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                             COLTER’S HELL
                                  AND
                             JACKSON’S HOLE


                          By Merrill J. Mattes


                              Published by
               YELLOWSTONE LIBRARY AND MUSEUM ASSOCIATION
                                and the
                GRAND TETON NATURAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION
                          in cooperation with
                         NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                    U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

[Illustration: Yellowstone Library and Museum Association; National Park
                                Service]

           © 1962 Yellowstone Library and Museum Association
                              Reprint 1970


The Yellowstone Library and Museum Association and the Grand Teton
Natural History Association are non-profit distributing organizations
whose purpose is the stimulation of interest in the educational and
inspirational aspects of Yellowstone and Grand Teton history and natural
history. The Associations cooperate with and are recognized by the
United States Department of the Interior and its Bureau, the National
Park Service, as essential operating organizations.

As one means of accomplishing their aims the Associations publish
reasonably priced booklets which are available for purchase by mail
throughout the year or at the museum information desks in the parks
during the summer.

Photographs used were provided through the courtesy of the National Park
Service, except where otherwise credited.




                   COLTER’S HELL AND JACKSON’S HOLE:
 The Fur Trappers’ Exploration of the Yellowstone and Grand Teton Park
                                 Region


                                   By
                           Merrill J. Mattes




                           TABLE OF CONTENTS


                                                                     Page
       I. Strange Land of “Volcanoes” and “Shining Mountains”           1
      II. The Mystery of “La Roche Jaune” or Yellow Rock River          9
     III. John Colter, The Phantom Explorer—1807-1808                  13
      IV. “Colter’s Hell”: A Case of Mistaken Identity                 19
       V. “Les Trois Tetons”: The Golden Age of Discovery, 1810-1824   25
      VI. “Jackson’s Hole”: Era of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company,
                               1825-1832                               35
     VII. “The Fire Hole”: Era of the American Fur Company, 1833-1840  53
    VIII. Epilogue: 1841-1870                                          77
          Selected Bibliography                                        86
          Vicinity Map at rear

                      [Illustration: BEAVER TRAP]




         I. Strange Land of “Volcanoes” and “Shining Mountains”


The Yellowstone-Grand Teton region was not officially discovered and its
scenic marvels were not publicly proclaimed until the 1870’s, beginning
with the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition. For thirty years before,
from 1841 to 1869, this region was a Paradise Lost, rarely visited by
white men. But for thirty years before that, or from 1807 to 1840, this
region had hundreds of appreciative visitors. These were the Rocky
Mountain fur trappers. While searching for the golden-brown fur of the
beaver, destined for the St. Louis market, these adventurers thoroughly
explored this fabulous region. Although news of their discoveries
received scant public notice back in the settlements, or was discounted
as tall tales, to them belongs the honor of being the first actual
explorers of these twin parks.

Neighboring Yellowstone and Grand Teton, established as National Parks
in 1872 and 1929, respectively, are separately managed today as units of
our National Park System. But geographically, now as well as in the
early nineteenth century, they embrace one unique region, characterized
by topographic and geologic features that are the crescendo of a great
scenic symphony. Here, at the heart of the continent, the source of the
three major river systems of the continent—the Columbia, the Colorado,
and the Missouri-Mississippi—may be found the greatest geyser basins,
the largest mountain lake, the most colorful of kaleidoscopic canyons,
one of the richest arrays of wildlife, and one of the most spectacularly
beautiful mountain ranges in the world. The Yellowstone-Grand Teton
region has historical unity, also, particularly during the obscure but
heroic age of the Rocky Mountain fur trade.

“Colter’s Hell”—bearing the name of the legendary discoverer, and
conjuring up visions of a primitive “Dante’s Inferno”—is the term which
visitors today associate with the early history of Yellowstone National
Park and its universally famous hydrothermal wonders. Actually, the
wandering, bearded, buck-skinned beaver trappers never referred to the
geyser region of the upper Madison as Colter’s Hell. As we will see, the
real Colter’s Hell in Jim Bridger’s day was another place altogether,
having nothing to do with anything within Yellowstone Park itself. In
trapper times the Yellowstone geyser area had no fixed name but was
variously described by them as a region of “great volcanoes,” “boiling
springs” or “spouting fountains.” On the recently discovered Hood and
Ferris maps (see below) it is labeled “the Burnt Hole” (although this
name seems to have been restricted by Russell and others to the Hebgen
Lake Valley). Captain Bonneville tells us that his men knew of this
region as “the Firehole” and this name, as applied to the river draining
the geyser basins, survives today.

Yellowstone Park, carved out of territorial Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho,
is a rough-edged rectangle of 3,500 square miles that straddles the
twisting course of the Continental Divide. It is a geological circus, a
unique creation of ancient volcanoes and glaciers, flanked on the
southeast and east by the Absaroka Range, on the north by the Snowy
Range, on the northwest by the Gallatin and Madison ranges, on the west
by the Centennial Range, and on the south by the Teton Mountains.

From the Park flow the headwaters of two continental rivers and their
major tributaries. From here the Snake River arcs southward toward
Jackson’s Hole and the cathedral-like Tetons, destined to join the
Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. Here the Firehole and Gibbon
rivers, draining the principal geyser basins, unite to become the
Madison River, and here also arises the Gallatin, these being two of the
Three Forks of the Missouri. Here arises a branch of the North Fork of
the Shoshone River, a tributary of the Bighorn. And here, after its
birth near Two Ocean Pass, begins the mighty Yellowstone River which,
after passing through its vast mirror-like lake and its prismatic
canyon, flows out onto the plains to receive the Bighorn and join the
Missouri on its marathon journey to the Mississippi River and the Gulf
of Mexico.

                [Illustration: Indians at Jackson Lake.]

This region held a fortune in coveted beaver skins, but it was remote,
snowbound, haunted by the vindictive Blackfeet, and plagued by weird
visions, sulphurous fumes, and uncanny noises. Here indeed was fertile
soil for a legend.

On a clear day Yellowstone Park visitors can see to the south the
mountain spires which identify Grand Teton National Park of Wyoming, an
indefinable shape of 500 square miles. (The actual boundaries of these
neighboring parks are separated by a scant five miles.) The Tetons are
perhaps the most distinctive of the granite giants which comprise the
Rocky Mountains. A series of sharp pyramids of naked rock, the peaks
stand like sharks’ teeth against the sky. The most precipitous sides and
the most needle-like summit belong to the highest of these, the Grand
Teton, which rises over 7,000 feet from its immediate base, nearly
14,000 feet above the level of the distant sea.

The Teton Mountains are the most conspicuous landmarks of a region which
contains the scrambled sources of the three greatest river systems of
continental United States. As we have seen, Yellowstone Park to the
north gives birth to the eastward-flowing Missouri and the westward
flowing Columbia waters. East of the Tetons, in the Wind River
Mountains, is the head of Green River which rolls southward to merge
into the mighty Colorado River, tumbling through the arid lands to the
Gulf of California.

Jackson’s Hole is that part of the Upper Snake River Valley which lies
at the eastern base of the Teton Range. One of the largest enclosed
valleys in the Rocky Mountains, its glaciated floor extends about sixty
miles north and south, and varies up to twelve miles in width. It is
bounded on the west by the Tetons, on the east and south by the less
pretentious Mount Leidy Highlands and the Gros Ventre and Hoback
Mountains. The Gros Ventres merge imperceptibly into the Wind River
Mountains farther east, the crest of which forms the Continental Divide.
The southern extremity of the Tetons merges with the eastern end of the
Snake River Range near the canyon where the Snake River escapes from the
valley.

Historic Jackson’s Hole, also known as “Jackson’s Big Hole”—but now
politely refined to just plain Jackson Hole—was named in 1829 for David
Jackson, one of the partners of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. To the
early trapper a “hole” was a sizeable valley abounding in game, and
usually (with the exception of Yellowstone’s “Firehole”) associated with
some distinctive personality—hence Brown’s Hole, Pierre’s Hole,
Gardner’s Hole, etc. However, Jackson’s Hole was more than just a
pleasant spot for trapping and camping. Research gives substance to the
view that this was the historic crossroads of the Rocky Mountain fur
trade.

Jackson’s Hole was destined by geography to become a traffic center of
the Western fur trade. Between South Pass at the head of the Little
Sandy and the northern passes above the Three Forks of the Missouri it
offered the most feasible route across the Rocky Mountain barrier. In
addition, it was the focal point of a region that was highly prized and
vigorously contested because of its populous beaver streams. Here
trappers’ trails converged like the spokes of a great wheel and, after
Lewis and Clark, most of the important trapper-explorers crossed
Jackson’s Hole on their journeys.

       [Illustration: Indian “Buffalo Jump”—Yellowstone Valley.]

In historic times there were seven gateways to and from Jackson’s Hole:
northward up Snake River; northeastward up Pacific Creek to Two Ocean
Pass; eastward up Buffalo Fork to Twogwotee Pass; eastward up the Gros
Ventre to Union Pass; southward up the Hoback to Green River; westward
via Teton Pass or Conant Pass (at the south and north extremities of the
Teton Range) to Pierre’s Hole.

 [Illustration: “Dawn of Discovery”—Exhibit in Fur Trade Museum, Grand
                         Teton National Park.]

The Tetons received their name from French-Canadian trappers who
accompanied the earliest British expeditions into this territory. As
they approached the range from the west, they beheld three towering
mountains upon which they bestowed the name of “Trois Tetons” (“Three
Breasts”). This romantic designation was readily adopted by the lonely
trapping fraternity to whom the sharp snowy peaks (now known as the
Grand, Middle and South Tetons) became a beacon to guide them through
the hostile wilderness. To the Indians the Tetons were variously known
as “The Three Brothers,” “The Hoaryheaded Fathers,” and “Tee Win-at,”
meaning “The Pinnacles.” The earliest Americans in the region, being
more practical than romantic, could find no better name for the silvery
spires than “The Pilot Knobs,” while an official Hudson’s Bay Company
map indicates with equal homeliness, “The Three Paps.” The name “Three
Tetons” survived, however, and was officially recognized by
cartographers. The name first appeared publicly in the Bonneville Map of
1837.

The Upper Snake River (i.e., above the mouth of Henry’s Fork) was called
“Mad River” by the Astorians. Others simply referred to it as the
“Columbia River” or “the headwaters of the Columbia,” but to most of the
fur trappers it was “Lewis River” or “Lewis Fork,” so originally named
in the Clark Map of 1810 for Capt. Meriwether Lewis, as Clark’s Fork of
the Columbia was named after his fellow explorer, Capt. William Clark.
This name was much more appropriate than its present one, which is
derived from the Snake or Shoshone Indians, and first appears on the
Greenhow Map of 1840.

In spite of past efforts by water power advocates to “improve” it by a
dam, Yellowstone Lake remains just as it was when first discovered by
John Colter, the original “Lake Eustis” of the Clark Map of 1810.
Jackson Lake, however, was enlarged by a dam built in 1916 by the Bureau
of Reclamation. This lake is identifiable with the “Lake Biddle” of the
Clark Map of 1810, the “Teton Lake” of Warren A. Ferris, and the “Lewis
Lake” referred to frequently by another trapper, Joseph L. Meek. There
is today a tributary of the Upper Snake known as Lewis River, heading in
a Lewis Lake within the confines of Yellowstone National Park, neither
of which are to be confused with the historic “Lewis River” and “Lewis
Lake.”

            [Illustration: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.]

                      [Illustration: POWDER HORN]




        II. The Mystery of “La Roche Jaune” or Yellow Rock River


For some twenty years before the advent of Lewis and Clark,
French-Canadian voyageurs of the North West Company were in league with
the Mandans, and from these Indians learned of the distant “Pierre
Jaune” or “Roche Jaune” River, a translation from the Indian equivalent
of “Yellow Rock River.” Chittenden theorizes that the ultimate origin of
the name descends from the brilliant and infinite varieties of yellow
which dominate the color scheme of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,
and which probably awed the first aboriginal explorer just as it does
today’s auto-borne tourist.

Although there is room for debate as to whether any of the Canadian
traders beat Lewis and Clark to the mouth of the Yellowstone, it is
certain that one of their number preceded the Americans in the approach
to its headwaters. On September 10, 1805, Francois Antoine Larocque
reached “Riviere aux Roches Jaunes” just below the mouth of Pryor’s
Fork, near present Billings, Montana, in the course of “a voyage of
discovery to the Rocky Mountains.” After wintering at the Mandan
villages in 1804-1805 as a neighbor of the hibernating Lewis and Clark,
and being thwarted in his desire to accompany them upstream, Larocque
had returned to his post on the Assiniboine for supplies, then hurried
back to the Mandans, going from there overland via Knife River, the
Little Missouri, and the Tongue to the Bighorn Mountains, country of the
Crows.

While wintering with the Mandans, Captain Clark sketched two maps of the
unexplored country westward, based on “the information of traders,
indians and my own observation and ideas.” One of these shows
“Rochejhone River” with six tributaries from the south, five with Indian
names, two translated as “Tongue River” and “Big Horn R.” The Bighorns
and Rocky Mountains beyond are represented only by diagrammatic strokes.
There is a trail from the mouth of Knife River to the Bighorns, roughly
the same subsequently taken by Larocque. This was actually a refinement
of a sketch made for Clark by the Mandan Chief Big White. The second map
shows “River yellow rock” minus tributaries but with the Crows (“gens de
Corbeau”) located just west of an imaginative “montagne de
roche—conjecturall.” These maps, the first to our knowledge to depict
the Yellowstone River, were sent to President Jefferson on April 7,
1805, by Meriwether Lewis, to accompany his eagerly awaited progress
report.

Upon their return trip in 1806, after wintering at Fort Clatsop at the
mouth of the Columbia, Lewis and Clark divided in order to explore the
country more thoroughly, the latter undertaking to determine the source
of the mysterious Yellowstone. On July 15, with eleven white men, the
Indian woman Sacajawea and her baby, the cavalcade crossed Bozeman Pass,
which marks the divide between the Yellowstone and Gallatin Fork, and
reached the vicinity of present Livingston, Montana. Never suspecting
what wonders lay concealed behind the snowy mountain wall to the south,
Clark hurried on down the river to rejoin Lewis, with glory enough for
one expedition.

There is only one hint of volcanic phenomena which Clark seems to have
obtained from any source other than the presumed conversation with
Colter, mentioned below. This was an Indian tale, received after Clark’s
return, but before Colter’s return, to the effect that at the head of
Tongue River, a branch of the Yellowstone, “there is frequently heard a
loud noise like Thunder, which makes the earth Tremble, they state that
they seldom go there because their children Cannot sleep—and Conceive it
possessed of spirits, who were averse that men Should be near them.”
Speculates Vinton, “it can hardly be doubted that the Indians referred
to the geyser basin in the Park,” rather than to the Tongue River
neighborhood.

It is commonly supposed that, prior to Colter, no white man had
knowledge of strange phenomena on the Upper Yellowstone, this
supposition being one of the pillars of the “first-discovery” theory. It
is fairly evident that Clark knew nothing of geysers when he was within
seventy-five miles of them in 1806 but, ironically enough, at this time
some intimation of them had certainly reached others, including Clark’s
sponsor, Thomas Jefferson. On October 22, 1805, James Wilkinson,
governor of Louisiana Territory, with headquarters in St. Louis, sent to
the President, in care of Captain Amos Stoddard,

  a Savage delineation on a Buffalo Pelt, of the Missouri & its South
  Western branches, including the Rivers plate & Lycorne or Pierre
  jaune; This Rude Sketch without Scale or Compass ‘et remplie de
  Fantaisies ridicules’ is not destitute of Interests, as it exposes the
  location of several important Objects, & may point the way to useful
  enquiry—among other things a little incredible, a volcano is
  distinctly described on Yellow Stone River.

Wilkinson apparently obtained this primitive map from unidentified
traders. It could not have been a copy of Clark’s map sent from Fort
Mandan the April previous, for it obviously contained new data. In an
advice to Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War, dated September 18, 1805,
Wilkinson revealed that his interest in Yellowstone curiosities was
sufficiently aroused to dispatch an expedition of his own upriver!

  I have equipt a Perogue out of my Small private means, not with any
  view to Self interest, to ascend the missouri and enter the River
  Piere jaune, or yellow Stone, called by the natives, Unicorn River,
  the same by which Capt. Lewis I find since expects to return and which
  my informants tell me is filled with wonders. This Party will not get
  back before the Summer 1807—they are natives of this town....

Who were Wilkinson’s explorers, and what became of them? Who were the
“informants”? Was their information firsthand or derived from Indians
who, unlike the Mandans, were acquainted with details of the Upper
Yellowstone? These questions may be unanswerable, but they arise to
shadow the giant figure of John Colter.

   [Illustration: Fur Trade Museum, Moose Visitor Center—Grand Teton
                      National Park Headquarters.]

                      [Illustration: HAWKEN RIFLE]




            III. John Colter, the Phantom Explorer—1807-1808


The epic journey of discovery known as “The Lewis and Clark Expedition”
was organized in the autumn of 1803 at Maysville, Kentucky. Here, on
October 15, John Colter enlisted as a private with the stipulated pay of
$5 a month, apparently answering the requirement for “good hunters,
stout, healthy, unmarried men, accustomed to the woods and capable of
bearing bodily fatigue in a pretty considerable