It all started with an ad in the Missouri Gazette & Public Advertiser of St. Louis on Wednesday morning, Feb. 13, 1822. The big news in St. Louis that week was an ad, signed by William H. Ashley, which had been gossip in the local taverns for the past five months. The ad read:
“TO Enterprising Young Men. The subscriber wishes to engage ONE HUNDRED MEN, to ascend the river Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two or three years. — For particulars enquire of Major Andrew Henry, near the Lead Mines, in the County of Washington, (who will ascend with, and command the party) or to the subscriber at St. Louis. William H. Ashley”
Major Henry had gone to the mountains as early as 1808. During the next three years he crossed the continental divide to the Snake and Columbia rivers. Dissension within the small company and the War of 1812 stopped all trading and trapping in the northwest. If anyone was qualified to re-establish the American fur trade in 1822, it was Henry.
The men which General Ashley and Henry had to recruit for this first large expedition into the northern Rocky Mountains would be a mixture of good and bad. Of the local fellows, most were skilled watermen and some the best woodsmen in the world; however, they were easily provoked by the contents of the whisky barrel. These were men who had to be trusted to fight whenever in trouble.
To make the mission a success, he needed to find a substantial number of Kentuckians or Virginians, with their long rifles, sharpshooter’s eye and unwillingness to yield an inch under fire. It was these hunters who revolutionized the fur trade and were a major reason for the expansion and success of the fur trade in the west.
Hugh Glass was born in Pennsylvania, but nothing is known of his early life. Several sources indicate that he was born in 1783. He was apparently on the Gulf Coast of Texas in 1816 and was captured by the French pirate, Jean Lafitte. He was forced to become a pirate on one of the pirate ships operating of the coast of America, in the Gulf of Mexico for the next two years. Sometime in 1818, he escaped by swimming to shore near what is today Galveston, Texas.
He somehow was captured by the Pawnee tribe and lived with them for several years. In 1821, Glass traveled to St. Louis, Missouri with several Pawnee delegates who were invited to meet with U. S. officials. Glass joined General Ashley’s company in 1823. Because he was an expert marksman, he was employed as a hunter to provide food for the party of eighty-one men.
It was near the forks of the Grand River, near where Lemmon, South Dakota would later be located that he came upon a mother grizzly bear with two cubs sleeping in the thick brush. He was in an advance party of several men ahead of the large group of fur trappers who were headed to the Yellowstone River.
In the 1820s, the grizzly was the one animal which hunters and trappers considered really dangerous. They were called “white bear” by the earlier explorers. Many were the narrow escapes related by members of the Lewis and Clark party and other frontiersmen who were attacked by the beast. Few mountain men failed to have disastrous experiences with them at one time or another.
The female grizzly, when her cubs were small, was always savage and dangerous. At close quarters, no living thing could withstand a fighting grizzly. The most notable story of an encounter between a white man and a grizzly was that of Hugh Glass which occurred along the Grand River. It is possible that his story has survived because of the amazing facts of treachery and a man’s grim fight to live.
At the time of his encounter with the bear, Glass was 40 years old. One morning, as a member of the advance party he suddenly came upon a monster female grizzly bear that rose and attacked him before he had time to “set his trigger” or even turn to flee.
The bear seized him by the throat and lifted him from the ground. Hurling him down, she tore off a mouthful of his flesh and took it to her cubs who were nearby. Glass tried to escape, however the bear, followed by her cubs pursued him, attacking him again and again. His shoulder and both hands and arms were crushed.
Glass was in a terrible condition and he had apparently given himself up for dead when a companion came upon the gruesome scene. Just then, the main body of trappers arrived. A dozen shots were fired and the mother bear fell dead over the torn and mutilated body of Glass.
It was found that he was still alive, but in an apparently hopeless condition. His whole body was mangled beyond recognition, he was unable to stand and suffered excruciating pain. No surgical aid could be given and it was impossible to move him. No part of his body failed to show the ferociousness of the attack.
Delay of the party in this hostile country would mean disaster for the entire group. A lengthy discussion was held to determine what course of action to take. As there was not the slightest hope for his life to continue, Major Henry finally decided that two men would remain with Glass until he died. Their reward was eighty-two dollars.
These men stayed with Glass for five days. When they had decided his recovery was hopeless and no prospect of his immediate death or improvement were visible, they mercilessly abandoned him on the desolate prairie near the Grand River.
Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on June 28, 2023