Miles Goodyear and the Founding of Ogden

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. XXI, 1953 No. 4

MILES GOODYEAR AND THE FOUNDING OF OGDENBY DALE L. MORGAN

II

IT WAS PROBABLY sometime in September, 1846, that Miles Goodyear reached the site of Ogden and began building his Fort Buenaventura. By late fall the new post must have been sufficiently completed that the red-headed mountain man felt justified in leaving Captain Wells to finish the job. Leaving his Ute wife, his children, his flocks and herds, and some of his Indian retainers in the Captain's care, Goodyear set out for southern California, hoping to find a market for the considerable stock of dressed deer and elk skins he had acquired in trade with the Indians.

Of that journey southward, down through Utah to the Virgin River, southwest across the Vegas and Mojave deserts, and on over the San Bernardino Mountains to Los Angeles, no information has yet appeared. On arrival, however, Goodyear got back into the record. A campaign down through California had brought Fremont's California Battalion to Los Angeles on January 14, 1847, sorely in need of new clothing and footgear. Edwin Bryant, a member of the battalion, picks up Goodyear's story at this point, and incidentally confirms the recency of the founding of Fort Buenaventura: "A Rocky Mountain trapper and trader (Mr. Goodyear), who had established himself near the Salt Lake since I passed there last year, fortunately arrived at Los Angeles [about this time], bringing with him a quantity of dressed deer and elk skins, which were purchased for the nearly naked soldiers."

Records of Goodyear's transactions with Fremont's command have been preserved in the archives of the General Accounting Office in Washington—and the original of voucher 137 provides the only specimen of Miles Goodyear's signature yet found, superimposed on the picture of the Goodyear cabin which appeared in the July issue of the Quarterly. The accounts of the California Battalion got badly confused, Goodyear's among the rest, and the wonder is that any of the claims were ever approved by Congress, It would appear that on February 1, 1847, Jacob R. Snyder, Quartermaster for the Battalion, purchased $40 worth of deer skins, and on the same day bought another $662.50 worth. On February 15 Snyder handed over yet another .voucher for $1,185.50 in payment for tobacco and skins, these three claims respectively numbered 68, 136, and 137. Later in Washington it was decided that the second claim was included in the third. Actually paid out to the claimants was a total of $1,225.50. The papers Snyder handed over in exchange for Goodyear's skins, as O. A. Kennedy dryly remarks, chiefly exhibited Snyder's conviction "that the government could or would or should pay," and Goodyear doubtless made haste to sell his claims—at a healthy discount, we can be sure, but for enough to provide him with a little capital.

Goodyear was not born a Yankee for nothing. He forthwith put his capital to work. Horses in California were plentiful and cheap. Since 1840 mountain men and Utes had periodically raided the southern California ranchos, making a nuisance of themselves without profiting greatly from their larcenies, for in fear of pursuit the southern deserts had to be crossed so hastily that many of the stolen animals left their bones to whiten under the sun. If you were not a bankrupt to begin with, the better policy was to buy your horses and move along the trails at a pace befitting an honest man. This Goodyear proceeded to do. The exact number of horses he bought is not known, several hundred, perhaps.

Late spring was not a good season to trail livestock across the southern deserts, and Goodyear chose to return to Utah by another route than he had traveled outbound; he took his horses up through California to Sutter's Fort with the intention of going east by the well-beaten Humboldt trail. John A. Sutter's post diary mentions his arrival on May 22, 1847, though Sutter's Swiss ear did not get Goodyear's name quite right; on May 22, among various men who had just come up from below, Sutter includes "Myers (who is going with a band of horses to the big salt lake, his new established trading post)."

Goodyear was not the first to cross the Sierra Nevada this spring, Sam Brannan and several others having preceded him up into the snow, but early in June he launched upon his journey, accompanied by John Craig of Ray County, Mo., one (Samuel?) Truitt or Truete of Shelby County, 111., and two other California immigrants. To help him with his horse herd, the mountain man had along three Indians or half-breeds, who perhaps had gone with him to California the previous fall.

A letter describing the journey, by John Craig, has recently been discovered. Craig says that the party set out on "the 2th of June," and five days later crossed the dividing ridge of the Sierra, having had to travel about 35 miles over snow varying from 5 to 20 feet in depth, and riding over numerous mountain streams "on arches of Snow whilst we could hear the water roaring and dashing under our feet." From the head of the Humboldt the little company adopted the new Hastings Cutoff in preference to the long way around by Fort Hall. The route they chose involved crossing the Salt Desert, an experience concerning which Craig wrote graphically: "We traveled over a vast Sandy and Salt plane a distenc of at least Seventy five miles without either grass or water and lost four head of horses that perished for want of water. We was 22 hours constantly traveling before we got to water And when we did come at a Spring the great Salt Lake lay off in full view having a number of high rocky barren Islands all through it. But close arand the lake between the beach and high mountains that Serand it is considerable of rich land with abundanc of good spring water and ocasionally Salt Springs. But even here the county is nearly destitute of timber Onely here and thair a patch of willow and cotten wood on the Streams and a little ceeder and pine on the mountain arand. And the fourth and fifth of July I seen these mountains white in places with snow close arand the lake."

Craig does not mention what was certainly the most striking occurrence of the journey. Somewhere along the trail, probably on the Truckee River where the Indians were in a bad mood all year, they had a brush with the red men, one of Goodyear's men being killed and he himself slightly injured. Craig also has nothing to say of Fort Buenaventura, but it is reasonable to suppose that Goodyear looked in on his fort to assure himself of the safety of his family and his possessions. He may well have reached there about July 3, 1847, pausing for several days before heading up the Weber River toward Fort Bridger.

During the spring of 1847, while Miles Goodyear was bringing his horses up through California, then east across the Sierra Nevada and on up the Humboldt, reports about him were a source of disquiet to the westward-moving Mormon Pioneers. Brigham Young had left Winter Quarters in April to find a new home for a people who had been driven about the Mid-West for thirteen years. No part of the West seemed so promising at a distance as the eastern reaches of the Great Basin.—possibly the Bear River Valley, often and favorably mentioned as a desert oasis by overland travelers, but more probably the valleys rimming the Great Salt Lake itself. What Young wanted above all was to settle his people in a country where they would be the first settlers. The Saints had been harried from Missouri and Illinois by enemies who justified every outrage on the grounds that as "Old Settlers" they had the final right of yea and nay. This time the Saints must be the first-comers, theirs the right to say, "Get out!"

It was with mixed feelings, therefore, that as the Mormon Pioneers approached the Upper Crossing of the Platte on June 10, 1847, they learned from a party of mountain men just come from Pueblo that a man was now "living and making a farm in the Bear River valley." If it was encouraging to hear that the farming potentialities of the Great Salt Lake country were being put to the test, it was unsettling that someone should be before them. Eighteen days later, when the Pioneers encountered Jim Bridger, eastbound to Fort Laramie, they halted to question him about the region for which they were headed. Bridger had an unequalled knowledge of the West, and the interview was both exciting and bewildering. But stuck like a burr in the middle of it was the mysterious stranger: There was a man, Bridger told the Mormons, who had already opened a farm in the Bear River Valley.

The man himself put in an unexpected appearance on July 10, two days after the Pioneers passed Fort Bridger. Having brought their wagons down the stony western slopes of the Bear River Divide to an encampment on Sulphur Creek, some of the Saints went out to inspect the environs of the camp, and one of them, Orson Pratt, "discovered a smoke some two miles from our encampment, which I expected arose from some small Indian encampment. I informed some of our men and they immediately went to discover who they were; they found them to be a small party from the Bay of St. Francisco, on their way home to the States. They were accompanied by Mr. Miles Goodyear, a mountaineer, as far as this point."

George A. Smith, one of those who rode over to inquire into the smoke, says that the wispy column rising from the river bottoms led him to the little camp of "Miles Goodyear, two other men and a Mr. Craig and Truitt, and two others direct from California by Hastings' Route .... Goodyear and men are for Fort Bridger, Craig & men for the states. They call this point on Bear River halfway from San Francisco to St. Joseph, Mo."

Goodyear turned out to be a red-headed fellow rather slight as to frame, but lithe and active, possessed of the penetrating eye that was the hallmark of the mountain man, yet amiable of disposition and winning of manner. Mounting his horse, he accompanied the Mormon scouts back to their camp.

After their experiences of the last few years, which had included the murder of their prophet, the Saints were hard to convince about the disinterested motives of any man. William Clayton, for one, looked upon Goodyear with a cold eye, and wrote in his diary that this was "the man who is making a farm in the Bear River Valley. He says it is yet seventy-five miles to his place, although we are now within two miles of Bear River. His report of the valley is more favorable than some we have heard but we have an idea he is anxious to have us make a road to his place through selfish motives."

The rank and file of the Mormon camp were more inclined to take the red-headed mountain man at face value. At this point, just east of the crossing of Bear River, 8 miles southeast of present Evanston, Wyoming, there was a perplexing fork in the road; the California immigrants of 1846 who had pioneered a wagon road into the valley of the Great Salt Lake, had here experimented with two different routes, and the Saints were not aware that the two came back together a few miles farther on. On the morning of July 11, 1847, the neighborly Goodyear took several of the Saints, including Porter Rockwell and J. C. Little, over the road he thought to be the better of the two. The point is worth mentioning, for it has been misunderstood and has wrongly colored recent writing about the beginnings of Ogden. It has been said that Goodyear was trying to persuade the Saints to take the road down Weber Canyon to its mouth, in preference to going up over the Big Mountain divide, and down to Salt Lake Valley, the implication being that if the Saints had emerged from the Wasatch farther north, Ogden rather than Salt Lake City might have become the Mormon world capital. In reality the choice was between two roads which came back together again near Cache Cave, just across the Echo Canyon divide from Bear River. The route Goodyear recommended was the more northerly of the two, and William Clayton relates the sequel: "After dark, a meeting was called to decide which of the two roads we shall take from here. It was voted to take the right hand or northern road, but the private feelings of all the twelve [apostles] were that the other would be better. But such matters are left to the choice of the camp so that none may have room to murmer at the twelve hereafter."

In this instance the judgment of the camp was vindicated by history, for the route Miles Goodyear had recommended and which the Saints voted to follow was the shortest and easiest, becoming the traveled road for all who took the "Mormon Trail" in later years. Goodyear was entirely indifferent as to which road the Mormons traveled and did not wait to be informed what their choice might be. Having learned that the overland immigration was earlier this year than usual, he said farewell to the four men with whom he had journeyed from Sutter's and took his horse herd down the Bear River to intercept the immigration where the Oregon Trail reached that river. He may have drifted slowly east along that trail, trading his fresh stock for worn, until he reached the vicinity of Fort Bridger, and it appears that he did not return to his fort on the Weber until the season for immigration was over.

Meanwhile the Saints were establishing themselves in Salt Lake Valley. By July 28 they had definitely fixed upon the site of Salt Lake City as their gathering place, but they had a large curiosity about the surrounding region, and particularly about the country north where a farm of some kind had been started. John Brown writes that on August 9 he "started north with a little exploring company; also in company with Capt. Jas. Brown and others who were on their way to California. At Weber River We found the fort of Mr. Goodyear, which consisted of some log buildings and corrals stockaded in with pickets. This man had a herd of cattle, horses and goats. He had a small garden of vegetables, also a few stalks of corn, and, although it had been neglected, it looked well, which proved to us that with proper cultivation it would do well."

The state of the Goodyear garden was a matter of the greatest interest to the Mormon Pioneers, and it is hardly surprising that their journals should be full of information about it. One of the diaries reports that the garden included corn in tassel which had been planted June 9, that beans were ripe, carrots a foot long, cabbages, radishes, etc., looking fine (and for good measure, the sheep in need of a shearing). Another journal records that the American corn was shoulder high and the Spanish corn tasseling out; yet another notes that the garden was some 15 yards square.

All this was the work of Captain Wells, of whom it is unfortunate that so little is known, for he was Utah's first white agriculturist, and the buckets of water he poured upon his garden made him the first white man in Utah to practice irrigation. But after this month of August, 1847, Wells disappears into oblivion. On August 20 Henry G. Sherwood, who had combined a tour of investigation to Cache Valley with a little Indian trading, returned to the infant Great Salt Lake City bringing with him, so Howard Egan tells us, "a man by the name of Wells, who has lived some years in New Mexico among the Spaniards. I understand the brethren have given him the privilege of choosing a city lot, if he wishes to dwell here." This generous offer Captain Wells did not accept. Why not, and why and when he departed Goodyear's post forever, as also what became of him at last, history has yet to learn.

A letter written early in the fall by Andrew Goodyear, who was coming West in search of his brother, and who sought news of him from every traveler encountered along the way, says that Miles had paid a visit to the burgeoning Mormon city on August 25, the day before Brigham Young embarked upon his return journey to Winter Quarters, and that at this time he was in good health, in possession of a large number of horses and cattle, and intending to revisit California in the fall.

None of the Mormon journals, so far as known, mentions Miles Goodyear's presence in Great Salt Lake City on August 25. It is just possible that the date is mistaken, and Howard Egan's diary entry for August 19 describes the occasion in saying, "A party of Mountaineers (consisting of four white men and two squaws) arrived in the,valley this afternoon from Fort Bridger. Their ostensible reason for coming here was 'to see how we get along,' as they expressed themselves; but undoubtedly the real object of their visit was to trade with Indians. They were encamped this evening about a mile below here on the bottoms."

One of these mountain men was Jim Baker, who in association with Goodyear was on his way south to trade with the Utes on the headwaters of the Sevier. That Goodyear accompanied him to the Sevier country is not known for a certainty, but it is said that "in September, 1847, he camped with the pioneers at Salt Lake, being on his way home from a trading trip to the San Pete valley Indians, and that according to the account of Joseph Wood of Trenton, he bought from one of the Mormon emigrants the first house cat brought to Utah, paying $10 for it."

Good neighbor though Goodyear had shown himself to be, the Saints wanted no neighbors at all if they were also "Old Settlers." Before Brigham Young left for Winter Quarters, he recommended that an effort be made to buy the Goodyear claim, and on November 9, 1847, the High Council in Salt Lake Valley addressed itself to this problem. The minutes of that council record: "Henry G. Sherwood reported Pres. Brigham Young's council to him about buying out Goodyear and the property situation and so forth; terms $2000 dollars cash down. Ira Eldridge, Daniel Spencer and Henry G. Sherwood were appointed a committee to see if the means could be raised to buy out Mr. Goodyear."

Some urgency attended this action, for developments during October had shown that Goodyear's post had dangerous potentialities. Certain of the Saints who reached Salt Lake Valley in the early fall had taken their discontented way north to Goodyear's place, and it was entirely within the realm of possibility that Fort Buenaventura would become a haven for every apostate spirit, a seedbed for mobs and civil war. The High Council had met that situation by sending a marshal and posse north to bring the runaways back. Though the strayed Saints returned, making the heavens to resound over the "bondage" into which they had delivered themselves, it was clearly the part of wisdom to act on Brigham Young's counsel and buy Goodyear out.

Rounding up the means was not easy; on November 11 the High Council's committee reported that the money was not to be found. Five days later, however, Captain James Brown rode in from California by way of the Hastings Cutoff with $5,000 in gold, the back pay of the Battalion he had been sent to collect. By coincidence, on this very same day Miles Goodyear and his brother Andrew rode into town to deliver letters that had been entrusted to Andrew for delivery when he encountered the returning Pioneers near Ash Hollow on October 6.

The High Council met again on November 20, "on account of Capt. Brown's return from California." The authorities sanctioned the Captain's claim for a 10 per cent commission on the $5,000 in reimbursement of the expense and trouble he had been at to collect the Battalion boys' pay, and then decided "that Henry G. Sherwood and Capt. Brown should purchase the Goodyear place and property if it could be obtained on fair terms."

The mountain man was not adverse to selling, and on November 25, 1847, the deal was concluded, Goodyear disposing of his claim, improvements, and stock for $1,950, while reserving to himself his peltry and most of his horses. In January, 1848, Captain Brown's sons Alexander and Jesse rode north to look after the property, and the Captain himself, with other settlers, followed in March. For two years Fort Buenaventura was generally known as Brownsville, but from January, 1850, its name was Ogden.

Mormon sources shed no light on Goodyear's reasons for selling out, but this information is furnished by Andrew Goodyear, in the letter he wrote from Pueblo de los Angeles. Andrew's journey west, in the fall of 1847, had been in company with the celebrated mountain man, Joseph Reddeford Walker, who chose to winter on Henry's Fork of the Green. "I left him on Green River, on the 8th of November," Andrew wrote his brother William, "and arrived at Miles' fort on the 13th of the same month. I found him at home, but he did not know me, supposing us strangers from the Mormon camp, to which place I inquired the way. He answered that it was forty miles from his fort, but that I had lost my way and that I must stop with him for the night. I soon made myself known to him, and we spent most of the night in talking of days gone by, and friends at home. I think I should have known him anywhere, as his voice was familiar, and by his red hair hanging down on his shoulders. He had about half an acre enclosed with pickets, and a log house in each corner; also corrals adjoining for his horses, cattle, sheep and goats, and a good supply of goods and peltries on hand. There was plenty of timber around him, and land fit for cultivation, but as the Mormons had settled forty miles below him he thought neighbors were getting too near. After staying at the fort two days, we went down to the Mormon camp where we found about three thousand people living in adobe houses, log houses, wagons and tents .... On the 25th of November Miles sold out his place and stock, reserving his peltry and horses."

Following this transaction, the two Goodyears traveled over to Henrys Fork to recover Andrew's cached luggage, returned to Fort Buenaventura, and on December 22 set out for southern California. They spent Christmas in Great Salt Lake City, but on December 28 headed south, their party swelled to a total of ten by a few Saints who could not be reconciled to the Mormon situation in the mountains. They traveled down to the Sevier River, then up it to where Jim Baker was trading with the Utes— or as Andrew put it, "where Miles had a man trading for him with the Indians." The horses were permitted to recruit for 10 days, after which, on January 14, 1848, the brothers Goodyear resumed their journey, reaching the Williams Rancho at Chino, California, on February 10.

Trading in horses was something Miles Goodyear liked and did well, and he immediately set about buying another such herd as he had purchased in 1847. By now he was thoroughly familiar with the southern route, and prepared to risk driving a large herd of horses over the Mojave and Vegas deserts. So on April 23, 1848, a detachment of the 1st United States Dragoons stationed in Cajon Pass to see that no stolen animals passed eastward experienced a break in the monotony of their duty. As Lieut. George Stoneman, the officer in command of the detail, reported on "April 31," "on the 23rd an American by the name of Goodyear arrived, with 231 animals & A men—the animals I inspected and by my authority, gave him a passport—to pass out .... I took from the American one mare—not legally vented . . . ."

With these horses Goodyear made a truly extraordinary journey, one that stands out in all the annals of horse trading, for he drove them all the way to the States, and then back again to California. From a remark he made to a newspaper a year later, it would seem that he reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake in June. He was evidently in no rush to move on to the Oregon Trail, for as late as August 8, 1848, Ursulia B. Hascall wrote her sister from Great Salt Lake City, "There is a fur trader from Connecticut that is acquainted with Francis friends and he leaves this place for his native state in Sept. I shall write by him." This could only be a reference to Goodyear, but he did not wait until September to continue his journey. Late in August Oliver B. Huntington, westbound for the Mormon gathering place in the mountains, overtook Heber C. Kimball's company of immigrating Saints near South Pass, and says that he "found Goodger, a mountaineer quartering close to the camp with his large drove of horses, with which he was going to the States for market. He had lain about Brigham's camp several days, probably to let his horses recruit, and when with us he thought himself pretty secure from Indian encroachments. This Goodger had lived for many years in the same valley we were then going to. Had many cattle horses mules goats and some land improved, all which, one of the brethren had bought, so that G—• had no home left there of any consequence. He had been so long among the Indians, that he had nearly become one also."

One last allusion is Allen Taylor's, enroute back to Winter Quarters, who on September 6, 1848, wrote Brigham Young from the Upper Ford of the Platte, "Mr. Goodyear is with us and keeps his horses in our yard at night."

Taylor's letter was written from the vicinity of present Casper, Wyoming. Goodyear probably remained in company with him only as far as Fort Kearny, which had been established earlier in the year near the head of Grand Island; from Fort Kearny he took a southern branch of the immigrant trail, which brought him to St. Joseph in October. There he spent the winter, pasturing his horses on the rich Missouri River bottoms, and there he heard the sensational first reports of the discovery of gold in California.

Through January and February there was a mighty stirring in the United States in the wake of the news from the California diggings, and early it became manifest that 1849 would see a tremendous migration overland to California. The various towns along the frontier began to advertise their advantages as outfitting points for immigrants, St. Joseph among the rest, and Miles Goodyear figures in some of the advertising. On February 2, 1849, the St. Joseph Adventure commented that "last summer, Gen. [S. W.] Kearny, Commodore [R. F.] Stockton, Maj. [Moses or "Black"] Harris and Mr. Goodyear from California and Maj. Meeks [Joseph L. Meek] from Oregon came to this place direct, it being the best and nearest route." And again on February 23: "That the route from St. Joseph is the nearest and best, is evident from the fact that Com. Stockton (having in his employ as pilot Maj. Harris, a gentleman well acquainted with all the different routes) came direct from California to St. Joseph.—From the fact that Gen. Kearny, returning from California, came within a short distance of St. Joseph before he turned off for Fort Leavenworth. —From the fact that Mr. Meek, Dr. Derby, Maj. Harris and Mr. Goodyear (having travelled the route) recommend it as such, and from the fact, that the Mormon settlement at the Salt Lake have adopted it in crossing the plains, and have made St. Joseph their place of trade in Missouri."

Late in March Miles visited St. Louis, and an interview with him was printed in the Missouri Republican, March 30, 1849:

"MR. MILES M. GOODYEAR, a Rocky Mountain trader and traveler, arrived in this city yesterday, from St. Joseph. He says that the people along the whole line of our frontier, are making preparations for an early start across the Plains. Mr. GOODYEAR has traversed all the different routes to California, and is familiar with the several roads. He reached the Rocky Mountains in June last, remained there until the last of August, when he returned to the States by the South Pass, arriving in October last. He intends starting, we learn, as soon as the weather and grass will permit, for the Rocky Mountains and California, by the way of Fort Kearny, which he thinks the best and most practicable route."

It is singular that Miles should have driven his horses all the way from southern California to the Missouri River, but the Mormons in the valley of the Great Salt Lake were too poor to provide much of a market, and he was too late to trade with the immigrants of 1848 along the California-Oregon trail. It is much more curious that instead of disposing of his horses to the immigrants gathering on the frontier, Miles undertook to drive them back across the continent. He may have reasoned that prices would be better farther along the trail or in the gold fields than in Missouri, where he had to compete with every farmer for 50 miles around. The upshot was, however, that he made an unprecedented 4,000 mile journey from California to the Missouri River and back.

When Goodyear left St. Joseph is not known, but by May 17 he had reached Fort Kearny. From that point he wrote a communication to the Missouri Republican. Letters by Goodyear are few, and this one has been unknown:

FORT KEARNY, ON THE PLATTE, May 17th, 1849,

A good many of the adventurers and navigators have arrived at this point, on their way to the "happy land." About three hundred wagons have passed; the foremost train about ten days ago. They are said to be go ahead boys from St. Louis; but I am in hopes of being in hailing distance of them by the time they cross the Rocky mountains. There is every variety of conveyance—ox, mule, and horse trains, foot travelers, &c. There is one of the latter ,who says he has seen the suns of sixty winters; with his rifle on his shoulder, and a faithful dog by his side, he has trudged upon foot from the forests of the Kennebec—where he had a golden vision of the land of California, where he expects to arrive. He says, he thinks he can go there upon twentyfive meals. I have authorized him to draw upon me for half the amount, whenever he feels hungry. His principal object appears to be to obtain a dowry for a favorite daughter, and thereby enable her to marry an editor, lawyer, or salesman; and by their assistance, he still hopes to be a great man.

There will, doubtless, be much suffering on the route this summer; but it will be more owing to the people themselves than the difficulties which they have to encounter. Persons who are not able to walk fifteen or sixteen miles a day, are but poorly fitted to obtain a livelihood by digging in the gold mines of California. There can be grazing obtained for a large number of animals, by diverging from the main route, in places where the country will admit of it. There will be an abundance of grass for all the trains as far as Fort Laramie, after which, there will be a scarcity in places until they reach their destination. After leaving the South Pass, there are three different routes—one by Fort Hall, one by the South side of the Great Salt Lake [the Hastings Cutoff], and the other upon the North. The latter was laid out last fall by a train of thirty wagons upon their return from California to the mountain settlements. The country through which it passes furnishes the best grazing. Teams or persons belated, by deviating a little from the beaten track, will find valleys where they can winter themselves and stock, if they have their provisions along with them; if not, they can live upon their cattle, instead of losing them and themselves, amidst barren wastes or the snows of the Sierra Nevada.

Yesterday we fell in with a party of eighteen Cheyenne and Sioux warriors—the bold robbers of the prairie—armed with guns, bows, shields, and spears. Their appearance, no doubt, made many a "green un" tremble with fear. They were on the war path for the Pawnees, the scalps of two of whom they had dangling along at their saddle bows.

Respectfully, &c, M. M. G.

(A resident of the Prairie and Mountains, but now bound for the Sierra Nevada's snowy fountains.)

In two weeks from the time he wrote this letter, Miles had reached Fort Laramie, for Lorenzo D. Young, eastbound with a company of Mormon missionaries, encountered him there on June 1; as Young wrote in his diary, "This day arrived at Fort John found Mr. Goodger here, wrote back home by him. Met Timothy Goodell here also. The people are perfectly frantic for the gold mines, the greatest destruction of property that ever was witnessed." Miles had made good time without yet having moved out in front of the immigration, for before reaching Fort Laramie, on May 28, Young had written in his diary, ". . . came on to Deer Creek and camped for the night. This day commenced meeting emigrants for the mines."

Goodyear is not again heard from until after he reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake. When next we pick him up, it is in the overland narrative of William Kelly. Kelly traveled by way of Great Salt Lake City, and though his dates are confused, it can be established that he arrived there on Friday, June 22 and left on Monday, June 25. On the night of the 26th he reached Goodyear's old establishment—and the red-headed dealer in horses was on hand when Kelly arrived. So much on hand was he that Kelly took him for the proprietor. As Kelly tells the story:

"We formed our camp at the end of a large marsh, close to the residence of Mr. Goodyear, a wealthy Mormon, who has an extensive breeding station there for stock of every description, amongst which he had the largest flock of goats I ever saw. His house, offices, stables, 6c, 6c, formed a large square of handsome and substantial log-buildings, and had every requisite and convenience for such an establishment, which is the last in the line of the northern establishment. He was preparing to drive a large caballada of horses and mules for the California market, with which he intended travelling himself in ten or twelve days; could he have started at an earlier period I would have been disposed to await his company, but we expected by that time to be at the source of Humboldt River."

Goodyear's last visit to his old post on the Weber was remembered by an 1848 Ogden pioneer whose recollections were preserved by O. A. Kennedy: "we . . . hear of him as arriving at Ogden as the guide of a party of eastern gold seekers bound for California, according to the story of the late Wells Chase of Ogden; ... he participated in a grand celebration of July A, 1849, this time at Fort Buenaventura, prior to departing for the coast. Wells Chase said it was a real, a wonderful celebration and that it lasted about three days, and that several from the people at the fort joined Goodyear's party, among them being Dr. Vaughan, who is mentioned as a member of the first gold-diggers on the Yuba."

The date of Miles's departure is not known, but the Missouri Republican of September 26, 1849, picked up this notice of his arrival in California:

The New York Express, by yesterday's mail, furnishes us with additional news from the emigrating parties by way of the Plains.

Capt. Goodyear's party had arrived out in 67 traveling days from St. Joseph, on the Missouri River. It was believed that the wagon trains would suffer severely. A small party had also arrived via the Salt Lakes, and these represent the Mormon settlements in a most flourishing condition, with the prospect of a glorious harvest in every branch of agriculture save Corn. The Mormons are very kind to the emigrants who pass through their domain. Needy emigrants are furnished without reward with provisions and fresh cattle, accompanied with the hospitalities of the good Samaritan.

The party which came in by way of the Salt Lakes state that not ten wagons of the whole caravan will ever cross the mountains. Full one-half of the whole number are abandoned already, and the animals used to pack in provisions sufficient to sustain life. For one hundred miles after the Salt Lake party reached Mary's River, not a spear of grass could be found to sustain the cattle, and thousands perished before reaching the Sink.

Few or none of the emigrants had died from want of food, but their sufferings from want of water had been intense. In many places on the desert parties were compelled to bury themselves in sand up to their necks and await the return of their friends who were off in search of water. But none have died, and most of the parties, after abandoning everything but provisions, would reach Sacramento city.

Capt. Goodyear's party (by the Missouri route) thinks that the first Wagon train will enter the valley of the Sacramento by the 15th of July.

The implication of this last paragraph is that Goodyear had reached the Sacramento Valley before July 15, 1849, but if so, this was an incredibly expeditious journey. There are other odd features to this report; for example, how does it happen that Goodyear's party is distinguished from one that came "by way of the Salt Lakes"? And it is stated that he had reached California "in 67 traveling days from St. Joseph," whereas a letter from Andrew to William Goodyear, written from Sacramento December 2, 1849, says that they, or at any rate Andrew himself, crossed the plains "in fifty-four days, the quickest time I know." William Kelly again encountered Miles after the arrival of both in California, but his notation is not especially helpful; he says merely that on his return to camp one day.—this apparently at Weber's Diggings—"I found Mr. Goodyear's caballada, together with a Pack-mule train, had arrived, the latter in a wretched state, and reporting, even at that early date, great sufferings on Humboldt River."

With Goodyear's further adventures in California we are not concerned, nor did he have much longer to live. With his brother Andrew, Dr. Vaughan, and a Mr. Morrison, he made a rich strike on the North Fork of the Yuba River, a site 4 miles below Downieville still known as Goodyear's Bar. But finally there was no luck for him in California. Andrew wrote home on December 2, 1849:

I have to announce to you at this time the sad news of our dearly beloved brother, Miles, who died November the 12th, at half past 6 in the morning, on the headwaters of the Yuba, in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

He left this place with a pack train about a month ago, expecting to be back in a few weeks; but two of his Indians were taken sick, which threw the burden of the labor upon him. This, with the great exposure, brought on a fever, he got the assistance of some miners near to remove him to another camp of his, some six miles down the river, where one of his Indians died soon after he arrived. He was unable to travel further, but sent an express down the river for a physician. When he left here I was in the mines some fifty miles away.

When I returned I found he had gone above. I started up also and when within seventy miles of his camp I learned that he was ill. I left my pack animals with my Indians and joined him as soon as possible. When I arrived I found the doctor with him. The snow was falling so deep that we thought we would not be able to move him until spring. I sent below for provisions and hired men to build us a cabin. The doctor and myself were with him constantly until he died, neither of us considering him dangerously ill until the day before his death. He retained his reason until his last breath. As he lay dying in my arms he said, "Tell my friends they must all forgive me, as I wish to die at peace with all mankind. My life may have been an error, but I have followed the dictates of my conscience." Nearly his last words were his wish to have inscribed on his tombstone: "The mountaineer's grave. He sleeps near the western ocean's wave." . . .

The post Miles Goodyear founded on the site of Ogden in the fall of 1846 must be regarded as the true beginnings of the city; settlers have continuously occupied the land from 1846 to the present, and Ogden may justly claim to be Utah's oldest community. A log house Goodyear built—though which one of the several enclosed by his stockade we do not know—has been preserved down to our own time, and stands today in Ogden's Tabernacle Square as one of Utah's most interesting relics of the past.

Fort Buenaventura was established at a true crossroads of the West, and the wisdom of its location has been fully established by the passage of time. White agriculture, stockraising, and dairying in Utah all had their beginnings here. Ogden properly cherishes the memory of its red-headed founding father, and the trading post which became a city.

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