Note 152 — MEMORANDOM OF THE VOIGE BY LAND FROM FORT SMITH TO THE ROCKEY MOUNTAINS. (continued 2)

Cow creek or one of its branches; vicinity of Lyons, seat of Rice Co.

Fowler has left the Arkansaw and taken up a devious ’cross country route, which is to bring him through Kansas into Missouri near Kansas City and so on through Independence, Mo., to Fort Osage, on the Missouri river. In 1822 the road which soon became the long famous Santa Fé caravan route from Independence to the great bend of the Arkansaw was hardly established. This went through Council Grove, by the most direct way which the traders found it convenient to take. For an examination of this route see Pike, ed. of 1895, pp. 517-522. It is interesting to note, as showing that no such route as this had become established and well known when Fowler went through, that he deviates widely from what would have been his most direct and in every way most eligible line of march. As we recover his trail we shall find it to be one now unknown, looping far to the S. into Butler Co., then passing heads of the Verdigris, crossing the Neosho below the mouth of the Cottonwood, and so on eastward with the requisite northing. I regard the trail we now take up as something of an unexpected discovery.