Trappers and the Ogden Valley

“One hundred Cheyenne warriors, arrows drawn, fire in their eyes, riding on the fastest mustangs you ever did see were right on my heels! I could feel the ground rumble as they chased me right into a steep canyon. I looked around at walls and Indians on every side. There I was, surrounded, boxed in…

Kristen Clay

October 5, 2019

Jim Bridger---Ogden Valley trapper

Jim Bridger Spins The Yarn

“What happened next, Mr. Bridger?” an eager voice called out from the darkness. Dancing shadows and a strange glow from the firelight reflected on the storyteller’s face as he drew out his suspenseful pause. The listeners leaned closer, hearts pounding, not wanting to miss any detail of this mountaineer’s tale.

“Why they killed me!” He bellowed.

Jim Bridger’s yarn at the rendezvous left the audience and me begging for more. The Ogden Rendezvous of July 1826 was my first. It would not be my last! The life of a trapper is hard. The annual Rendezvous’ with its “Mirth, song; dancing, shooting. Trading, running, jumping. Singing. Racing. Target-shooting. Yarns, frolic, with all sorts of extravagances that white men or Indians could invent were freely indulged in,” as my friend, Jim Beckwourth, describes it. It may have gone something like this:

As a young man, I joined Peter Skene Ogden’s expedition with the Hudson’s Bay Company in November 1824; along with 131 others, including 30 women and 35 children. We trapped beaver for the fur company. We were expected to live off the land and hunted deer, elk, buffalo, and fished when we could. When food was scarce, we were forced to slaughter our horses.

In some areas, William Henry Ashly and the American company, James Bridger, Etienne Provost, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Jedediah Smith, Louis Vasquez, James Beckwourth, and others, had already depleted the beavers. There was contentious, oft times violent competition between the rival fur companies.

There were many dangers. On May 11, 1825, a group of men had a narrow escape with a grizzly bear. It wasn’t uncommon for men to desert the party due to the many hardships encountered.

May 12. A Mr. McKay climbed a high mountain and saw a large lake that the Bear River emptied into. Over the next few months, stories would abound about that great body of water. It was so salty that some claimed it was an arm of the Pacific Ocean. Others called it a salt lake.

May 16. We entered a hole surrounded by beautiful mountains. Mr. Ogden called this area “New Hole.” Later, I would find out that they named the valley Ogden (Huntsville, Eden, and Liberty) after Peter Skene Ogden.

The beavers were plentiful in New Hole as the Americans had not yet been there. We made camp and set traps. On the second day, we caught 244. By the time we left, over 600 had been trapped.

We traversed south over a divide and set up camp. On May 23, some of our deserters came back with members of another party under the command of Provost. Not long after, another group with more Americans arrived, led by Johnson Gardner, carrying flags and claiming this location was part of the American Territories.

Fights broke out over whether it was the territory of Great Britain or America. Accusations and threats were flung at Mr. Ogden and his company. The Americans successfully convinced many men to desert. They offered better wages and conditions if the deserters were to stay in the free “American Territory.” The deserters took over 700 pelts with them.

However, neither party was correct in their argument, for the location in dispute (Mountain Green) was below the 49th parallel, and therefore they were fighting over Mexican Territory.

Mr. Ogden yielded, and with his remaining Hudson’s Bay Company brigade, returned to Oregon. He would return to Utah on another expedition from 1828-29.

As for me, I went my own way and became a freeman: trapping, exploring, mingling with mountain men and natives, never missing a rendezvous or a chance to hear the greats among us like Jim Bridger or Jim Beckwourth spin their yarns or tell a tall tale.

Perhaps one day someone will tell my story as well.

Thank You & Happy Haunting!
Kristen Clay, Owner, Director and Storyteller
Story Tours: Ogden & SLC Ghost Tours and The Story You Tell
801-888-8551

MORE STORIES ON HISTORY AND UTAH HERE.

Ogden, Utah History

Community, Culture, History, Jim Bridger, Ogden Valley, Utah, Utah History

Kristen Clay

Storyteller Kristen Clay founded the original, award-winning Ogden and Salt Lake City Ghost Tours in 2002. Impressed by Utah’s rich culture and history, Kristen set out to study its stories. As she began interviewing the merchants and residents of Northern Utah, she came across the usual tales of pioneers, immigrants, hardships, and survival, but was surprised to hear many bizarre and interesting ghost stories among them. In addition to being creator, and director of Story Tours: Ogden and SLC Ghost Tours, Hysterical History Tours, and custom storytelling concerts, Kristen has circled the globe as a storyteller, actor, writer, teacher, and perpetual student. She is known for bringing various cultures alive to audiences around the world. She has a passion for healing and inspirational stories that she is often privileged to share in schools, prisons, rehab facilities, and youth-in-custody. Kristen is the co-author of three books. Haunted Salt Lake City, Spooks and Saints, and the recently released, Ghostly Tales of Salt Lake City for middle-grades. Her greatest joy is watching her audiences and readers make connections with different cultures and experiences, then remember their own stories.

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“It was two weeks of digging in the dirt and helping figure out exactly what we were looking at,” Little said.

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Alta had left plenty behind.

https://youtu.be/hzIHzx3OGoo?si=dKcl2CEz-t6FZzYw

Victorian-style ceramics appeared first — the kind typically used in hotels. Medicine bottles followed. Ink bottles. Hand-blown glass. A porcelain doll’s foot surfaced from the soil, a small detail that shifted the mental image of the town. Families were here. Children were here. This wasn’t only a camp of miners.

The bottles helped establish time. Manufacturing details — whether glass was hand-blown or mold-made, whether a maker’s mark appeared on the base — allowed archaeologists to date many of the artifacts to the 1870s through the 1890s, when Alta was booming as a silver mining town.

“That gives you that range of dates for when Alta was really booming,” Little said.

One reusable soda bottle clearly stamped “Salt Lake City” connected the canyon to the valley economy below.

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A corked bottle. Intact. Liquid still inside.

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