Good Indian Spring

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 52, 1984, No. 3

Good Indian Spring

BY OWEN C. BENNION

WHILE READING THROUGH THE JOURNAL KEPT BY Capt. James H. Simpson of his exploration of a route for the Pony Express in 1858-59, I was intrigued by an account of his finding a spring with the help of a crippled Indian named Quah-not. Having spent several years homesteading with my father in what is called Riverbed, a Bonneville drainage system located in the area of Quah-not's spring, I was curious to see if I could determine the location of this spring.

Captain Simpson left Camp Floyd in 1859 and traveled by a northerly route through Lookout Pass, past Fish Springs, south of Callao, and into Nevada on his way to Sacramento. Coming back from California, he explored a more southerly route. After entering what is now the state of Utah, he crossed White Valley and went through Dome Canyon over the House Range just south of Swasey Peak. He noted in his journal that about this time he was having trouble maintaining contact with his guide party. They were having extreme difficulty locating sufficient water and grass for the mules that pulled their wagons. The last good water was found at Chapin Spring and Tyler Spring. (These are probably the same as Antelope and Swasey springs on modern maps.) As they moved northward toward the Thomas Mountains (Topaz Mountain), they must have camped near the south end of McDowell or Keg Mountain where they found a few springs with insufficient water for their animals.

On their earlier trip westward to California, Simpson told of a red-shirted Ute Indian who had pointed southward from Short Cut Pass to the location of a spring in Keg Mountain, but now they were unable to find it. It was with the help of a crippled Indian they met that they were finally able to locate the spring. In his journal, Simpson considered this to be an act of Divine Providence and lauded the Indian for his unselfish effort to save the distressed animals from dying of thirst. He named the spring Good Indian Spring after old Quah-not. Since Quah-not was paralyzed from the hips down, he was forced to crawl about using his arms and hands to propel his body. He lived by the spring in his wikiup, cared for by his son, Ah-pon. Simpson rewarded Quah-not by giving him a pair of leather gloves to protect his hands as he pulled himself through rocks and thorny brush.

That Simpson developed rather tender feelings for Quah-not is revealed by the following:

At 7 P.M. the good old Indian, crippled as he is, came in and [we] discovered by his words and gestures that though he was very fatigued, yet he had a good heart toward us. He made signs to us to show that his helplessness was such as to make it necessary for him to be lifted from his horse. He was taken off and carried near the cook fire, and I had a supper prepared for him. All hands feel grateful to him for his extraordinary kindness to us. He has permitted his son, who was his only support and protector, to go away with the guide-party for several days, and now he had done us the signal service, crippled as he was, to conduct our mules to water, and thus possibly save them from perishing and us from failing in this portion of our route. Of course we felt grateful, and testified it by some presents to him and his son. The fine Spanish knife I gave him he seemed to particularly prize. Believing that "Wolfs Schnapps" would prove acceptable to him as a restorative, I handed him some, but he immediately smelt of it and replied, 'Wo Bueno" (no good), at the same time rubbing his hip, thus indicating that he wished it to be applied there. It was so applied, much to his satisfaction. His only mode of locomotion is on his haunches and hands just as I have seen children who could not walk propel themselves forward. Of course this mode of progression bore heavily on his hands, which were liable to be cut by the rocks and rough sage-brush over which he was required to make his way, and he expressed a wish that a pair of gloves might be given him to protect them, which was done. . . .Our sympathy for the poor cripple has been such as to suggest a pair of crutches for him, and Mr. Jagiello has manufactured a pair. He is pleased with the present, but makes no attempt to use them. He is treated so much like a king that he looks upon us occasionally with a look of wonder, and seems to ask himself, "Is this attention indeed real?" and then breaks out into a laugh, in which is intermingled as much of astonishment as joy. At his request, I have permitted him to sleep in camp, the only strange Indian to whom this privilege had been granted on the trip.

From Simpson's map it appears that Good Indian Spring lies on the east side of Keg Mountain; however, the map lacks detail that the journal does give to the effect that the spring is cradled in a western arm of the mountain.

Keg Mountain is an extinct, composite volcano with interlayerings of ash and lava. There are three springs that might be possible locations for Good Indian Spring, but only one that seems to fit the detail in Simpson's journal. Cane Spring sits on the west side of Keg mountain on the edge of open desert. Willow Spring is located on the east side of the mountain, tucked far up in a narrow canyon on a hillside. Keg Spring is located between these two springs. To get to it from the south, as Simpson did, you have to go over a low pass and drop down into a cove formed by a western arm of Keg Mountain. The spring is located at the lower end of a flat clearing in a thick forest of junipers and pinons. In Simpson's day, it was surely a grassy pasture. This area lies on the left side of the main body of Keg Mountain as you look northward toward the Simpson Range (what Simpson called Champlin Mountain). I should like to show, with excerpts from Simpson's journal, that Keg Spring is what Simpson called Good Indian Spring.

In Simpson's July 28 entry his party left Tyler Spring and traveled about 36.9 miles to reach the Thomas Range (he noted that their course was evidently a crooked one). This probably put them east of Topaz Mountain and close to Keg Mountain (calculated from modern maps of the area). At this point they located several small springs, too small to alleviate the thirst of their suffering animals.

Here they also found Quah-not, the crippled Indian. He led them to a spring where he lived. In describing this place, Simpson wrote, "The mountains in which we are camped I call after Major Irvin McDowell." This correlates with the idea of a surrounding arm of Keg Mountain. Further, he said, "The springs near us are represented by the Good Indian as having been made by some horse thieves (white men) about a year ago." This also fits Keg Spring which was an ideal place to conceal stolen horses. The clearing with grass and water was well hidden by a thick growth of trees and the surrounding mountain.

In telling how they traveled to get to the Good Indian Spring, Simpson said:

Our route today was across a divide about a mile from last camp, and then down a canyon, to within a mile of Sevier Lake Desert on the southeast side of these mountains, and then up a ravine across the crest again of the mountain to the north slope of the canyon, leading down to Salt Lake Desert, or Sevier Lake Desert, as the dividing rim is scarcely perceptible. Road good. Journey, 5.6 miles.

This detail indicates that they had to be west of Riverbed and on the south side of Keg Mountain. From there they would have had to go over Keg Pass, since there is no other "good road" over the north drainage. It is also about six miles from the south side of Keg Mountain to Keg Spring. Simpson seemed uncertain as to whether this drainage emptied into the Salt Lake Desert or the Sevier Lake Desert.

After camping at Good Indian Spring, while Quah-not and Ah-pon helped Simpson's men get their livestock over to better water at Death Canyon, Simpson noted on August 1:

The civil portion of my party, with three wagons, therefore, move forward, leaving the balance to follow us as soon as the other mules arrive. Pass down canyon, in a northwardly direction, through a thick grove of cedars, over rolling country, skirting McDowell Mountains to our right, and in about seven miles reach a desert valley or plain running southeastwardly from Great Salt Lake Valley into Sevier Valley.

This excerpt leaves me with no doubt that Keg Spring is Good Indian Spring. The description of the lay of the land fits perfectly. As one leaves Keg Spring traveling north, Keg Mountain is to the right. This canyon is a tributary of Dead Ox Wash which empties into Riverbed. Simpson described Riverbed as a "desert valley or plain" connecting Great Salt Lake Valley and Sevier Valley. The distance from Keg Spring to Riverbed is about seven miles.

From the good water at Death Canyon, Simpson made his way around the south side of Champlin Mountain (now Simpson or Indian Mountain) and probably went over Erickson's Pass. From there he probably went over Government Pass across Rush Valley and back to Camp Floyd.

In retrospect, another element in the account of Captain Simpson's encounter with the Indian has greater significance than finding the real location of Good Indian Spring. As Simpson explored westward along his northern passage, the ultimate Pony Express route, he encountered the Gosiutes of Deep Creek near the present Utah-Nevada border. Like many others of his culture, he described the deplorable level of their living conditions as if they were some kind of subhuman race. Yet on his return trip by a southern route, after his encounter with the awful rigors of desert survival, he saw his fellow being, Quah-not, in a new light. Humbled by the near failure of his endeavor and the suffering of his animals, Simpson was ready to see the virtues of Gosiute culture. Here were a people who were shaped by the merciless elements and whose true virtues were hidden by the wretchedness of their enforced poverty.

"Today, Keg Spring has been trenched and piped down to a tank about half a mile to the north. My father, Glynn S. Bennion (a historian and rancher), once told me that Keg Spring was so named because of a keg, half buried in the mud of the spring, found by the California immigrants who camped there on their way to the gold fields. Keg Mountain got its name from the spring.

For full citations and images please view this article on a desktop.