Naming of the Green, Sevier, and Virgin Rivers

NAMING OF THE GREEN, SEVIER, AND VIRGIN RIVERS

By Rufus Wood Leigh

The thesis of this paper is that the names of the Green, Sevier, and Virgin rivers have their genesis in these original Spanish names respectively: Rio Verde, Rio Severo, and Rio de la Virgen. Explanations of the origin of the names of these three rivers have been based on insufficient search for pertinent historical documents, maps, and texts; analysis of available historical data has been befogged; and there has been shallow striving for plausibility and unwarranted authority. Unfortunately, these invalid interpretations currently clog official Utah State printed matter and local "history"; thus they misinform the public. Such false explanations are the sort of stuff of which folklore is made-up. These traditional origins of the river names perpetuate folklore. The specific raison d'etre of this short essay is to institute history.

The Green River has its source in the Wind River Mountains in southwestern Wyoming and is the major stream in the region. This area was once Crow Indian territory, and their name for the river was Seeds-ke-dee Agie, for "Prairie Hen River" — Agie meaning "river." By this name the upper reaches of the river were known in the earliest exploratory times. The Shoshoni and Utes named the river Ka'na, their equivalent of Bitterroot, from the great abundance in its valley of this pink-flowered herb which gave them a favorite, nutritious tuber.

Green River runs southerly into Utah, where it is soon diverted easterly by the Uinta Mountains, coursing in that direction to flank the east shoulder of the Uintas and to form a grand loop in Colorado, thence flowing southwesterly through the picturesque Canyon Lodore and Dinosaur National Monument to return into Utah. Then, after veering almost due south for long distances, it makes confluence with the Colorado River at the foot of Orange Cliffs in San Juan County. Formerly, the Colorado from this junction upstream to Grand Lake and northward to its source in the Rockies was known as Grand River. At the confluence, the Colorado carries much more water than the Green, but the Green is longer than the formerly named Grand River.

In 1776 occurred a most remarkable, though objectively futile, entrada of Spanish explorers into the upper Colorado and Green River drainage areas of the Great Basin. The urge for communication and consolidation between the two Spanish provinces of Nuevo Mexico and Alta California, with their respective seats at Santa Fe and Monterey, was stimulated by the Russian advance down the Pacific Coast. The Dominguez-Escalante expedition was undertaken accordingly, and the expedition set out to find an overland route from the upper Rio Grande del Norte to Monterey via Lake Utah, although knowledge of the existence and location of that lake was then hazy! In 1765, a decade earlier, Don Juan Maria de Rivera had explored as far north as the present Gunnison River, and the country had become comparatively well known to the Spanish. Spanish names had been given the prominent natural features, most of which are still on the land. The Colorado had been named Rio San Rafael.

The Escalante party pursued a course generally northward from the area then known. They crossed the Colorado upstream from the present De Beque, thence over the East Tavaputs Plateau, then down to the present White River, their Rio San Clemente, crossing it near the site of the oil town of Rangely, Colorado. Later Spaniards were to name this stream Rio Blanco. The party then found their way into the Cliff Creek drainage which led them down to the Green River bottoms, which they followed up to near the mouth of Split Mountain Canyon, above the present site of Jensen, Utah. Here Dominguez and Escalante, the first Europeans on this mountain river, forded the Green on September 16, 1776, naming it Rio San Buenaventura, the canonized name of a thirteenth-century saint. The name comprised of two words, buena ventura, "good fortune," is a common appellation in Spanish America.

After crossing the river, Escalante and his party doubled down the west shore ten leagues, crossed Ashley Creek above the swamp and passed southwestward to the confluence of the Uinta and the Duchesne rivers and onward to Lake Utah. Thus, this Spanish exploration into the Green River Basin blazed a way which was followed by others from Santa Fe in the first half of the next century.

Green River was generally known to Americans during the trapper era —1820-1839 — as the Spanish River. The Spaniards early in the century, Fremont's estimate is about 1818, were in the region to explore and trade, and they gave the river a descriptive name: Rio Verde, signifying "green river." An early reference to the Americanized name appeared in 1843 in Washington Irving's The Adventures of Captain Bonneville: "General William H. Ashley and Major Andrew Henry of the Missouri Fur Company in 1823 pushed a resolute band of trappers across the mountains to the banks of the Green River or Colorado of the West "

Fremont has this reflection on Green River: "The refreshing appearance of the broad river, with its timbered shores and green-wooded islands, in contrast to its dry sandy plains, probably obtained for it the name Green River [Rio Verde], which was bestowed by the Spaniards, who first came into this country." On another occasion, while traveling on the Oregon Trail near South Pass, he wrote: "... to avoid the mountains about the head of Green River — Rio Verde of the Spaniards." Again, "Lower down, from Brown's Hole to the southward, the river runs through lofty chasms, walled in by precipices of red rock; and by the Spanish is known as the Rio Colorado. Gannett says, "Green River was so called from the green shale through which it flows." Today, from heights above the canyons the water appears green.

The Old Spanish Trail crossed the Green at an old Ute crossing south of Book Cliffs; this historic crossing was to be known after 1853 as Gunnison Crossing, present site of Green River, Utah. To the Spaniards who trod this trail into the Great Basin to trade, and to those who threaded the longer Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to Pueblo de los Angeles in the first half of the nineteenth century, the river was Rio Verde.

Enmity developed between the Spanish explorers and traders of the region and the American explorers and trappers, for the latter were aliens operating in Spanish-Mexican domain. Spanish names originally applied to physiographic features were not tolerated by the Americans, and were invariably mutated into Americanized versions. Thus, Rio Verde signifying "green river" became Green River. But, instead of leaving the correct and obvious interpretation at that, the Americans in this mutating process sought and conveniently found, near or far-off, a man named "Green" "for whom the river was named," they and later history writers said. Specifically, one of General Ashley's men was named "Green," "after whom Green River is supposed to have been named," writes Dellenbaugh. It is to be noted that Dellenbaugh, who knew the Green-Colorado system firsthand, had his doubts. The merging of history and folklore is here exemplified. The two other parallel examples of Spanish geographic names being corrupted into Americanized versions follow.

The Sevier River drainage originates in the extreme southeastern part of the Great Basin, its headwaters sharing the drainage of the High Plateaus of southern Utah with branches of Pahreah River, Kanab Creek, and the Virgin — all of which latter streams flow in the opposite direction into the Colorado River. As one travels southward on Highway 89, the southeastern rim of the Great Basin is crossed near Long Valley Junction. East Fork Sevier River drains Paunsaugunt Plateau, west of Bryce Canyon, flowing northward, and, after receiving Otter Creek coming in from the north, it then turns westward through a gorge to a confluence with the main stream near Junction. Sevier River flows northward for nearly two hundred miles through comparatively high and narrow valleys between the High Plateaus. The current is quick, the climate, brisk. The river makes a grand curve to the west in southern Juab County, rounds Canyon Mountains, thence trends southwesterly in Millard County; and, after forming several extensive deltas in the flat terrain, empties into the formerly thin sheet of the same name, Sevier Lake — now dry. Sevier Lake — so-called — is one of the largest of the Great Basin playas. Sevier Desert extends northward from the deltas. Areas comprising lake and desert were in Glacial times a considerable part of extinct Lake Bonneville. Sevier River is the longest Great Basin river wholly within Utah. The volume of water does not vary much throughout its entire course.

Sevier County, deriving its name from that of the river, is one of seven through which the river flows. Richfield, the county seat, is the center of a rich agricultural valley.

In the autumn of 1776 as the Dominguez-Escalante expedition traveled southward from Lake Utah seeking a route to faraway Monterey, they came upon the Sevier River along its grand sweep westward, and crossed near the site of Mills. Their journal relates they named this stream "Rio Santa Isabel on whose banks live bearded Indians." The name in honor of the reigning Spanish queen did not become known.

Later Spanish explorers from the Rio Grande del Norte, as early as 1813, named this river Rio Severo. J. J. Hill, writing in the Hispanio- American Historical Review for August, 1921, has brought to light an important Spanish document recording a trading expedition from Santa Fe to Pueblo de los Angeles which diverted considerably northward from the regular Spanish Trail as it later became established. This expedition visited the lake of the Timpanogos (Lake Utah) and from there set out for Rio Severo. "They were met by a Yuta of the Sanpuchi nation who promised to take them to a place where they could trade with a tribe of Yutas as yet unknown to them. . . . They came upon a tribe of Indians who were characterized as having heavy beards, clearly the bearded Indians of the Dominguez-Escalante journal, whose territory we are there told began at the Rio Isabel." Thus, it is plain that our Sevier River had become known to the Spanish as Rio Severo.

Antonio Armijo, citizen of Santa Fe, in 1829-30 planned and was commandant of the first expedition, numbering sixty men, to Mission de San Gabriel for the exchange of woven goods for large California mules. This expedition pushed generally westward from Abiquiu, near Santa Fe, crossed Rio San Juan to the north and back to the south, traversed the Chinle Wash in present northeastern Arizona and continued westward to ford the Colorado at El Vado de los Padres (Crossing of the Fathers). Armijo seems to have benefited from knowledge of the Escalante crossing of 1776. He recorded that this river was then known in the Californias as Rio Colorado.

After crossing Rio Colorado, the Armijo expedition came upon the headwaters of Rio Severo and traversed its entire length to its outlet in the desert sheet, then continued southward to the Rio de la Virgen. It was winter, the high altitude, cold weather, and swift current of the stream conjoined to confirm the fact that he was on the severe, rigorous river, named by predecessors Rio Severo. It well could have been Antonio Armijo who bestowed the name Rio de la Virgen on the southern stream he later came onto and from which he traveled westward over the presently named Beaver Dam Mountains.

T. J. Farnham details the exploration of an old trapper down the Rio Severe in a light bark. "About 450 miles from the mouth of the Colorado, and a short distance north of that stream, a river arises, which, on account of its rough character, the Mexican Spaniards have named Rio Severe." 4 This historian used the English descriptive word "severe" which is equivalent to Spanish severo — inflicting discomfort — but later Americans insisted on a proper name for the river simulating the Spanish descriptive word in pronunciation — "Sevier" — which is, of course, a distortion and corruption — precisely the same course that occurred with the Spanish descriptive word verde, Americans crudely holding that "green" should mean Green. Folklore displaces history.

It is quite unlikely that the naming of the river had anything to do with any assumed American explorer or trapper by the name of "Sevier" as is inferred by Fremont. Fremont, traveling northward along the well-worn Spanish Trail from Alta California, relates that on May 16, 1844, he encamped at the Little Salt Lake in the Parowan Valley, "nearly opposite a gap in the Wasatch Range, through which the Spanish Trail passes." However, he left the Spanish Trail at Paragonah, the mouth of Red Creek up which the Spanish Trail ascends to the gap over the range and down into the Sevier Valley. Fremont traveled northward, essentially the present route of Highway 91, and came onto the Sevier River northward from the site of Scipio:

May 23, 1844. We reached Sevier River. . . . The name of this river and lake was an indication of our approach to regions of which our people had been the explorers. It was probably named after some American trapper or hunter, and was the first American name we had met with since leaving the Columbia River.

He had been in Mexican domain a long way, exploring in the interests of the United States government, and doubtless was glad to hear an American name. But the name had been corrupted, Americanized/' from the Spanish Rio Severo to Sevier River by American trappers sometime before 1844.

View of the Virgin River in Zion National Park.

Sevier River near the Big Rock Candy Mountain south of Richfield, Utah. Courtesy, UTAH TOURIST AND PUBLICITY COUNCIL

Fremont, however, changed his interpretation of the origin of the name with additional information, for four years later, in 1848, he wrote: "Southwesterly from Utah [Lake] is another lake; it is the reservoir of a handsome river about 200 miles long. The river and lake were called by the Spaniards, Severo, corrupted by the hunters [Americans] into Sevier." On the earliest American maps of the region, this river and lake were called by Fremont "Nicollet River and lake of its own name; called Nicollet in honor of J. N. Nicollet, noted for his

learned work on the physical geography of the basin of the Upper Mississippi."

One more significant reference as to the origin of the name of Sevier River is from "Report of Expedition of E. F. Beale in 1853": "July 31, 1853 . . . Sevier is the corruption of Severo, and is called on Colonel Fremont's map Nicollet. . . ." By this time many American trappers and traders had been in the region, and now there were the Mormon settlers. Again we see the bent of Americans to simplify and Americanize, that is corrupt, both Indian and Spanish place names.

A century ago the snow and rainfall on the upper Sevier drainage was heavier — note the drying up of Sevier Lake, not due materially to diversion of irrigation water from the river. With heavy snows early in the season, the weather of the valley must have been more severe than now. Thus, the weight of evidence is that Sevier is a corruption of the Spanish Severo.

A later and current fallacy that the river was named for the first governor of Tennessee, who had never been west of the Mississippi, is naive. At some point in the folklore concerning the name of this river, the national popularity of General John Sevier was seized upon and capitalized. The local history writer had found far-off a man of parts of the very same name as that of the river and "for whom the River was named."

Virgin River, Rio de la Virgen, a tributary of the Colorado River, has two main originating forks: East Fork, Pa-ru-nu-weap (Pah Ute), drains Long Valley in Kane County; and the North Fork, Mu-kun-tuweap (Pah Ute), drains the south escarpments of the high Markagunt Plateau and the undulating Kolob Terrace in Iron County, then cuts its deep chasm down through Zion Canyon to a confluence with the East Fork east of Rockville. There are two other north tributaries not far to the west: La Verkin Creek drains Kolob Canyons; and Ash Creek, the Hurricane Fault Cliffs and adjacent valley from New Harmony southward. Southwest of Pine Valley Mountains, Rio Santa Clara comes in from the northwest; and in southeastern Nevada the Moapa River joins the Virgin south of Overton. The region south of Rio Virgen is much lower, the rainfall much lighter, consequently there are only a few short intermittent tributaries. The river, heavily laden with silt, flows southwesterly, south of Washington and St. George, out of Utah, thence southwesterly through the Virgin River gorge across the extreme northwest corner of Arizona and into southeastern Nevada, where it turns southerly to a confluence with the Colorado River in Virgin Canyon. Its lower reaches are now drowned in the long Virgin arm of Lake Mead.

The older form of the name, Rio de la Virgen, is pure Spanish, literally, "River of the Virgin," that is, dedicated in name to the Virgin Mary. It is not known by what person nor exactly when the river was thus named, but Spaniards from Nuevo Mexico were in the region as early as 1813. Antonio Armijo, commander of the first trading expedition to bridge the two Mexican provinces of Nuevo Mexico and Alta California in 1829-30, was on the Rio Virgen and the Rio Santa Clara both westward and eastward bound. He and Spanish successors developing the Spanish Trail imprinted the names Rio de la Virgen, La Verkin, Rio Santa Clara, Las Vegas, and others on the land, later to be accepted or mutated by their successors — Americans.

Jedediah Strong Smith in 1826 explored southwest of Great Salt Lake and reached the lower Rio Virgen and the lower Colorado River. He was the first American to enter what is now Nevada. His party was on the Rio Virgen and the Moapa again in 1827. Some writers have maintained that Smith named the former stream Virgin River for one of his men, Thomas Virgin, who was killed by Mohaves on the lower Colorado River — but that is a considerable distance to transfer the name of the deceased. Whatever Jedediah S. Smith may or may not have called Virgin River, thus Americanized, Rio de la Virgen, the earliest form of the name, was used in historic literature, on maps, and in documents, and it adhered for a century, continuing for more than half a century after American sovereignty of the region. Thus it is beyond doubt that our river was first named by the Spanish who gave it a characteristic Spanish-Catholic name.

Will C. Barnes in his Arizona Place Names (1935) wrote concerning the naming of this river: "Rio de la Virgen, 'River of the Virgen,' running through northwest Mohave County, undoubtedly was given its name by early Spanish explorers. Indians (Pah Ute) call it Pah-rush which means 'water that tastes salt.' Ives, 1857, spelled it Virgen; Powell, 1869, spelled it Virgen. Escalante, 1776, named and spelled it Rio de la Virgen, doubtless the source for both Ives and later Powell." Another interesting version of the Pah Ute name is Pah-russ, "dirty, turbulent stream."

Dellenbaugh, long an associate of Powell, uses both forms, Rio Virgen and Virgin River, but Dellenbaugh wrote both before and after the name had been Americanized. Fremont in 1844 wrote it Rio Virgen. Captain John Steele of the Las Vegas Mission under date of December 1, 1855, wrote: "We overtook them [slave traders] on the Rio Virgen." In all letters of the Las Vegas Mission, the form was invariably Rio Virgen. Rio Virgen was the. form on maps dated 1864. H. H. Bans

Nevada State Historical Society Papers 1925-26 (Reno, Nevada, 1926), 117. croft, 1888, uses the Spanish form Rio Virgen thus indicating its historical origin. As late as July 20, 1895, there was published in a St. George paper an advertisement concerning Rio Virgen Mills. Gannett, 1902, writes: "Virgin River, this name is derived from the original Spanish name, Rio (de la) Virgen, 'River of the Virgin.'" Finally and conclusively, the eminent Spanish-American historian, Herbert E. Bolton writes: "The latter [Virgin River] had hot and sulphurous water [near La Verkin], so the travelers [Dominguez-Escalante party] named it Rio Sulfureo. This river was named later by Spaniards for the Virgin Mary, not for Thomas Virgin, the American fur trader, as some persons have thought."

Rio Verde and Rio Severo are descriptive names; Rio de la Virgen is a river name dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Mutation of all three names into Americanized versions followed one pattern: for each of the three names an American was somehow found with the requisite name — or nearly so — a proper name simulating the pronunciation of the original Spanish descriptive and dedicatory names or translation thereof: General Ashley's man named "Green"; a Tennessee General by the name of John "Sevier"; and Jedediah S. Smith's man named Thomas "Virgin." It may be argued that all three rivers were renamed with American names. But even that would not negate the facts of well-established Spanish names in Spanish-Mexican domain, and in the case of Rio Virgen continuing for one half century after American sovereignty. Was it merely coincidental that Americans strived mightily for such similarities? No. Folklore supplanted history.

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