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Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870
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About the Book
As early as 1550 BC, the Phoenicians exp...)
About the Book
As early as 1550 BC, the Phoenicians explored and traded throughout the Mediterranean Sea and Asia Minor. A Greek explorer from Marseille, Pytheas (380 – c. 310 BC) was the first to circumnavigate Great Britain, and explore Germany. Between 100 AD-166 AD, Romano-Chinese relations began. Chinese historical texts describe Roman embassies, from a land that they called Daqin. In the 2nd century Roman traders reached Siam, Cambodia, Sumatra, and Java, and by 161 an embassy from the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius or his successor Marcus Aurelius reached the Chinese Emperor Huan of Han at Luoyang. The Icelandic Viking explorer Leif Ericson (980–1020) reached Newfoundland and the nearby North American coast. On the other side of the world, Polynesians populated and explored most of the central and south Pacific for around 5,000 years, and around 1280 discovered New Zealand. Chinese explorer Wang Dayuan made two major trips by ship to the Indian Ocean. From the early 15th century until the 17th century Europeans discovered and/or explored vast areas of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Portugal and Spain dominated the initial period, with other European powers such as England, Netherlands, and France following later.
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The American West in the nineteenth century was a violen...)
The American West in the nineteenth century was a violent place.
Fear of punishment exercised no restraining influence on the conduct of men who had turned crime into a profession.
They hesitated at no atrocity necessary to accomplish their guilty designs.
In the lands of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming, murder and robbery often went hand in hand.
The country, filled with canyons, gulches, and mountain passes, was especially adapted to conducting murder, and the unopulated distances between mining camps afforded ample opportunity for carrying them into execution.
Pack trains and companies, stage coaches and express messengers, were as much exposed as the solitary traveller, and often selected as objects of attack.
Miners, who had spent months of hard labor in the accumulation of a few hundred dollars, were never heard of again after they left the mines to return to their distant homes.
There was no limit to this system of organized brigandage.
When not murdering and stealing, these villains spent their ill-gotten gains through gambling, licentiousness and further terrorizing the local populations.
But the people of these regions did not bow down to the bandits forever, instead they rose up against their oppressors and formed vigilance committees, took the “law unto themselves” and condemned the outlaws to death.
What else could they do? How else were their own lives and property to be preserved? What other protection was there for a country entirely destitute of law?
Nathaniel Pitt Langford’s fascinating Vigilante Days and Ways uncovers the ways of life of early pioneers to the American West, how they survived in the face of lawlessness and eventually killed those who were persecuting them. By presenting the details of people lived during this time he allows the reader to come to their own conclusion as to whether the vigilantes were justified in their actions or not.
“Vigilante Days And Ways brings to life dramatic scenes of Montana in the 1860s when it was attractive to most of its newest residents only for the gold that lay waiting to be scooped from its streams.” Midwest Book Review
Nathaniel Pitt Langford was an explorer, businessman, bureaucrat, vigilante and historian from Saint Paul, Minnesota who played an important role in the early years of the Montana gold fields, territorial government and the creation of Yellowstone National Park. Vigilante Days and Ways was first published in 1890 and Langford died in 1911.
The Discovery of Yellowstone Park: Journal of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870
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With the ecological integrity of Yellowstone National P...)
With the ecological integrity of Yellowstone National Park in contention between developers and environmentalists, the events of its exploration and founding take on added interest. This Bison Books edition of Nathaniel P. Langford's journal brings back into print one of the principal sources of information on the exploration of the Yellowstone region and its establishment as America's first national park.
The findings of the 1870 Washburn expedition, of which Langford was a member, gave credence to the findings of the Folsom party of 1869 and resulted in the sending of a government survey party into the area in 1871. The culminating effect of the three expeditions was the federal legislation creating our first and largest national park and marking the beginning of the national concern for the preservation of America's heritage of wilderness beauty.
The Folsom-cook Exploration Of The Upper Yellowstone In The Year 1869
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This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
The Louisiana Purchase and Preceding Spanish Intrigues for Dismemberment of the Union (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Louisiana Purchase and Preceding Spanish...)
Excerpt from The Louisiana Purchase and Preceding Spanish Intrigues for Dismemberment of the Union
The first individual to see the evils which might ow from a dependence upon this outlet to the ocean by the people living west of the Alleghanies, was Washington himself. He had carefully noted the ow of the rivers beyond the Alleghanies, and the portages between them and the rivers owing down their eastern slope, at the time of his first visit into that region before the Revolution, and was only hindered from forming a company to unite them by an artificial channel, by the cc currence of the Revolution itself. The year after peace was declared he again visited the country bordering the upper waters of the Ohio, and at this time regarded the improvement not only of immense importance in its commercial aspect to the States of Maryland and Virginia, but as one of the neces sities of the general government. He had noticed, says Washington Irving, that the anks and rear of the United States were possessed by foreign and formidable powers, who might lure the Western people into a trade and alliance with them. The Western States, he observed, stood as it were on a pivot, so that the touch of a feather might turn them any way. They had looked down the Mississippi and been tempted in that direction by the facilities of sending everything down the stream, whereas they had no means of coming to the At lantic sea-board but by long land transportation and rugged roads. The jealous and untoward disposition of the Spaniard, it was true, almost barred the use of the Mississippi; but they might change their policy and' invite trade in that direction. The retention by the British Government, also, of the posts of Detroit, Niagara, and Oswego, tho-ugh contrary to the spirit of the treaty, shut up the channel of trade in that quarter.
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Nathaniel Pitt Langford was an American explorer, businessman and historian. He was the first superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park.
Background
Nathaniel Pitt Langford was the twelfth child of George Langford II, a bank cashier of Westmoreland, New York, by his wife Chloe, daughter of Nathaniel Sweeting of Oneida County, New York. His paternal ancestor, John Langford, settled at Salem, Massachussets, about 1660; and his mother's forebear, Zebiah Sweeting of Somerset, England, came to Rehoboth, Massachussets, some time before 1699. Each family contributed two generations of soldiers to the War of the Revolution.
Education
He received an elementary education in a rural school.
Career
Langford, in 1854, migrated with his three sisters and his brother Augustine to St. Paul, Minn, and remained there as cashier in various local banks till 1862. In that year, on account of his health, he joined Capt. James L. Fisk's Northern Overland Expedition to the Salmon River gold fields as second assistant and commissary. After traveling 1, 600 miles, most of the party settled for a stormy winter in the Prickly Pear Valley, but Langford and a few companions pushed on to Bannack, a Montana outpost 400 miles from the nearest permanent settlement.
Gold had been discovered there in 1861; news of the discovery reached the outside world late in 1862, and that winter and the following spring thousands flocked in. The mining community found itself thronged with thieves and ruffians of all descriptions. Since there were no police and no courts of law, any one suspected of having gold was likely to be ruthlessly murdered. To handle the situation a group of courageous men, all of the Masonic order, took it upon themselves to punish outlaws, and Langford was one of those who played a distinguished part in organizing this celebrated Vigilante method of law administration and enforcement. His Vigilante Days and Ways (2 vols. , 1890) describes these stirring times with a lucidity and literary charm which entitles it to a permanent place in American literary history.
Upon the organization of Montana as a territory in 1864, Langford was appointed United States collector of internal revenue. In 1868 he was twice removed from office by President Johnson and twice reinstated by the Senate. In December 1868 Johnson appointed him governor of the territory, but the appointment was not confirmed by the Senate. In 1869 D. E. Folsom had penetrated the district, but was driven back by Indians. He told Langford and a few other intimate friends what he had seen, with the result that Gen. H. D. Washburn then organized, with the assistance of Langford, Lieut. G. C. Doane, and Judge Cornelius Hedges, an exploring party of nineteen men, and on August 17, 1870, they left Helena. These four kept diaries of the journey, each of which has been published, but Langford's is the most finished and complete and is a masterpiece of descriptive narrative (Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Fire Hole Rivers in the Year 1870, 1905). Folsom and Hedges had each suggested independently that the Yellowstone district should become a national park, but it was Langford who brought the Yellowstone district to the attention of the nation through lectures and popular magazine articles (Scribner's Monthly, May, June 1871, June 1873).
After the park was created by act of Congress, March 1, 1872, Langford served for the first five years, without compensation, as its superintendent. During this period he protected the park from numerous attempts at unscrupulous exploitation, and he was thus largely responsible for its being what it is today. He held various public offices in Montana till 1884, although in 1876 he had returned to St. Paul, where he resided until his death. He was an active member of both the Montana and the Minnesota historical societies, being president of the later body from 1905 until his death.
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The American West in the nineteenth century was a violen...)
Connections
Langford married Emma, daughter of Charles Wheaton of Northfield, Minnesota, November 1, 1876. She died soon afterwards, and on September 14, 1884, he married her sister, Clara Wheaton.