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"Preface"
His career was the most distinguished life of any
frontiersman in “American History”
From the Californian December 1881
By
James O'Meara
Biographical sketches
Of the adventures and intrepid spirits who
explore the vast wilderness and broad deserts which now constitute the States
and Territories of the pacific and the whole region westward of the Missouri
River, are befitting subjects for presentation to the people who inhabit this
domain, and who therefore feel a deeper interest in its history; and in time
these biographies will constitute one of the most interesting and not the
least important, of the various departments of the standard literature of the
Republic: similarly as the lives of De Leon, of De Soto, of Champlain, of
John Smith and Roger Williams, and of Daniel Boone and other early explorers
and adventures are required in connection with the discovery, origin and
settlement of the several divisions of the country lying eastward of the
Missouri.
And
in contrast with the myths and fables, the fiction and romance, and the
obscured, confused, and uncertain accounts and histories of the origin and
foundation of the nations of the old world, these clear-cut, authentic and
entirely trustworthy records of the new world are singularly fascinating,
instructive, and wholesome. The world has been made conversant with the grand
explorations of Lewis and Clark to the Pacific shore
of Oregon and their tracing of the
mighty Columbia and its chief tributaries…the Clearwater and Snake
Rivers; and similar adventures of
Bonneville are perpetuated in the charming narrative of Irving. But there are other explores and
pioneers of this vast western empire, yet to be honored by tributes of
enduring form, in manner commensurate with their exploits and their merits;
and these contributions may most appropriately come from among the people
whose fortunes have been happily directed hitherward more or less directly
through the adventure and toil, the sagacity and self-sacrifice of these
noble and intrepid pioneers who first tracked the waste of wilderness and
desert and supplied to their countrymen the knowledge of the magnificent
domain which is now peopled by the most enterprising of their race and has
before it the promise of that still greater development which is so certain
in the course of time to be fulfilled in its ultimate grandeur and glory;
when the many States of the Pacific shall be densely populated and shall outrank
all others of the Union in the leading elements of prosperity and wealth; and
when San Francisco shall become the unrivaled possessor of the rich and
enormous traffic of the Indies and China, together with that of the great
island continent and the many islands of the broad Pacific. In this spirit of
the performance of this grateful duty, within the measure of the ability of
the writer, this sketch of one conspicuous in his lifetime among these early
explorers and pioneers is presented.
Joseph
R. Walker discoverer of Walker’s Pass through
the Sierra Nevada chain, leading from the great basin into Tulare
valley, was born in Knox County, near Knoxville,
Tennessee in the closing year
of the last century. His father had emigrated only the year before from Rockbridge County
Virginia and his new home in Tennessee was at the
time barely an outpost of civilization, with an old block house or fort for
protection of the few settlers from the Indians. At the age of nineteen years
(1818) Jo Walker, as he was commonly called, moved with the family to Fort Osage,
Jackson County, Missouri. His father had died and his brother Joel Walker,
two years his senior…who died in Santa Rosa township, Sonoma County, about
two years ago…and himself were the main support of his widowed mother and
sisters. In 1821, he made his first steamboat trip on the “Expedition”, the
first vessel of the kind that ever ascended the Missouri
so far up as Council Bluffs;
and the event was so impressed and retained in his memory that he could
narrate the details of it down to the close of his life. One circumstance of
the trip was the unskilled manner of loading the boat, by which she was made
to draw only two feet of water forward, while aft she drew six feet. But this
great difference in the draft enabled her to make landings at low banks and
shores with better facility than had she been on “even keel”, as the
boatman’s phrase is. Rafts and broadhorns were then the ordinary means of
river navigation on the “Big Muddy” and the novelty of a steamboat trip, in
connection with the wonderfully increased speed of from six to eight miles an
hour…the best time for crack steamboats of these waters in that early period
of steam navigation…had allured young Walker to the treat. He had early
developed a fondness for adventure and Mountain life and his home in the
sparsely settled regions of his nativity and in the still wilder Missouri new territory
had enabled him to cultivate the chief requirements for that kind of life. In
his 23 year (1821) he joined a hunting and trapping expedition to the plains
with the intention of extending the perilous journey all the way to the
Pacific coast, as the accounts of the explorations of Lewis and Clark…each of
whom had settled in Missouri after their famous trip across the continent to
the Columbia River and the Pacific shore of Oregon and subsequently became
Governor of the Territory by presidential appointment …had exited many to
engage in similar expeditions. The route proposed by the party led through
New Mexico, at that time a province of Mexico, secured to the new republic by
the treaty of Aquala, by which Spain had relinquished her dominions in that
part of the New World to her former subjects; and the Governor of the
province was ill disposed toward Americans, either as adventurers or
emigrants. He consequently forbade the expedition from encroaching upon his
domain; and as his orders were supplemented by an ample military force, the
unwilling expeditionists' had no other alternative than to submit and the
return to Missouri
was consequently agreed upon, after a brief imprisonment of the whole party.
At
that early period, however, the sagacity and enterprise of some who were
engaged in trade in Missouri led them to attempt the opening of a route that
should enable then to possess the rich traffic of the Mexican border; and as
Santa Fe had already became the chief trading-post for that extensive region,
that was made the objective point toward the accomplishment of the scheme.
The
aid of Congress was petitioned and in 1824 an appropriation was voted by that
body to survey a route from the Missouri
border to that chief Mexican trading rendezvous, the route to be marked by
the throwing up of small earth-mounds at suitable distances. Because of his
superior qualifications for the service , Jo Walker was engaged as guide to
the survey; and although the project was, in direct sense, a failure it
served nevertheless as the “breaking of the crust”, as Walker himself
characterized it, for the subsequent use and benefit of the caravans or
trains which annually conveyed the merchandise and established the lucrative
traffic that so long made synonymous the term of “Santa Fe trader” and the
acquisition of large fortune; and secured to Missouri the immense profits and
great advantages of that golden gateway to the wild territory of the distance
West, in which has ever since directed its fearless energies to the
exploration and settlement of the vast region on this side of the continent,
then almost unknown wilderness and waste so far as the white race was
concerned.
So
well had Walker acquitted himself in the
survey employment that on his return to his home he was elected sheriff of Jackson County and in that capacity he
developed his foresight as a true pioneer by his selection of a site for the
county seat. He named it Independence,
characteristic alike of his sterling patriotism and his own free nature and
by that name the town is still known. It was long famous as the point of
departures for trains and emigrations bound for New
Mexico, Utah, California
and Oregon,
as well as for its having been the chief trading and military post of the far
western frontier. His first term of two years having expired, Walker was honored by
re-election and again creditably served the duration of the term. Upon
retiring from office Walker
returned to his more congenial mode of life; and in the pursuit of his love
of adventure, loined also the occupation of trader of live stock. He made
long journeys from Independence into Arkansas and contiguous territory and Fort Gibson
was one of his points of traffic. At Fort Osage in Missouri early in 1832,
while on one of these trips he fell in with Captain B. L. M. Bonneville of
the Seventh Regiment Infantry, U.S.A. then under leave of absence from
Alexander Macomb, Major General, commanding the army to enable him to
explorer the country to the Rocky Mountains and beyond and whose remarkable
adventure, while on that exploration, the genius of Washington Irving has so
felicitously recorded in his enchanting works. The casual meeting led to the
enlistment of Walker as “sub-leader” or
lieutenant in Bonneville’s expedition and he is thus sketched by Irving:
“J.R.
Walker was a native of Tennessee,
about six feet high, strong built, dark complexioned, brave in spirit, though
wild in manners. He had been for many years in Missouri
on the frontier; had been among the earliest adventurers to Santa Fe, where he had gone to track beaver
and was taken by the Spaniards. Being liberated, he engaged with the
Spaniards and Sioux Indians in War against the Pawnees; then returned to Missouri and had acted
by turns as sheriff, trader, trapper until he was enlisted as a leader by
Captain Bonneville.”
At
the same time was enlisted M.S. Cerre an experienced Indian trader and who
had also been upon an expedition to Santa
Fe. He too was engaged as a fellow-leader with Walker. Bonneville’s
party left Fort
Osage May 1st, 1832,
one hundred and ten men strong, the greater portion of whom were skilled
hunters and trappers inured to mountain life and experienced in fighting
Indians. Captain Bonneville departed from the accustomed mode of using only
animals for pack-trains and outfitted also with wagons. The American Fur
Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company were at that time competitors and
rivals in the valuable traffic in furs and peltry through the wild regions of
the west and with the employees of these companies Walker and Cerre were well
acquired, as the two were likewise with the wilderness in which they mainly
pursued their exciting, hardy and oftentimes perilous vocation.
During
the following October, the Bonneville expedition reached the country of the
warlike Blackfeet Indians and from there Walker with a band of twenty hunters
was dispatched to range the region beyond the Horse Prairie. At one of their
camping places, while quietly enjoying their rest after a day of hard travel
and a hearty supper of the game they had killed…some sitting about the
camp-fire, recounting their adventure, others giving attention to their
rifles and accouterments and Walker and a few more beguiling the hours at a
game of “Old Sledge” (seven-up)…they were suddenly surprised by the war whoop
of a party of Indians and had barely time to prepare for the instant onset of
the savages, who shot into the camp a shower of arrows and had already seized
upon the horses and pack mules to run them off. Quick work with their handy
rifles and the determined courage of the surprised band, in a little while
turned the attack into flight and the Indians were at last glad enough to make
their escape from the deadly encounter without the animals they so much
coveted. Walker’s coolness and intrepidity in the sudden hot dash and his
sagacity in directing the hurried plan of defense into mastery of the
situation served himself and his comrades from slaughter and enabled them to
get away from the scene in good condition, without serious wound or lose; but
he was afterwards more prone to adopt the very safe course from any
repetition of the hazardous incident and he evermore hated “old-sledge.”
By
his consummate skill in leadership and his equanimity and daring in moments
of greatest difficulty and danger, as well as by his uncommon aptitude in
mountain life and woodcraft, Walker became the most trusted and favorite
among all in the expedition in the estimation of his chief; and hence when
the party reached the confines of what of what is now Utah Territory, to him
Captain Bonneville committed the charge of the subdivision to find and
explore the Great Salt Lake of which Bonneville had heard and was most
anxious to gain accurate information from a trustworthy source. More than a
year had now elapsed since the expedition had left Fort
Osage and Bonneville had resolved to
continue his explorations to the Columbia
and trace that mighty river of the north-west to its mouth and discharge into
the vast Pacific.
“This
momentous undertaking,” as Captain Bonneville himself termed the exploration
of the route and the survey of the Great Salt Lake, now in-trusted to Walker, resulted disastrously
through circumstances against which it was impossible for him to successfully
contend. With his forty men he had left the main body at Green
River valley late in July and pushed westward toward their
allotted destination, to be met and joined by Bonneville the ensuing spring
or summer. It was an unexplored country through which they were to force
their way and meantime they were to trap for furs and hunt for their own
subsistence. Along the Bear River and the
head waters of the Cassie they hunted and trapped, gathered furs and laid in
a store of buffalo meat and venison. Away southward they could see from their
greater altitude, the shining surface of the Great Salt
Lake they were to reach and report upon. But they could not find
or trace any stream which led to it or was tributary. Beyond and surrounding
it were deserts and utter sterility. Any who have in these times traveled
overland by railroad or otherwise through the Weber canon and become
acquainted with the impracticability of surmounting the Wahsatch range or
suffer the fatigues of the desert which stretches from the Sierra Nevada
Mountains to that range will readily understand why Walker’s party, in that
primitive period of the exploration of that inhospitable, barren and then
unknown region, were unable to accomplish their desperate and perilous
mission. They were beset by hostile Indians nearly every day; and while upon
the desert they endured sufferings which can be adequately imagined only by
the emigrants and others who have since similarly suffered…frequent attacks
by hostile Indians, hunger, thirst and the difficulty of subsisting their
animals or themselves. They were compelled at last to abandon the mission on
which they were bent, to save themselves from perishing on the desert and to
strike for the mountain ridges to the northward. They reached Mary’s River
and there the Shoshones troubled them, pilfering their traps and game by day
and endangering their camps as they slept. The killing of one of these
thieving Indians caused such hostile conduct on the part of his tribe, that
the party were forced to leave that region and push their way across the
mountains into California.
The
Great Salt Lake expedition was a woeful failure; but on that terrible journey
into California, Walker traced the Humboldt to the sink of the river,
discovered Carson Lake and also the lake and river which still bear his name,
viewed Mono Lake from a distance and crossed the Sierra chain not far from
the head-waters of the Merced into the valley of the San Joaquin. On the
night of the extraordinary spectacle in the heavens of the “shooting stars”
November 12th, 1833 Walker and his party camped on the banks of the Tuolumne
River and he was roused from his sleep in the dark of early morning by the
comrade who shared his blankets, to look at what the terrified trapper
exclaimed was the “damnedest shooting-match that ever was seen”. From the San Joaquin Valley
he crossed the coast range to Monterey
and there wintered, much to the demoralization of his men. Early in the
spring of 1834 he started to rejoin Bonneville at the appointed rendezvous on
Bear River and there found his chief in quite destitute condition, from his
long journey to the Pacific shore of Oregon and his exploration of the
Columbia and Snake River and sadly disappointed at the failure of his next
darling project, that upon which Walker had been sent. It was arranged that
Walker and Cerre should proceed on the homeward journey to Missouri,
to superintend the conveyance of the furs to St. Louis;
and there ended Walker’s
connection with the Bonneville expedition.
After
his return to Missouri Captain Walker, as he then became known, was quickly
employed by the American Fur Company and during the ensuing four years he
remained employed. These were four years of arduous toil, frequent
privations, desperate encounters with hostile Indians, besides many hazardous
adventures and bare escapes from death. He then determined to pursue his
favorite mode of life on his own account, untrammeled by contract obligations
and unrestrained in his patty of duty or pleasure. The companion and
congenial fellow of the most noted trappers and mountain men…the Sublettes,
Bridger, Smith, Hensley, Fitzpatrick, Williams, Carson, and others of similar
skill and worth…he employed his years in hunting, trapping, exploring and
pioneering thence onward down to within a few years of his death and became
conspicuous among the few who volunteered their services on many occasions in
guiding and escorting into California and Oregon the weary and perplexed and
destitute emigrants who came over the plains to found new homes upon this
coast. Hundreds of families, of whom the heads are still living, or whose
sons and daughters are now themselves advanced in life with families of their
own about them, throughout these Pacific States and Territories owe their
easier and safer journey hither to his generous and prudent conduct. He not
only guided or directed them to the most feasible and least dangerous routes
and through mountain passes, but he furthermore, in many instances,
accompanied and gave them his protection and substantial aid into spots
favored of Providence in soil and surroundings; for he was acquainted with
almost every trail and pass, conversant with Indian life and its dangers and
knew the most eligible portions of the country for settlement and homes.
It
was not until 1850 that Jo Walker discovered the pass through the Sierra
Nevada Mountains which leads into Tulare valley, although others attribute
the discovery to Jedediah S. Smith as far back as 1825 while trapping in the
service of the fur company of which General Ashley was the chief in command
in the mountains; and others still ascribe it to Ogden, the American in the
employ of the Hudson Bay Company, who is said to have found it in 1827; or to
Ewing Young of Tennessee, a pioneer of Oregon who died in 1841; or again to
William Wolfskill, an early pioneer of California, who passed through it on
his way farther westward from an exploration of the Wahsatch Mountains at a
subsequent period. It is clear at all events that whom-so-ever discovered the
pass, it was never utilized to the purposes of emigration and travel until it
was made generally known by Captain Walker in 1850 when he pushed through it
after his explorations in the country of the Moqui Indians supposed to be a
remnant of the ancient Aztecs in which he saw the ruins of old and massive
habitations, pyramids, castles, pottery, etc. which gave evidence of a very
remote and advanced civilization. These ruins he found between the Gila and San Juan rivers. They
are believed to mark the site of the greatest city of Grand
Quivera or Pecos, the most
populous and grandest of that race now long extinct. Walker
found his way through the Pass from the Mohave Desert into Tulare valley. It was ten miles from plain
to plain and on his way he traveled along the head-waters of Kern River. General Beale afterwards traveled along the
same region going eastward by the southern route.
It
was in 1844 that Captain Walker resolved to make his home in California, here in
the territory where so many of his old and beloved comrades had fixed their
abode. That year he left for the States with a band of horses and mules, with
a party of eight men to accompany him. Colonel John C. Fremont was then in advance of him on his
return to the East after his second expedition to this coast. In his journal
of that adventure, under date of May 14th, Fremont says: “We had today the
gratification of being joined by the famous hunter and trapper Mr. Joseph
Walker (the “Mr.” would have roused the ire {a feeling of deep anger or fury}
of the plain and modest old mountaineer) whom I have before mentioned, who
became our second guide. Nothing but his great knowledge of the country,
great courage and presence of mind and good rifles could have brought him
safe from such a perilous enterprise; i.e. the journey he had made before he
overtook Fremont.
Captain Jo Walker’s very modest account of the “perilous enterprise” was to
the contrary effect…that he never felt that himself or his little party were
in the slightest peril, for he and they were well mounted, well armed and
amply prepared for the long journey overland by themselves, without fear or
thought of molestation from either the hostile Indians or perils of other
sort. And his idea of the quality, if not of the want of the much vaunted
courage of the “Path-finder” and of his skill as a “mountain man” was not at
all to the credit of that gold-medaled hero of his own exploits whose
memorable trip over the coast range from the valley to Santa Barbara forever
dispelled the humorous fancy of those who indulge it, that mules never famish
or die.
After
having guided and accompanied Fremont to
Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas River, Walker
continued his journey into Missouri
in his own way. But the following summer, at Fremont’s
solicitation, he again engaged with him in the trip westward to California and his
services were once more invaluable to that distinguished adventurer.
The
gold discovery in California
had no charm for Captain Jo Walker, although he valued money in his own
provident and unselfish, un-avaricious way, he was neither its slave nor its
worshiper. To accumulate and hoard it when about him or known to him were any
whose circumstances or necessities caused them trouble or privation, was
averse to his great and generous nature. He was not wantonly prodigal with
gold; but he was never so fond of it as to make its acquisition the aim or
end of his lifetime pursuit. It was to him mainly the medium through which to
comfortably provide for his own simple wants and to supply the necessities or
relieve the suffering of his friends and the unfortunate whom he encountered
mostly to cheer or assist. His temperament and mode of life prompted and
confirmed in him moderation in requirements and habits. He was a democratic
republican, of the ancient, pure and simple stamp in principle and action,
without the dress of the politician or guile of the partisan in his nature
and behavior. General Jackson was his grandest of mortal heroes blessed with
immortal name and he remained always affectionately disposed to his native Tennessee and to the “Old Missouri” of his early manhood. He was
alike temperate and frugal in his mode of life.
His
was a figure in any group of men even in his ripe age, as the writer of this
tribute saw him in 1855, when he was prevailed upon to recount some of the
eventful deeds and scenes of his active life for publication in the San
Francisco “Herald”, which were graphically and gracefully prepared for the
press by Mr. A. J. Moulder at the time the assistant editor; and in later
years, so late as 1876, when again he was persuaded to communicate to Mr.
R.A. Thompson, then associate editor of the Sonoma “Democrat”…now county
clerk at Santa Rose…a more extended account of his reminiscences of
mountaineering and Indian fighting. His stature given by Irving and copied in this sketch and his
form was of massive mold of strength and endurance as well as for activity.
He bore himself always as a man conscious alike of his own rights and proper
dignity; nor was he unmindful of the rights and conditions of others. He had
the mettle of a hero, the simplicity of a child.
Captain
Walker ceased from his accustomed toils and fatigues about ten years before
his death and made his home in peaceful contentment with his nephew, James T.
Walker, in Ygnacio valley, Contra Costa County
from which he occasionally paid visits to his elder brother, Joel in Santa Rosa and to prize
friends in other parts of the state. But he was happiest in the quiet of that
fond home and there he died, October 28th 1876. His mortal remains repose in Alhambra cemetery in
Contra Costa. He lived to the green old age of seventy-six years. The soil of
California
has given final rest and sepulture to few more deserving of the respect and
remembrance or homage of her citizens, for the measure of good works nobly
performed from unselfish motives and in self-sacrificing, generous spirit.
Among the roll of her honored pioneers, his name will cherished; and the
record of his life and of his beneficent services during his eventful career,
as a worthy representative of the noble band with whom he maintained devoted
fellowship, will be inseparably connected with the complete history of this
State, to whose growth and greatness he and they so materially contributed in
the period of its earliest occupation by Americans and its subsequent
marvelous development toward highest prosperity.
James O’Meara
BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCHES
Obituary of Capt.
Joseph R. Walker
An old
Mountaineer and Pioneer
Capt. Jos. R.
Walker, died at the residence of his nephew, Jas T. Walker, in Ygnacio Valley, in Contra Costa county, on
Friday, October 27th, 1876.
Capt. Walker was
a noted man on the frontier forty years ago, and was probably the most
distinguished of all the mountaineers who have become famous for their
western explorations. In his sphere he was surely a great captain and was
regarded by all his compeers as possessing in a remarkable degree those rare
qualifications of judgment, courage, energy, and power of will so necessary
in the make up of a successful leader among the hardy mountaineers and
frontiersmen. In his day all of his class looked up to him as the captain.
Whilst our
informant was in Contra Costa county, last summer, he pitched his camp on the
lands of Jas. T. Walker and visited that gentleman’s house several times, not
only to partake of his hospitality, but to get from his uncle information
necessary to compose a sketch of his life. In the latter however, he was
disappointed, as the old chief was too feeble to talk much, and his mind only
flashed out when touched upon matters of unusual interest. But as much as he
was able to collect we shall give to our readers.
Joseph R. Walker
was born in Knoxville, Tennessee,
in 1798 whence his father moved to Bedford
county in the same State in 1801. At an early age the subject of our sketch
moved to Louisiana, where he lived several
years and afterwards went to Alabama.
But when still a boy he went to Missouri
and commenced his career as a traveler. In the year 1832 he determined to
make a visit to California.
The best maps he could procure of the country, represented a river flowing
from the great Salt Lake to our Pacific
Coast. He determined to
follow this route and accordingly in the early Spring set out at the head of
thirty bold and experienced trappers, well mounted and with an excellent
outfit for the trip. Arriving at Salt Jake he made its circuit, but was
disappointed in finding the river. Nothing daunted he struck out toward the
west with a fixed intention of finding the country they were seeking, and in
October, they reached the Sierra Nevadas which he undertook to scale.
His first attempt
to descend to the west was near the headwaters of the Tuolumne, which he
found impossible but working a little to the South west he struck the waters
of the Merced and got into the Valley of the San Joaquin. His was the first white man’s eyes that
ever looked upon the Yosemite, which he
then discovered, although the honor has been given to some other person at a
period twenty years later. His party encamped in San Joaquin Valley,
recruiting and trapping until Spring.
Meantime
Capt. Walker, accompanied by a few of his men, explored the principal valleys
of this State, and made himself thoroughly acquainted with their topography
and capabilities.
In
the Spring of 1833, he moved to the South along the foothills of the Sierra
Nevadas, looking for a pass to the east. His skill in judging the lay of the
country at a distance, has been
described, by an old and experienced mountaineer as something so marvelous as
to be nearly akin to magic. He would look at a group of mountains forty of
fifty miles away, and which he had never seen before, and tell in an instant
whether they possessed timber, water and pasturage, and what was the best
approach to them---where were the natural water, ways and barriers. Guided by
this unfailing judgment, he passed to the Southwest until he came to what he
considered the only true path through the Sierras and which is situated in
about 35 ½ degrees north latitude and which now bears his name---Walkers Pass. This pass he considered the only
true outlet from California
to the East. On his return to the east, he kept nearly on the thirty-fifth
parallel and he found the country east of Colorado (river), fertile and with a
climate unequaled in the world for salubrity. This is the line par excellence
for a railroad.
In
succeeding years he continued to make excursions both to the north and south;
exploring the Cascades and going down the Colorado and up the Gila Rivers.
Capt.
Walker being the most noted traveler in the unknown West, Fremont engaged him
as a guide in his first expedition; but as the path finder presumed in the
outset to know more than the man who had traversed the country until he was
as familiar with it as he ever had been with his father’s farm, the old
mountaineer threw up the job and recommended his pupil Kit Carson for the
place. When spoken to of Fremont
he seemed to recover again some of the fires of energy and youth.
Said he:
“Fremont morally and
physically, was the most complete coward I ever knew, and if it were not
casting an unmerited reproach on the sex, I would say that he was more timid
than a woman. He an explorer! I knew more of the unexplored region fifteen
years before he set foot on it, than he does to-day. They tell me that
Stonewall Jackson whipped him in a battle and it was no credit to Jackson, for and old Squaw could whip Fremont.”
He
spoke kindly of Carson and others who became noted as travelers and
mountaineers, pointing out their strong and weak parts. On inquiring
concerning his experience with the Sioux Indians, and what he thought of
them. He said:
“They
are numerous, and in numbers only are they formidable, for I always
considered them as inferior to many other tribes, man to man. They will
fight, but still they are not feared by men who understand Indian fighting,
if the numbers are anything like equal. I have fought better Indians than the
Sioux, with the odds five to one against me, and still I wear my hair. I do
not say this to boast, but merely state it, by way of illustrating the
differences between Indians and white men, when the white men are the right
kind. Soldiers are well enough to mount guard, and make a show at dress
parade, but are poor things when Indians are to be fought.”
In
1859, Capt. Walker acted as guide to the troops sent up the Colorado
from Fort Yuma to chastise the Indians. The old
man had been down the Colorado on an occasion twenty or more years prior to
his guiding the troops along its banks in 1859, and although he had made an
accurate map each morning of the country to be marched over during the day,
showing where the mountains approached the river, and where the valley
widened; where sloughs or tributaries made in; marking the halting places for
the night, and giving a description of its appearance and extent. Futhermore
he would say: “There is grass and wood in those mountains off there, with
water flowing to the northward” or which ever way it went. It was the
recollection of these stories listened to seventeen years ago, that made our
informant so anxious last Summer to get facts enough to write a sketch of the
great pioneer; but he was found to feeble.
For
some years prior to his death he had been living with his nephew, who cared
for him tenderly, until the summons to depart came. May his sleep of death be
peaceful, and the great awakening find him in the land of celestial beauty,
“Where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.”
His
memory will remain sacred in the hearts of the pioneers that survive him, and
they will never tire of recalling the recollections of his many exploits.
San Jose California, Saturday, September 1,
1877
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