"They were confronted by a large party of Northern Cheyenne and Sioux warriors, who warned them to turn back or be killed." – WyoHistory.org
"Samuel Word is among the first to reach the mines by this land route." -Mattes, The Great Platte River Road (1987)
"They gathered a troop to follow Bozeman and Jacobs through the unknown country. One of the men was a lawyer named Samuel Word who detailed the expedition in his diary." -Montana Historian (October 2014)
When gold was discovered in Montana, there were few roads. John Bozeman was drawn to gold rush Montana, but disappointed in mining he decided to start a new venture leading wide-eyed emigrants to this new promise land.
Teaming up with experienced guide John Jacobs they scouted the region for a route through the mountains and Yellowstone River, finding a pass later called Bozeman pass.
They then recruited a party of 40 wagons and 90 men in Missouri to be the first to travel the unknown country to the gold fields of Montana. The new route would be 350 miles shorter than the Oregon Trail, saving a month of travel. It would be the first attempt to take a wagon train over what would later become known as the famous Bozeman Trail.
In Wyoming the group encountered a party of 150 Cheyenne and Sioux warriors who threatened to attack them if they didn't turn around. Unable to secure military protection all but ten men and all wagons would turn tail and return home.
One of the few remaining men brave enough to continue the trip was Samuel Word, an attorney by trade, who would make a detailed diary of the daily perils the group would experience. In 1917 the narrative would be published by Historical Society of Montana under the title "Diary of Colonel Samuel Word: Trip Across the Plains."
Traveling at night to avoid drawing the attention of hostile Indians, Word noted that "it is also more or less dangerous being through the heart of the Indian country. The route as well as I can learn runs, after crossing the Powder River, along the base of the Wind River and Big Horn Mountain clear to Beaver Head, through a beautiful country, abounding in fine grass, buffalo, grizzly bear, elk, deer, antelope and other wild animals that inhabit the far west."
In describing a dangerous encounter with a grizzly bear, Word writes:
"In the forenoon a large grizzly bear approached our camp. Fifteen or twenty men went out to give him fight, they wounded him, he charged upon the nearest of them and hurt two men badly, knocked them both down...."
After facing down starvation, Indians, grizzlies, and rough country cut by gorges, Word and the others, including Bozeman, would be the first group to successfully take the Bozeman Trail to the gold camp Adler Gulch.
