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Among those who frequently came to the fort were Kit Carson, L. B. Maxwell, Uncle Dick Wooton, Baptiste Brown, Jim Bridger, Old Bill Williams, James Beckwourth, Shawnee Spiebuck, Shawnee Jake the latter two, noted Indian trappers besides a host of others. The majority of the old trappers, to a stranger, until he knew their peculiar characteristics, were seemingly of an unsociable disposition.
Returning in a short time, he ordered them to bring out the great medicine kettle, which was of brass, capable of holding ten gallons, and was worth ten buffalo-robes. It was then ordered to be polished until it shone as bright as the sun's face. That being done, Beckwourth ordered the warriors to throw in all the most costly and highly prized trinkets, or whatever they cherished most dearly.
"What company do you belong to?" "General Ashley's." "Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!," they all shouted, and we, in turn, exhausted our breath in replying. "Is that you, Jim Beckwourth?" said a voice from the party. "Yes. Is that you, Castenga?" I replied. He answered in the affirmative, and there arose another hurrah. We inquired where their camp was.
He then told them that a sacrifice must be made to appease the wrath of the Great Spirit, and he recommended that a solemn council be convened and a national oblation be offered up. Beckwourth knew that he was doing an absurd thing, but the superstition of the people demanded it, and he must cater to their desires because it was popular.
But Beckwourth himself said: "The traffic in whiskey for Indian property was one of the most infernal practices ever entered into by man. Let the most casual thinker sit down and figure up the profits on a forty-gallon cask of alcohol, and he will be thunderstruck, or rather whiskey-struck. When it was to be disposed of, four gallons of water were added to each gallon of alcohol.
Beckwourth was always called "Beckwith" in the mountains, but this was probably only a perversion of the original, though Chittenden seems to think he only assumed the former spelling on publishing his book. Provo had plenty of horses, and Ashley and his men joined him going out to Salt Lake, where Provo had come from.
Jim Beckwourth was our guide a life-long frontiersman, an old man "beated and chopped with tanned antiquity." He had at one time been a chief of the Crows. "I'd spit on that fire," said Jim Beckwourth. The old man has gone, I hope, where there is no fire to be quenched. And Hazen, and the chap with whom I shared my blanket that winter night on the plains both gone.
Henry Ashley, born in Virginia, 1778; went to Missouri 1802; general of militia; elected first governor 1820; went into fur trade 1822 with Andrew Henry; elected to Congress 1831; twice re-elected; continued in office till March 4, 1837. Chittenden. Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, edited by T. D. Bonner.
The woman who bore him had played in her childhood beneath the palm trees of Africa; his father was a native of France, and went to the banks of the wild Mississippi of his own free will, but probably also from reasons of political interest to his government. In person Beckwourth was of medium height and great muscular power, quick of apprehension, and with courage of the highest order.
In their terrible fright, they, of course, looked to their chief for some explanation of it. But as Beckwourth himself was as much struck with the wonderful occurrence, he was equally at a loss with his untutored followers to account for the remarkable spectacle.
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