Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1920-09-02

one knows it. The story of John Golfer and "COl-
ter's He'll" properly begins away back in 1903,
when Thomas Jefferson, our third president,
bought the Louisiana territory from Napoleon
Bonapnrte.
The western boundary Of the United States
was then the Mississippi as fixed by the treaty
with Great Britain after the Revolution. Jetfer-
son sent James Monroe to France to cooperate
with Minister Robert r. Livingston in the pur-
chase of the MissisSippis mouth for $2,OOOOO0.'
Napoleon laughed at them He had just made
Spain cede him the Louisiana Territory, intend
ing TO establish there an empire to replace that
lost to the British in Canada Then Napoleon saw
he must fight the British He could not fight and
colonze too. So, to spite the British, he told the
two Americans they could have all the country
between the Mississippi and the Rockies (Texas
not inCluded) for $l5,000000. And he made Mon
roe and Livingston agree. Jefferson was scared
stiff at the act of his agents There a nation
wide rumpus over the purchase, but congress rati-
fed it and the people finally approved it.
Jefferson had not the slightest idea what the
United States had bought and in the spring Of 1904
he started the Lewis and Clark expedition from st.
Louis to find out This famous expedition went to
the mouth of the Columbia river and returned to
st. Louis in 1906, after having been given up for
lost, 1t passed a few miles to the north of the
Yellowstone without suspecting its existence.
John Golfer one of the private soldiers of
the expedition. Before it reached ST. Louis he got
his discharge and returned with two trappers to
| the headwaters Of the Missouri for beaver In the
spring of 1907 at the mouth of the Platte he met
Manuel Lisa and again turned back Lisa built
Fort Lisa at the confluence of the Yellowstone and
the Big Horn. Golfer, going alone to summon the
Crows to the fort for trade passed to the south of
the Yellowstone through JacksOns Hole to Pierre's
Hole at the west of the Yellowstone. Returning
thence to Fort Lisa, he passed dagonay through
the Yellowstone the first white man to see its Won
ders.
Golfer, after adventures and travels that give
him front rank among explorers of the west, re-
| turned to St Louis in 1870 He recounted his adj
ventures and he told of the marves of the Yellow
stone. st. Louis believed some of his tales Of adj
venture, but would have none of the geysers boil
ing springs and paintpots of the Yellowstone
| They derisivey dubbed it Golfers He'll" laughed
over it for a time and then forgot it, Gen Will
liam Clark, his commander, was the only one to
believe him. On the official map of the Lewis and
Clark expedition is dotted line from Fort Lisa
to the Yellowstone and return, with the legend,
Golfers route in 1907"
The Yellowstone was discovered the second
time about 1S27-this time by Jim Bridger one of
Gen. William H. Ashleys lieutenants in the Rocky
Mountain Fur company. Bridger was the discOv-
erer of Great Salt Lake, a map-maker without an
equal, m0unaneer, plainsman and guide with
no superior But he had a hobby-big yarns 1t
is he who made up those classic "whOppers" of
the west--the obsidian cliff, boiling spring, echo
and alum creek stories So, when he told about
the wonders of the Yellowstone soothing frontier
said, with laughter: "Oh, just another of Jim
Bridgers yarns"
Warren Angus Ferris described the Upper Gey-
ser basin of the Yellowstone in 1S42-and was not
| believed. ProspectOrs in the Montana gold excite
ment of 1862 again described the Yellowstone; they
| were set down as liars. Newspapers and maya
zines would not publish the stories lecturers were
| stoned. In 1869 the semi-ofiCial Montana Wash
| burn-Langford expedition did succeed in getting Il
| hearing. In 1870 the federal government sent an
official expedition which officially put .he Yellow
stone on the map.
| Cornelius Hedges, September 49, 1870, by
| campfire in the Yellowstone, proposed that the
wonderland be made national park-a play