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Jim Bridger Encounters Red Men
By Carter E. Grant Principal of the Jordan Seminary

(Note: This is the fourth of a series of frontier narratives written by the same author. The former articles were: "In the Death Grip of the Grizzly," "On the Trail Ahead of the 'Mormons,' " and "When Jed met the Comanches." The next article will be "The First White Man to see the Great Salt Lake.")

It is said that "Buffalo Bill' (Colonel William F. Cody) was first introduced to the Wild West by "Mountain Jim," as Buffalo Bill later referred to James Bridger. He stated that Bridger knew the western portion of the United States better than any other man of his time. As if to partake of the wilderness atmosphere in its fullest extent and of savage life in particular, Jim married at least three dusky maidens, first, a Flathead; second, a Ute; and third, a trim damsel, daughter of a Snake chief.

Colonel Frank Triplett, in "Conquering the Wilderness," declares that this white chief, Bridger, also possessed a Blackfoot squaw, a mountain housewife or lodge supervisor; for during Bridger's days "not a few of the trappers followed the Indian custom of taking a plurality of wives, and such bold mountain men as Jim found no difficulty in obtaining for themselves the pick of the chief's daughters." Reverend Samuel Parker, who with Dr. Marcus Whitman arrived on the Green River as missionaries to the Indians twelve years ahead of the "Mormon" migration, writes, "in this place I parted with Captain Bridger and his party who went northeast into the mountains to their hunting grounds. The first chief of the Flatheads and his family (including Bridger's wife), with a few of his people, went with Captain Bridger." Twelve years later, 1847, when the "Whitman Massacre" occurred on the Columbia River, one of the granddaughters of this Flathead chief, "Mary Ann Bridger," then eleven years old, was attending the mission school conducted by Whitman and his wife, the half-breed girl having been sent there to be educated in the white man's ways. One of Bridger's daughters, Virginia, by a Ute mother, born in the mountains at Fort Bridger on July 4, 1849, was still well and hearty, October, 1924, when the picture was taken, found on page 476 of "James Bridger" by Alter. She was then living on her farm near Kansas City, Mo.

While the interest in matrimony is still fresh, let us read Col. Triplett's narrative regarding one of Bridger's wives. The adventurous lover, it seems, was surrounded and made prisoner, but due to the shrewdness of his dusky sweetheart, the warriors with their threatening hatchets were turned from the empty lodge of their escaped prisoner. Here follows the singular tale:

"Bridger's visit to the village had been made for the sake of a bright-eyed and handsome young squaw, who had returned with interest the sudden affections of the young white trapper. When he was taken captive to the lodge, she at first determined to hasten to the blockhouse and notify his comrades so that they might demand his release, but fearing an attack in which some of her relations might be killed, and during which her lover would certainly be assassinated, she chose the wiser course of endeavoring to effect his release herself.