Wyoming Valley

“ A weary march across the low, bare, sandy plains of the present state of Wyoming, strewn with broken sandstone, brought our heroes to the brink of the precipice dividing these lofty table-lands from the valley of the Arkansas, where they were alike cheered and tantalized by the sight of the river they were seeking, flowing through a rich and fertile country. ”

“ WYOMING VALLEY, a valley in Luzerne co., Pa., famous as the scene of a massacre following the battle of Tory and Indian invaders, on one side, and the American settlers on the other, July 3, 1778. The American force was weak, nearly all the fighting men being away in the Continental army, and more than half of it was killed. The survivors took refuge in Forty Fort, where most of the families of the valley had gathered. ”

“ Over in the little valley to the south lay the ruins of the burned breaker, still untouched; and off upon the other side, one could see the sparkling Susquehanna far up into the narrow valley where its waters sweep around the base of Campbell’s Ledge; across to the blue mountains on the west; and down the famous valley of Wyoming, with its gray stone monument in the middle distance, until the eastern hills crept in to intercept the view. ”

“ That’s the best cattle country in this part of the west--plenty of rich grass and lots of water that’s good all of the year round. The valley is set down between the Cajons and the Three Soldiers and it’s warmer than most parts of Wyoming in the winter. But it’s tough country to get into--too expensive for a railroad for the amount of business, so the world has sort of forgotten the valley except when the trail herds come out in the fall on the way to the loading yards at Mopstick. ”

“ You have not forgotten what I told you about the mountain range, which shuts in Wyoming Valley on the east. It is a thousand feet in height, abounding with ravines, clefts, rocks, boulders and the most rugged kind of places.
The fugitives who fled from the Susquehanna to escape the Indians had to make their way over these mountains, and then find their way through sixty miles of trackless woods to the Delaware River. ”

“ After leaving this narrow road, we opened into the fair Valley of Wyoming. This is by far the most delightful valley I ever saw, being exceedingly fertile and highly picturesque. Mountains surround it on all sides, and cultivated farms are constantly occurring, while the noble river meanders through the very centre. It is the spot on which so many brave fellows were massacred in the revolution. We passed the battle ground; and the identical spot was pointed out to us by a passenger who resided in the neighborhood, where the unfortunate individuals were interred, within fifty yards of the road. ”

“ They were well into the mountains, a region exceedingly wild and rough, but little known to the settlers, who had gone around it to build homes in the fertile and beautiful valley of Wyoming. The heavy forest was made all the more difficult by the presence everywhere of almost impassable undergrowth. Now and then a woman lay down under the bushes, and in two cases they died there because the power to live was no longer in them. They grew weaker and weaker. The food that they had brought from the Wyoming fort was almost exhausted, and the wild whortleberries were far from sustaining. ”

“ In some places the plains are level, and in others, rolling. The soil is very fertile.
Two mountain ranges hem in the valley. The one on the east has an average height of a thousand feet, and the other two hundred feet less. The eastern range is steep, mostly barren, and abounds with caverns, clefts, ravines, and forests. The western is not nearly so wild, and is mostly cultivated.
The meaning of the Indian word for Wyoming is "Large Plains," which, like most of the Indian names, fits very well indeed. ”

“ Southwest of the Big Horn Basin are the Shoshone and Owl Creek Mountains, which are separated by the narrow Wind River Valley from the massive and snow-clad Wind River range, extending southeastward toward the Red Desert. This range is the loftiest in the State; it has several peaks over 13,000 feet high, and Fremont Peak, the highest point, has an altitude of 13,790 feet. The Gros Ventre, a spur of the Wind River range, runs westward to the cañon of the Snake River, beyond which, just inside the western State boundary, the Teton range rises in the Grand Teton to a height of 13,671 feet. ”

“ Colorado further answers that she can accomplish more with the water than Wyoming does or can; that she proposes to use it on lands in the Cache la Poudre valley; and that they with less water will produce more than the lands in the portion of the Laramie valley known as the Laramie Plains. It is true that irrigation in the Poudre valley has been carried to a higher state of development than elsewhere in the Rocky Mountain region, and that the lands of that valley lieat a lower altitude than do those in the Laramie Plains, and generally are better adapted to agriculture. ”

“ So, after a few hours' running over plateaux nearly as barren as the Sahara Desert, though they would blossom like the garden of Gethsemane could irrigation ever be brought to them, they approach the high tablelands at Piedmont, and climbing through long snow sheds to Aspen Hill, run down the valley of the Bear River, by which stream the train winds its way to Evanston, the last town in Wyoming Territory. ”

“ Utter desolation and desertion came upon the Valley, after the battle of 1778. Its defenders had fallen, and the bereaved families took their flight, to whatever place of refuge might be open to them. Some even travelled on foot to Connecticut, and implored shelter in the clime of their ancestors.
After the restoration of peace, the fugitives gathered themselves together, and returned to their beloved and desolated Wyoming. Their first sacred duty was to search for, and deposit the mutilated remains of their relatives and friends, beneath the soil that they had so nobly defended. ”

“ The British post at Niagara was its cradle. It was the common rallying place of tories, refugees, savage warriors, and other desperadoes of the frontiers. Hither Brant, the noted Indian chief, had retired after the repulse of St. Leger at Fort Schuyler, to plan further mischief; and here was concerted the memorable incursion into the Valley of Wyoming, suggested by tory refugees, who had until recently inhabited it.
The Valley of Wyoming is a beautiful region lying along the Susquehanna. ”

“ Sol has told me of two or three talks between Timmendiquas and Thayendanegea, and from the last one he gathered that they're intending a raid with a big army against a place called Wyoming, in the valley of a river named the Susquehanna. It's a big settlement, scattered all along the river, and they expect to take a lot of scalps. They're going to be helped by British from Canada and Tories. Boys, we're a long way from home, but shall we go and tell them in Wyoming what's coming? ”

“ Although Wyoming had been only settled since the last war, it numbered about 4,000 inhabitants, one-third of whom it had sent out to the American army, thus leaving itself undefended. This weak state was well known to the offended party, who induced Butler and Brandt to lead to Wyoming a body of 1,500 men, partly Indians, and partly loyalists disguised as such, for the purpose of extermination. On the first rumour of the probability of such an invasion, a body of men was raised to garrison the valley ”

“ It stretches from the Wind River Mountains on the north to the Uintas on the south, and is bounded westwardly by the Wyoming Range, and on the east merges into the Laramie Plains. The drainage exit is through the Uintas, as noted, by means of the canyons heading at Flaming Gorge. There are here opportunities for extensive farming by irrigation. The only other chance for agriculture on the river, except Wonsits Valley, Brown’s Park, and a few minor places, is below Black Canyon, in the stretches I have called the alluvial and the canyon-valley divisions. ”

“ Black Butte, as it is known to-day, in Dawson County, Montana, was left on the left, after which they rode through the valley of Little Porcupine Creek to the Yellowstone, which was crossed with considerable difficulty. Turning more to the east, they passed the rough, precipitous section, the scene many years afterward of the appalling Custer massacre, and now an immense Indian reservation, and, entering the present State of Wyoming, skirted the foothills of the well-known Big Horn range. ”

“ An automobile shot out from a gash in the hills and slipped swiftly down to the butte. Here it came to a halt on the white, dusty road, while its occupant gazed with eager, unsated eyes on the great panorama that stretched before her. The earth rolled in waves like a mighty sea to the distant horizon line. From a wonderful blue sky poured down upon the land a bath of sunbeat. The air was like wine, pure and strong, and above the desert swam the rare, untempered light of Wyoming. Surely here was a peace primeval, a silence unbroken since the birth of creation. ”

“ The folks are having a good time on t'other side the river, and to-morrer, when Forty Fort surrenders, Wyoming will be wiped out so clean that the only way of telling where it has been will be by the ashes. ”

“ We visited Kingston, Forty Fort, the monument, the chief battle-ground, Fort Wintermoot, Monocasy Island, &c.; but a record of the day's ramble will be better understood after a consultation of the history, and we will, therefore, proceed to unclasp the old chronicle.
History and song have hallowed the Valley of Wyoming, and every thing appertaining to it seems to be wrapped in an atmosphere of romance. Its Indian history, too, long antecedent to the advent of the whites there, is full of the poetry which clusters around the progress of the aborigines. Mr. ”

“ By the levels of Bear Creek, that reach like inlets among the promontories of the lonely hills, they came upon the school-house, nearly roofed, and ready for the first native Wyoming crop. It symbolized the dawn of a neighborhood, and it brought a change into the wilderness air. The feel of it struck cold upon the vagrant spirits of the cow-punchers, and they told each other that, what with women and children and wire fences, this country would not long be a country for men. ”

“ Ranching perhaps is best suited to the prevailing conditions, though coal-mining, oil-production and lumbering are the chief industries. Wyoming is further handicapped by indifferent railway facilities and by lack of navigable rivers. Its chief streams, except those that have their outlet into the northern fork of Platte River, drain for the most part into rivers lying outside the state, as the Yellowstone in Montana, the Missouri in South Dakota and the Colorado in Utah. In the north the region is drained by the Yellowstone, with its tributaries of Big Horn, Tongue and Powder Rivers ”

“ It need not be said that Jack and Fred kept their wits about them and took note of everything in their field of vision. The season had been an unusually favorable one for Wyoming, the rains having been all that was required to make the grass succulent, nourishing and abundant. They could have turned their ponies loose at any point, after leaving the railway behind them, and the animals would have been able to crop their fill. It was the same over hundreds of square miles, a fact which readily explains why many portions of Wyoming rank as the best grazing country in the world. ”

“ These hardy, restless, rugged individuals, including such men as Lisa, Sublette Brothers, Fraeb, Gervais, and Bridger, were actually the first settlers in what is now the State of Wyoming, notwithstanding the common belief that the first settlements in the Territory were in the eastern and southern parts. These pioneers exploited the country, trapping fur-bearing animals and trading with the Indians for their take in the pelts. ”

“ The Constitution, which continued the Territorial provision of full suffrage for women, met the approval of Congress, and on the 10th of July 1890 Wyoming was formally admitted as a state. Since admission the progress of the state has been steady. Extensive irrigation projects have made available many thousand acres of fertile land, and much more will be subjected to cultivation in the future as the large ranges are broken up into smaller tracts. ”

“ For the long summer days of Wyoming were as white as diamonds, and the soft blue mountains stood along the distant west beyond the bright river as if to fend the land from hardships and inclemencies, and nurture in its breast the hopes of men. ”

“ Wyoming breezes are always going somewhere at the rate of from thirty to sixty miles an hour. Beyond the town, in one direction, were some low mountains, well supplied with dark gorges, narrow cañons, murmuring waterfalls, dashing brooks, and precipitous descents. Beyond the town, in the other direction, lay a broad, rolling country, on which cattle and cowboys dwelt amid profanity and dust. Severne arose in a cold room, washed his face in hard water, and descended to breakfast. ”

“ The next stop is at Rock Springs, the greatest coal mining town in the West. The town itself has the typical appearance of an active country town, and there is little on the surface to indicate the labyrinthine workings of the great underground measures, part of the vast mineral 19 treasure house of the state. Wyoming is a state of both underground and over-ground industries, with its coal mines, gold mines, copper mines, its great flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and lastly a newly developed agricultural field of great possibilities. ”