Note 165 — MEMORANDOM OF THE VOIGE BY LAND FROM FORT SMITH TO THE ROCKEY MOUNTAINS. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Appanoose creek, a branch of the Marais des Cygnes which falls in near Ottawa, seat of Franklin Co., into which Fowler has passed from Osage Co.
“In 1812 a Captain Becknell, who had been on a trading expedition to the country of the Comanches in the summer of 1811, and had done remarkably well, determined the next season to change his objective point to Santa Fé,” says Inman, p. 38. When at or near the Caches on the Arkansaw, he left that stream and took his party across country on the Cimarron or dry route; but they were obliged to return, after suffering horribly from thirst, and follow up the Arkansaw route to Taos.
“The virtual commencement of the Santa Fé trade dates from 1822”; and in 1824 was made the first attempt to introduce wagons, etc., says Inman, p. 51. According to Gregg, a better authority, both pack animals and wagons were used 1822-25, but after that wagons only. According to Fowler’s passage above, we see that Becknell had taken wagons in 1822 if not earlier; and thus the party to which Col. Marmaduke was attached, and which reached Santa Fé with wagons in 1824, was not the first to pass through Kansas on wheels.