By Washington Irving
Originally published in 1837
Introductory Notice
WHILE ENGAGED in writing an account of the grand enterprise of
Astoria, it was my practice to seek all kinds of oral information
connected with the subject. Nowhere did I pick up more
interesting particulars than at the table of Mr. John Jacob
Astor; who, being the patriarch of the fur trade in the United
States, was accustomed to have at his board various persons of
adventurous turn, some of whom had been engaged in his own great
undertaking; others, on their own account, had made expeditions
to the Rocky Mountains and the waters of the Columbia.
Among these personages, one who peculiarly took my fancy was
Captain Bonneville, of the United States army; who, in a rambling
kind of enterprise, had strangely ingrafted the trapper and
hunter upon the soldier. As his expeditions and adventures will
form the leading theme of the following pages, a few biographical
particulars concerning him may not be unacceptable.
Captain Bonneville is of French parentage. His father was a
worthy old emigrant, who came to this country many years since,
and took up his abode in New York. He is represented as a man not
much calculated for the sordid struggle of a money-making world,
but possessed of a happy temperament, a festivity of imagination,
and a simplicity of heart, that made him proof against its rubs
and trials. He was an excellent scholar; well acquainted with
Latin and Greek, and fond of the modern classics. His book was
his elysium; once immersed in the pages of Voltaire, Corneille,
or Racine, or of his favorite English author, Shakespeare, he
forgot the world and all its concerns. Often would he be seen in
summer weather, seated under one of the trees on the Battery, or
the portico of St. Paul's church in Broadway, his bald head
uncovered, his hat lying by his side, his eyes riveted to the
page of his book, and his whole soul so engaged, as to lose all
consciousness of the passing throng or the passing hour.
Captain Bonneville, it will be found, inherited something of his
father's bonhommie, and his excitable imagination; though the
latter was somewhat disciplined in early years, by mathematical
studies. He was educated at our national Military Academy at West
Point, where he acquitted himself very creditably; thence, he
entered the army, in which he has ever since continued.
The nature of our military service took him to the frontier,
where, for a number of years, he was stationed at various posts
in the Far West. Here he was brought into frequent intercourse
with Indian traders, mountain trappers, and other pioneers of the
wilderness; and became so excited by their tales of wild scenes
and wild adventures, and their accounts of vast and magnificent
regions as yet unexplored, that an expedition to the Rocky
Mountains became the ardent desire of his heart, and an
enterprise to explore untrodden tracts, the leading object of his
ambition.
By degrees he shaped his vague day-dream into a practical
reality. Having made himself acquainted with all the requisites
for a trading enterprise beyond the mountains, he determined to
undertake it. A leave of absence, and a sanction of his
expedition, was obtained from the major general in chief, on his
offering to combine public utility with his private projects, and
to collect statistical information for the War Department
concerning the wild countries and wild tribes he might visit in
the course of his journeyings.
Nothing now was wanting to the darling project of the captain,
but the ways and means. The expedition would require an outfit of
many thousand dollars; a staggering obstacle to a soldier, whose
capital is seldom any thing more than his sword. Full of that
buoyant hope, however, which belongs to the sanguine temperament,
he repaired to New-York, the great focus of American enterprise,
where there are always funds ready for any scheme, however
chimerical or romantic. Here he had the good fortune to meet with
a gentleman of high respectability and influence, who had been
his associate in boyhood, and who cherished a schoolfellow
friendship for him. He took a general interest in the scheme of
the captain; introduced him to commercial men of his
acquaintance, and in a little while an association was formed,
and the necessary funds were raised to carry the proposed measure
into effect. One of the most efficient persons in this
association was Mr. Alfred Seton, who, when quite a youth, had
accompanied one of the expeditions sent out by Mr. Astor to his
commercial establishments on the Columbia, and had distinguished
himself by his activity and courage at one of the interior posts.
Mr. Seton was one of the American youths who were at Astoria at
the time of its surrender to the British, and who manifested such
grief and indignation at seeing the flag of their country hauled
down. The hope of seeing that flag once more planted on the
shores of the Columbia, may have entered into his motives for
engaging in the present enterprise.
Thus backed and provided, Captain Bonneville undertook his
expedition into the Far West, and was soon beyond the Rocky
Mountains. Year after year elapsed without his return. The term
of his leave of absence expired, yet no report was made of him at
head quarters at Washington. He was considered virtually dead or
lost and his name was stricken from the army list.
It was in the autumn of 1835 at the country seat of Mr. John
Jacob Astor, at Hellgate, that I first met with Captain
Bonneville He was then just returned from a residence of upwards
of three years among the mountains, and was on his way to report
himself at head quarters, in the hopes of being reinstated in the
service. From all that I could learn, his wanderings in the
wilderness though they had gratified his curiosity and his love
of adventure had not much benefited his fortunes.
