The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908, 1908-09-19
THE IDAHO SCIMITAR.


small parties that they might the better forage for
food Separating early in November the little bands
managed to subsist upon occasional horse or dog
purchased from the Indians and chance wolf orbea-
that they killed Sometimes they reduced to
chewing beaver skins and the soles of their
sins. 1t was cruelty cold and the snow knee
deep, but in spite of all these hardshps the trip
made with the loss of only two men, of whom
was drowned by the upsetting of a boat in of
the rapids of the river and the other crazed by hun
ger, jumped from boat while crossing to where
food in sight and drowned. In January
the party crossed the Blue mountains into milder
climate and a country where there was abundance
of game
Many and thrilling are the tales of adventures by
trappers and hunters in the twenty years that fol-
lowed Hunts trip down the Snake, but it was not
until 1882 that any enterprise undertaken in
which be traced direct bearing upon the origin
of Idaho In that year Nathaniel ]. Wyeth of Mass
achusetts, seeing visions of wealth on the Pacific
coast organized expedition and started for Ore
gon.. He reached Jacksons Hole and camped there
July 4th and spent some months the upper
waters of the Snake, fighting the Indians in COM
pany with Milton Sublette, of the most daring
leaders of the trappers who then roamed these re-
gions He moved on to Oregon only to meet with
failure, but the knowledge gained by the overland
powerful factors in the upbuding of Idaho
Meanwhile Captain Bonneville an army officer on
leave of absence, organized hunting and trapping
expedition in the hope of uniting pleasure with prof
it. He arrived in Idaho in the fall Of 1882 and
spent three winters on the Portneuf near old Fort
Hall, hunting a wide extent of territory. He
was exceedingly lucky in finding so eloquent and
a1niable biographer as Washington Irving and al
though in the main monotonous and featureess, the
record throws considerable light life in the wilder
ness at that early day. Bancroft in his Pacific
coast histories finds little of the hero in the bold
captain and describes him as "in his coarse way
bon vvant and vouptuary, who preferred lording it
in the forest with a troop of white and red savages
at his heels, and with every fortnight
married wife Haunting her brave fnery" to sub
hitting to the restraints of civilization and polite
society. "To shoot buffalo SPORT but men
the nobler game, whom to search out in their
retreat and slaughter and scalp glorious"
During Bonneve's free and easy life the
Portneuf Wyeh had returned to the east and organ
lied another commercial enterprise known as the
the Columbia River Fishing and Trading company
and in 1884 he led another expedition west. He
fell in with Bonneville in the Bear river country
where according to Irving they and their in
duged in a few weeks of sociability and heavy
drinking.
Wyeth, however, now had a distinct object in
view and proceeding west until he struck the Port
neuf river, he camped on July 18th its uncture
with the Snake. Here he thought his interior post
should be located A charming spot for the purpose
was found in the midst of a rich grassy plain
the south banks of the Portneuf river, the opposite
side of which covered with large cottonwood
and willow trees, rising from thick underground
of the same, mixed with currant bushes. Here
stockade ives erected and named Fort Hail. and it