Fremont by Ferol Egan

Author:Ferol Egan [Egan, Ferol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Expeditions & Discoveries, United States, State & Local, West (AK; CA; CO; HI; ID; MT; NV; UT; WY), Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs
ISBN: 9780874178982
Google: nGyVDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
Published: 2012-08-01T03:05:40+00:00

XIV

Following the Winds of Summer

THEODORE TALBOT found St. Louis a hurry-up, get-on-your-way exciting place, a westward-facing city filled with people on the move in that May of 1845. He had come on ahead with William, the Chinook. He had last seen Captain Frémont at Louisville, Kentucky. That had been for a short time before the steamboat was ready to sail on down the Ohio. The captain was on his way to Senator Benton's Kentucky farm to pick up the two California Indian boys, Juan and Gregorio, and his horse Sacramento.

Captain Frémont had talked fast as he went over his orders for Talbot. Once in the city, Talbot was to begin the first stages of pulling the expedition together. Lieutenants Abert and Peck would be there already. They would have done some of the work, but this was their first time out. Talbot would find the regular men at Chouteau's. There, he should ask about any new men who might be fit for this journey. But lay the groundwork fast. May was running into June. There wasn't time to waste.

The instructions had been issued quickly. Then the steamboat whistle blew. As he wrote to his mother from the Planters House in St. Louis, the trip down the Ohio River was on a crowded steamboat. The whole river was alive with boats and rafts of every size and description, and four steamboats were aground on sandbars.

Talbot secured quarters for William first; then he managed to get a room for himself at the Planters House. Here he made his headquarters as he followed Frémont's instructions. At the Planters House he found Lieutenants Abert and Peck, long-legged Ned Kern, and Henry King of Georgetown. All these young men hit it off at once. They were close to the same age, excited about the adventure ahead, and anxious to prove they were really worthy of the trust that had been shown them.

On May 30 Frémont and the California Indian boys arrived. But John Charles had not had such good fortune coming down the Ohio River. The steamboat hung up twice on sandbars. Yet his difficulty in getting downriver was mild compared to avoiding the many men who had heard about the expedition and wished to sign on. The regular hands—Godey, Archambeault, Proue, Lajeunesse, and Maxwell—were not only waiting; they were already getting things ready to move out. But the men who wanted to become part of this great adventure were something else. Some had a frontier background, and some were young city and town men who thought they would be able to make it in the West. They had read Frémont's Report of the first expedition; they had read the newspaper stories and heard all the tales in local taverns. They were filled with dreams of glory, but many were prime candidates for an early death if they ever left the cobblestone streets, the soft beds, the regular meals, the protection of a civilized community, and the luxury of knowing where they were going and how to get there by stagecoach or steamboat.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.