The history of the Mullan trail
To tell the story of the Mullan trail you first must understand why it was necessary.
After John Mullan graduated from West Point in 1852 as a Brevet second Lieutenant then later was promoted to 1st Lieutenant, Mullan joined the Northern Pacific railway survey. As a Topographical Engineer, Mullan studied the Rocky Mountains to identify a practical route for the Northern Transcontinental Railway.
President James Buchanan had spent one-third, (2,500 soldiers) of the US military to fight against the Mormons and Southern Paiute Indians. Buchanan was trying to replace Brigham Young as governor of Utah. Brigham was later replaced by Alfred Cumming in 1857 after the Utah War, Buchanan’s Blunder. The Mormons, a Nauvoo Legion, and Paiutes were attacking settlers as well as the US military by burning the area around them as well as stampeding the cattle. Buchanan needed a military route to supply troops and gear to Walla Walla WA. After “Buchanan’s blunder,” which caused the Mountain Meadow massacre in southern Utah. The massacre was the deadliest attack in 1857.
June 25th,1859, Lieutenant John Mullan broke ground on the Mullan trail. From Walla Walla, Washington, they headed down towards Spokane Washington. and to the South of Coeur d’Alene Idaho. to the Saint Joe River, then into St. Marys Idaho. In the spring of 1861, the workers were flooded out of the valley and had to reroute north of Coeur d’Alene Lake to what is now known as 4th of July Pass. The crew rested and celebrated the holiday in this location. They carved “MR” into a White Pine to commemorate the celebration and location. From the 4th of July Pass they traveled to what is current day I-90, East to Post Falls Idaho, Kellogg Idaho, and into Wallace Idaho.
Wallace was named after William Wallace, who was the first Governor of the Idaho Territory appointed by Lincoln after the Civil War. Mullan, being a Democrat was considered, but Wallace was a Republican and Lincoln wanted strict adherence to the Republican Party. They continued East through modern day Mullan which got its name in 1884 after becoming a mining camp when Gold and Silver were found in the area. As they headed into Montana, they had built forty-six bridges over the St. Regis River and into the town of St. Regis. The crew had made it into Missoula and began to enter “Hells Canyon.”
Here is where the earlier Lewis and Clark expedition enters the chat. The goal of the Mullan Trail was to connect Walla Walla to Fort Benton by land and water. They needed a connection from the Columbia River to the Missouri River. The Rocky Mountains play a big role in this story later. The Lewis and Clark had already established a route by coming up the Columbia to the Snake River, onto the Clear Water then over the Bitter Root Mountains by Lolo Pass and into the Bitter Root Valley. Once there, they traveled through Missoula to the Clark Fork and into the “Hells Canyon.” They travelled through the narrow gorge where many battles were fought by many different people. When they reached the conflux of the Blackfoot River and the Clark Fork, this is where the trail separated again from the water.
Earlier in 1806, When Lewis had returned to the area, Lewis was told by Nez Perce guides of a trail used by natives for many years called “The Road To The Buffalo”. The trail led up the Blackfoot River to Lincoln along the Divide. The Lewis and Clark pass is just seven miles North of Rogers pass. When they put in the highway, they chose Rogers Pass because it was 800 ft lower than Lewis and Clark Pass. The Natives used the Road to the Buffalo (Lewis and Clark Pass) because it was higher ground. Salish, Nez Perce, Kootenai, and Black Feet Indians also used it from the Columbia Plateau in Canada to cross the Rockies and into the Bison rich plains of Montana.
Mullan later turned this game trail into a road that could be travel by wheeled vehicles. This is important to understand because Mullan did not cut these trails on his own. He used well established routes by the Natives. They knew the best routes to travel.
Here is the connection between the Rockies in Lincoln. The Mullan trail continued East to Drummond then into Deer lodge. From Deer lodge they travel North towards Helena, crossed modern day HWY12 and onto the Mullan Pass. This route took them into Modern day Helena on July 17, 1860. This area was part of the Nebraska territory until Lincoln split it off into the Montana territory May 26,1864 just before gold was discovered by the Four Georgians two months later in Last Chance Gulch. Helena got its name in Oct of 1864 after the influx of prospectors came to the area.
The Four Georgians got their name from a placer mining method called the Georgia method. This entails digging down several feet to bedrock to pan the dirt for gold. John Cowan was the only miner from Georgia. David Miller was from Alabama, John Crab was from Iowa, and Reginal Stanly was from England. Back to the Mullan Trail. They left the Helena Valley following Prickly Pear Creek towards the Missouri River. After crossing the Dearborn River, Bird Tail Rock, and the Sun River then to what the native’s told Lewis was the Great Falls of the Missouri. From there they went on to Fort Benton to complete the road on August 1st 1862 for the final time. They originally finished 2 years earlier but had to go back to update parts of the road.
After the Mullan Trail was completed the first time, John Mullan went back to Washington DC. Buchanan promoted him to Captain John Mulan for the work he had done to build the trail. Buchanan lost his seat to Lincoln after nearly bankrupting the US by getting us in battles with the natives, the Mormons, and the funding of the Mullan Trail. This is partly what led us into the civil war, amongst other reasons. Later, John was sent back to do repairs on the now Captain John Mullan Road.
Robert E Lee had surrendered on April 9,1865 at the Appomattox Court House in Virgina. The Mullan road was no longer needed. Just 5 days later Lincoln was assassinated at the Ford Theater in DC. Wallace and his wife along with other dignitaries were invited to the theater but did not attend.
--written by Keith Spangle
The History The Four Georgians
The Four Georgians in the Montana Territory - Circa July 14th 1864
The Four Georgians were a group of gold prospectors that have been traditionally credited for discovering the Last Chance placer gold strike of Helena, Montana. They were Reginald (Robert) Stanley, John Cowan, D. J. Miller, and John Crab (pictured below, in that order, from left to right).
Of the four, the only actual Georgian was Cowan, who hailed from Acworth, Georgia.[1][2] The other three came from Alabama (Miller), Iowa (Crab) and England (Stanley). It has been speculated that they were named "Georgians" not because of where they were from, but because they practiced the "Georgian method" of placer mining.[3][4]
A Georgian genealogist named Suzanne suggests instead that the "Four Georgians" were: John Cowan, his nephew Frank Cowan, Henry Rusk, and Bill Palmer. She claims that these four are indeed all Georgians, knew each other well, and mined gold in Montana. She refers to a news article in an Acworth, Georgia newspaper from 1975 but does not refer to a specific date.[2] No other sources have substantiated this story, but still, the origins of the Four Georgians are at least partially shrouded in mystery.
In 1864, they left the Alder Gulch area of Virginia City, in what was then, still the Montana Territory, heading north toward the Kootenai River country to pursue rumored prospects there. En route, they heard that the Kootenai prospects had played out, and instead decided to prospect the nearby Little Blackfoot River. They crossed the Continental Divide to the Prickly Pear Creek drainage, still finding only minimal signs of gold at best. Noting a small creek in the Prickly Pear Valley with the best prospects so far, they again moved north to explore the Marias River. Still finding little gold after six weeks of hard work, they returned south to the place they referred to as Last Chance Gulch, since it would be their final opportunity on a long, arduous prospecting trip. With little remaining hope, they were prepared to give up on the whole area and return home.[1][3]
On July 14, 1864, they dug two prospect pits on Last Chance Gulch upstream from their earlier efforts.[3] Both pits revealed flat gold nuggets and gold dust. All their efforts had finally paid off. Eventually, Crab and Cowan were sent back to Virginia City for more supplies, other prospectors began appearing, and the Last Chance Gulch bonanza began.[5]
In 1867, the Four Georgians finally sold out their claims and took $40,000 of gold dust by wagon to Fort Benton, MT to board a steam boat down the Missouri River and eventually all the way to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia where they cashed in three years of hard labor in the Montana gold fields.[3] Reginald Stanley's accounts of his discovery of gold in Last Chance Gulch can be found in the archives of the Montana Historical Society in Helena, MT as Small Collection 781, Reginald Stanley papers.[6]
.jpeg/:/rs=w:400,cg:true,m)
.jpeg/:/)
The History of E Clampus Vitus
The short version
ECV as an organization in California was established by a man named Joseph Zumwalt. Joseph was born on the 15th of July, 1800, in Boone County, Kentucky. At about the age of 49, he, his wife Mary, and 8 of their 11 surviving children decided to leave their farm in Illinois and head for California in search of gold prospects. The wagon train went by way of Bowling Green, Missouri, where Zumwalt and a partner, C.W. Wright, stopped at the local newspaper office to inquire about the road to California. In that office, they picked up copies of the ritual of an amusing organization called "E Clampus Vitus", written by Ephraim Bee. Zumwalt and Wright each bought a copy and put it in their trunks.
Now we must go even further back in time to the original author, Ephiram Bee. Not much is known about the personal motivations of Ephiram Bee, or the reason why he created E CLAMPUS VITUS. Bee was an ecclectic man, married twice with 17 surviving children, and between his birth in 1802 and death in 1888, he had many personal and professional pursuits, including Innkeeper, Blacksmith, Virginia state Legislator (the first year after it became a state), postmaster, land speculator (surveyor), and apparently, creative prankster and author. His reasons for the Creation of E Clampus Vitus will be forever shrouded in mystery.
Zumwalt and his family reached the "diggins" on September 5, 1849. By this time, the fate of C.W. Wright has been lost in history. However, after a period of time in Sacramento and then in the diggins, it appears that Zumwalt remembered the rituals from the book and observed that the men in the mines were in need of a humorous outlet. During his wanderings in the diggins around Hangtown ( Placerville ) in 1850 and early 1851, he apparently tried, with no great success, to start chapters of what became known as E CLAMPUS VITUS in various camps. However, in 1851, he moved to Mokelumne Hill where he started his first successful Chapter, #1001 of E CLAMPUS VITUS. The first official chartering was held in the local community jail, which was conveniently unoccupied at the moment. From then on in the diggins, the idea of E CLAMPUS VITUS spread like wildfire. Lodges of E Clampus Vitus were active in many towns in the mining country of California throughout the mid 1850's and onward.
The concept of E CLAMPUS VITUS had several facets that were appealing to the miners of the day. It was a benevolent organization that gave aid to fellow miners, their widows and children (widders and orphans), as the many newspaper articles of the period record. However, ECV was also the greatest practical joke ever conceived and put over by all the thousands of miners (and jokers) who made light of their hardships and miseries in the diggins. The organization was, by nature, a spoof on the more dignified, straight-laced, exclusive, and deeply ritualistic fraternal orders of the day such as the Masons and the Oddfellows. In this vein, it's purpose seems to have been solely to entertain its members by initiation of new members, which served to further spur the organizations exponential growth.
Once, in Marysville California, the renowned Lord Sholto Douglas opened a theatrical engagement, but the first performance failed to pay the rent. When he determined that he needed to become a Clamper to draw a crowd, he immediately applied for membership, and on the night of his initiation he played to a $1,500 house. Additionally, Every traveling salesman had to join E CLAMPUS VITUS before he could obtain an order. Such was the pervasiveness and strength of E CLAMPUS VITUS during those times. The roisterous spirit of the new lodges were expressed by the slogan "Credo Quia Absurdum" (I believe because it is absurd), and by the Constitution of the Order which states that "all members are officers, and all officers are of equal indignity", and it had a tremendous appeal to the miners, who thought that hoaxing a tenderfoot was the grandest of entertainment. Therefore, when the hewgag would bray, signifying that a Poor Blind Candidate (PBC) had appeared in camp and was ready to have the veil of ignorance lifted from his eyes by having revealed to him the great truths and secrets of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E CLAMPUS VITUS, the brethren hurriedly gathered from far and near for the merriment.
With the decline of mining and the depopulation of the camps in the diggins, ECV membership also declined, so that by 1915, there was only one lodge left. E CLAMPUS VITUS redivivus, the revival of Clamperhood as it exists today, started about 1930 as the observance of an historical curiosity. The men responsible for this re-awakening were lovers of California history Carl Wheat, George Ezra Dane, Leon Whitsell and several of their friends. They had gathered in San Francisco to talk about this colorful group that they had read about called E CLAMPUS VITUS. They continued to meet periodically after that and enjoyed speculating about its amusing aspects. Then, they met a man, well into his 80's at that time, who had been a member of Balaam Lodge #107402 ECV in Sierra City during the decline of the mining days. This man, Adam Lee Moore, was able to recall the ritual of initiation and the signs of ECV almost in its entirety (although, it is said that during the early Clamper meetings that none of the Brothers was in any condition to keep the minutes and afterwards nobody could remember what had taken place).
E CLAMPUS VITUS was formally revived in 1931 at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco as Yerba Buena Redivivus #1 by these brave historians, the fathers of modern day Clamperdom. There are 62+ chapters of E CLAMPUS VITUS as of this writing, with many more "Outposts" (wannabe chapters) to join the organization in the future. The Four Georgians 4681 is one of those "wannabe's", but will be a full fledged chapter this very year at her charter Do-Ins!
The Redivivus is happening!
The order of E Clampus Vitus is one of the fastest growing Fraternal Brotherhoods in America. With over 50,000 members nationwide currently in 62 different chapters, the history of E Clampus Vitus is being written as we speak. New traditions are being established, new rituals are taking place, and new members are having the veil of ignorance lifted from their eyes every day!