Journal of a Mountain Man

by Win Blevins

  Pioneering in Wisconsin

  Presumably, Clyman operated his store and stuck to his business for about a year before adventuring again, this time to the north with a friend, Hiram Ross. Ross later reported that he and Clyman went to Wisconsin on horseback early in January, 1835, and recorded claims on government land. They stayed about three weeks in Milwaukee and then went back to Danville together. Late in February they started for Milwaukee again, with two teams loaded with provisions, spending seven or eight days on the trip. They built a sawmill on the Monomonee River about four miles from Milwaukee in the spring and summer of 1836. The mill, later known as the “Ross Mill,” was located in the town of Wauwatosa, and built for the firm of Clyman and Arnett. Clyman furnished $200 to start the work.

  In March, like any good citizen, Clyman paid taxes on his property in Milwaukee County; the lots he held are apparently now inside the city limits.

  But Clyman soon became discontented with his Milwaukee claim, perhaps because so many settlers rushed in, and he headed north again, this time with Ellsworth Burnett. The adventure the two had was told by James S. Buck, in his Pioneer History of Milwaukee, (Milwaukee, 1881, Vol. 2, p. 13.)

  On November 4,1835, the two headed toward Rock River to look for land. On the second day of travel, they reached the river and found an Indian wigwam. From the woman in it, they bought a canoe for 50 cents, put their baggage in it, and headed down river. They were hardly out of sight when the woman’s husband and son returned home. They immediately chased the two white men, both to recover the canoe, and to avenge the death of the woman’s brother, who had been killed by a soldier at Fort Winnebago two years before.

  When the Indians caught up with them, Clyman and Burnett had landed and were preparing to spend the night in a deserted cabin. Burnett was inside building a fire, while Clyman was gathering wood nearby, without his gun. The two Indians moved in so quickly the white men had no notion of hostile intent. Clyman heard a shot, followed by a scream. Looking up, he saw the older Indian standing in the door of the cabin, waving at him to come quickly, saying that Burnett had accidentally shot himself. Clyman started for the cabin and had nearly reached it when the Indian raised his gun to shoot Clyman. Alerted (and one can only be surprised that an old mountain man had been taken in at all), Clyman began to run, zig-zagging to make himself a poor target.

  The old Indian fired, hitting Clyman’s left arm, and breaking it below the elbow. At the same time the son came out of the cabin, grabbed Clyman’s own gun, and shot him in the thigh with a full load of buckshot. Then both Indians started chasing him. (Clyman later said it made him “mad as hell” to be shot with his own gun, but he wasn’t in a position to do much about it right then.) Once he had gotten a little ahead of his pursuers, he hid under a fallen tree. At one point, they stood on the tree, discussing his whereabouts.

  Once the Indians had given up the chase, and darkness had fallen, Clyman bound up his arm with his handkerchief and started walking toward Milwaukee, fifty miles away. He had no gun, and no food. He held his left arm in his right hand, and traveled all night during a hard rain. In the morning of the second day he came out near the Cold Spring. There he met an old Rocky Mountain trapper friend, John Bowen of Wauwatosa, to whom he reportedly said, “Oh John, how I wish we had taken you along. Wouldn’t we have fixed them red devils!”

  One can only imagine what else he probably said that historians of his day did not see fit to record. He was probably pretty disgusted with himself for not being more suspicious of the local Indians, not to mention his temper after walking two days on a leg filled with buckshot from his own gun. Bowen took him to the house of William Woodward at Cold Spring, and dressed his wounds.

  Buck, who recorded the story, said “As an exhibition of physical endurance, this had seldom if ever been equaled; and as a specimen of skill in wood craft, never.” Buck probably never went west or trapped in the Rockies. Had he been on the spot at the time to listen to Clyman and John Bowen talk over shining times in the mountains, he might have heard reminiscences that would have altered his ideas about what was physically possible and what constituted “wood craft.” Bowen, though Clyman never mentions him in his journals, must have been an intriguing character. He was apparently with Ashley in 1827, hired on at $110 a year, according to documents in the Missouri Historical Society. By the end of the year, the salaries of men hired at a given rate were reduced by advances enroute, and the sum each man was actually paid is also recorded. John Bowen was paid $109 at the end of the year. Don Berry, who quotes this information, says, “I’d give a lot to know what he spent that buck for in transit. It must have been a soul-rending decision.”

  The Indians were captured and put in prison, tried at Milwaukee, and pardoned by Gov. Henry Dodge—under whom, in Jesse Brown’s company, Clyman had served when Dodge was just a major.

  Local history has it that neither Indian was ever seen in Milwaukee again, and that no other Indian would stay in town more than twenty minutes once Clyman arrived. The shot was removed from his thigh by Milwaukee surgeons, but witnesses said he limped for a long time afterwards. He is said to have returned to the scene for his gun, a “double barreled stub and twist shot gun, large caliber,” according to John Hustis, who was annoyed to discover later that Clyman had borrowed his pistol for the trip.

  As a climax of this whole series of events, forty-nine settlers petitioned Congress to grant Clyman a square mile of land as a bounty since, they said, he’d lost $350 and use of his arm in the fracas. The petition called him “one of the most honorable and worthy citizens” of Milwaukee, and noted that it was not signed by Clyman “nor by any person in his name or in his behalf.” The claim was not granted.

  From 1836 until 1840 Clyman was apparently involved in his business at Danville. Some time later he took out a contract for the “placing of milestones on the old state road, laid out by authority of the legislature of Illinois, from Vincennes Indiana to Chicago.”

  At this time, Clyman was a Whig politically, and was marshal of the day at the January, 1841, celebration of Harrison’s election. On July 4, 1842, he was listed as a colonel for a procession in Milwaukee.

  Clint Clay Tilton, writing in the Centennial Book of Vermillion County, Illinois, in his description of the funeral of Dan Beckwith on Christmas Day, 1835, says this of Clyman: “Jim Clyman, hunter and fisherman for sheer love of the kill, sometime partner of Dan in his Trading Post in the ‘Hole in the Hill,’ and whose boast it was that razor never had touched his face nor shear snipped at his flowing hair, armed with pick and shovel, wended down to the old Williams Burying Ground and dug a grave in the frozen soil. There were other willing hands to help, but Jim, with the Soul of a Poet, wanted in this way to pay last tribute to his friend.”

  Notes on Chapter Four

  If he’d sold them in the mountains, Clyman’s furs would have brought no more than $3 a pound. Since a mature beaver pelt weighed about 1¾pounds on the average, Clyman brought in only about 167 skins, presumably the part of his catch for the year 1826–7 not owed to the company for supplies. This record is one of the few available as to the returns from one man’s trapping during this best decade of fur hunting.

  Clyman’s rifle was left to his heirs, who still had it in 1960 when Camp was working on his second edition. A percussion-cap rifle, not a flintlock, it was inscribed “J. & S. Hawken.” Its total length was 54 inches, with an octagon barrel, weight 13½ lbs., muzzle loader, with a barrel 38 inches long from the firing chamber, 1⅝ inches in diameter between flat faces, bore 17/32 inches, spiral rifling about ½ revolution in total length of barrel, 7 lands and 7 grooves, double-set hair trigger—a modified Kentucky rifle. Camp says the stock had been painted red by Clyman’s descendants for the Fourth of July parades in Napa, and the ramrod was missing.

  Clyman had lost one rifle in the fight with the Arikaras, and at the time he was shot in Wisconsin was carrying a shotgun, so this Hawken was obtained at a later date, perhaps on his visit to St.
Louis before going over the Oregon Trail for the first time.

  Chapter 5

  Memorandum and Diary, 1840

  This Clyman journal was originally the property of Hiram J. Ross, a friend and partner of Clyman’s in the Ross-Clyman mill at Wauwatosa, near Milwaukee.

  The diary may be typical of Clyman’s activities during this 17-year period of a relatively settled life in Illinois. No other diaries of this period have been located. He may simply not have kept diaries, since his everyday life was less active than his trapping or later travel on the Oregon Trail, or they may have been lost.

  The end of this short diary, with its list of accounts, is interesting because of the values given to various products, especially in contrast to the costs Clyman later found in the gold fields of California.

  It is fascinating to speculate that there may be other Clyman journals, lost in a dusty archive somewhere. Clyman said in his conversations with Montgomery that he thought he’d sent a copy of his fur trapping adventures to the “Historical Society of Milwaukee” but no record of it has ever been found.

  Clyman’s 1840 “Memorandum and Diary”

  January the 1st 1840.

  Jay 1 Light showers of snow a light wind from the NE—I am nearly all pealed with some kind of inflamation so as to scarcely be able to sit-up

  Mem—Heard yesterday that the stat[e] bank of Illinois had surrenedered her charter to the Legislature

  Good Sleighing—Ross is making a sleigh in yard

  —Contracted with John Plum for Building a frame House 42 ft long 14 ft wide with a porch on—the S. Side 14 ft by 10 Plumb to cover and enclose.

  //Paid Plumb in advance for the work

  //John Plumb Dr

  —

  To 1 yoke steer $65—5 Bush potatoes $6750

  1 Barrel pork 20$ 20 $97.50 [sic!] of all People it seems to me those are the most tiresome who never convers on any subject but their misfortunes.

  —Put on a damp night cap & then relapse

  He thought he would have died he was so bad

  His Peevish Hearers allmost wish he had

  [2] 1840 Jany 2—Morning overcast with light clouds pleasant winter weather

  3d It snowed moderately nearly all night last night Fine winter weather snow 5 or 6 inches deep

  Two things Infinite Time and space Two things more appear to be attached to the above infinity (wiz) Matter and number Matter appears to prevade the infinity of space and number attempts to define quantity of matter as well as to give bounds to space—which continually Expands before matter and number—and all human speculation is here bounden in matter and number leaving space at least almost completely untouched

  About the year 650 from the fowning [founding] of Rome the difficulties commenced Between Marius and Sylla from which I date the commencement of the decline of the Roman commonwealth [3] 1840

  Jany 4th Fine fair day

  Sent to Town for Midicien [medicine] have been confined to the house for 2 weeks

  “the main chain of the Rocky Mountains”

  During the years from 1823 to 1827 I passed my time with furr traders on & about the Region of the main chain of the Rocky Mountains and had frequent oppertunities for observation and have frequently thought that the great Quantities of mud Brot down by the Misourie was owing to the whole Region of the main mountain Chain h[a]ving at some remote period been burned and Torn to pieces by interval volcanic eruptions & as in that high and Dreary region there is continual and never varying strong west wind blowing the ashes emited would be continually carried and Lodged on the eastern verge of the mountain owing to its dry chimical and vitrious Qualities it never yet has been sufficiently saturated to give it solidity but is carried away continually in pr[o]digious large Quantities in the spring season when the snow thaws the water on many large tracts being almost as thick as it can move.

  [4]

  184[0] Jany 5 This morning has some appearance for a thaw

  Sent some [Illinois paper] money to Town yestarday & got it Exchanged at the Brokers office paid 15 per cent for exchang

  —Cash 111. Paper 110$ Dr

  //To exchang By Broker 16.50

  Bo[ugh]t Medicine of Doct Castleman Unpd

  Every person that has ever passed through the western country must have observed the Quanty of granite Boulders that lay scattered all over the vast extent of country north west of the Ohio River and which seem to grow larger and more plenty in allmost Regular progression as you traverse the Region northward from the mouth of the Ohio as none of this rock is found in regular strata it has been a matter of much speculation to know how they came situate whare they are as likewise whare they came from and as all Speculation on this head must be mere conjecture my oppinion is that remote period the whole of the Missisippi valy was covered with water at which time those

  [5] 1840 Jany 6 snowed lightly all day yestardy and last night still shews like thawing Bot. of Mr Eggleston 3600 feet of oak lumber at 5$ per M. 18.00 rocks were brought from the base of the Rocky mountains in the ice and carried southward wore let loos as they progressed by the thaws and sunk whare they are now found some have thought that they ware seen lying in Regular parirs on the prairies of Illinois But from my own observation I see nothing to confirm that singalar Idea

  In our passage from the headswaters of White River of the Misouri to the Shiann [Cheyenne] River we passed over a high and most singular Tract of country of about 15 or 20 miles from East to west how far it extends N. & S. I cannot tell it is almost Completely bear of vegetation nothing growing except here and there a stinted prickley pair the soil beng of a mast loose sterrile nature posible and the appearance extremely singular it having been all carried away by the thawing of the snows and shows of rain in to ravines of extreme depth leaving the plain verry uneven

  [6] 1840 Jany 7th Qute Moderate

  And standing full of rounded conical hillocks of pyramidial form some large at the Base and upwards 100 ft hig[h] and all sizes from that down to ordinary hillocks not more [than] three feet high From its present Shape I would Judge that at about the depth of 50 feet below the common surface of the earth the top being carried away to that depth from some cause or other perhaps from a greate accumilation of moisture a slight formation of sand stone occurs which shields the tops of all the larger mounds and from which cause retain their present elevation the earth being of all shades from height gray to a dark brown an becomes remarkably easyly saturated on the surface Mixing in large Quantities with the water the water where filled with earth has a sweet taste causing those that are under the necisity [of] using it to be remarkable costive [constipated]

  [7] 1870 Jany 8 Cloudy & warm for the season

  “at the foot of the Black Hill[s]

  After passing through this last Discribed Tract you arive at the foot of the Black Hill[s] a region of hills or rather rounded knobs and valies but without timber and a great scarcity of water allthough they are finely covered with nutricious grass and herbs

  The Black Hills are the first or most Eastern range of the Rockey Mountains and are generally well wooded with the various species of Pine Timber here we observed a picular feature in the substrata not found to my knowledge in any other part of this vast range of mountains the formation of Slate Rock in a verticle pile with a regular stratification of from 4 to 12 feet high & I observed in some deep ravines from 10 to 18 layers on top of each other in nearly a porpendicula pile some strata having a small inclination one way & some another with the horizon

  The anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans

  This day the anaversary of Battle of N. Orleans appears to be allmost forgotten no firing salutes the rising day no gay parties of pleasure

  [9] Jany. the 9 Cloudy warm & thawy

  no military parade no rich dinners no splendid Feasts of Chanpain no high sounding patriotic toasts no gay cotilion parties no Bacanalian revelry—all still and quiet save only the common affairs of life no Bustle no hurrying to & fro no anxious and inquisit
ive looks—no stir save now & then the sound of the woodmans axe or the lonely teamster calling to his slugish oxen as he slowly drive along

  How different to the days I have before seen so hath passed many of the greate days of Festivity now forgotten and given place to others like the retiring sound of some ancient forest oak which when first uptorn makes a tremendous crash but as it passes the echo grows more dull more distant untill it is lost in the surrounding forest

  [10] 1840 Jany 10th Cloudy thawy misting with Rain

  “an entire forrest of petrified Timber”

  After passing the before mentioned Black Hill range of (of) Mountains we came into a uneven vally in which the heads of the Shianne and Powder River rises the former passing the Black Hills and taking an eastern direction falls in to the Missouri and [latter] taking a northern Rout falls in to the Yallow Stone River in their vally and on the hight of Land dividing the two river we found a great quantity of petrifactions Mostly of the vegatable Kingdom and on the North side of a ridge we pased allmost an entire forrest of petrified Timber apearantly of the pine species the stumps of which were standing thick one of which I rode up to and which required some exertion for me to reach the top sitting on horseback the trunk of which lay scatered along in large chunks the Branches Broken up more small these petrifactions are very hard and Bring fire from steel The whole of this forrest of petrifactions appear to have been deeply embeded in the earth By ancient convulsion of the earth and the continual washing away of earth are now bringing them again to the light of (of) day the stumps stand some nearly perpendicular But mostly in an inclining posture some one way & some another

  [11] 1840 Jany 11th It rained and snowed allnight last night this is Terrible stormy with [rain] & snow from the East