©2025 Robert Lee Murphy
Late on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 12, three days after departing Taos, I crossed the shallow Arkansas River and reentered the United States. I approached Bent’s Fort from the southwest. Hundreds of Indian tepees covered the northern bank of the river and encircled the fort on three sides. Indian squaws worked listlessly at turning strips of buffalo meat into dried jerky, while Indian children raced in whooping circles like youngsters everywhere.
An adobe-walled corral, capable of holding three or four hundred animals, abutted the western end of the fort. I estimated the fort to be almost two hundred feet long and somewhat over one hundred feet wide. The entire lopsided structure was in the shape of a trapezoid.
The only entrance faced east, oriented to funnel travelers off the Santa Fe Trail and into the fort’s interior. Thick wooden doors stood open in a covered gateway. Above the gate an oversized American flag flapped in the breeze. The fort’s four-foot-thick adobe walls rose fifteen feet above me. Loopholes along the top of each wall allowed defenders to fire from protected positions. At the southeast and northwest corners, circular towers rose higher than the top of the walls, providing firing platforms for cannon. Abutting each of the walls surrounding an interior plaza were two-story apartments and shops.
The extensive courtyard was abuzz with assorted languages from dozens of buckskin clad men who moved about, laughing and shouting at one another. A handful of women clustered around a central well, chattering as they filled water buckets. Dogs chased each other in circles around the square, adding their barking to the clamor. Squawks and screeches of mockingbirds, magpies, and eagles emitted from cages scattered around the plaza’s perimeter. Clucking chickens scattered before me. The penetrating screams of a pair of strutting peacocks added punctuation marks to the din.
“Davy!” Kit Carson called from an upper apartment. “What’re ye doin’ here?”
“Señora Carson asked me to bring you this horse from Don Francisco Jaramillo.”
“Wait there.”
A few moments later Carson strode across the courtyard. He took the halter rope of the stallion, patted his neck, and conducted an inspection.
“Nice horse,” Carson said. “Can’t keep him, though.”
Did he mean there was something wrong with the horse, or he couldn’t accept the horse as a gift?
“Cap’n Frémont wouldn’t take kindly to havin’ this animal competin’ with his saddle horse, Sacramento. I’ll sell this one to Bill Bent. He’ll give me a fair price.”
Carson was referring to William Bent, who with his brother, Charles, and partner, Ceran St. Vrain, had built the fort in 1833 to trade with the Indians for buffalo hides. Bent’s Fort was well known back in the States to folks planning to migrate down the Santa Fe Trail. It was the strongest post on American soil west of Fort Leavenworth.
“How’s it yer bringin’ me the horse?” Kit looked up to where I sat on my gelding.
“Señora Carson’s father didn’t want me to stay in Taos. The señora suggested I go to Santa Fe to seek employment with one of the caravans. Then, when her father wanted this horse brought to you, she recommended I seek work as a hunter for the Bents, like you had.”
“Done that. Yep.” He stroked his clean-shaven chin. “Have another idea. Come.”
I tied the two horses to a hitching post and followed Carson upstairs leading to a single large room built above the lower ones. Inside, an officer wearing a blue army blouse with captain’s insignia on the shoulder boards sat writing at a table.
“Cap’n Frémont,” Carson said. “This here’s Davy Brennan.”
The Pathfinder studied me with piercing blue eyes. His coal black beard, mustache, and wavy hair contained no gray. “Mr. Brennan,” he said with a nod.
“Sir, it is a pleasure to meet you. My father was a great admirer of your reports.”
Frémont’s exceptional reports describing his first two exploring expeditions provided a complete road map of the Oregon Trail. Their publication by Congress stimulated a huge increase in the number of emigrants flowing to the Oregon Territory. An admiring public bestowed upon Frémont the famous nickname of James Fenimore Cooper’s fictional character, Natty Bumppo, “the Pathfinder.”
The resulting notoriety greatly pleased Frémont’s father-in-law, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, who had been advocating westward expansion for years. The recent election of Democrat James K. Polk of Tennessee as the country’s eleventh president placed the administration firmly on the path of pursuing Manifest Destiny—the doctrine that the United States had the God-given right to extend from ocean to ocean.
“How can I assist Mr. Brennan?” Frémont asked Carson.
“Occurred to me,” Carson said, “Davy could be of assistance to you, Cap’n.”
“How so?”
“Yer takin’ home the Chinook boy, William, and the two California boys, Juan and Gregorio. Davy’s close to their age. He might help look after them boys while earnin’ his keep herdin’ the cows.”
“True,” Frémont said. “Have Talbot sign him on. We’ll give it a try.”
* * * * *
The next morning, Theodore Talbot, a civilian employee of the Topographical Engineer Corps who performed quartermaster duties for Captain Frémont, added my name to the expedition’s roster as a drover. I would herd cattle and as an extra duty help with the Indian boys. Frémont had brought the three boys east from his previous expeditions and placed them with American families to learn English and the ways of the white man. Now they were going home.
Talbot issued me the standard government equipment provided to members of the expedition. I received a whole-stock Hawken rifle, two single-shot pistols with saddle holsters, a butcher knife, a saddle and bridle, and two blankets.
“Mr. Carson?” I asked later. “What am I going to do with my old rifle?”
“First, stop callin’ me mister. Yer a member of this expedition now. The only member what’s got a title is the cap’n. Call me Kit.”
“Yes, sir . . . I mean, Kit.”
“As to yer Pennsylvania rifle, some Cheyenne would like that, I reckon. Trade it fer a buckskin shirt and a pair of britches. Be better’n what yer wearin’ now.”
“And my horse?”
“Talbot’ll buy it. All animals are gov’ment owned ’cept the cap’n’s Sacramento.”
By that afternoon, I’d sold my horse and traded my father’s rifle for an incredibly soft, fringed buckskin shirt and a pair of matching trousers. Now I was dressed like the other members of the expedition, except for Captain Frémont who wore an army uniform. I obviously stood out as a greenhorn, striding across the plaza in my shiny tan outfit, not yet blackened from years of exposure to bear grease and buffalo fat.
Over the next couple of days, I helped keep the cattle herd together, moving the cows from one grazing area to another along the river. Our animals, along with hundreds of Indian ponies, kept cropping the grass shorter and shorter near the fort.
In the evenings, I got to know members of the sixty-man outfit. Although Frémont had not officially announced the direction or destination of this third expedition, the men privately speculated we were headed to the Pacific Coast. Otherwise, why would the Indian boys be along?
Other than with Talbot, Captain Frémont spent a lot of his time during the day planning and organizing the expedition in concert with Kit Carson, Dick Owens, and Alexis Godey. Carson had been on both of the first two expeditions; Godey had been on the second; and Owens, although new, had been highly recommended to Captain Frémont by Carson. Everyone at Bent’s Fort knew Carson was Frémont’s favorite guide.
I was impressed with Godey, a ruggedly handsome, twenty-eight-year-old French Canadian. The story was retold frequently around the campfire about how during the second expedition Godey lifted the scalps off two Paiute warriors. Those desert-dwelling Indians had stolen horses from some Mexican traders who sought help from Frémont in recovering them.
Two other seasoned French-Canadian expedition members were Auguste Archambeault and Basil Lajeunesse. They had been on both earlier expeditions. Captain Frémont often joked with them over evening gatherings in the fort’s courtyard.
Surprising to me, Lucien Maxwell was with the group. He, also, had been on the two previous expeditions. Exploring evidently held more interest for him than village building.
I instantly liked Edward Kern, a twenty-two-year-old artist from Philadelphia, who was on his first expedition. Tall, red-haired, with a wispy mustache, he had the demeanor of a gentleman. His shiny new outfit matched mine. Captain Frémont had hired Kern to serve as topographer when Charles Preuss, who had gained fame as Frémont’s mapmaker during the first expeditions, refused to go on the third. Preuss declared he wanted to spend the rest of his life enjoying the comforts of home.
In the evenings, as I became acquainted with the three Indian boys, I had occasion to talk with Jacob Dodson. Jacob, Frémont’s valet, was a free Black man. At twenty years of age, and except for the Indian boys and me, he was the youngest member of the expedition. Jacob, however, had the distinction of having been on both the first and second expeditions.
* * * * *
On Saturday, August 16, 1845, the third expedition marched out of Bent’s Fort and headed west toward the distant snowcapped Rocky Mountains. Perhaps we would soon learn our destination. Among the many rumors circulating among the men, the most enticing one had Captain Frémont, before he’d departed Washington City, meeting secretly with President Polk.
William Bent fired the fort’s big brass cannon to salute the captain as he passed out the gate. Kit Carson rode beside Frémont. In close formation behind these, rode Frémont’s personal bodyguards, nine Delaware Indians. Carson had introduced me to the two reticent leaders, Chief James Swanuk and Chief James Sagundai. The Delawares dressed in mountain-man attire. They spoke good English. Kit said the Plains Indians despised the Delawares because they had adopted the white-man’s ways and had a reputation as fearless fighters.
Behind these leading riders, came a small Yankee spring wagon, sometimes called a “Dearborn.” It had a square black top and buttoned rubber side curtains. The expedition’s single vehicle transported the scientific instruments of barometers, chronometers, thermometers, compasses, sextants, and telescopes. This wagon also carried the captain’s expansive buffalo hide tepee. We other expedition members slept under round Marquee canvas tents.
The majority of the sixty-man expedition, most of whom qualified as experienced mountain men, trailed behind the wagon in a compact mounted group. Bringing up the rear came the drovers, including me, herding two hundred pack animals, one hundred fifty horses, and two hundred fifty head of cattle.
Four days after departing Bent’s Fort, we passed through the growing settlement of Pueblo, on the upper reaches of the Arkansas River. We moved farther west from there into the Front Range of the Rockies to Hardscrabble, a small settlement of mountain men. I could not think of a more suitable moniker for such an uninviting place.
Captain Frémont let us take a breather at Hardscrabble, where he held a shooting match in which each expedition member had a chance to win one of twelve special-made Hawken rifles. I was not one of the winners.
The captain had purposely come to Hardscrabble to hire trapper Bill Williams to guide the expedition across the Continental Divide. Now, at least, we knew we weren’t going to be retracing the route of the Oregon Trail.
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