A nervous encounter with 'Sheahocaneas'

FORT BRIDGER --The Historic Trails wagon train will camp at Fort Bridger until Monday,

Many of the Oregon Trail emigrants occasionally met groups of Indians, Those meetings did not always go well.

Edwin Bird,. who traveled the trail in 1854 wrote about one nervous confrontation:

Crossed the Sweet Walter about noon ... . This eavening we are camped upon the river and oposite ofits snow mountains

The Cheaf & a number a/the Sheahocaneas or Snake Indians visited our camp when a rather curious circumstance happened & one which did not speak very well for our scalps. Mr Parks had traded horses or rather a mulefor an Indian Poney with the Cheafs Son in, jitting the stump strap he axadentally cut the young Blods fiinges at once his wild Indian nature was aroused he sayed that a large company of his tribe were camped near us & that white men draw blud on an Indian good & sayed that he would come that knight & scalpe the whole train

ButMr P -understanding them & knowing their love of money presented him with half a dollar which restored pufict friendship so much so that he wanted to embrace him

On July 21, several Shoshone and Arapahoe tribal members and officials from the Wind River Reservation met the Historic Trails wagon train at South Pass City, but Wagonmaster Morris Carter did not talk to them.

Source: Wyoming Archives.