$Unique_ID{bob00986} $Pretitle{} $Title{The Big Bend Part I} $Subtitle{} $Author{Tyler, Ronnie C.} $Affiliation{National Park Service;U.S. Department Of The Interior} $Subject{route san hays chihuahua bend big antonio trade river new} $Date{1984} $Log{} Title: The Big Bend Book: Chapter 3: The Chihuahua Trail Author: Tyler, Ronnie C. Affiliation: National Park Service;U.S. Department Of The Interior Date: 1984 Part I "Jack" Hays was an unusual man: respected captain of a Texas Ranger company during the Mexican War, good shot, eloquent commander, and shrewd military man, yet kind, respectful, and resourceful. For all that, he often bemused those who met him for the first time, for he was less than 5 feet tall, weighed about 150 pounds, and had a smooth, whiskerless face. A disciplined man in modest clothes, John Coffee Hays had an impenetrable countenance. His firm jaw foretold determination, and his piercing eyes betrayed nothing."The fame of Colonel Hays rested on a substantial basis," explained one who had followed him."It was acquired by hard fighting, by suffering privations, and by the exhibition of the high qualities adorning a citizen and soldier." It was "Jack" Hays who, in 1848, led an expedition of adventurous, naive Texans into the Big Bend. Hays' trip was not the result of a foolhardy plan. Dr. Henry Connelly, an American living in the city of Chihuahua and later Territorial Governor of New Mexico, had gathered between $200,000 and $300,000 in specie and gold bullion and organized a wagon train for such a trip in 1839. He hoped to initiate trade between Chihuahua and New Orleans, which he believed to be a more lucrative market than either Santa Fe or Independence, Mo. Leaving the Mexican city on April 3, the doctor crossed the Rio Grande at Presidio del Norte, a small village surrounding the site of La Junta de los Rios, and headed through the Big Bend along a route similar to the one Mendoza had charted over a century and a half before. Bouncing across the Texas plains, through the Cross Timbers to Fort Towson, and down the Red River and the Mississippi, he reached New Orleans a few months later with no unusual difficulties. New Orleans, unfortunately, was depleted of many goods that the merchants could have easily sold in Chihuahua, but after several weeks they obtained calicoes, prints, unbleached cottons, cloths, silks, and other items. The return trip was equally uneventful, except for a minor accident that cost them about $30,000 worth of goods when the steamboat towing them up the Red River hit a snag. The 80-wagon train cut such a swath across the Texas prairies that their trail remained visible for several years. They left an even more graphic sign of their presence when they could not find their route through the dense Cross Timbers and were forced to hack a new trail. In West Texas the traders encountered Comanches, but passed them without a fight. Finding the Pecos too deep to ford, they resorted to an "expedient characteristic of the Prairies," according to Josiah Gregg, a veteran Santa Fe trader. They emptied several barrels, tied them to the bottom of each wagon, and floated it across the river. When they reached Presidio del Norte they found that the governor with whom they had reached agreement before leaving had died. Because he had no investment in the project, the new governor was not as friendly to their endeavors and threatened to charge the full tariff. Forty-five days were required to negotiate a compromise. The caravan finally entered Chihuahua on August 27, 1840. "The delays and accumulated expenses of this expedition caused it to result so disastrously," claimed Gregg in 1844, "that no other enterprise of the kind has since been undertaken." Hays knew that the caravan had not ended satisfactorily for the investors, but it had stirred interest in a wagon route through the Big Bend. While in New Orleans, Connelly had assured the Louisianians that if their government would encourage the commerce, "the whole trade of Chihuahua, and as far west as the Pacific ocean," would be theirs. Some reporters waxed enthusiastic, claimed that Chihuahua contained the "richest gold mines in all Mexico" and that bullion would find its way to New Orleans even though the Mexican government prohibited its exportation. The distant Western Star of Lebanon, Ohio, believed that Americans should come to know Chihuahua better. Texans held even stronger convictions because a change in the trade pattern obviously would divert commerce to San Antonio, Houston, or Corpus Christi. The editor of the Houston Morning Star endorsed efforts to establish a permanent post on the Red River for the Chihuahua trade, hoping, of course, that Houston might be able to divert some of the trade because of its favorable location near the Gulf of Mexico. Connelly's expedition had proved that the trip could be made, and that the trade could be profitable under favorable conditions. Others hesitated, however, wondering if Connelly had not been extremely fortunate in safely crossing a virtually unexplored region known to be populated with hostile Indians. Few travelers had entered the Big Bend since the Spaniards had recalled their soldiers in the face of the on-rushing Comanches. Yet Connelly's caravan encountered only routine difficulties. The Indian threat combined with the poor return on investment and the Mexican War proved sufficient to dampen for a few years whatever enthusiasm there might have been in a Chihuahua Trail. Interest rekindled in 1847 when Maj. John Polk Campbell and 39 Mexican War veterans left Chihuahua headed for Fort Towson via Presidio del Norte. Traveling over a route that the editor of the Western Star claimed was superior to the Santa Fe Trail, Campbell and his party safely reached their destination several weeks later, having sighted no hostile Indians. Three other Mexican War veterans in Chihuahua, Ben Leaton, John W. Spencer, and John D. Burgess, thought the route had a good future and decided to establish a mercantile business at Presidio. After buying property in the village in 1848, they left for the United States to purchase sale goods. Upon their return they learned that the land on the left bank now belonged to the United States as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War. They obtained land from several Mexicans on the American side and moved their operations across the river. Leaton constructed a fortification to protect his property (today a historic site). Theirs was the first American settlement in the Big Bend. The Hays-Highsmith Expedition By this time "Jack" Hays had decided to lead his own party into the Big Bend. He found merchants and newspapermen throughout the State excited about the expedition; among those who signed up for the trek was Samuel Maverick, a prominent citizen of San Antonio, who was given the task of keeping a journal of the trip. The expedition was widely publicized in the State's newspapers. Expectations ran high. On August 27 the party left San Antonio and headed for El Paso. At the Llano River they joined Capt. Samuel Highsmith and his Texas Rangers, who were to protect them from Indian attack. Oblivious of the dangers, the 35 adventurers set out on September 4 up the Llano. They crossed Comanche Creek and James Creek, then proceeded to the Nueces River. At Las Moras Creek, a tributary of the Rio Grande, they met some friendly Indians who advised them to pursue a more westerly course. As they paralleled the Rio Grande, crossing creek after creek, Hays finally realized that the inaccurate map he carried was worthless. He eventually arrived at the river the Indians called "Puerco," which had steep banks and such a crooked course (Hays crossed it eight times within a mile) that he renamed it Devil's River. The march continued uneventfully into the Big Bend. There the trouble began. Food ran short. Men turned to eating their mules, prickly pears, and whatever else they could find. The expedition's physician, a Doctor Wahm, strangely refused to eat. Two nights later he went insane, perhaps from eating some of the many alkaline plants that grow in the Big Bend, and fled into the hills. Sam Maverick noted in his journal that the men killed and ate a panther on October 2 and began eating bear grass on the 7th. Passing near Boquillas Canyon in the Sierra del Carmen, the party crossed to the Mexican side of the river near San Vicente, hoping to find food. The mountains were even more rugged on the right bank. By the time they stumbled onto the village of San Carlos, the site of the abandoned Spanish presidio, Hays and his campanions had been without food for 12 days. Rumors of their hardships quickly filtered back to San Antonio. Several adventurers had left the city a few days after Hays, and near Devil's River they overtook the expedition. After traveling with them for a few days, however, the disheartened late-starters returned to San Antonio. They reported that Hays was out of provisions, traveling over rugged ground and already killing his horses for food. Because the party was gone so long, many suspected a disaster. The editor of the "Corpus Christi Star", who had hoped that the Chihuahua Trail would one day reach as far as his city, conceded that the expedition had encountered "more difficulties than had been anticipated." But the Hays party had endured the worst of the Big Bend. They refreshed themselves with bread and milk in San Carlos, then continued the journey to Presidio del Norte. While at Presidio, the Texans provisioned themselves at Ben Leaton's ranch. They purchased mules and food from Leaton and remained there about 10 days, recovering from their near-fatal march across the Big Bend. El Paso, their original goal, lay 150 miles farther west, but the men physically could not continue. The leaders decided to give up. They voted to return to San Antonio by a more northerly route, passing by Horsehead Crossing and Live Oak Creek. This route was not so treacherous as their outbound path, and they did not suffer as much from either heat or lack of water. But they did encounter Indians who stole six horses, which they recovered a few days later. On December 12 a battered force trudged into San Antonio, having traveled some 1,303 miles by their own calculation. Hays gave reports of his trip to the citizens of San Antonio who had sponsored it and to the Federal Government, which was interested in establishing a fort in the Big Bend. His route west was treacherous, he said. "The whole of this part of the country, from the mouth of Devil's River up the Rio Grande, as far as San Carlos, a town 40 miles south of Presidio del Norte, is one constant succession of high broken mountains, destitute of timber and water." Returning by a more northerly course, he found a better trail and more water. Had his guide been competent or the map accurate, he might have had no problem on the way out, but the guide was "entirely ignorant of this part of the country - few people besides Indians knew anything substantial of the Big Bend in 1848 - and the map was sketchy. His mistakes led Hays and his party into avoidable hardships. After dismissing the guide, Hays took charge of the party and led it to San Carlos by his own reckoning. Hays characteristically minimized the Indian attack and recommended the northern route as the safe, easier one. By avoiding the lower portion of the Big Bend, the wagon trains would able to pass over "beautiful and level country," he said. The only obstacle would be the Pecos River, which could easily be forded except during seasonal crests. Travelers In The Big Bend The discovery of gold in California drew others to the Big Bend. By 1849 literally thousands of gold seekers were traveling to California; many observers expected the Forty-Niners to find a route across Texas. "Reference to the map indicated that an overland route to the new El Dorado would . . . pass . . . not very far from Austin," wrote John S. Ford, a doctor and former Texas Ranger recently returned from Mexico. Austin citizens decided to send Ford on an exploratory trip to see whether a good road could be found between Austin and El Paso. Since the U.S. Army was also looking for a western route, Ford joined Maj. Robert S. Neighbors, Texas Indian Agent, for the jaunt. They left in March, tracing a route north of the Big Bend, by Brady's Creek, Horsehead Crossing, then west to the headwaters of the Concho River. After reaching Brady's Creek, they swung southward through Fort Mason, Fredericksburg, and San Antonio. Immigrants obviously needed an up-to-date map. So in the fall of 1848 Jacob de Cordova rushed into print with a map drawn by Robert Creuzbaur, the head draftsman of the State land office. Few details are shown for the Big Bend, but a caravan route from the Arkansas River in 1840 is depicted. If Creuzbaur intended to show Connelly's route, he probably placed it several miles too far north. For months de Cordova's map was the only one listed for sale in the advertisements of the New York Tribune. Using information gleaned from expeditions by Capt. John C. Fremont, Lt. Philip St. George Cooke, Lt. William H. Emory, Dr. Adolph Wislizenus, from Hays, Neighbors, and Ford following the war, and from the records of the State land office, Creuzbaur prepared his own guide book to aid the hundreds of Forty-Niners who were passing through Texas on their way to California. Entitled Route From the Gulf of Mexico and the Lower Mississippi Valley to California and the Pacific Ocean, the Creuzbaur work had a sizable national audience. On it Creuzbaur specifically drew Connelly's trail, indicating that the doctor passed closer to what is today the national park than he really did. Still, there is almost no information on the Big Bend itself, for little was known in 1849. Interest in the western route was so great that the Texas State Gazette also published the route of another Forty-Niner for all other "western adventurers" who were interested in where the waterholes and passes were throughout West Texas. Hays and his fellow travelers had crossed the most difficult part of the Big Bend. Their success encouraged others. Traders and Forty-Niners launched out across the plains. George W. B. Evans and a party from Ohio tried a different route. Instead of heading west from San Antonio, they journeyed through Eagle Pass and San Fernando. Hiring a Mexican guide, they then turned westward toward San Carlos, roughly along the path that Rabago had traveled a century before. It was a difficult journey through a bleak country at least as rough as the trails on the American side of the Rio Grande. "Kind reader, this is work, labor that requires the strength and exertion of every muscle of the body, and nature almost sinks under these repeated trials and privations," Evans noted in his journal. "Our limbs are sore and stiffened by this continued labor, and God only knows when we will find ourselves again upon the plains below." For an 80-mile stretch the party found no waterhole. One member of the group was lost in the desert. Evans also mistrusted the guide. Threatened by Apaches and Comanches every step of the way, he feared that the guide probably had agreed to lead the party into an ambush in return for part of the booty. The despoblado was so barren that they marched to within 10 miles of San Carlos without realizing it. Searching for words to "convey a perfect idea of this almost forsaken town," Evans pointed out that there were houses of "dried mud" and "upright poles plastered with mud." "There are no streets, but everything of or concerning this town is arranged in admirable confusion." The Forty-Niners continued the journey to Presidio del Norte and Chihuahua, having crossed one of the most rugged parts of the despoblado. Corpus Christi merchants, in a favorable position on the Gulf of Mexico to make their city a shipping center, showed interest in the Chihuahua trade. The editor of the Cornus Christi Star argued with newspapermen in Houston as to which city was better located for the trade. The editor of the Star printed stories about the Hays expedition and was anxious to get the formal report. In September 1848 he announced plans of H. L. Kinney and other Corpus merchants to sponsor a wagon train to "open the road for permanent trade with Chihuahua." The expedition would be as "large as possible," he declared, and an "invitation is held out to all who may wish to join it." Kinney also hoped to obtain the U.S. mail contract for western Texas. While the train organized, the editor raved about the possibilities of trade over the western road. He glorified Lts. Francis T. Bryan's and Nathaniel Michler's trailblazing in early 1849. He printed letters from travelers claiming a good road existed from Corpus to Presidio del Norte. And his publicity campaign was successful. The editor of the "New Orleans Picayune" was convinced that the Hays route would divert trade from Santa Fe to Texas. "A glance at the map shows that San Antonio is the nearest from the United States to Chihuahua," he concluded, and "a trail or plank road" from San Antonio to the coast would rapidly bring the trade to New Orleans. The long train was finally ready for departure from Corpus Christi on July 17, 1849. For over a week, carts gathered in the city, and teamsters drove their wagons through the streets, a few leaving each day for the rendezvous point. Gen. William L. Cazneau, a prominent businessman, led such other well-known residents as Col. Jacob Snively in an effort to establish trading posts at Presidio del Norte and El Paso del Norte. Bearing perhaps $90,000 worth of goods for Chihuahua, the 100-man party headed westward toward Leona Creek. When they reached the Big Bend, Indians "hovered about" the 50 wagons so threateningly that the teamsters finally fired upon them. Whatever happened to the train - we have no evidence of its fate - the next trace of Cazneau has him founding a trading post at Eagle Pass the following year to foster his plans for Mexican trade. Cazneau was not the only speculator in the Chihuahua trade. In May 1849, Capt. W. W. Thompson left Fredericksburg with a party headed for El Paso. Employing Joe Robinson, the Delaware Indian who had been with Hays, the Thompson party traveled the northern route, anticipating few hardships. Robert Hunter, a member of the expedition, expressed their shock at the country in a letter to his wife. "We have travelled two hundred and forty miles without seeing any timber and at two different times we drove two days and nights without water over mountains and ravines on the route that Jack Hays said he found water so plenty, and if he had been in sight he would not have lived one minute. Our mules suffered immensely, but the men done very well as we had gourds and kegs. A Houston editor predicted a "snug little fortune" for the Bayou City merchant who left the city with his goods and declared that he would "not unload them till his wagon arrived at the public square" in El Paso. Persons who made the trip with Neighbors in 1850 reported that common products such as tobacco, domestics, and coffee were selling at seven or eight times their price in Houston. Although the Houston merchant intended to continue on to California to hunt for gold, the editor predicted that "we should not he surprised to hear that this adventurer should conclude to forego his journey to California and return to Houston for another stock of goods for the Chihuahua market. Such was the optimism that awaited the trade." An expedition under a Major Sprague was organized in San Antonio to start in April 1850 for El Paso. The caravan consisted of 200 Mexican carts and two companies of mounted troops. A local editor reported that other Alamo City merchants had departed for New Orleans and New York to purchase trade goods. Newspapers quickly reported journeys across the Trans-Pecos, emphasizing the ever-decreasing amount of time required to make the journey and the fact that difficulties were minor. One Robert Hays made the trek in just 31 days, and two merchants named Durand and Holliday made it in less than 20 days, according to the editor of the San Antonio Ledger." But merchants were more interested in the trip made by Maj. W. S. Henry, of the 3rd Infantry Regiment in the summer of 1850, because he carried many goods and wagons. Departing El Paso on August 26, Henry, along with 18 persons, three wagons with mules, and one ambulance, arrived in San Antonio on September 13, causing the Western Texan to think it was the "quickest trip ever made with wagons." The San Antonio Texan noted the visit of 30 or 40 emigrants who passed through the city en route to the gold fields of California, as well as Charles Wiggins' wagon train that left San Antonio in the spring of 1850 for El Paso and the Chihuahua trade. The editor also reported that several other merchants were loading their goods at Indianola and Lavaca in preparation for the trip to Chihuahua. An encouraging account of the route and conditions came from a traveler who made the journey from Fredericksburg. "I had as pleasant a trip as could be expected," he reported. Following such successful journeys, the editor of the Western Texan declared the search for a route to El Paso and Chihuahua over. "It s now reduced to a 'fixed fact' that the best, safest, and shortest route . . . is through Texas, by way of San Antonio."