Copied from The Life of Miles Goodyear, by Wayne LeRoy Venable, Master of Science Thesis for U of U, 1966. Pg 17-20

[Pg 17] On July 6, 1836, the caravan arrived at the junction of Horse Creek and the Green River, near present day Daniel, Wyoming, where the Rendezvous was gathering.  Each party had to select their own camp spot, and were responsible for guarding their own goods and animals.  The latter were pastured on the grassy marshes near the river.  There were about 1,500 persons present at this Rendezvous.

                                    14.  Ibid.

Pg 18 –  The missionary party selected a place and began to organize their camp.  The valley was wide and flat with several streams meandering through it to the Green River.  The fur company had a trading hut near the center of activity a short distance from the Green River.  TO the west of this, the hunters and trappers had strung out their camps.  South about one mile along Horse Creek, the Snake and Bannock Indian camps were located.  Up the river to the north for some six miles were the camps of the Flathead and Nez Perce Indians.  The missionaries found a spot just east of the fur company’s hut, near the Green River.^15

            With the troublesome wagons parked and the horses turned to graze, Miles, with some leisure time, wandered through the camps watching, listening, and learning.  Trading was being carried on at almost every tent.  Drunkenness, fights, tricks, and gambling were witnessed everywhere.  The travels and experiences of each man were told and retold, often fortified with booze and fiction.  Furs were exchanged for needed supplies for the next season.  Miles completed his introduction to mountain life.

            The Rendezvous had a new attraction that year, white women.  A curiosity the Indian had heretofore never [EOP]

                                    15. Ibid, p. 122

Pg 19 – encountered.  Osborne Russell, a member of the Rendezvous describes this oddity as follows:

The Indians were gazed upon with wonder and astonishment by the rude Savages they being the first white women ever seen by these Indians and the first that had ever penetrated into these wild and rocky regions.^16

           After talking freely with the men around camp, Miles decided the life he would like to live was here in the mountains as a free trapper.  The free trapper, or freeman as they were commonly called, were the most interesting and enviable class in the mountains.  They were bound to no group or company and had complete freedom to go where they pleased.  They were usually men of bold and adventurous spirits, a temperament that suited Miles very well.  They were full of courage, an attribute needed for so hazardous a business.^17  Desirable as this appeared to Miles, he was confronted with two problems.  It took money to purchase the necessary outfit for trapping, and he also felt obligated to the Whitman-Spalding group.

Because of the failure of Rev. Parker to meet them at the Rendezvous, Whitman and Spalding were at a loss as to how they would travel to Oregon.  However, a Hudson’s Bay party, under the leadership of John McLeod and Thomas [EOP]

                                   16. Osborne Russell, Journal of a Trapper or Nine Years in the Rocky Mountains, 1834-1843 (Boise: Syms—York Co., 1921), p. 41

                                   17. Hiram Martin Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West (New York: Francis P. Harper, 1902), I, p.55.

Pg 20 – McKay, arrived at the Rendezvous indicating their intentions of going to Fort Walla Walla in the Oregon country.  After being accosted by Whitman, they consented to let the missionary group join their caravan.  Whitman and Spalding felt Providence had been in their favor.^18

                                   18. Jennie Broughton Brown, Fort Hall (Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, 1932), p. 257