Treks
History shows us how tiny details can make big differences. For example: A river called the Colorado cut a ditch that thousands of centuries later would be called the Grand Canyon. And: Scouts hiking Philmont Scout Ranch high country in northeastern New Mexico might not be enjoying high adventure today if not for a big rodent with barbed hair.
If you think that sounds crazy, just read what else history tells us.
The big rodent was the beaver, and the barbed hair of its undercoat was the perfect fur to mix with rabbit hair to press into cool, lightweight felt. For hundreds of years this fine felt had been made into hats for stylish ladies and gentlemen of Great Britain and Europe. People paid plenty for a good hat.
But hat makers started to run out of beaver fur in the early 1800's. When a new supply of fur was found in North America, felt makers lined up to buy it. Their eagerness inspired bands of hardy young North Americans to seek their fortunes in the fur trade.
One such fortune seeker was Charles Beaubien, a French Canadian who wandered far south into the mountain town of Taos in Mexican territory sometime in the 1820's. (New Mexico unofficially became part of the United States after the Mexican War in 1846.) He liked Taos so well he settled there, became a Mexican citizen and became partners with Guadalupe Miranda, secretary of state for the territory.
What does all this have to do with Philmont?
Beaubien and Miranda applied for some free land to develop. The Mexican government hoped the two prosperouw citizens would build towns in northern New Mexico and help keep out settlers from the United States. In 1841, Mexico granted the partners a huge chunk of territory that lay along the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and straddled the Santa Fe Trail, the main route leading to the United States.
Today, a piece of that land is regularly crisscrossed by the hiking boots of Scouts, who call it Philmont.
In the 1840's the Jicarilla Apache and Ute tribes had a different nam for the place. They called it "our hunting ground" and had used it for hundreds of years. Comanche, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Pueblo and Navajo also liked to stalk game in the cool high plains and mountains in summer. Nobody welcomed white men from the East.
But the Americans came anyway. Trappers showed up seeking furs, and traders came to sell wagonloads of blankets, cloth and axes in Santa Fe. Mexican colonists, far from any other source of goods, paid in cash and mules, both highly prized in frontier America.
The promise of big profits and adventure made many frontiersmen dare the wrath of the Native Americans and Mexican officials. Soon the trail to Santa Fe echoed to the sounds of creaking wagons and the cracking whips of the drivers.
Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson, 16, was one who showed up in 1826 trying to get a start as a trapper. Short and bowlegged, he hung around New Mexico, ragged and hungry, doing odd jobs and learning Spanish for most of two years before somebody took a chance and hired him. By 1842, he had become a seasoned mountain man with years of experience as a fur trapper.
Kit had been overland to the Pacific Coast and back, a rare adventure in those days. He carried in his head an atlas of wilderness trails that stretched from Mexico to Canada and Colorado to Oregon. He had survived skirmishes with bears, Indians, starvation and weather. Now fluent in Spanish and many Indian languages, he had won a reputation as a good man to have around in time of trouble.
At age 32, Kit Carson would prove to be a good teacher for another young man getting set to do some important things in Taos. Kit's pupil: Lucien Bonaparte Maxwell, a bold, thick-shouldered trader from Illinois Maxwell was educated and had learned to speak French from his mother's family.
In Taos--a town of about 4,000 people--it was no surprise that Lucien met Charles Beaubien. It is possible the two may have chatted together in French. Certainly Maxwell did whatever he could to impress Beaubien, because the young man had his eye on Luz Beaubien, charles's eldest daughter. Lucien must have won approval, because he and Luz were married.
Maxwell joined Carson to guide the expeditions of bold and energetic Lieut. John C. Fremont. Fremont was an explorer and U.S. Army map maker charting trails and mountian passes of the West. His findings would help open the country from Missouri to California.
Though the United States was at war with Mexico, Fremont's small party was dealing with an older, nastier conflict against Indians.
The men had gone to sleep in their camp near Klamath lake in what is now southern Oregon. Not guard was posted, because the local Klamath people seemed friendly. Suddenly Carson sprang awake at a sinister sound. His voice aroused the others and soon they all were fighting for their lives.
Arrows whizzed in the dardness. The Klamath leader charged and fought fercely, but he was cut down by rifle fire. The rest of the Indians rushed the camp, then fled, descouraged by the guns of the whites.
When the sun rose, three men in their party were dead. The head of one had been split by a hatchet as he slept. That was the sound that had awakened Carson. Two others were killed by arrows during the fight.
If Kit Carson had slept soundly that night, possibly no one would have survived--and the story of Philmont might have turned out quite different. As it was, Maxwell and Carson lived to build homes and ranches on the Beaubien-Miranda land grant at the Rayado River. Some buildings of old Rayado remain today at the south end of the camp.
While Carson became famouts--Fremont's reports made him a national hero--Maxwell became rich. Gold was found on the land he now owned by ingeritance and purchase. Money poured into Maxwell's hands, yet he tired of trouble with miners and other who flooded the area--and tired of trying to keep peace with Indians. He sold the land in 1870 and moved to Fort Sumner, N.M., where he bought property and buily yet another large mansion. Maxwell died there in 1875.
Maxwell's Beaubien-Mirands land grant--more than 1.7 million acres, larger than some Eastern states--was broken up among several owners after 1870. But in 1922 the choice stretch of mountains and praire that lay along the northern branch of the Santa fe Trail south of the town of Cimarron caught the eye of Waite Phillips, who had built his fortune in oil, banking and real estate.
By the early 1930's Phillips had purchased 300.00 acres for cattle and sheep ranching and recreation. His family grew up loving the ranch they named Philmont, and Phillips became a student of the region. Unlike some of the earlier owners, Phillips attempted to restore game, moved beaver from grazing areas to mountian parks and conserved grazing land.
In time Phillips began to think of ways to share the benifits of this wild and beautiful area with others. He had in mind what he called a "university of the outdoors" where young people could learn the "virtues of faith, initiative, self-reliance, resourcefulness and courage," he said. He chose the Boy Scouts of America as best suited to make use of the property and in November 1938 gave 35,857 acres of property along with 50,000 for the creation of a national Scout camp.
The camp was called Philturn Rockymountain scoutcamp, "Philturn" being a combination of Phillips's name and the Scout custom of doing a Good Turn daily. It was a handsome gift, but Phillips after watching the special way Scouts used and enjoyed the land gave even more. Much more.
On Dec. 30, 1941, Phillips presented 91,538 more acres to the Scouts. He added Villa Philmonte, his home at the ranch; hunting and fishing lodges tucked into canyons of the ranch, and many smaller buildings. Perhaps as important, he added the 23-story Philtower building in Tulsa, Okla., an office building that provided revenue to support what had now become the 127,395-acre Philmont Scout Ranch. When Phillips died in 1964, he left funds to pay camping fees for Scouts who could not otherwise attend Philmont.
In 1963, Norton Clapp gave the BSA and additional 10,098 acres of land on teh east slope of Baldy Mountain, bringing the siz of the ranch to 137, 493 acres.
Scouts can be grateful to Phillips for creating the idea of Philmont and the gift he fashioned from the wilderness handed down through the time machine of history. And Philmont campers can also give and nod of recognition to descendants of some important historical characters the next time they hike past a beaver dam at Philmont.
More than a half-million Scouts in 60 years have accepted Philmont's challenge. They usually take home a patch--and much more. The spirit of the "Philmont Hymn" can last a lifetime.
Time travel, as any reader of science fiction knows, has one rule: Don't mess with anything in the past, or when you get home, home may not be there. The smallest event in the past can echo many years in the future.
Scouts Follow Beaver Trail
Indian Hunting Ground
Carson and Maxwell Team Up
Head-Splitting Hatchet
A land of Riches
At First:Philturn
Aspen covered hills, country that I love.
Philmont here's to the thee. Scouting paradise.
Out in God's Country--tonight.
Wind in the whispering pines, eagles soaring high,
Purple mountains rise, against an azure sky.
Philmont here's to thee, Scouting Paradise.
Out in God's Country tonight
For life, for opportunity
For friendship, and fellowship
We thank thee oh Lord.
Where the old Rayado flows,
Where the rain comes a-seepin,
In the tent where you're sleepin,
And the waters say hello!
