which came through southwestern Missouri, southeastern Kansas, and following the course of Grand River passed Fort Gibson and continued on to Texas. For many years an amazing number of emigrants, freighters, and traders going to or returning from the then unknown country beyond Red River passed over this road.

In 1831, the whole of the Seventh Infantry was ordered to Fort Gibson and the officers reported the interior of the stockade much overcrowded by the host of officers and men, laundresses and servants. The year 1832 was a notable one in the history of Fort Gibson. A commission had been created by Congress for the purpose of locating in the Indian Territory the Indians about to be removed from the East. It was necessary for the commission to make its headquarters at Fort Gibson, and negotiate treaties with the wild Indians which were to prepare them for the impending changes in their neighbors. The commissioners were Montford Stokes, until then governor of North Carolina, Henry L. Ellsworth, of Hartford, Connecticut, and Rev. John Schermerhorn. They were afforded protection by the Ranger company of Captain Jesse Bean, who arrived at the post in October, 1832, and was then ordered to the West on an exploring tour. Mr. Ellsworth arrived at Fort Gibson that same month, accompanied by Washington Irving and some friends whom he had met on Lake Erie and had invited to accompany him to Fort Gibson. They came down the Texas Road past the Creek agency at Three Forks, just below the site of Okay, and arrived at the bank of Grand River, across which Irving noted the neatly whitewashed blockhouses and palisades of Fort Gibson. Someone halooed across the river, and a scow, which served as ferryboat, was brought over; the travelers entered the boat, which was poled by soldiers across the stream; as it was tied up to the landing the visitors stepped ashore and walked up the bank 150 yards to the gate of the garrison. A sergeant’s guard admitted them, and as they entered the fort their attention was attracted to a number of men pilloried in stocks and riding the wooden horse. Startled at this spectacle, Irving made a note of it in his journal.

On their arrival at Fort Gibson, Washington Irving and Commissioner Ellsworth and their friends, on learning that Captain Bean’s company was somewhere up the Arkansas River, after spending two nights in Colonel Arbuckle’s quarters in the fort, started out to overtake the Rangers and share in their adventures. They were gone a month on this trip, and from his experiences on that expedition Irving wrote his famous book, A Tour on the Prairies. The company returned to Fort Gibson on the ninth of November, and the next day Irving departed down the Arkansas River by steamboat for New Orleans and Washington.

The inhabitants of the fort were awakened each morning as the bugler sounded reveille at daybreak to rouse a sleeping garrison; later the crash of the morning gun echoed and re-echoed among the neighboring hills and rumbled across the more distant prairies, startling deer and bear in their sheltered beds. The flag was run to the top of the staff to catch the first rays of the rising sun. After an early breakfast the soldiers went about their routine duties; details worked in the garrison garden among the vegetables; oxen, horses, and mules were fed, watered, and cared for; recruits were put through their drills by the sharp commands of officers, and the bugle sounded at intervals throughout the day, carrying its lively messages over the surrounding valleys and hills.

The end of the day of toil or boredom, as the case might be, was announced by the drums sounding retreat, followed by the evening gun and the ceremony of lowering the flag at sunset. The roll of the drum and the shrill notes of the fife sounded tatoo at nine o’clock and warned stragglers to cease their amours and other diversions and return to their quarters within the palisades before the great gates should close and shut them out; taps then sounded, and Fort Gibson was again stilled in darkness. This routine repeated day after day, month after month, and year after year, made life at the post a dull experience. It was an isolated station in the western wilderness, far from civilization and white settlements of consequence. The officers and men, exiled, as they termed it, to this remote garrison, wearied of its limited possibilities for entertainment. Trifling incidents varied the dull routine of their lives, and episodes that mattered were of absorbing interest.

BARRACKS OF FORT GIBSON

Some cheerful diversions were available, however; there was good fishing in the river a few yards from the post, and thousands of prairie chickens and other game afforded zestful hunting. A billiard room furnished entertainment. Plays were written and presented in the “theater,” the building used on occasions for Indian councils and religious services.

A course was laid out and every year there were exciting horse races for high stakes with entries from all divisions of the fort’s population—officers, traders, and Indians. Indian ponies, that hardly had time to rest up from running buffalo, were entered against the horses of the post. And there were crooked race horse owners who came up the river to the fort for the sole purpose of making what money they could by their peculiar methods. This situation became so demoralizing that Colonel Loomis issued an order barring these people from the reservation. When other things palled—and when they did not—there was always the gossip of the post, rumors and confirmation of promotions, expeditions, and details; the departure of a command on a commission that would at least give the men a change of scene; the rare arrival of the paymaster, with fifty to one hundred thousand dollars in the custody of his military escort; the frequent arrival of steamboats when the rivers were high; and when they were not, visitors and supplies coming by keelboats, wagons, or pack trains.

The hoarse resonance of a steam whistle in the distance told a jaded garrison that a steamboat on the Arkansas River was approaching the fort. Presently the boom of the signal gun on board announced that she had passed the bars three miles below and had safely entered the Grand River. There was always a crowd at the landing place to see her as she came into view down the stream. As the jangle of her bell or the exhaust of her engines heralded her arrival, the multitude was increased by people who were anxious to share in the excitement when she was tied up to the shelving rock that made a natural dock.

For there were passengers to come ashore—friends to greet, who were returning from leave with news from the outside world, messages, and newspapers, and strangers to inspect—young officers from West Point, older officers trained by service in other posts who had come to a new assignment, recruits to fill gaps in the ranks. There were civilians, too, merchants from the neighborhood who had been east exchanging furs and skins for fresh supplies of merchandise; sutlers who brought stores to sell to the officers and soldiers, and bonnets, dresses, and finery for the ladies of the post. And there were wives and children come to unite long-separated families, and young ladies who planned to visit and bring a measure of gaiety to the garrison. Mail bags promised letters from distant relatives and friends. Deck hands and soldiers unloaded boxes and crates of merchandise. It was a busy and noisy scene. Officers went aboard to enjoy the hospitality of the captain and to sample the liquors on his boat.

Young ladies came from the East to visit relatives