Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0098/00986.txt

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$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."