Click to view
Page  12

      Hon. Jesse L. Williams, one of the Government Directors of the Union Pacific Railroad, and myself, accompanied on horseback by Mr. P. T. Brown, the Assistant Engineer, who had been making the surveys for the road through this wild and forbidding portion of the route, started out from Denver on the morning of the 17th, in a comfortable covered carriage, drawn by a pair of lazy, broken down mules, these being considered the most safe and reliable for the rough mountain roads we were to traverse. The outfit, as all conveyances are designated in this country, was under the special charge of Mr. Brooks, a most venerable and experienced mountaineer and driver. Our objective point was Berthoud Pass, and our route lay up the Valley of Clear Creek, or as near it as the road would allow us to travel.

      From Denver, the base of the mountains appears so near as to invite a short morning walk to them before breakfast; but we only reached them after a long two hours' ride of twelve miles, behind our "safe and reliable" mules, over the intervening plains. We entered the somewhat broken and irregular base of the first range, or Table Mountain, as it is called, through the opening made by the Valley of Clear Creek, instead of by

Click to view
Page  13

      the regularly travelled road some miles further south; and made our first halt at Golden City, fourteen miles from Denver. This place is most beautiful for situation; and should have been the great commercial city for the mining interests of this portion of Colorado. But Denver, during the Cherry Creek excitement years ago, obtained a long distance the start of it, and will, from present appearances, retain the advantage. Here we found iron-ore, coal and fire-clay in abundance, all which will, sooner or later, be turned to good account.

      It being impossible to follow farther up the Valley of Clear Creek, on account of the intervening Cañon extending some twelve or fifteen miles in our proper direction, we were obliged to make a detour to the south, and enter the next range through a less formidable gorge, up which a very good road had been made in the direction of Idaho and Empire Cities. We stopped an hour for a very good dinner at the Genessee Ranch, where we were overtaken by our very intelligent and eccentric friend Wolfe, whose acquaintance we had made at Denver, and who was wending his way to his mines in the mountains with a load of enormous cabbages, turnips, water, musk and other melons, the products of his large and well-cultivated Ranch on Clear Creek, near Denver. After regaling us for dessert with one of his finest melons, Mr. Wolfe opened to us his plans of a new process for separating the precious metals from the quartz; and also his theory for the extinction of cholera; all which, it is needless to say, met with our unqualified approbation.

Click to view
Page  14

      Our road towards Idaho now lay over a very rough, precipitous country, to a point a few miles below that city, where we again struck the Valley of Clear Creek. As we followed along the abrupt windings of this valley, we were continually reminded of the insatiate thirst of man for the filthy lucre gold, by the broken and decaying flumes and water wheels, and the crumbling and half-refilled excavations in the banks along the stream, which had been made and used by the earlier pioneers in their search for hidden treasure. Some two miles below Idaho we passed the extensive and more permanent works, now being erected for the same purpose, by Gen. Beaufort for an Eastern company of capitalists.

      At early dusk we found ourselves in front of the Beebe House, in Idaho, acknowledged to be the best hotel in Colorado, with good mountain appetites for an excellent supper which awaited us. Our venerable driver, and part owner of our outfit, was almost exhausted by his continuous wallopings of the mules; and our mules (or rather horses by brevet, since the close of the war), were hors de combat from the effects of a long drive over rough roads, and the aforesaid wallopings of the venerable driver. On entering the hotel I was most agreeably surprised to find that it was owned and kept by old and familiar friends from Sullivan county, New York; which fact rendered our short stay exceedingly pleasant. The hot springs, ample bathing, and hotel accommodations, render this place the Saratoga of the mountains for the good people of Denver and adjacent cities.

Click to view
Page  15

      An early breakfast enabled us to reach Empire City, eleven miles further up the valley, at eleven o'clock in the morning. At no point along our road were we out of view of the gulch and mountain mining operations, being carried on by the sturdy and adventurous mountaineers.

      Mr. Brown had informed us that we could not travel with our carriage nearer than a point about two miles from the pass; and that it would therefore be necessary for Mr. Williams and myself to procure saddlehorses at Empire for the balance of our journey. This, together with our hasty lunch, detained us about an hour at Empire City. In the meantime we were informed by gentlemen at Empire, that we could not make the ascent to the pass and return during the afternoon, and had, therefore, better defer the trip till morning. Mr. Williams, however, was too anxious to take a glimpse of the Pacific slope of the continent, and had come too far for that purpose, to be deterred by any such prognostications; and we therefore set out at twelve on horseback, after arranging with our driver to meet us at five o'clock with the carriage, at the foot of the trail.

      Our road, still following the Valley of Clear Creek, was quite good for six miles of the distance, to the foot of the trail which leads from the wagon road up the southerly slope of the valley of a small tributary of Clear Creek, which heads near Berthoud Pass

      We made our way slowly up the trail without much difficulty, although in many places the path was quite steep and sideling, reminding one of the ascent as made years ago from the Glen House to Mount Washington. We dismounted several times to relieve our horses and

Click to view
Page  16

      perhaps for greater safety. When near the top we started up a bevy of mountain grouse, one of which had the audacity to sit out the discharge of our revolvers, upon a limb within twenty feet of us, without evincing greater emotion than an occasional wink of the left eye ; but after our pistols were unloaded, Mr. Brown fired a stone at the bird, which struck a tree near by, and caused it to beat a hasty retreat. I had unfortunately left my rifle and fowling-piece in the carriage

      We reached Berthoud Pass at two P. M. on Tuesday, September 18; and were, for the first time in our lives, greeted with a most extended and magnificent view of the Pacific slope of the Western Continent. The summit of the Pass is but a few hundred feet below the timber, or arborescent line; and is about 6,100 feet above Denver City, and 11,200 feet above the level of the sea. The main range, or divide of the continent, was visible to the north and west for a distance of 100 miles at least, far beyond Long's Peak, which reared its bald head, spotted with eternal snow, high above the average level of the range. After spending an hour upon the Pass, and taking such note of the topography as would refresh our memories hereafter, we ascended the point of mountain south of the Pass to an elevation several hundred feet above the tree line, from which the view of Middle Park, the valley of a tributary of Grand River, leading westward from the Pass; and the extended westerly slopes of the Rocky Mountain ranges, formed a most enchanting picture. The exhilarating effects of the high mountain air and sublime scenery, inspired Mr. Williams with a desire for a patriotic song. After some urging from Mr

Click to view
Page  17

      Brown and myself, he led off with "Sherman's March to the Sea." Mr. Brown followed with the "Star Spangled Banner," and I closed the exercises with Moore's serenade "Come o'er the Sea," etc., after the style of Major Scholefield, of the "North Woods Walton Club." The entire range, from Long's to Pike's Peak, seemed to catch the inspiration, and join in the chorus

      After concluding that no improvised glee club had ever performed before a more select and appreciative audience; and after refreshing ourselves, and cooling our over-taxed throats with some coarsely granulated snow, at least a century old, which lay at our feet, we commenced the descent at four in the afternoon

      By permission of Mr. Williams, I take pleasure in annexing the following letter written by him from the summit of Berthoud Pass:—

      Having reached the summit of this grand mountain range, in company with Col. Seymour, the Consulting Engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad, and Mr. Brown, Assistant Engineer, my first impulse is to write to my friends at home

      One of the experimental surveys for the Union Pacific Railroad follows Clear Creek to this Pass. That valley was therefore our route from Denver, fifty miles east, bringing us through a rich gold mining district. Eight miles back we took saddle-horses, rising by a mule trail sixteen hundred feet in the last one and a half miles. The point on which I write is some six hundred feet above the Pass, about six thousand seven hundred feet above Denver, and about twelve thousand feet above the sea. It appears to be some two or three hundred feet above the line of arborescence, or "tree line," above which no timber or vegetation grows. Patches of last winter's snow are lying around us on northern slopes, and some of them two hundred feet below. The proposed railroad tunnel pierces the mountain far be-

Click to view
Page  18

      neath us. From the summit the waters flow to the Pacific through the Colorado of the West, and to the Atlantic through the Platte

      Peaks, five hundred, and one thousand feet higher than this, are near us, while Long's Peak, supposed to be nearly fifteen thousand feet above the sea, is in full view forty miles to the northeast. During the next two weeks, Col. Seymour and myself expect, in company with Gen. Dodge, the Chief Engineer, to look over the routes surveyed across the Black Hill range, one hundred miles north of this place.

     The Union Pacific Railroad is under rapid progress. In November next the locomotive is expected to cross the bridge over the North Platte, two hundred and eighty-five miles from Omaha. The opening of this work across the plains, will soon make the people of the States more familiar with this Rocky Mountain range and its grand scenery; and, what is more important, will afford ready access to a new field of enterprise in the work of developing its vast mineral wealth.

      We found our venerable driver at the foot of the trail, as per arrangement; but in order to insure his return to Empire the same night, he had taken the precaution to exchange his mules temporarily, with the Empire landlord, for a pair of good horses.

      Mr. Brown and myself kept our saddles till we reached Empire City, at six P. M.; but Mr. Williams, participating to some extent in the peculiar characteristics of a locomotive, from his long ride upon the back of old "Knock-um-Stiff," as he facetiously styled his horse, concluded to take his accustomed seat in the carriage.

      On our way down to Empire City, a conspiracy was organized by our venerable driver to make a permanent exchange of his mules with the Empire landlord for his horses, but I am sorry to say that the scheme was not successful.

      The name of Bayard Taylor, that greatest of descriptive travellers, who had preceded us but a few months over Berthoud Pass, was still fresh in the recollection of the mountain residents who had been favored with his acquaintance.