On this #TBT, we return to our series on the adventures of Wilson P. Hunt and the Astorians.
As John Jacob Astor’s agent in the fur trade, Hunt led an 1811 expedition of roughly 60 men to secure a fur trading post at the Columbia River’s mouth. These explorers, dubbed the Astorians, were the first large group of fur traders to strike a trail through the Powder River Basin and the Bighorn Mountains.
In our last post, the Astorians had set up camp along the North Fork of Crazy Woman Creek near present-day Highway 16.
September 3, 1811
Hunt wrote in his diary:
We tried for half a day on the 3rd to get away from the precipices and the bare mountain heights; but we were forced to retrace our steps and return to the banks of a small stream. (The North Fork of Crazy Woman Creek) We killed several very large elk.
Irving reworded the failed mountain crossing as:
On the third of September, finding that the mountain still stretched onwards, presenting a continued barrier, they endeavored to force a passage to the westward, but soon became entangled among rocks and precipices which set all their efforts at defiance. The mountain seemed, for the most part, rugged, bare, and sterile; yet here and there it was clothed with pines, and with shrubs and flowering plants, some of which were in bloom. In tolling among these weary places, their thirst became excessive, for no water was to be met with. Numbers of the men wandered off into rocky dells and ravines in hopes of finding some brook or fountain; some of whom lost their way and did not rejoin the main party.
— Irving
After a day of painful and fruitless scrambling, Mr. Hunt gave up the attempt to penetrate in this direction, and, returning to the little stream on the skirts of the mountain, pitched his tents within six miles of his encampment of the preceding night. He now ordered that signals should be made for the stragglers in quest of water; but the night passed away without their return. (1836, 1: 270-71)
Sources:
Hunt, Wilson P., and V.A. Malte-Brun. Nouvelles annales des voyages
Irving, Washington. Astoria, Or Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains.
