree, as also a species of cactus which was new to me. It sent out leaves from near the ground, and around a common center. They enlarged and spread out, each being about fourteen inches long, three inches wide, and half an inch thick, with a smooth, velvet-green surface; having irregular edges armed with hard prickles about one inch in length. From the center a very straight green stalk, about half an inch in diameter, rose about eight inches above the leaves, and was crowned with a white flower, in shape and size very like that known in our American gardens as the snowball.
A beautiful white flower resembling the poppy grew here, upon a low plant, the leaves of which were armed with prickles. Black currants were abundant and pleasant to the taste. Cherries grew wild, but were mall and bitter. I also saw a sort of pea, which tasted like the garden pea, and very much resembled it both in the appearance of the plant itself, and in that of the fruit. The hill sides were in many places covered with a species of mountain moss. Upon the high bluffs between our encampment and the river many Rocky Mountain sheep were seen. Antelope were also numerous. Prince Darco contrived to pick up one. Some of the hills had many cedars growing upon them, while others were naked.
A gun having been fired for some purpose near the camp, the report echoed and re-echoed several times. I retired to a place near three-fourths of a mile in another direction for the purpose of making the experiment unobserved.
Dark clouds were now sweeping along above the summits of the lofty hills, and some patterning drops of rain began to fall in the valley while the thunder rolled through the black and dense masses of vapor in tones of deep and solemn grandeur. (107-9)
It is possible that between the years 1837 and 1845, one Joseph Robidoux had made his way to Ft. Laramie where he was installed under the various factors there, possibly Sublette, and later, Beauvais and Papin, as the blacksmith of the post, in the employ of the American Fur Company. There is a reference to a "Robidoux" blacksmith in the famous Francis Parkman account of the Oregon trail, one that has for the most part been overlooked by historians.
I caught my horse, and to my vexation found that he had lost a shoe and broken his hoof against the rocks. Horses are shod at Fort Laramie at the moderate rate of three dollars a foot; so I tied Hendrick to a beam in the corral, and summoned Roubidou, the blacksmith. Roubidou, with the hoof between his knees, was at work with hammer and file, and I was inspecting the process, when a strange voice addressed me.
"Two more gone under! Well, there's more of us left yet. Here's Gringras and me off to the mountains to-morrow. Our turn will come next, I suppose. It's a hard life, anyhow!" (Parkman, 87)
This reference is dated in about July of 1846, so it is unlikely that it would be the same Joseph as we find living with the Ioways and going between Kansas and St. Joseph in about the same time period, as so clearly shown in the Harding letters. It is interesting that Parkman had just spent several congenial days before his first entrance into the Fort in company with another Robidoux, probably the elder Michel, and the Michel, when he entered Fort Laramie at that time, must have had some kind of contact with this blacksmith and his in-laws at the post. Both Parkman and Michel Robidoux spent June 13th, 1846, at Scott's Bluff:
June 13th. Roubideau left the emigrants and joined us. Travelled 8 miles & nooned on Platte--then came 15 or 16 farther and camped by the spring at Scott Bluff. All these blufss are singular and fantastic formations--abrupt, scored with wooded ravines, and wrought by storms into the semblance of lines of buildings. Midway on one of them gushes the spring, in the midst of wild roses, currants, cherries, and a hundred trees; and cuts for itself a devious and wooded ravine across the smooth plain below. Stood among the fresh wild roses and recalled old and delightful associations. (437- 8)
It has been assumed, primarily by Merril Mattes, that this blacksmith was none other than Indian Joe, but it is more likely that there was another Joseph Robidoux, of the same period, who would probably have been one of the unidentified sons of Francis Robidoux, and who would have been a cousin of Joseph E. Robidoux. The clue is to be found on the estate records of Francois as Sellico, and it appears as if his full name was Joseph Sellico Robidoux. Joseph E. Robidoux, by then a middle-aged man, apparently lacked the industriousness or the characteriological disposition to have made him a stable and regular fixture of any post.
This hypothetical second "Joseph" would have probably been married to a Sioux squaw wife as a young man at Fort Laramie. He may have apprenticed as a blacksmith at this post with his older brother(s)--most likely Antoine Robidoux who was older by 3 or 4 years., and they would have remained in the vicinity of the Ft. Laramie plains and Scott's Bluff. Other sons and nephews of the Robidoux brothers were known to have been in the area at about this time, including Julius C. Robidoux and Edmund Robidoux, sons of Joseph IV. According to Coutant's Annals of Wyoming, reported by O. P. Wiggins, Julius and Edmond Robidoux were listed:
Pioneers of 1843--William Gipin, James Wise, Silas Bent, Edmond Rubidou, Jules Robidoux, Ole Olson, Aaron Crosby, George Britton.
This account is interesting also because it also identifies an early date of Fort Laramie, or at least a settlement proximate to Laramie, by 1832. At the same time, identifies the Salt Lake route as a way of going to Taos from Fort Laramie. The best account of the Robidoux posts at Scott's Bluffs was given not by the many emigrants who only stayed a short time, and were, all of them, outsiders to the local society and way of life, but by Susan Bettelyoun, who was a half-breed daughter of Bordeau from Fort Laramie. She describes also one "Joseph Silko Rubideaux":
Joseph Silko Rubideaux was another interesting character in the early days. He built the first log houses at St. Joseph, Mo. He married to a Yanktony Sioux woman. He had two sons from the widow of John Baptiste Bordeau. After coming up northwest to Wyoming, he ran a blacksmith shop on the Oregon Trail on a branch of Horse Creek. His place was a little southwest of Scotts Bluff. It was near the creek with quite a good deal of timber. His two sons have many descendants on the Rosebud Reservation. In the olden days there were many Rubideaus in St. Louis and Kansas City where the original families came from.
Joseph Silko Rubideau lived on Horse Creek for twenty years, and died there. He was still living there yet in 1849. Fort Mitchel (1864) had not been built yet when he died.
Though it would appear that there were several discrepancies with this story, it seems that there was one French trader, remembered by Bettelyoun and the other Sioux as "Joseph Silko" who had come to Fort Laramie at a fairly early time, in the late 1830's or early 1840's, and was later found at the Robidoux post at Horse creek, and who died there, apparently "kicked in the head by a fractious mule", in the early 1860's. His widow, who left two sons, then remarried to Jean Baptiste, who must have been somewhat younger, by which she and several more children before he was tragically drown on the Platte River. I suspect that the name of this individual was probably Sellico, one of Francis sons, and that he probably ran a trading/blacksmithing operation like his brother Antoine, who apparently died an unknown death before Francis estate settlement in 1858.
Mattes describes this reference as Joseph E., but it is apparent from her testimony that the name Joseph had become attached to "Silko" by the association with St. Joseph, etc.
Her next reference to the Robidoux post was in 1848, when an epidemic of cholera hit the region:
My mother locked up the place and went with all the children and her household of relatives that were staying with her while father was gone, and went to Rubideau's place on Horse Creek. He had a blacksmith shop right on the Oregon Trail.
Rubideau was pretty well to do. He had five or six hired white men. Some of these looked after his stock. Some of them helped in the shop. Some Indians rode up from the Platte river, which was four or five miles west (?) of the Rubideau ranch and told us the Indians were traveling and breaking up camp. Every where that there were some of the dead laid near the Platte River who had been dressed and painted. Among the dead lying on the ground, there were some living ones who had the disease and were deserted and left with the dead. So far the disease had not reached Rubideau's ranch. It was noon and while the men were eating dinner they heard an Indian singing a death song.
A rider came to the door and said, "Be on the lookout. This man coming, singing, is White Roundhead. He is coming armed to kill every white man that he sees." My uncle, Swift Bear, took his gun and stepped out side, firing above the man who was coming along the edge of the creek bank. Everyone once in a while, White Roundhead was doubled up with the cramps. He kept on coming with his gun in his hand and bow and arrows strapped to his back, although he was warned not to come any further. By this time the white men were out with their guns and as he did not heed the warning, he was shot as he stopped with a cramp again. he tumbled out of sight over the bank. Men took spades and caved the bank over him so the disease would not spread. White Roundhead had lost his whole camp of four or five tents. Blaming the white people for bringing such a scourge into the country, he was out for revenge. Wherever there was a healthy camp, no visitors were allowed. Any one coming to the camp sick was shot right on the spot. Mothers deserted their babies, when they got it, in several cases.
During a few days my father returned from St. Louis in a light buggy. He found my mother, the children and all her relatives at Rubideau's place. he brought a gallon of Medicine, a prescription put up for him by a physician. My brother Louis, who was then ten months old, had the cholera, so the medicine came just in time. A few teaspoonfuls of the medicine cured him...(13-14)
It is apparent that the date 1848 may have been confused with 1858-9, as Susan Bettelyoun was not born until 1859. On the other hand, a Cholera scourge was known to have wiped out emigrants and Indians alike in 1849, and she may have been recounting her families stories of an earlier period.
According to the Editor of these transcripts, "When the tides of humankind started on the Oregon trail in the early forties, Roubideaux remembered his old trade as a blacksmith, at Fort Laramie, served travelers by fixing their wagons and shoeing horses, mules and oxen. By the Spring of 1848 he had accumulated enough to lay in a supply of trader's goods and removed to Scott's Bluff Hills, built a small trading station near the springs at the head of a canyon and put in a blacksmith shop. John Evans Brown mentions him as "Robidere" and says "it was at that well known spring in Scotts Bluffs. (Brown was a forty-niner) Later he moved farther from the hills apparently to avoid danger from Arapahoe raids." (91)"
In Brown's memoirs of 1849, he wrote:
(Monday, June 25th, 1849)....After leaving the river, the road lies through one of the finest valleys I ever saw and is decidedly the best twenty miles of road we have travelled.
By the spring at Scotts Bluff, there is a store and blacksmith's shop, kept by Rubedere, a trader who has resided among the Sioux Indians for thirteen years. Grass is very good and water excellent for present use, being unfit to carry, even to Horse Creek, a distance of twelve miles. We traveled thirty miles and were very reluctant to stop on such a fine road. (139)
This passage dated from 1849 indicates that the resident Robidoux at Scott's Bluff, assigned to Antoine and Joseph Sellico, the sons of Francois, had lived in the area between 13 and 15 years, making their first entry there between 1834 and 1836, at the time of the founding of Fort Laramie, and at which time both the elder Francois and Michel were known to be in the region.
If these accounts are correct, then it seems probable that this "Joseph Silko" had come via Fort Laramie in about 1836, about the time of the fort's construction and acquisition by the American Fur Company. He(or they) intermarried with the Sioux Indians, and settle down as a blacksmith. Further in the same footnote, the editor wrote "On June 10, 1849, Joseph Heckney wrote in his journal, that near a spring of cold water there is a trading post. A man keeps it, who has lived there for 15 years."
In contradiction to the statement here made, that Roubideaux died at Horse Creek, the affirmation is made in Merrill Matte's series of articles that "some years later Roubideaux returned to St. Genevieve (near St. Louis) with abundant means to put in the rest of his life without fear of poverty."
Again, the question must be asked, but which one could this have been. In another section, Bettelyoun describes the families of the French squawmen and ex-fur traders as having settled down on the Laramie plains to engage in horse and cattle ranching.
Henry Page (Joseph Hackney) wrote in his journal for June 10, 1849 the following:
Made 15 miles road good in a sandy soil like this a rain like last night runs the sand together and makes better wheeling a yoke of oxen weare killed by the lightning at a camp just below us the same flash knocked two men senseles we passed scots bluffs to day they are named after an old Indian trader he was descending the river with a load of furs in company with other traders when he was taken sick his comrads put him ashore and left him the next spring a trapper found a skeleton on the bluffs which he recognized to be scoots by his blanket and papers that he found by it from this bluff you can see the peaks of the rocky mountains on a clear day we left the river again soon after leaving cammp this morning and struck for the bluffs theare is two ranges of bluff hear and the road runs between them we followed up till within two miles of weare the road crosses the ridege when we camped grass is not very good wood plenty mostly pitch pine the first we have seen the water is first rate being spring water and as cold as ice it was quite a treat after being confined to the muddy water of the platt for two weeks theare is a trading post hear a man keeps it who has lived heare for 15 years he has an Indian wife and three children he has a blacksmith shop and tin shop he told us that up till this morning one thousand and ninty wagons had passed his place thear is nigh three hundred wagons camped within 2 miles of us this evening thear has been no water on the road for the last 15 miles and they have been all a pushing to reach this place we have been bothered nearly to death for the last few days by the mosquites you cannot go twenty yards from the road but that you are covered with them along the road thear is none chapman came up with his ox at noon.
On the next day, June 11th, he wrote that "Rockwell stopped at the blacksmith shop this morning to get his wagon tire set he got into camp about 9 o'clock they charged him seven dollars for setting the two hind tire and Jo borem done most of the work"
As far as the Mysterious Robidoux, we began this chapter with old "Indian Joe" whom one genealogist has credited with at least four wives, and we end up with at least two, and perhaps three who appear to have been involved with various Sioux Indians from the 1830's to the 1860's.
Having been at Ft. Laramie, he may have relocated to Scott's Bluffs along with Bordeau, Papin and others, in about 1847-8, just prior to the sale of the Fort to the U.S. army.
A letter from Henry Picotte, of Fort Pierre to Pierre Chouteau Junior at St. Louis dated March 11th, 1846 makes reference to the Robidoux's that has not been clearly transcribed, his handwriting being so illegible:
Even if I had proposed to sell them the goods here they would have objected for the reason I state above, you are mistaken when you say they do not require woolen goods in summer. I could not make any arrangements with Kemuller, try and have him with (Gruivremont?), F. Robidoux and young J. Robidoux, and given them Kemuller for six months during trading season, $400. F. Robidoux 400 a year J. Robidoux Jr. 300$ a year and (Gruivremont?) 250$ a year, by so doing you will perhaps keep old J. Robidoux from (sending) to oppose us.
Though the exact context and implicit circumstances which this letter refers to are not clear, it is clear that Pierre Chouteau Jr. and the American Fur Company, even at this late day, is still "buying" off Joseph et. al., otherwise afraid of the competition that old Joseph may send. This reference does also clearly place both Francois and Joseph Robidoux Jr. in the context of the trade nexus between Fort Laramie, Fort Pierre and St. Louis. It is evident that Joseph E. Robidoux was probably involved in the affairs of Scott's Bluff to some extent, but as a freighter and trader, rather than as a permanent resident of the post.
This confusion of identity is critical in the subsequent accounting of the descendants. Though the hypothesis of another Joseph Robidoux, a second "Indian Joe" Jr., appears unparsimonious, it is supported by other discrepancies which appear in journal accounts of emigrants as well as in the Benjamin Harding letters which cover the period between 1847 and 1848 and show "Indian Joe" to be in this nexus for most of this time.
Edwin Bryant traveled through Scott's Bluffs in late June of 1846, and left the following narrative:
About twenty miles distant from our encampment of last night is "Scott's Bluff," a very elevated and remarkable formation. It derives its name, as I have been informed by one who was in part cognizant of the facts, from these circumstances:--A party of some five or six trappers, in the employment of the American Fur Company, were returning to the "settlements," under the command of a man--a noted mountaineer--named Scott. They attempted to perform the journey in boats, down the Platte. The current of the river became so shallow that they could not navigate it. Scott was seized with a disease, which rendered him helpless. The men with him left him in the boat, and when they returned to their employers, reported that Scott had died on the journey, and that they had buried him on the banks of the Platte. The next year a party of hunters, in traversing the region, discovered a human skeleton wrapped in blankets, which from the clothing and papers found upon it, was immediately recognized as being the remains of Scott. He had been deserted by his men, but afterwards recovering his strength sufficiently to leave the boat, he had wandered into the bluffs where he died, where his bones were found, and which now bear his name.
The bluff is a large and isolated pile of sand-cliffs and soft sandstone. It exhibits al the architectural shapes of arch, pillar, dome, spire, minaret, temple, gothic castle, and modern fortification. These, of course, are upon a scale far surpassing the constructive efforts of human strength and energy. The tower of Babel, if its builders had been permitted to proceed in their ambitious undertaking, would have been but a feeble imitation of these stupendous structures of nature. While surveying this scenery, which is continuous for twenty or thirty miles, the traveller involuntarily imagines himself in the midst of the desolate and deserted ruins of vast cities, to which Nineveh, Thebes, and Babylon were pigmies in grandeur and magnificence.
The trail leaves the river as we approach "Scott's Bluff," and runs over a smooth valley in the rear of the bluff seven or eight miles. From this level plain we ascended some distance and found a faint spring of water near the summit of the ridge, as cold as melted ice. I need not say that we refreshed ourselves from this beneficient gift of nature to the weary and thirsty traveler. We reached the extreme height of the dividing ridge about three o'clock, P. M., and from it we had the first view of the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Laramie's Peak, and several other elevations about one hundred or one hundred and fifty miles distant, were very distinctly visible, and I think I saw the summits of the Wind River Mountains, about four hundred miles distant. The atmosphere was very clear, and the summits of the last-named mountains appeared like small white clouds, resting upon the horizon. I may be mistaken in my supposition. (104-5)
Will Higbee worked at the Scotts Bluff post in 1848, and left the following description of it:
I went to Scotts' Bluff in the year 48 and worked there for the company four years in Trading with the Indians for the Company. The Robidoux was a Companey with Joseph Robidoux (besides him there were?) 6 men; their names was Felix Robidoux and Edmund T, Jules and Francis--Charley--& daughter Sylvanie. Joseph (their) father was the found of St. Joseph. I remember when it was a hemp & corn field the Scotts Bluff house was built in 1847.
The House at Scotts Bluff was built of logs, their was no adobas in that time. Fort Laramie was a fort their. Major Drips first was still below antonio Robidoux old fort is 1/2 way from there to Slt lake Be yound grand River about 1 1/2 miles i will send you foto of myself i have none of the Robidoux
The Scotts Bluff house was not the house in question it was Built on high ground Mr. Robidoux is so old that you would not get (much?) information (of) him. I should like to see a copy of your work when done. No one traded at that place after they left it. The trading post was a bout 100 feet square. So this is all at present. I remain (in best of respect?)
yours only
Mike Higbee
This evidence provides vital clues to the post at Robidoux pass. It was apparent that Joseph IV was the primary sponsor of this outfit, and that most of his sons were involved in its operation, possibly even one of his daughters. This post lasted approximately 4 or 5 years, from about 1847 until about 1852--a little more than the duration of Higbee's employment, and that it was abandoned completely--it is likely at the time after Mitchell pass opened in 1850.
The original post was apparently about 1.1 miles southeast of Roubadeau Pass.
The next and most solid set of references to Joseph E. Robidoux appear in connection with the Robidoux trading post at Scott's Bluffs that was prominent in the years 1848-1851 as a part of the Oregon trail. Accounts of meeting Robidouxs in this vicinity occur in more than 80 journals of pioneers during this period, according to Merril Mattes, who has devoted considerable research to this subject. He claims that there were at least two Robidoux's at this post during this time, if not more.
There is not doubt that Joseph E. Robidoux's name occurs on the trading licenses presented by Merril Mattes, for the years 1850-1, along with his father, uncles and some cousins and that he may have been at the post on occasion driving some of the many caravans that went through there during this period.
To reiterate these licenses:
License issued July 12, 1849, to Joseph Robideaux by Agent Thomas Fitz-
patrick, sureties E. Blanchard and W. Campbell, capital $5,000, employees include F. Robideaux, J. Robideaux, A. Robideaux and S. Robideaux.
The 1849 license suggests that the Robidoux's at the post were possibly Francois B. Robidoux and Jules Robidoux, sons of Joseph IV, in company with Antoine and Sellicour Robidoux, sons of Francois L., and that Joseph Robidoux was the principal owner of the establishment.
License issued July 23, 1850, to Joseph Robidoux by Agent Thomas Fitzpatrick, sureties E. Blanchard and W. Campbell, capital $12,000, employees include M. Robidoux, E. Robidoux, F. Robidoux, J. E. Robidoux, and A. Robidoux.
The 1850 license again shows Joseph as the principal owner, having put forward capital more than twice the previous year, and including new names, Michel, the uncle, Edmund, Francois B., Joseph E. and Antoine, the nephew. It is interesting that Jule's and Sellicour's names do not appear on this license--presumably they were either incorporated into the nexus in some other capacity (Sellicour) or they were involved in other affairs elsewhere (presumably Jules, who was by this time a principal citizen of St. Joseph).
License issued July 15, 1851 to Joseph Robidoux, agent D. D. Mitchell, sureties Michael Robidoux, Robt. Campbell and Moses Lamaroux, capital $5,000, employees include Michael Robidoux and Isadore Robidoux as assistant traders; Joseph E. Robidoux and Antoine Robidoux as clerks.
The 1851 license is again half the amount of the previous year, and shows Joseph still in control, with Michael and Isadore as "assistant traders" (presumably the freighters) and Joseph E. and Antoine (nephew) as principal clerks. Again Sellicour's name does not appear on this license, nor Jules, Edmund or Francois B.
It is likely that whoever was immediately available at the issuance of the license was the individual whose name appeared on it. If individuals were not available, they were not mentioned in the licensing, though they were probably every bit as much involved in the trading company.
Higbee's letter is insightful too for several other reasons. His mention of the senior Antoine's Fort as being half way between Fort Laramie and the Great Salt Lake indicates that there was probably a regular trade route between these locations, one which I prefer to call the Uinta Trail. His specification of the post as one and a half miles beyond the Grand River also is enigmatic. In this case the Grand river may be interpreted as the Green River, possibly referring to the Junction of the Green and the Duchesne Rivers--this reference could also be to Antoine's post on the Uncompahgre--suggesting that it was one and a half miles below the Uncompahgre. It is apparent that Higbee may have been confused on this point, possibly never having actually visited these sites. By the time he became employed with the Robidoux's at Scott's Bluffs, both posts were abandoned.
The other interesting aspects of this letter are that it mentions Sylvanie, a daughter of Joseph, in conjunction with the post, as well as Charles, the youngest son. Never before has a female Robidoux been mentioned in reference to the trading activities of the family. It is possible that her husband may have been affiliated with the company. That the senior Antoine was at least briefly affiliated with this post--at least during his 1849 trek, is also suggested.
Finally, the reference is clearly to the Robidoux Company with Joseph Robidoux as the principal owner. This is the only clear first-hand instance of the Robidoux family as actually an organized, quasi-corporate business concern. This fits the following description:
And here (Robidoux Pass) , in the Sioux Indian wilderness of 1849, lived an adaptable, calculating Missourian of French ancestry named Robidoux, operating a trading post and blacksmith shop which, with unlimited demand and practically no competition, was guaranteed to make enormous profits. Robidoux, the earliest settler in Western Nebraska, and the only visible white resident in three hundred miles between Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie, set an example of streamlined enterprise which has been faithfully emulated by latter-day citizens of the North Platte Valley.
Up to and including 1850 the Robidoux route was used almost exclusively by the successive waves of fur traders, missionary parties, soldiers and emigrants. In 1850, however, some brave soul, possibly aided and abetted by military engineers, took the first wagon through Mitchell pass. In the year 1851 travel was about equally divided between the two routes. It was Robidoux Pass which witnessed the coming of the fur traders, the missionaries, the Oregon migration of the 1840's, and, climactically, the unique, ballad-inspiring California Gold rush.
Robidoux Pass can lay claim to being one of the great milestones on the emigrant road. Robidoux Pass has several memorable features; romantic scenery, an exceptionally good stretch of roadway in the valley, from the summit a spectacular view westward, the first good supply of wood, a fine dependable cold spring, and beginning in 1849, the remarkable Mr. Robidoux himself, complete with Indian wife, children, and "poor relations;" likewise his trading post and blacksmith shop at the head of a transverse draw.
At a strategic point below the famous spring, where the emigrants were compelled to go single file around the head of a transverse gully, Robidoux set up his trading post and blacksmith shop, apparently well ahead of the first wagon train, possibly as early as 1848. He charged outlandish prices for his services as a blacksmith and later, when he got lazy and lackadaisical in the manner of all profiteers, he charged extortionate prices for the mere use of his forge. His post consisted of a log cabin, wherein the store, dwelling and blacksmith shop were combined.
The Benjamin Harding letter dated April 6th, 1848, makes reference to the "Robidoux Caravan" which passed through the Ioway Agency, apparently outbound for Scott's Bluff:
We are in want of Calicos, (Blu & Fancy) lead, Sal Eratus, wrapping paper & Twine. I send a box to be filled with Sal Eratus. I have given the Robidoux caravan 12 lbs flour & 12 do Bacon and charged to you. I send a jug which I wish you to get filled with vinegar for me. I also want one and half yd white flannel from the best piece in the store. The box which I left to be sent contained 23 lbs cheese. If there is no prospect of getting it I wish you would get a small cheese and send me. I think Hull has some. Send me a bottle of Ink. The Maj has yet no official information of any payment this spring. (263)
That Joseph E. Robidoux was at the Scott's Bluffs post as late as 1854 is attested to by Thomas Cramer in 1859:
...Here (Scott's Bluff) in 1854 my old friend Joe Robideau (who was for many years a trader among the Ioway, Pawnee and Sioux Indians), was located...He is now among his friends the Ioways and has taken a wife and land among them. Joe is a curious specimen of our race. He has resided so long among the savages that he more resembles them in his habits and tastes than the people to whom he originally belonged.
That Joseph V was at the Scott's Bluffs post, with which his name has been subsequently identified, did not necessarily render him the relatively anonymous "Robidoux" blacksmith who was apparently at the same post, and who must have been at Ft. Laramie a few years before. The identity of this blacksmith who apparently kept at least one squaw wife among the Sioux Indians has been obscured. Perhaps it was Antoine, or Louis, or one Jean Baptiste, or a Sellico, all of whom appear to have been in the Baptismal records of St. Louis as the legitimate sons of Francois Robidoux, the next oldest brother behind Joseph III.
In a section in his great book "Great Platte River Road", Mattes devotes a entire section to "The Mystery of Mr. Robidoux" who is at Scott's Bluff. In it he describes several different individuals described by different emigrants:
There is nothing here to suggest that Joseph Robidoux was anything more or less than a typical mountain man or squaw man...A few emigrant give insight to a different Robidoux of some learning or refinement. Gorgas pictures him as "a gentleman" with whom he shook hands upon departure. Dr. Boyle mentions a Robidoux here who was the owner of western Nebraska's first library: "Here 500 miles from any place I found Webster's Dictionary and other books to match, besides some French devotional and historical works!" Since Joseph E was, apparently, an uncouth mountain man and young Antoine "could not read," according to Darwin, who was this scholarly Robidoux?
In a later published article, Mattes himself has corrected some of his earlier opinions about who was at the Robidoux post at Scott's Bluff, and offers speculation about the "mysterious identity" when he mentions:
the descendants (Sioux) I interviewed have got it wrong and that their true father, Joseph E. or Joseph IV, did abandon his Sioux family, but that his place was taken by his cousin Sellico Robidoux. Sellico may have felt obliged to take on "Joseph" in front of his name to cover for his vanished cousin and preserve the family honor.
This is no less circumspect and unparsimonious an argument than to merely suggest that in fact Sellico, or one of his mysterious brothers, may have been the anonymous blacksmith and "squawman" of the post, and that the name "Joseph" adopted by Susan Bettelyoun and other Sioux half-breeds was the result of the association of Joseph to the well-known founder of St. Joseph, etc. There is no reason to presume that the Sioux descendants merely "made up" a story about their Robidoux progenitor as being a blacksmith who was killed by being kicked in the head by a horse, to save face from the fact that his wife may have been a "grass widow:" i.e., that Joseph E. abandoned her and her family for another squaw, especially an Iowa or Pawnee woman. I believe that the real name of the progenitor was probably forgotten in the memories of the descendants, and that they remembered the more famous "Joseph" by association.
I believe that Joseph probably came and went there frequently, and may even have kept a squaw wife or two at that post, but probably did not have either the patience or the temperament to be a stable, perennial blacksmith at the picturesque but isolated and somewhat forlorn site. He was by his middle age a representative of his father, as he had been for many years, and probably kept open the regular lines of communication between there and St. Joseph.
In January of 1848, George Wood Ebbert in company with Joe Meek made their way from Fort Hall bearing the first news to Washington of the massacre of the Whitman mission. They report coming what was mistakenly called Ash Hollow but was in all probability Scott's Bluff about the last of February or the first week of March:
In two days more we arrived at the Fort,--Old Fort Laramie, in charge of an old Frenchman by the name of Pappilian. The people of the fort told us there was danger ahead. We left, after two day's rest, and traveled three nights, laying by in the daytime. We reached Ash Hollow--Robidoux Fort--a trading post was here kept by a Frenchman named Le Beau. We here traded for sugar, coffee and buffalo meat. Rested one day and started on, reaching Little Platte the next day; thence down the Platte for eight or nine days, finding plenty of buffalo and killing what we needed. (266-7)
If the emigrant journals fail to clearly discriminate among the various Robidouxs at the post, they do offer us a brief description of the post "300 miles" from the edge of American civilization, and the life they lived there during those brief years. Mattes refers to this post as Robidoux's "covered wagon garage" and as "Robidoux's many-faceted trading post of 1849, undoubtedly western Nebraska's first shopping center."
On May 25th, of 1849, Englishman William Kelly visited Scott's Bluffs and left an avid description:
As we got on the elevated ground, we could see that the bluffs took a curve like the tail of a shepard's crook, a prominent eminence forming the curl at the end. This is called "Scott's Bluff," from the body of an enterprising trapper of that name being found upon it. It is supposed he lost his way, and having crawled up on it for a look-out, died of starvation. The sides of the bluffs were no longer smooth and sloping, but bold and rugged, belted with abrupt edges of sandstone, and split by craggy ravines, well wooded with large cedar. As we advanced into the bend of the crook, over a fine rich grassy lea, the scene became heightened in beauty and interest, untill, close under one of those fantastic cliffs, we found a rustic log-hut, the country residence of a Mr. Rouberdean, of St. Louis, a blacksmith by trade, who, foreseeing an active business from the overland emigration, settled himself in this sequestered nook, getting into sharp collision with the long dormant echoes of the neighbourhod, and taking unto himself a Sioux spouse, a perfect queen of the wilderness, whom I beg leave to introduce as the sister of the Indians who accompanied us from South Platte.
We arrived at an hour that afforded us ample time to spread out and dry our food, raiment, etc.; but it smacked of desecration to see the enchanting spot, sacred to the spirit of solitude, strewed over with our blue-moulded duds, the tender flowerets, that would grace a paradise, crushed beneath flour-bags and flitches of bacon. The distance hence to Fort Laramie was fifty-five miles, over a rolling country, covered with good pasture, but not calling for any special notice.
We met the Platte at several points, covered as usual with tufty islets, and shot two antelopes, that sufficed us till we arrived there. As we were rolling along the second day we saw a man running across the plain to meet us, who we first thought was an Indian, but as he came up proved to be a French trapper, clad in a buckskin suit, with a fine rifle on his shoulder. He spoke tolerable English, expressing his surprise that we could have managed to get thus far so early as the 26th of May. He informed us that he was the son of an old French trapper, from the Hudson Bay settlement, brought out by his father when quite a boy; and that, after his death, he continued the same mode of life, having married the daughter of an Indian chief, in whose society he forgot every feeling or desire to visit the crowded thoroughfares of the world, procuring, as he said, the main staples of existence with his gun, and obtaining the few superfluities he desires at the fort, in exchange for the skins of the game he kills. "It is no less singular than true," that most men who frequent the hunting-ground of the Indian, either as trappers or tourists, contract a singular liking for their habits of life; and innumerable instances are on record where men of independent fortune have forsaken the conventionalities of polished society for the simple, unsophisticated association of those children of nature, demonstrating the inherent tendency of a man to the natural in preference to the artificial, wherever free will is left a loose
rein. (3)
On May 25th, William Johnston met a man below Courthouse rock "named Palliday travelling with a one-horse rudely-constructed wagon. he lives at Scott's bluffs, about sixty miles farther up the valley, where besides his own are two other cabins inhabited by men of similarly retired habits."
It seems hard to conceive of any one from choice living so far remote from civilization. Even the Indian is driven hither by the encroachment of the whites; but his nature, taste and mode of life make this a fitting abode for him, as it is also for the buffalo and deer. Palliday is en route for the South Platte, for some trading operation. (112)
On the 27th, (May, 1849) Johnston reached Scott's Bluffs:
When the sun was well up, we were opposite the picturesque sand cliffs, Scott's bluffs, which closely hem in the river, but our trail was two or three miles distant from them.
A small spring of cool water which we passed afforded us a refreshing draught, the more so, as in these arid wastes we seldom have opportunity for such enjoyment.
Near to our noon camp was a blacksmith shop, kept by a man named Bordeau, who to supplement the income from the smithy, sold whiskey, at the rate of one dollar per pint. (Experiences of a Forty Niner, Johnston: 1892 reprint: 117)
Now "Bordeau" was known to have been in the area, and may well have been in affiliation with the Robidoux family in the operation of the post during this period--he was known to have later established a post between Fort Laramie and Fort Pierre, and during this time apparently kept a road ranch and trading post much closer to Fort Laramie on the emigrant trail. It is evident that the Bordeau and Robidoux families, among others, were closely associated in the network of this region. The reference to "Palliday" may in fact have been to a Robidoux.
On May 26th, 1849, Colonel Jarrot led a wagon train to Scott's Bluff where they put in for repairs:
Saturday (May) 26 passed Chimney rock distant 12 miles from the Court House an hour after we started and I was very much vexed that I could not examine it at a closer point of view than from the road but having walked 24 miles the previous day and worn several Blisters on my feet I was obliged to restrain my curiosity and make my steps as few as possible. It is certainly a great curiosity and presents the appearance of a large moundlike elevation from the centre of which rises a tall column like the flue of a iron foundry and it is said to be over 250 feet high. Though called a Rock it is nothing but clay such as all the Bluffs in the neighborhood are composed of. Travelld all day through very heavy and swampy roads and at night camped a few miles beyond Scotts Bluffs at which point the road leaves the river and strikes over the Hills for some distance. A portion of our train got under weigh again at 9 this evening and drove on 10 miles to a Blacksmith shop situated near a small Branch where the road ascends the Hills. Col Jarrot wishd to get some work done and was fearfull some of the waggons just behind us might get ahead of him. The remainder of our train myself among the number remained w (h) ere we were untill next morning.
Sunday (May) 27. Started about 6 and at 10 arrived at the Blacksmith shop and joined our train. While remaining here nearly 40 waggons passed us on the way to the diggings and 2 trains camped near us at nightfall. As I had brought shoes for my mules with me I took advantage of the Blacksmith to have them nailed on for which I paid 25 cts for each shoe.
On June 8th, 1849, Alex Ramsey reported "an old French trader named Troubadore. He has a wife and family. He is doing business for the fur traders."
On June 9th, 1849, Alonzo Delano left the following description of Scott's Bluffs:
The wind blew cold and unpleasant as we left our pretty encampment this morning for Scott's Bluffs, a few miles beyond. The bare hills and water-worn rocks on our left began to assume many fantastic shapes, and after raising a gentle elevation, a most extraordinary sight presented itself to view. A basin shaped valley, bounded by high rocky hills, lay before us, perhaps twelve miles in length, by six or eight broad. The perpendicular sides of the mountains presented the appearance of castles, forts, towers, verandas, and chimneys, with a blending of Asiatic and European architecture, and it required an effort to believe that we were not in the vicinity of some ancient and deserted town. It seemed as if the wand of a magician had passed over a city, and like that in the Arabian Night, had converted all living things into stone. Here you saw the minarets of a castle; there, the loop-holes of bastions of a fort; again, the frescoes of a huge temple; then, the doors, windows, chimneys, and columns of immense buildings appeared in view, with all the solemn grandeur of an ancient yet deserted city, while at other points Chinese temples, dilapidated by time, broken chimney rocks in miniature, made it appear as if by some supernatural cause we had been dropped in the suburbs of a mighty city. For miles around the basin this view extended, and we looked across the barren plain at the display of Almighty power, with wonder and astonishment. These, however, lost their interest, on approaching them, and like the fabled castles of the middle ages, dwindled down to bare, shapeless, water-worn rocks. Yet days might be spent agreeably in examining them, and I regretted that our want of time and my own enfeebled health should prevent my inspecting them more thoroughly. They were composed of volcanic matter, like that of Courthouse and Chimney Rocks, marl, sand, clay, and gravel--a kind of volcanic conglomerate, which yielded to the action of the elements, by which they were worn, in the lapse of ages, to their present fantastic forms. Every year, probably, wears them more, and time slowly changes their shapes, and it is not improbable, that at some former period, even Court-house and Chimney Rocks were portions of hills which have decayed. At the western extremity of the basin a violent rain storm overtook us, and we hastily pitched our tents. Near us were a large number of dead cedars, which served for fuel; but it was a matter of inquiry where they came from, for there were no trees of their size in the vicinity, and I could form no other conclusion than that they had been washed there by some mighty flood, which had caused the river to overflow its banks and which must have inundated the whole valley of the Platte. The grass and water were poor, the evening was wet, cold and cheerless, and moodily eating our supers, we turned into our hard beds in a sorry humor, which the interesting scenery around us could not dispel. Drive, sixteen miles.
The reference to the cedars is interesting, for it may indicate the remains of the abandoned post at Robidoux Pass. That no other post was mentioned suggests that this may have been the case. Presumably the abandoned post was burned by the Arapahoes shortly after its abandonment. That this party with their cattle traveled quickly through the area, and did not notice or stop at any other possible Robidoux posts, is noted.
On June 12th, 1849, Wakeman Bryarly, a member of the Charleston Company wrote the following account:
Made an early start, and after a drive of about 3 miles left the river & took the bluffs, which we followed. These are called Scott's Bluffs. In about 8 miles we came to & ascended a very high ridge near the top of which we found several small springs of cool water--as cold as ice. Here there is a store, blacksmith shop and trading post, kept by a Mr. Roubadoe, who has been living with the Indians for 13 years. He is married to a Sioux squaw & has several children. For goods of every description he charges the most exorbitant prices, & for work, truly extortionate. For instance if an emigrant finds the mule shoes, nails &c. & puts them on, he has to pay $1 per pair and everything in proportion. (David Potter, editor, 1945: 105)
A summary of some of these accounts given by Mattes for the year of 1849 are as follows:
June 15, 1849. 1/2 mile further on is a splendid spring North of Road down a deep ravine 300 yards from Road over hung with Cedar Here is found a man by the name (?) working at Blacksmithing.--Simon Doyle
June 23, 1849...Half a mile north of the spring lives a gentleman with a Squaw lady love. he has a store of goods for Indian trade. --Dr. Lord.
June 25, 1849...Near this is the house of a Mr. Rubidone, a Canadian Frenchman, who has a native wife.--Niles Searls.
June 28, 1849...Below the spring in the ravine a Frenchman has established himself in a log cabin.--Elisha Perkins
June 29, 1949....nearing the summit, a spring of pure, cold water....very refreshing....very refreshing. Here is a wigwam occupied by a Frenchman who married a squaw."
"The first settlement we came to was Rubedeaux's trading post....a blacksmith constituted the town." --Mark Manlove
"...a kind of trading post and blacksmith shop called The Ceders on account of a large grove of cedars." --David Cosad
the proprietor was "jack of all trades--blacksmith, stove-maker, tailor, etc." who "keeps a large stock of groceries, hardware, etc."--Elisha Perkins.
The account of George Gibbs on Wesdnesday, June 20th, 1849, provides us with an idea of who was the blacksmith--it appears to have been one Antoine Robidoux, perhaps correctly assumed by Mattes and Hafen not to have been the Senior brother of Joseph, but a junior nephew, a son of Francois, who was perhaps in company with one or two of his brothers:
On ascending toward the road we saw a little beyond us an Indian lodge, and riding towards it, to our astonishment, a log cabin. We amused ourselves with speculating whether some emigrant, tired of his journey, could here have established a "grocery" and on the probabilities of finding spruce beer and cakes under Scott's bluffs. It turned out to be the "fort" of an Indian trader, who with his half-breed family had settled himself here, posted up a sign "Tinware, by A. Rubidue," and occupied himself by doing blacksmith work for the emigrants in the interval of the trading seasons. As an appropriate memento I have posted up an enameled visiting card in the blacksmith shop. After sheltering ourselves from a passing thunder storm we rode on...
A member of the same expedition, Major Osborne Cross left this account of the post in his journal dated the same day, June 20 (1849):
Previous to reaching our encampment last evening we had a heavy shower of rain accompanied by hail, which made it very cool this morning. We got under way at six o'clock. After passing upthe valley about five miles ascended the first high hill since leaving Fort Leavenworth. This is partly covered with cedar, which was the first we had met on the march. There is also a spring of delightful cold water which we should have reached this evening, but from want of proper knowledge by the guide we failed to do so. Here was a blacksmith shop and trading-house, built in the true log-cabin style, which made us all feel as if we were in reality approaching once more a civilized race.(March of the Mounted Riflemen: 93)
On June 25th, 1849, John Evans Brown wrote the following:
Monday we did not make an early start, yet drove fifteen miles to grass. Fourteen miles from Chimney Rock the road leaves the river and emigrants should by all means provide themselves with water, as they will drive over twenty miles before finding any and then not sufficient for all purposes. After leaving the river, the road lies through one of the finest valleys I ever saw and is decidedly the best twenty miles of road we have travelled.
By the spring at Scotts Bluff, there is a store and blacksmith's shop, kept by Rubedere, a trader who has resided among the Sioux Indians for thirteen years. Grass is very good and water excellent for present use, being unfit to carry, even to Horse Creek, a distance of twelve miles.
On June 26th, 1849, what must be counted as the height of the California
Rush, an article was published in the Kanesville Frontier Guardian describing an interview with the "Messrs. Robidoux":
The Messrs. Robidoux's, who have a trading post near Fort Laramie, arrived in this place on Wednesday evening (26th?) from the plains. They left their post, which is fifty miles below Fort Laramie, on the 14th of April, but owing to the great scarcity of grass were unable to travel but very a short distance per day, which accounts for the great length of time they were on the plains. The met the first company of emigrants fifty miles this side of Fort Laramie, on the 26th day of April. Their horses were much reduced, there being little or no grass on the plains. A few days later they met the second company, and every day afterwards met large numbers of the emigrants. They were getting on well, and appeared to enjoy the trip finely. Their general health was good, there being but few cases of sickness. They heard of only one person who had the small pox, but did not know of a single case of cholera. As an evidence of the general health of the emigrants, they only saw two graves on their return, and one of these the grave of a child.
They counted on their return 9,200 wagons, immediately on the road. They passed a large number of wagons at the different encampments off the road, which they did not include in their count. Taking into consideration the fact that they passed the Independence road where it intersects the St. Joseph road, before the main body of emigrants had arrived at that point--and not meeting any of the emigrants who left the Bluffs and old Fort Kearney, they traveling on the other side of the Platte--we should not be surprised if nearly seventy-five thousand emigrants are now on the plains, bound for California. There were never less than four men to a wagon, and frequently some wagons contained five, six and even seven persons. Allowing four men to a wagon, and they met on their return upwards of 36,000 persons, not including the pack mule companies, besides a large number who were encamped off the road.
The Messrs. Robidoux's took charge of a large number of letters from the emigrants.
On June 30th, William Swain visited Scott's Bluff on his way to the California Gold Fields:
June 30. We left camp at six this morning. We filled our water barrel on leaving the river, as we would not touch it again in thirty miles.
Encamped near Scotts Bluff for noon halt. These bluffs run quite close to the river and force our road through a ravine in the bluffs.
Encamped this evening at a spring spoken by of Fremont. Twenty-one miles today.
July 1. Sabbath. This morn at sunrise we saw a grand spectacle on the bluffs, clouds resting on their tops in rolling masses, leaving a narrow line of bright sky, above which they lay in dark and massive lines of mist.
In camp today, I visited the bluffs in company with Dr. Wells and John Root for the purpose of getting my first glimpse of the Black Hills. Here in this wilderness of plains, on the broken bluffs of the Platte, at an elevation of six or seven hundred feet, we stand and admire the beauty, the grandeur and the extent of the scene....This sight calls up with a magic influence all the thoughts and interests connected with these objects heretofore known to us only by the page of the voyager. Our distance from home, our passage across the hills rugged brows, our prospects beyond their line, all these thoughts pass quickly across the mind; and these passed over, the mind rests upon the time when "Homeward Bound" shall be our song.
James Pratt, of the company of Wolverine Rangers, in a letter from camp dated July 1, 1849, from "56 miles East of Fort Laramie," as published in the Detroit Advertiser, Sept. 10, 1849, (Bruff, 481) mentions the following:
A mile from the road, across a deep ravine in which are several springs, a man has a blacksmiths shop, and keeps certain supplies for emigrants. In the ravine the largest cedars I ever saw flourish. The man has an Indian wife and family, and seems to live much at his ease, making money plentifully."
James D. Lyon, also a member of the company of Wolverine Rangers, wrote a letter dated July 4th, 1849 post-marked "Ten Miles East of Fort Laramie" and published in the Detroit Advertiser on Sept. 10, 1849: "
Near Scott's Bluffs there is a Blacksmith shop and store, owned by a Frenchman who says he has been there trading with the Indians for 14 years. He shoes horses for one dollar a shoe and setts the tires of a wagon for $8; all other work in proportion. He sells flour at eight and Bacon at $10 per hundred."
On July 6th, 1849, J. G. Bruff left the following:
noon'd in road, at edge of stream. Grave, in the heart of Scott's Bluffs: --right of trail:--
"James Roby,
of Comp. I, Mounted
Riflemen; Died
June 19, 1849
of cholera.
Born in the state
of Ohio, Aged 20
years."
Merd. Clear, Strong breeze from S. E. Temp. 88 (degrees) made 26 miles, to camp near a clear run, and about 1 mile from a trading-post of Rubedeaux's. (31)
July 7th, 1849--Cear and calm, Temp. 78 (degrees)
"This basin, among the singular and romantic bluffs, is a beautiful spot. It appears to extend E. & W. about 5 ms. and about 3 ms. wide. In a deep gulch lies a cool spring and brook.--Close by is a group of Indian lodges & tents, surrounding a log cabin, where you can buy whiskey for $5 per gallon; and look at the beautiful squaws of the traders. Flour here sells for 10 (cents) per lb. At W. end of the Bluffs you have the 1st sight of Laramie peak, about 60 miles off. Small cactii, with white, and also with red flowers, and plums are here."
3 Graves near the Spring:--
"Jesse Galen, "F. Dunn,
Independence, Mo." Aged 26"
"Joseph Blake"
Beautiful large orange colored poppys, and a small animal of the Lemur genus--with cheek pouches filled with grass-seed. (32)
Volume 3 of Bruff's Journals, for the same date of July 6th, records: "A Trading-post and Blacksmith's shop kept by one of the Robedeaux's of St. Josephs, Mo. to trade with the Indians." (Vol.1, 480: H3?)
James Hamelin wrote that he "passed a log cabin inhabited by a Robideaux, who divides his time between shoing horses and selling what he calls whiskey ( a composition of alcohol, ipecac & tartar emitic) at $1. pt."
On May 1st, 1850, George Keller noted the "Roubidous"
There is a blacksmith shop and stock market here. Exorbitant prices were demanded for mules and horses. As an illustration, Mr. D. Hoover, of Dalton, gave a pretty god horse and seventy-five dollars, for a rather indifferent mule." (14)
Thomasson notes on May 26 that "Scots bluff is a small trading post seroundid by bluffs except the pass we come in at thare is 1 store 2 blacksmith shops severel wigwams some 3 or 4 smaller ceder cabins" and Wolcott describes "2 or 3 low cabins made of cedar and mud--many Indian lodges around."
On May 25th to May 28th, 1850, S. M. Jamison left the following:
25 Left camp at half past 5 traveled about 6 miles before leaving the river & traveled 6 miles and encamped for diner heavy thunder & hale storm very high wind by till after rane left camp 5 o'clock travel 4 miles & encamped at big Spring one mule died in about half an hour after Stoping from drinking cold water.
26. Sunday lay by heavy thunder heigh wind.
27. Lay by & traded with the french for one horse made three pack Sadles & made a great many repairs we now will commence to pack. Sold fifty dollars worth of provisions. a grat many trains passed this day Nats not so bad as have been. This place is Called Smiths Bluffs there is a fine Spring here.
28. got ready poot on our packs. Left camp at 10 ocl travled fourteen miles & encamped for diner on the other side of horse creek Left camp at half past three & traveled 8 miles and encamped for night of the rad Some distance.
On May 30th, of 1850, James Abbey visited Scott's Bluff and left his account:
Thursday, May 30.--Turned our cattle out at 2 o'clock to let them graze for a couple of hours. 4 o'clock we were under way in fine style. We stopped for breakfast at Robidoux's trading post, here we found a good spring of water, but grass scarce. We have been traveling up a deep valley for a number of miles after we had reached the peak, at a distance of 150 miles. As we descended the ridge we traveled over a barren country, broken by deep chasms and sloughs, hollowed out by the wind and water. 12 o'clock nooned about ten miles this side of the trading post, found poor grass and no water. When we reached the trading post this morning Mr. Jamison, a Methodist preacher from Kentucky, who was accidentally shot by his own pistol, some time since was much worse and not expected to live, and I learn from a mule train that passed here about 10 o'clock, that he had died from the effects of his wound this morning. His family were all with him. 2 o'clock traveled some two hours and came to a running stream of water called Horse creek, here we watered our cattle and drove on some four miles, found good grass and turned our cattle out to graze. Here we cooked our suppers with buffalo chips. Supper over we traveled some two hours and camped for the night. Made to-day 23 miles over a good road.
On June 3rd and 4th, 1850, Eleazar Stillman Ingalls wrote the following account:
June 3rd. Drove twenty-five miles, and passed Chimney Rock. We camped about two miles back from the river on the bottom, and about four miles from a large bluff resembling the fortification which we named Fort Whitey, from its white appearance. Several of the boys went out on a wild goose chase to the bluffs for wood, there being a few straggling cedars in sight which appeared to be not over two miles distant; they started about four P. M. and got back at ten o'clock at night pretty well fatigued, with no fuel, being unable to reach the cedars. 25 miles.
June 4th. Had a heavy rain last night, and got a late start, but drove thirty miles and caught up with the rest of our company who left us on Sunday. We passed Robadove's trading post, at Scott's bluffs and camped about two miles from it at a spring of cold water gushing out of a rock. --This ought to be called the Rock of Horeb, situated as it is in the desert land. Our road to-day led back from the river and we have had a scarcity of water for our horses.
We have had a dry, hot day, with great scarcity of grass. The country is getting more barren. Found an indifferent camping ground. 25 miles.
June 6th. Passed another French trading post to-day with its usual accompaniment of Indian wigwams. Litwiler swapped horses with an old Indian who took a fancy to his horse because it was white, and his squaw wanted it, he said. We reached Fort Laramie about four o'clock, P. M.; forded the Laramie River, and camped about two miles from the fort on the bluff, the authorities at the Fort prohibiting emigrants from camping in the valley. 26 miles.
George Willis Read left the following accounts of June 4th and 5th, 1850:
Left camp at eleven o'clock. Drove 18 miles. Our camp close to Scott's bluff. Our sick men all better. The scenery is romantic and sublime, around our camp. The bluffs in the distance skirted by small cedars, indented in various places, many high peaks, worn by the rain and wind into various shapes, resembling many of the structures of Architecture. The forenoon and part of the afternoon were quite inclement, but the evening has turned out fine. The sun is setting clear, a token of a fine day tomorrow. We are all in fine spirits today and good order and humor. 18 miles today.
Wens., June 5" 1850
We left camp at the early hour of six. Travelled briskly all day, left the river for 20 miles. Passed Scott's Bluffs, also a trading point, kept by a white man. We could not procure any fresh meat at this point. They keep nothing which the emigrant stands in need of but some Mockasons of an inferior quality. I was called back at noon to see a sick man, who was laboring under the most prominent symptoms of Cholera. Succeeded in affording relief. We have the best grass tonight we have had yet. Come 30 miles. (A Pioneer of 1850: George Willis Read 1927: 58-69
On June 10th and 11th, Scott's Bluffs was again visited by Robert Robe who left the following account in his diary:
10. Passed Scotts bluffs today. These are an extended range of bluffs north of the road presenting a great variety of shape and at a little distance much resembles a city in ruins.
11. Passed Robedory trading post he informs me he is acquainted with Rev. Mr. Hamilton the missionary and has two daughters in that school.
J. A. Sponsler wrote a letter to his wife from Fort Laramie while on his trip in 1850 (136). He describes Scott's Bluff briefly in his letter of that day:
Saturday, 15 (June, 1850) past up between scotts blufs thar is severel good springs along her tha have a trading house her it belongs to the french and indians have a black smith shop charge $4 for shoing a horse we have bin travling through som delate loocking country for the last 6 or 7 days but we have got in som prity country now thes blufs loocks lie houes of on som hill that loock like we aint fer of of them but tha ar 4 and 5 miles off campt on hors creek to day one of the muclen brothers past us the other day on th way to california on packmules he ses thar dying 4 or five out of every train back on the south side of plat thar was lots of sickness back thare wen we came along thare we have lost non out of our train yet but thare has bin severl very bad with the dyre for the last 2 weaks i could count 10 or 12 graves a day but i dont see many now i think we have got prity wellout of the sickness now.
Sunday 16 past a nother traiding house to day campt of the road about 1 mile grass not very good.
On June 22nd, 1850, James Bennet wrote:
Today at 9 o'clock we arrived at Scott's Bluffs. The road leaves the river at this point by a circuitous route for 30 miles. We met an Indian trader here with a two horse wagon, who pointed out to us an excellent spring, seven or eight miles ahead. He also stated that there was a regularly established trading post three miles to our left (Fort John), where we could see a herd of cattle grazing. Having reached the spring in the afternoon, we found here an encampment of near a hundred Sioux Indians. Removed from these, perhaps three hundred yards, were two Frenchmen with their Indian wife and children. They were having a dog feast. Near their camp fire was the head of a large mastiff; a bleeding evidence of the fact. We procured a good supply of wood and clear and cool water here and encamped three miles further in the bluffs.
Dr. Tompkins in about June 21-22, 1850 noted Scott's Bluff and the trading post there:
"The emigrant road passes to the left at Scot's Bluffs (as we proceed westward) and leads to, and through a beautiful plain affording every possible facility for grazing and rest. Here we remained one day. At the west end of this valley lives a blacksmith by the name of Thibbadoux who has 3 squaws he calls his wives and a numerous progeny is the result of this association. This man is evidently of French descent and a desperado." (The Great Trek 136)
On June 22nd, 1850, Madison Berryman Moorman left the following description which concurs with Dr. Tompkins' account:
June 22nd.--No time was lost in getting everything ready of an early start--our poor mules had had no water since noon of the day before. Four miles over the sandy and barren hills brought us to several springs of pure water, but in such a deep ditch or gully that animals could not get to it: indeed it was so scarce that it was well that they could not; for were it accessible to the multitudes of stock, the little, weak streams would ever be kept dry and the thirsty beasts would be driven off as thirsty as before. After we all had drank to satiation, I took a couple of buckets and filled them for my faithful and famishing mules: which was followed by several others of our company. A great many emigrants twere soon crowding around, and as it was a rather romantic looking place as well as pleasant and a post of business, it seemed to be a general stopping point. A Frenchman who had found his way into this distant wild years ago and a Sioux squaw for his better half, had established a blacksmith shop in which he was doing well. Nearly every train had more or less work for him to do, so the savagized son of papal France was kept in a perfect hurly-burly all the while. His squaw was the most uncomely in appearance I had seen--and how he managed to love just such a human being is past my divination. Their lodge was the most indifferent and unclenly, in the village. Many of the Sioux are fine looking, especially the men, who are large, portly, athletic and inteligent looking.
We remained here several hours fixing an axle in one of our wagons--during which the little Indians were going about with their tin cups of dog stew! and seemed to relish it finely from the manner they would smack their lips and other modees they used in giving expression to their exquisite delight. (The Journal of Madison Berryman Moorman: 1850-1851: Irene Paden, 1948: 27-8)
Franklin Street, in his guidebook based on his 1850 venture, wrote: "Roubadaux's trading post is at the upper end immense rocky bluffs, with here and there a cluster of small cedar and pine trees, growing among the rocks." (60-61)
It appears that by summer of 1850, the Robidoux's may have actually moved their trading post away from the Robidoux springs, about two to three miles to the east along the emigrant road. This may have been a temporary encampment, in lieu of the construction of the Carter Canyon site.
Capt. Howard Stansbury's report to the government is as below, in his "Table of Distances" :
July 9th (1850), Scott's Bluff--These bluffs are about 5 miles south of the river. The road up the bluffs steep, but on good, hard gravelly ground. A small spring at the top of the first hill. Robideau has a trading post and a blacksmith's shop here, but the post is to be removed to a creek south, and over the bluffs.
Stansbury noted on July 9th:
There is a temporary blacksmith's shop here, established for the benefit of the emigrants, but especially for that of the owner, who lives in an Indian lodge and has erected a log shanty by the roadside, in one end of which is the blacksmith's forge and in the other a grog shop and sort of grocery. The stock of this establishment consists principally of such articles as he had purchased from the emigrants at a great sacrifice and sells to others at as great a profit. Among other things, an excellent double wagon was pointed out to me, which he had purchased for seventy-five cents. The blacksmith shop is an equally profitable concern. When the owner is indisposed to work himself, he rents the use of his shop and tools for the modest price of seventy-five cents an hour, and it was not until after waiting for several hours that I could get the privilege of shoeing two of the horses, even at that price, the forge having been in constant use by the emigrants.
According to Stansbury, "Robideaux's post is to be removed to a creek south, and over the bluffs." The originally location has been ascertained by later historians with some accuracy, being situated in a picturesque location by a spring, a large grove of Cedars, and beneath the Bluffs. It consisted originally of a single log and mud structure, surrounded by tipis. By 1850, with a capital reported at $12,000, the site had grown to several log structures, and they were preparing to construct and even larger trading establishment.
William Fouts, on the Trail in the summer of 1850, wrote in his brief diary of the trip July 27th, 1850: Travelled 12 miles to Scotts Bluff and camped at a trading post, kept by Mr. Rubideux. July 28. Sunday. Laid by on account of rain. Got a shoe put on a horse. July 29. Bought 5 mules. Travelled 12 miles. Heavy hale, big as quail eggs. Travelled 12 miles before noon, and 8 miles afternoon and camped for night."
Angelina Farley, noted in her diary on August 3rd, 1850: "Our road passed over the bluffs at the first trading post between the forts at a deep ravine where was an excellent spring. There we saw three wagons and part of another left."
A second post had been constructed by 1851, about a mile to the South in what is now known as Carter Canyon. This was the "Fort Roupideau" sketched in 1851 by Heinrich Mollhausen, traveling with Prince Paul Wilhelm, when they put in there to repair and axle and met "my friends of thirty years standing, the Brothers Robidoux" at the post. Apparently, the first and second posts were kept in concurrent operation until the year 1852, with the second, larger establishment serving primarily the Indians, and the first, previous post being reduced in relation to the slumping of the emigrant trains by that time. On June 22, 1852, Margaret Bailey wrote:
"Passed a Frenchman's blacksmith shop. His wife, a squaw of the Sioux tribe, sat in the door of their hut rolled in a scarlet blanket. Looked rather sober but well. Another squaw was on horseback chasing a drove of horses and mules. She was only half dressed."
Shortly after, the post was destroyed. According to Irene Paden: "Either the blacksmith shop or the Sioux wife was a tactical error and the Kiowas burned up the place and made other arrangements. 'a. Rubidue' simply moved one canyon south and built another shop and trading post." (149)
"Maybe it was after they parted with all their buffalo hides for a dozen jew's-harps and a few pints of whisky that they came over and burned the joint," Bill suggested reasonably.
"I don't think they'd pick on just this one when there were three or four others," I remarked. "I've read in any early journal that one of the rugged Robidouxs was rather peremptory with his squaws. Possibly that was it." (Paden, 150)
On June 2nd, 1851, P. Crawford wrote:
This day we started early, traveled 10 miles up the river, watered and lay until 2 o'clock, when we left the river and started for Scott's Bluffs, 15 miles distant. We reached the Bluffs at 9 o'clock at night; found water and wood; pitch pine and red cedar both grow here. Here we found a trading post belonging to Rubedo, a Frenchman.
June 3.--This day we started late, traveled 12 miles and camped at Horse Creek. Here we can see laramie's peak, 150 miles distant. It looks like a pillar of dark cloud rising in the Northwest.
June 4--This morning we started at 8 o'clock, traveled 16 miles, had heavy sand first five miles, balance of the day good roads. Here we find the character of the country very different from the past. The river here is narrow, deep and crooked, the bluffs here coming to the water's edge. We had low, sandy hills to cross. We stopped this evening near a trading post right in a prairie dog town.
June 5.--This morning at the end of four miles we found a trading post, where we had the opportunity of exchanging lame cattle for fresh ones by paying small boot. At the end of 14 miles of tolerably hilly road, we encamped on the banks of the Laramie river. here we found a large number of Sioux Indians that were very friendly but were great beggars.
Father deSmet arrived in the vicinity of Scott's Bluffs after his famous meeting at the Horse Creek Treaty Grounds in September, 1851. The treaty with the Ogallala Brule Sioux, the Cheyenne and Arapahoes, numbering together about 6,0000, gave to these annuities of about $50,000 a year. deSmet left the following account:
Quite late in the afternoon of the 23rd of September, 1851, I bade farewell to the Creoles, Canadians and half-bloods. I exhorted them to live well and to pray to God, and to hope that he would soon send them spiritual succor for their temporal and external happiness and that of their children. I shook hands for the last time with the great chiefs and with a large number of the Indians, and addressed them some encouraging words and promised to plead their cause with the great chiefs of the black-gowns, and make known the desire, good intentions, and hopes they had expressed to me, while they would daily, in all sincerity of heart, implore the "Master of Life" to send them zealous priests to instruct them in the way of salvation, which Jesus Christ, his only son, came to trace to his own children on earth.
I directed my course toward "the springs," situated about 14 miles distant, in the vicinity of Robidoux's trading-house, for Colonel Mitchell had named this as the rendezvous for all those who proposed going directly to the United States. On the 24th, before sunrise, we set out in good and numerous company. I visited, in my way, two trading-houses in order to baptize five half-blood children. In the course of the day we passed the famous Chimney rock, so often described by my travelers. I had already seen it, in 1840 and 1841, in my first visit to the Rocky mountains, and mentioned it in my letters. I found it considerably diminished in height. (684-5)
Baptismal records left by Father deSmet contain the following entries:
23 Sept. 1851
John Cordier, child of Chas. Cordier
born: 28 Sept. 1850 sp: J. Jac Bourdeau
24 Sept. 1851 near Ft. Robidoux
Bapt. 2 infants, children of Dni. Robidoux and his wife
25 Sept. 1851
Baptized 7 Infants at LaPlatte River
Louis Vasquez, child of Louis Vasquez and Narcisse--born: 27 July 1847
Marianne Vasquez, child of Louis Vasquez and Narcisse--born: 25
July 1849
Sara Helen Vasquez, child of Louis Vasquez and Narcisse--born: 14
July 1851.
Prince Paul Wilhelm in accompaniment of the German artist B. Mollhausen, visited Scott's Bluff in 1851:
I arrived in Scott's Bluffs on October 1. Nearby is Fort John, one of the trading posts of the American Fur Trading Company. Here I was most cordially welcomed by may old friend, Major Tripp, who is in sole charge of this important establishment. I was also overjoyed at meeting again my beloved and reverend old friend, the missionary Pere de Smet.
There was a great number of leather tents close by, along the little brook that issues from a gorge some distance back from the establishment. These sheltered a body of Ogallalas, a tribe related to the Sioux nation. This branch of the Sioux are composed of very good-looking, cleanly people, but their women could most truthfully be called beautiful.
To be sure, they were wrapped only in their blankets or their buffaloe robes. But the faces were free from grease and paint. Their hair was black as night, long and well-combed. They were overloaded with rings, necklaces of bead-work and of rattles from rattle snakes. Their foot-wear consisted of the finest moccasins in which they seemed to take a delight, parading about and showing them off with childlike pride.
A young Indian had just come in with three slain antelopes hanging from his led-horse.
The names of the more important of the tribe of Ogalla-las were White Horse, or Shunka-Kanskas; Little Cotton-Tail or Mastinka; Red Feather, or Loupee Touta.
Of the Cheyennes the following were most prominent: White Antelope, or Takshaka; He-Who-Walks-in-the-Clouds, or Makpiah-Iapathe.
Of the Arapahoes; Bird's head or Kalapah.
I visited the leather tents of different families in company with the interpreter from the fort. There I found some very pretty young women and maidens. The little papooses were neat and all was very clean and orderly inside their little habitations.
The males go out as far as the Rocky Mountains during the winter season in order to hunt and trap. The furry animals are very numerous. These are the badger, beaver, otter, fox, big gray wolf, prairie wolf, and polecat.
More rare is the panther, a very large and ferocious feline. Early in the autumn the fur of the black bear, the cinnamon, and the grizzly is superb. These latter are slain as much for their flesh as for their coats.
Just before the buffaloes turn southward, when their furry coats are at their best, the hunters slay uncounted hundreds of these. Their hides they tan, as they do the elk's, deer's, and antelope's, with the brains from the same carcass. This is a process that has never been successfully imitated by the whites. The flesh of the buffaloes is salted and dried in enormous quantities, and this food constitutes their main dependence until the following spring. (206-8)
Wilhelm's account is valuable for several reasons. It provides a rare glimpse of Fort John, which was established by the American Fur Company after vacating Fort Laramie to the Government:
At the time of the purchase of Fort Laramie by the government, it was expected that the American Fur Company would retire from the country; in fact, Bruce Husband gave that as the reason of the company's desire to sell. It was quite a surprise, therefore, when this representative of the fur monopoly announced that he would build another trading post farther down the river and that already the locality was selected. This was at Scott's Bluffs. The buildings were at once constructed, and the stores, peltries, and robes of the company at Laramie were moved to that point. Bruce Husband was an able trader and had managed the affairs of his company in a manner that reflected credit on himself. He was popular with the Indian tribes and pursued a policy with them that insured peace and prosperity. It turned out to be a fortunate thing for emigrants that this company continued to do business in the country, as its representative used his influence to prevent the Indians from stealing the stock of those going to Utah, Oregon and California, and in a number of instances it came to the knowledge of the commanders at Fort Laramie that the American Fur Company had saved many white men from being killed. When Bruce Husband retired from the post at Scott's Bluffs, Fontenelle took has place, and his administration proved equally as satisfactory. The Indians were well acquainted with this famous partisan, he having been a familiar figure in the mountains for more than twenty years, and the red men had great respect for him because he would fight if driven to it, and this gave him great influence over the tribes. Fontenelle enjoyed the confidence of army officers and was well thought of by all who came in contact with him. It seemed proper that this distinguished leader, who had for so many years lived a life of adventure in the mountains, should be chosen by his company to fill a position in which he was no longer called upon to suffer the hardships by which he had won a name for himself and wealth for those whom he served. He was the last representative of the American Fur Company in this section of the country. (Coutant 316-7)
The American Fur Company sold out to the government in 1849, relocating to the vicinity of Scott's Bluffs. This was the Helvas Canyon trading post that was found by Thomas L. Green, the local historian of Scott's Bluff, who wrote a more detailed archaeological and historical description of Fort John in the Nebraska History Magazine. According to local lore, the Indians got drunk and burned it down, it was afterwards a lost and forgotten site. Green describes the Helvas Canyon site as mounds hexagonal in shape, in which remains of wood logs about 6 inches in diameter could be found. He found at the site percussion caps, hand moulded bullets, lead bar, lead shavings from moulded bullets, gun flint, flint lock, toothed iron hide scrappers, brass buttons, trade beads, "brass trade rings, small hawks bells used by Indians on gala costumes, iron cones for holding tufts of horsehair, brass and copper headed tacks for ornamenting gun-stocks, etc., hand-made nails, old style tools and china of antique pattern and broken clay pipes." The beads were dated generally by Arthur Woodward as between 1850 and 1860.
The site is a low encircling mound of earth enclosing an area of about 65 feet in diameter. The mound varies in width from about 25 feet to 35 feet, and is from 2 to 2 1/2 feet high at its crest above the surrounding ground. There are two gaps in the enclosure, one of which may be due to erosion. The other is probably an entrance. At varying intervals, around the enclosure there are piles of scattered stones, probably fire-places or chimneys. There are 6 of these piles, and they vary greatly as to size. (1934: 42-3)
Green's conclusions were that this was the site of Fort John, and that it had probably been built in 1849 and lasted no longer than five years. Green also first rediscovered the Carter Canyon site, according to Mattes. Government surveyors noted the ruins at "NW1/4, Sec. 27, T 21 N, R 56 W." in 1881. "In addition to scattered rocks marking building foundations and fireplaces, the following items were found by Mr. Green, and placed by him in the Scotts Bluff National Monument museum: drawer pulls, wagon bow staples, lead balls, gun flints, ox-shoe nails, key ring with keys, trade beads, and iron grate from a forge." (115)
Wilhelm's account also provides a glimpse at something of the cultural life of the Indians who spent their time at Scott's Bluff, from a point of view that was a little less jaundiced than most emigrant accounts of the time.
Prince Wilhelm and Balduin Mollhausen concluded their journey in proximity to Fort Laramie, and by about mid-October he returned through Scott's Bluffs where he met the Robidouxs:
About the beginning of October I had concluded my journey of explorations as far westward as I had originally planned, and without a day's delay for the sake of rest I started on my return to civilization. But I found to my great disappointment that I had to make a longer stay than I had intended, both at the settlement of the fur-trading company at Fort John and at my friends of thirty years' standing, the Brothers Robidoux at Scotts Bluff. (213)
Delayed about a "fort-night" by replacement of their wagon, and by the poor health of Mollhausen, Wilhelm remained in the vicinity of the posts at Scott's Bluffs perhaps long enough to have his honey-moon period with the new American west begin to tarnish a little.
On account of the delays I have mentioned our return journey was retarded a full fortnight. It was with good reason, therefore, that I was looking forward with considerable apprehension to the countless hazards to which travel in winter was exposed from now on, perhaps with death itself in the path.
More than all did I dread what might befall Mr. Moellhaussen in his weakened condition. And, indeed, all these somber fears were to become fulfilled. The return journey proved to be from the very first a series of terrible hardships, sufferings and misfortunes. On the very day of our departure from Fort John it was our misfortune to have our front axle broken in two as we were driving up a steep slope. I rode back to Major Tripp and he sent out several men. These lost their way and did not find Moelhausen's camp till late at night. Then I had to send a man with the broken axle to Mr. Robidoux, and the latter's blacksmith was able to repair the damage quickly and in a most workmanlike manner. (214-5)
By Oct., Stansbury, on the rebound of his exploration, wrote "Scott's Bluffs--at a small rivulet, row of old deserted houses. A spring at the foot of Sandstone Bluffs, where the road crosses the ridge." According to T. L. Green, cited by Mattes (1949) this record by Stansbury was probably the first American Fur Company site, and not the Robidoux trading post.
By 1851, emigrant travel tapered off, the first accounts of crossing Mitchel Pass are found, and other trading houses occur in the Bluffs area, further to the east of Robidoux Pass (Mattes, 1949: 121). By 1852, accounts of using Mitchel pass become quite frequent. Gilbert Cole left the following account of his journey that year:
Scott's Bluff was an immense formation, and sometime during its history nature's forces had cleft it in two parts, making an avenue through its center at least one hundred feet wide, through which we all passed, as the trail led through instead of around the bluff. (In the Early Days Along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852, Gilbert L. Cole, edited by A. Hardy, 1905: 41)
It appears that by 1852 these posts had been entirely abandoned. Captain Howard Stansbury, returning from his expedition to the Great Salt Lake, recorded in 1852:
Oct. 17, Horse Creek--Timber has become scarce along the river--here there is none."
Oct. 18,--Old Track--A road lies along the river but it is not worn; said to be shorter than by Scott's Bluffs. We ascend gently to old track, which leaves the river at Horse Creek."
Scott's Bluffs--At a small rivulet row of deserted houses. A spring at the foot of Sandstone Bluffs, where the road crosses the ridge. Cedars on the bluffs and good grass on the plains.
It is evident that the Robidoux as a family concern had withdrawn from the Scott's Bluff post by 1852, but that family members were still trading and trafficking along the trail. Sometime in late June, 1852, Capt. J. C. Terrell mentions the following while encamped beyond Devil's Gate:
Poor Ranger, he followed us for two days, but finally had to give it up, for we made from twenty-five to thirty miles a day, and his feet could not stand it. I was tempted to shoot him. I bought a mare pony from Mr. Rheubadeau of St. Jo., the very hardiest animal I ever saw, foaled in these mountains; she did not know grain, and kept fat--a natural pacer. (Overland Trip to California in '52, 85)
Though Terrell does not provide an exact reference to the location of this transaction, a previous passage mentioning his "opening a store" at devils gate hints at the possibility that Antoine Robidoux, Senior, may have located himself as a trader in this region during this period of time.
Arriving at the Devil's Gate we remained three days. Miss Cassie and I caught a string of small fish and loaded back to camp with cedar fagots. Made a trade with an Ohio man going to Oregon; swapped for his four splendid mules, in good condition, and gave him seventy-five dollars to boot and three yoke of oxen and two yoke of cows. The cows cost me forty dollars a yoke, and the steers seventy-five dollars a yoke, making the mules cost me about ninety-five dollars each. Opened a store and sold surplus provisions, clothing, etc., in direct opposition to Archambeaux, the trapper and trader, with Indian wife. He has a store in twenty rods of us. How I hated to part from my animals and dog, all tried friends, for Ranger can not keep up with us now, going twenty to thirty-five miles a day. Swapped the wagon for pack saddles and some lessons on how to pack. The principal difficulty was in learning to pack our molasses kegs. (ibid., 85)
Whichever Robidoux this was, and likely it was Antoine in association with some of his descendants or brothers, apparently had established himself with raising horses in the vicinity of Devil's Gate.
Notice is given to at least one having been attacked by Arapahoes in 1852. By 1853, these sites were fallen to ruin. Celinda E. Hines wrote in 1853:
....Went up the valley about six miles and camped in a most romantic spot near a spring brook. Martha and I went....on up the ravine, expecting every moment to find a spring. At length we came upon what we supposed to have once been a trading post. There were several log buildings connected together. In them were remnants of wagons and other things which emigrants would want. In one had been a blacksmith shop. The whole was now deserted. Near by was one of the most beautiful springs I have ever seen..."(Mattes, 1949: 128)
"several log buildings connected together. In them were remnants of wagons and other things which the emigrants would want. In one had been a blacksmith shop. The whole was now deserted. Near by was one of the most beautiful springs I have ever seen."
Mattes has argued that the "A. Rubidue" mentioned by Gibbs is in reference to a junior nephew, and not to Antoine senior. There is no reason not to assume this is actually referring to Antoine, especially in light of the previous passage dated just about a month earlier. It is doubtful that a junior employee of the family business would be the one to hang his shingle above all the rest. It does indicate that Antoine may have invested in a small supply of merchandise to equip the trading post. Major Cross's journal entry for the same day, describes a "delightful spring" found upon ascent of a cedar covered hill, "which was the first we had met on the march." "here was a blacksmith shop and a trading-house, built in the true log-cabin style, which made us all feel as if we were in reality approaching once more a civilized race." (93)
The footnote to the Gibbs Journal makes reference to the post as having been established in 1848 and destroyed by the Arapahos about 1852. Stansbury found a "temporary" blacksmith's shop and "grocery" in one building. The stock
of the latter consisted principally of articles bought from the emigrants. The forge was rented to emigrants for seventy-five cents per hour. Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Wurttemberg traveled to the post in October of 1851 and found "my friends of thirty years standing, the Brothers Robidoux." Early in 1851, J. L. Johnson met "in mid-season" a "Robydous" train west of Fort Kearny, including an old man who was "entirely blind" and who had wintered at Scotts Bluffs. The only picture of this post was painted by Heinrich Mollhausen who accompanied Paul Wilhelm. This sketch shows a log-cabin structure set in a wooded ravine between hill tops, constructed of logs and built in a square horse-shoe shape--the open side of the structure apparently facing the opening of the trail and valley. This picture was destroyed in the bombing of Berlin in 1945, and only a photograph reproduction of it made by Robert Taft survives today.
It appears that the proprietors of these posts, relocated then to two other locations, one "at the east fork in the road near Melbeta" and the other "where the two branches rejoined at Horse Creek." Susan Bettelyoun recounted that "Robidoux ran a blacksmith shop on the Oregon Trail on a branch of Horse Creek." According to one Captain Gove, the approach to this post was called "Robideaux Sloughs". The trading post was still in operation as late as 1856 when visited by J. R. Brown, 1859, who also noted the older trading post site "now in ruins", when visited by Chillson, and August 13th of 1860 when visited by the famous traveler Sir Richard Burton, who wrote:
We passed a ranch called "Robidoux' Fort," from the well-known Indian trader of that name; it is now occupied by a Canadian or a French Creole, who, as usual with his race in these regions, has taken to himself a wife in the shape of a Sioux squaw, and has garnished his quiver with a multitude of whitey-reds. (75-6)
As far as who was at this post, it is likely that all the Robidoux brothers and nephews mentioned in the trading licenses for this time were there some of the time, using this perhaps as an outpost of operations. It also appears that it was probably staffed by one Antoine and Sellico Robidoux junior, both brothers, and probably both blacksmiths, and possibly, for a short while, by Joseph E., who was their elder cousin. That they were married to squaws is evident. James Pratt wrote on July 1st, 1849, that "The man has an Indian wife and family, and seems much at his ease, making money plentifully."
It is apparent that the proprietor (s) of this post had been in the region for from ten to sixteen years, and that there were several with squaw wives and several children. In 1850, James Bennett wrote of "two Frenchmen with Indian wives and children. " Thomasson mentions "6 or 8 Frenchmen with squaws". William Kelly describes one of these squaws as the "perfect queen of the wilderness." Bruff wrote "you can buy whiskey and look at the beautiful squaws of the traders." Dr. Lord referred to a Frenchman and his "squaw lady love."
Solomon Gorgas, whom Robidoux invited into his quarters to see his squaw about moccasins, describes her as "rather a better-looking woman than most Squaws--but hard enough." Charles Darwin says, "This man has two wives who look pretty well. "But when we turn to Madison Moorman, the image is shattered: "His squaw was the most uncomely in appearance I had seen--and how he managed to love just such a human being is past my divination. Their lodge was the most indifferent and unclenly in the village." To make his point, Moorman adds, "Many (others) of the Sioux are fine looking."
As far as children were concerned, there appear to have been at least three, but Charles Darwin mentions four, one of whom was a "beautiful boy."
That this was the same "Antoine Robidoux" mentioned by Gibbs in the same year is given by Darwin's account:
Here is a Blacksmiths shop by A. Roubideaux & a trading post--55 from Laramie....
And Antoine Robidoux is a gentleman. He taught me much of the Sioux...He procured my reading of some medicinal directions which were in French as he could not read...I read too for him a letter from his Uncle Joseph Robidoux of St. Joseph in which he insisted on his not going to California but staying to make beaucoup d'argent. He invited me to take dinner with him...It consisted of pork, friend batter cake & milkless coffee. We sat on a cedar stool made of slabs & ate off a similar table with our fingers for forks....Never did I look on so beautiful a spot as the valley of his residence.
Darwin also describes Indian burials at the bluffs, as apparently these were sacred burial grounds of the Indians. Robidoux gave Darwin an explanation of the Sioux burial customs: "He says they change occasionally the bones of the dead from tree to tree & even the bones of a little girl who had been dead ten years had lately been moved near his house."
That they were both trading with Indians and servicing emigrants is put clearly by Castleman who wrote: "Robado was trading with the Indians. He had a blacksmith shop here and was dooing a great deal of work for the Emigration." They had an assortment of dry-goods, moccassins, and Buffalo robes made by the Sioux. They apparently worked on a "revolving basis" buying and selling merchandise with the emigrants. "He was the clearing house, the stock exchange of the migration." (Mattes, 448)
Robidoux had a fine monopoly going for him, and prices proved to be very elastic. One of the earliest Forty-Niners, Col. Jarrot, on May 26, 1849, raced to the shop for repairs, says Berrien, "for he was fearful that some of the waggons behind us might get ahead of him." While at the shop, "nearly forty wagons passed us on the way to the diggins. As I brought shoes for my mules with me, I had them nailed on...25 (cents) for each shoe." Prices climbed sharply. On June 12, Wakeman Bryarly complained, "For goods of every description he charges the most exorbitant prices, & for work, truly extortionate. For instance if an emigrant finds the mule shoes, nailes &c, & puts the shoes on, he has to pay $1. per pair and everything in proportion." On June 28, observed Perkins, shoeing mules was $2 per shoe and sugar 40 (cents) per pound. "Some of his prices was amusing enough to us," says Perkins, "but not so to the unfortunate traveller whose misfortunes compelled him to refit here." By July 4, said James D. Lyon, business was slacking off: "He shoes horse for one dollar a shoe and setts the tires of the wagon for 18. He sells flour at eight and Bacon at $10 per hundred."
Toward the end of the 1849 season, on July 9 according to Stansbury, blacksmithing was again on a do-it-yourself basis, with shop facilities renting for the modest price of 75 (cents) per hour, "but it was not until waiting for several hours that I could get the privilege of shoing two of the horses, even at that price, the forge having been in constant use by the emigrants."
In 1850, profiteering soard. On June 18 Sponsler paid $4 to shoe a horse; on June 23 Greenville's correspondent paid $8 for the privilege. Whiskey, apparently a principal commodity, comanded 50 (cents) a jigger and $5 to $8 a gallon, which perhaps does not seem exorbitant by today's standards, but doubtless was then, particularly in view of the manner in which the vile stuff, imported in kegs from St. Louis, was watered down by the traders." (Mattes, 447-8)
Mattes ends his discussion of the Robidoux at Scott's Bluff with an interesting discussion of the "cultural level of Robidoux's trading post:
One final note, this on the cultural level of Robidoux's trading post. The emigrants were inclined to take a rather dim view of the trader, not only because of his sharp business practices, but also because of his moral turpitude. Shombre portrays him as a "renegade white," while Thompkins calls him a desperado. In 1850 observers describe a dog feast, which naturally appeared repugnant in their eyes and suggested the habits of barbarians. John Wood wrote: "They live on game and are not particular what kind. As we passed today they killed a large dog which was very fat. They made soup of him. It was held by the men while the women beat it to death with clubs." James Bennett observed: "They were having a dog feast. Near their camp fire was the head of a large mastiff; bleeding evidence of the fact." Moorman refers to "the savagized son of papal France and his little Indians going about with their tin cups of dog stew." Mary Bailey mentions Robidoux's Horse Creek post in 1852: "Passed a Frenchman's blacksmith shop. His wife, a squaw of the Sioux tribe, sat in the door of their hut rolled in a scarlet blanket....Another squaw was on horseback, chasing a drove of horses and mules. She was only half dressed." (Mattes, 452)
The exact date of the purported destruction of Fort Robidoux is not known. According to a local historian of the area, Mr. Thomas Green, in a memorandum to the regional historian of the Department of the Interior dated January 5th, 1840, the "Roubideaux Pass blacksmith shop and trading post" was burned in 1853, based upon Coutant's account in his history of Wyoming:
Mr. Green, who has made a long exhaustive study of historic points in his area, said, when he was out to Roubideaux Pas with one of the writers, John McLaughlin and Wayne Hackett on this trip, that Stansbury sets for that Roubidoux moved his shop directly south of the present site. This would mean over the low range of hills there. Mr. Green did not have time to show the site. However, he said he picked up a number of relics there, including a grate which he turned over to the Oregon Trail Museum in the Monument. Mr. Green states that location of his site proves Mr. Stansbury to be right. However, no information is apparently available on how long Roubidoux operated in this apparently isolated spot or why he moved there.
The remains of the trading post below the Roubideaux Blacksmith Shop, as mentioned in our last letter, is declared by Mr. Green, who stated authorities, to be without a doubt the first location of Fort John, after the Government purchased Fort Laramie and the American Fur Trading Company sought a new location. However, being so close to the Oregon Trail, the location had its disadvantages in that browsing horses, oxen and cattle of the emigrants despoiled the forage in that neighborhood. This forced the post to find a new location in Helvas Canyon, with its great sufficiency of grass for fattening oxen and horses, which were traded or sold at a handsome profit to emigrants whose animals were in poor condition.
A letter dated February 9th, 1855, from Fort Laramie to Major O. F. Winship at St. Louis, indicates that by this time there was still a road-ranch, probably in the proximity of the Scott's Bluff and North Platte river areas, which by then appears to have represented the limit of the sphere of control of the military at Laramie over local matters.
Major.
I have the honor to make the following report in relation to Indian affairs.
Having reason to believe that the Sioux were frequenting the trading houses on the road below this, and perhaps trading, and fearing that some embarrassment might grow out of it, I despatched Major Johnson with a common on the 2d Inst: to visit these houses as far as Roubideaux and Beauvais, with instructions to put a stop to all trade, and to require the traders as far as possible to avoid any intercourse with them.
He learned that small parties of Brulees had been at the various houes, from time to time but he could not trace their trading to any particular house. They had purchased horses and Navajo blankets somewhere. Such blankets, he was informed, are only for sale at the house of the American Fur Company in charge of Gratiot. These Indians are most eager to purchase powder and lead.
They are all, particularly the old men, very anxious to make peace, and to have their trade opened, and they are looking for the arrival of the next mail with great impatience, hoping it will bring some favorable news for them. They have told the traders that if they find there is no prospect of peace, the young men will go out in small parties often to fifty, and waylay the roads, massacreing all who fall in their way. They have been very much elated and encouraged by their easy victory over Lieut. Grattan's party, and they now believe they can resist the soldiers successfully.
The old men know that sooner or later, they must be subdued and they want peace on any terms.
A few days since Little Thunder, a principal Chief of the Brulees, with fifteen to twenty men came into Mr. Gratiots, and brought with them the seven mules taken from the mail which they wished to deliver to me. It appears that Mr. Gratiot has said something about their giving the mules up which was repeated to the Chief as a message from me, and finding that that was not the case, he took them back to his village.
The traders on the Missouri have sent word to these Indians that they will meet them on White river and trade with them in arms and ammunition as much as they want. The Minniconjhos and Wah sah zhes are on White River and are preparing for war.
The Ogal lal lahs say that they know the troops will make war on them in the Spring, and many of them are moving south towards the Arkansas, to get out of the way.
These reports about the expectations and intentions of the Indians, came from them through the traders, and I have no doubt they are very near the truth.
I have anticipated that when the Indians learned that the troops were coming out against them, they would remove their families as much out of the way as possible, and that the young men, who are very little controlled by the chiefs, would attack all small parties they could find on the road or elsewhere.
Very respectfully,
Your obdt. servt.
(signed) W. Hoffman
Maj. & Bvt. Lit. Col. 6 Inf. Comdg.
A very important document was a petition to the U. S. Congress by the heads of households of the North Platte River valley area, signed at Fort Laramie and dated November 16th, 1867. It reads:
To the Congress of the United States & to the Hon. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington D. C.
Gents.
The undersigned petitioners respectfully represent that they are residents of Dakota Territory in the vicinity of Fort Laramie and are each and all heads or members of Indian families, that they have resided in the said Country many years, and came to it originally under the auspices of the old Northwestern Fur Company and for many years depended solely upon said Company for support, that after this Company ceased to do business they, the undersigned, obtained their subsistence by accommodating the Overland trail to the mining regions West, That said families and their half-breed children now number on the Platte and Missouri Rivers more than Two thousand (2000) souls, That the construction of the Rail Road across the Plains has so changed business and travel that all ostensible means of support along the North Platte are destroyed, that they are anxious to locate with their families upon some good agricultural land in the Indian Country and commence farming, and that their settlement in any country would draw about them their Indian Relatives & friends and would aid much in locating & civilizing the Indians. They therefore respectfully petition that a tract of country be set apart to be occupied by themselves, their Indian relatives & friends exclusively & forever located on the Missouri & White Earth Rivers described as follows Viz: Commencing in the middle of the main channel thereof to the junction of the North & South Forks of said River thence due South to the Northern line of the State of Nebraska thence along said line to the Missouri River thence up said Missouri River along the line of low water mark to the place of beginning. And that provision be made by law for them to enter said land or such portions of the same as they may desire in severalty for themselves and their heirs forever And that each of said petitioners and said half-breeds be allowed to enter three hundred and twenty acres of the same for a permanent home for themselves and their heirs. All rights vested under Indian treaties heretofore made in said country may be reserved and your petitioners will ever pray.
Fort Laramie, D. T.
November 16" 1867
This petition was signed by about 161 men, including G. P. Beauvais, James Bordeau, Charles Lajeunesse, Andrew Dripps and James Robinson. It was also, most notably, signed by one Selicour Robidoux. By this time, Antoine Robidoux's name no longer appears, suggesting that perhaps he was the blacksmith killed by a mule's kick to the head prior to this date. Of about 161 names, about 90 appear to be French in origin (56 %) while 71 (44%) appear to be Anglo-Saxon. If it is estimated that there was about 150 households encompassed within this sphere, and the half-breed population was about 2000, then average household size would be on the order of 12 or 13 persons per household. If nothing else, the average household size must have been fairly large--approximating family size of French families in Quebec. This also suggests that the rate of infant mortality in this area at this time was probably also fairly high--perhaps on the order of 25 or 30 percent. It appears also that many of the creole residents were actually of Canadian origin, having come down onto the Plains as early fur-traders with the Northwestern Company, and these traders became meshed with those traders from the American fur company.
Robidoux pass area afterward became the site of a famous gold treasure that was apparently buried in one of the emigrant graves after a robbery of a stage coach in 1880. The bandits apparently buried about $80,000 worth of gold bars and coin under the tombstone of a grave when they passed through Robidoux Pass. Periodically, treasure hunters have gone in at night in search of the gold, digging at the graves.
There has recently been a revitalization of history in relation to the trading posts at Robidoux Pass. The Carter Canyon site has been partially reconstructed in recent years and can be visited today. The curator and constructor of the site claims through research from reported descendants that Antoine Robidoux, the son of Francis, built this post. A handful of artifacts can be seen at the Museum of Gering and at the Scott's Bluffs museum and the National Monument there. These consist a part of a long forged iron hinge strap, a clay pipe, shell buttons, a corner of an iron stove grill, pieces of musket hardware, etc.