Andrew Garcia, born in El Paso, and moved north to Montana in 1876 and became a mountain man. He wrote down his story in his later years which was published as "Tough Trip Through Paradise."
Garcia served as a herder and packer for the U.S. Army in Montana in the Yellowstone and Musselshell country, working for Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis "Boys in Blue" out of Fort Ellis from 1876-1878. He was present during the Nez Perce War. The book begins in 1878, when Garcia left his job with the army to go into business with a man named Beaver Tom, trapping beaver and trading for buffalo robes. While trading with members of the Pend d'Oreilles tribe, Garcia met and married a Nez Perce woman known among the Pend d’Oreille as In-who-lise ('Broken Tooth'; her original name, Kot-kot-hy-hih, means White Feather), who had been with Chief Joseph's tribe when they ran from the U.S. Cavalry. The book includes Garcia’s reproduction of her firsthand account of the final engagement with 7th Infantry at the Battle of the Big Hole.
Men like that 'tamed' the West.
ReplyDeleteAlong the lines of mountain men, two books that I found interesting:
ReplyDeleteAlone in the Wilderness, Joseph Knowles, 1914
The author stripped naked and walked into the wilderness, staying for about a year.
https://archive.org/details/aloneinwildernes00knowrich
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9408574-alone-in-the-wilderness
Last of the Breed, Louis L'Amour, 1987
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_of_the_Breed
Or you could just go outside.
Jim
Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher... The movie Jeremiah Johnson was based on this book.
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