By: Peggy L Henderson
In 1870,
an expedition set out into Yellowstone to document the wonders of the area that
so many fur trappers had talked about, but not many people wanted to believe.
It was called the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition, which consisted of
nineteen men and forty horses.
One
unlikely man who joined this strenuous expedition into the wild, uncharted
territory of Yellowstone was a 54-year-old former assessor for the territory of
Montana by the name of Truman Everts. For
him, it was the chance of a lifetime to explore where not many men had gone
before.
By
September, the expedition reached Yellowstone Lake and were getting ready to
head back to Helena. Often during the expedition, the party would split up as
various groups went to explore different areas. It wasn’t uncommon for members
of the party to separate from the main group for a day or two, but they always
met up again.
One day, while the main party made their way
through thick timber between Heart Lake and Yellowstone Lake, Everts became
separated from the group. This didn’t cause much alarm for anyone, since it
often happened. Even Everts wasn’t worried about it. He made camp and figured
he’d meet up with the party again the following morning.
The next
day, he set off in the direction the party had been traveling, certain that
he’d meet up with them for breakfast. He became disoriented, however, in the
forest. He also made one serious mistake – he got off his horse and didn’t tie
the animal properly while he tried to find a way through a particularly dense
area. The horse ran off, carrying all his gear and supplies - blankets, guns,
everything. He had only the clothes on his back, a couple of knives and a small
opera glass.
This was
only the beginning of a series of unfortunate events for Truman Everts in one
of the most amazing survival stories ever. He became completely disoriented at
this point. Rather than heading toward Yellowstone Lake where he might have met
up with his party, he went further south, where he encountered snow and rain. Due to the bad weather, he camped in a thermal
area to keep warm, He managed to catch a small bird to eat, but nothing else,
and after being lost for eleven days, he was able to finally make fire using
his opera glass.
He lost
his two knives that he’d carried, but once again was able to improvise using a
belt buckle and fishhook out of a pin. He lost these items when he accidentally
started a small forest fire and severely burned himself.
Everts’
party had waited for him for several days and sent out a search team, but as
the days passed and the weather got worse, they had to start heading back to
civilization. They left food for Everts in various locations, but Truman never
found them.
For 37
days, Everts stayed alive eating nothing but the roots of elk thistle, which is
today known as Everts Thistle. He walked, crawled and struggled his way around
Yellowstone Lake and down the Yellowstone River.
In mid-October,
he was finally found by two men – Jack Barronnett and George Pritchett, who
were offered $600 to go out and search for him by Everts’ former companions to
find and bring back his body for proper burial. Noone expected to find him
alive. Barronett almost shot him, thinking he was a bear crawling among the
rocks. Everts was delirious, covered in
burns and frostbite, and weighed in at around 55 pounds.
One man
stayed with Everts to nurse him back to some strength, while the other made a
75-mile trip back to Helena, Montana, to get help. When it was time to collect their reward,
Everts refused to pay his rescuers, saying he could have made it out alive by
himself, and said they had been offered the money for a body, not a live man.
Everts
gained a lot of publicity for his harrowing tale and was even honored by being
offered a job: first superintendent of the new Yellowstone Park in 1872. He
turned the job down, because there was no salary for the job. A year after his
ordeal, he published an account of his survival journey titled “Thirty-Seven
Days of Peril”. He lived until 1901, dying in Maryland at the age of 85,
apparently none the worse for wear from being lost in the first national park.
Peggy L
Henderson
Western
Historical and Time Travel Romance
“Where Adventure Awaits and Love is Timeless”
Award-Winning and Best-Selling Author
of:
Yellowstone Romance Series
Teton Romance Trilogy
Second Chances Time Travel Romance
Series
Blemished Brides Western Historical
Romance Series
Wilderness Brides Historical Romance
Series
He was certainly ungrateful for his rescue. Maybe he didn't have the reward money that had been offered, but he doesn't sound like a cordial man, does he? I enjoy your posts about Yellowstone history, Peggy.
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