Identifier: economicbeginnin00coma (find matches)
Title: Economic beginnings of the Far West: how we won the land beyond the Mississippi
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Coman, Katharine 1857-1915
Subjects: Mormons and Mormonism -- General works United States, West -- History Utah Economic conditions
Publisher: New York: Macmillan
Contributing Library: Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Digitizing Sponsor: Corporation of the Presiding Bishop, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

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alwaysnavigable for the bull boats which the traders hadadopted. The first wheeled vehicles to cross theplains north of the Santa Fe Trail were sent toAshleys rendezvous on Lake Utah in 1826 or 1827.Ashleys success in this unexploited country was im-mediate and highly satisfactory. The return fromthe hunt of 1824 was one hundred packs of beaver,that of 1826, one hundred and twenty-three, that of1827, one hundred and thirty. In the latter yearhe made over the business to Smith, Sublette, andJackson and settled at St. Louis, where he realizeda very comfortable income by supplying goods tothe traders in the field, receiving their furs in pay-ment. The new firm did not prosper financially, for theheyday of the fur trade was past. Their greatachievements were geographical, the unwitting resultof the search for fresh hunting-grounds. An obscurehunter, taking a daring wager, followed the circuitouscourse of the Bear River and launched his canoeon the treacherous waters of Salt Lake. Etienne
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THE FUR TRADE 359 Provost rediscovered Utah Lake, coming in by way ofthe Provo River, to the north of Escallantes trail.In 1824 Jedidiah Smith, turning north from SouthPass, followed up the Green River to the Snake andcame upon the Hudsons Bay Companys post,Fort Boise\ In the summer of 1826 he set out fromSalt Lake with a party of fifteen men to explore thecountry to the southwest. He ascended the Seviervalley to the mountainous land of the Pah Utes andthence followed the Virgin River to the Colorado,where he found Indians cultivating corn, beans,melons, and even cotton. Here he purchased freshhorses out of a herd stolen from the Spaniards andundertook to cross the desert that lay west of theColorado. A runaway neophyte served as guideand brought the party after three weeks desperatemarch to San Gabriel and San Diego. The alarmof the commandante at this undreamed of invasionhad nearly thwarted Smiths hopes. He and hismen were detained for a time and his journal wasconfiscated and desp

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