The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1920-12-02

pany. In1S company was SUCCESSFUL
in it's operations, and in 1868 Joined
with the Northwest Fur Company,
which soon after bought out the
American Fur Company. He re-
manned in the fur trade until 1868,
when he was offered a position I'M
der General Sully as special agent in
the Blackfeet country. During his
stay in the Yellowstone and along
the Missouri, and for two years later
while among the hostile Blackfeet,
Major Pease's life was filled with adj
ventures that would fill several vol
|umes. In 1870 he was appointed
agent of the Crow Indians, whose
agency was on the east side of the
Yellowstone, near the present site of
Livingston. Four years later he
was relieved of his agency for the
purpose of establishing a new agency
in the Judith Basin, but by reason
of congress- failure to appropriate
funds, the agency was never estab-
lished.
In 1875 Major Pease left Bozeman
with Paul Mccormick, c. H. Daniels
and more than 80 others, known as
the Fort Pease expedition, to estab-
lish a proposed head of navigation
on the Yellowstone river at the
mouth of the Big Horn river. This
idea had been suggested by a report
that the voyage of the steamer Jose
phine that year had proved the Vel
lowstone to be navigable to the
mouth of the Big Horn. General
Forysth expressed the opinion that,
owing to it's gravel bed, stable banks
and islands and it's freedom from
snags the Yellowstone offered a
much better highway for commerce
from Fort Buford to the settlements
of western Montana than did the
shifting and dangerous Missouri from
Buford to Fort Benton. His judg-
ment was probably correct, although
opportunity never came for demon
strating it, because the coming of the
railroads soon after put an end to all
through river traffic.
Building of Fort Pease
The report of General Forsyth
aroused enough interest in Montana,
however, to inspire Major Pease and
associates to make an effort to
establish a town at the mouth of the
Dig f1OIu, DIS SIdIeu dUOF0, anu lie
expedition reached that point without
any fighting of consequence with the
Sioux.
The point selected was nearly OPP
the mouth of the Big Horn,
to the Yellowstone river bank,
and here Fort Pease was built. Like
frontier posts it was a COM
.bination of log buildings and pals
AIDES, enclosing a space 200 feet
The buildings and stockade
walls were loop-holed on every side.
The idea was to open a road be-
tween freight from the steamboats, to
wagons and haul it to the western
as was lone at Fort Ben
ton. Upon completion of the fort
goods were assembled for trading
with the Indians, several farms were
.ocated, a townsite was laid out and
other preparations were made look
ng to the building of a river town
hat would eclipse Fort Benton in its
)a1miest days.
But the time for this enterprise
not ripe, and it was doomed to a
roubled life and an early death.
Fhe Sioux war broke out, no steam
RS came to ply on the Yellowstone,
10 military post vas located nearby
o protect the whites, and while no
additional settlers resorted to the
lew settlement, hordes of hostile In
lians did. The Sioux declared unre-
var upon the fort and its lit
lie band of forty men, and night and s