Thomas Nuttall - Science Explorer

One of Wyeth's 1844 expedition members was the hardened frontiersman and shrewd Yankee trader, Thomas Nuttall.  Nuttall was a 48 year old Harvard professor recluse.  Nuttall, English born, was one of the leading United States naturalists.  He was also eccentric and unworldly.

Nuttall was no novice when it came to wilderness exploration.  In 1810, he took a two year trip up the Missouri River beyond the Mandan Villages.  He once wandered 100 miles across the prairie without food or water because he was so intent on collecting botanical specimens. 

Nuttall sought neither wealth nor fame and seemed indifferent to danger.  The Indians considered him a kind of Holy man and left him in peace. 

In 1834, along with another naturalist, John K. Townsend, Nuttall collected 1000s of specimens of animals, vegetable, and mineral in the Rockies and Oregon Country. 

Back East in the Harvard Botanical Garden, people saw and studied unknown species that were only found in the West - thanks to Professor Nuttall. 

Next time...Northwest Indian Fishermen
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Today in Pioneer History: "On January 9, 1887, record cold and snow decimate cattle in one of the "worst days in the worst winter in the West,” nearly an inch of snow falls every hour for 16 hours, impeding the ability of already starving cattle to find food.

A New Era of Western Migration

A dozen or so years after the westward emigration had begun, the Trail had undergone significant changes.  There were trading posts, stagecoach stations, and travel no longer meant empty vast land and loneliness.    Travel had been reduced by almost a month.  Telegraph poles were strung along the entire length of the route by 1861, and messages could be sent from coast to coast in seconds. 

The fear of Indians was the new threat to this "second generation" western emigrants.  Their fear was
equaled only by their ignorance to Indian ways and customs.  A common custom of Indians, for example, was to offer strangers a token of hospitality and the Indians expected the same in return from the travelers, which resulted in reports of Indians "begging" the pioneer travelers.  If truth be told in most cases, the Indians had given their "tokens of hospitality" and were looking for the pioneers' return tokens.

This ignorance was more dangerous because it was usually accompanied by a show of arrogance by the pioneers.  Helen Curtis noted in her journal  that once the party had reached Pawnee Sioux territory:  "There was a white man who boasted that he would kill the first Indian he saw.  He soon had the opportunity of fulfilling his boast as he saw a squaw.  He shot her as he would a wild animal and the Indians came on and demanded the fellow be given up.  The Indians skinned him alive."

More on Indians on the Trail next time...

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Today in Pioneer History:  On February 9, 1864  Elizabeth Bacon marries George Armstrong Custer and would become his most dedicated champion.