10 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. i, 1910. 
laborers were sent for, and work on the fort 
was continued. Some time before his death Kit 
Carson stated that at one time more than a 
hundred and fifty Mexicans were at work on 
the construction of the post. 
Accounts of the dimensions of the fort differ, 
but on certain points all agree: that it was of 
gray adobes, set square with the points of the 
compass, and on the north bank of the Arkansas 
River. Garrard says that the post was a hundred 
feet square and the walls thirty feet in height. 
Another account says that the walls ran a hun¬ 
dred and fifty feet east and west and a hundred 
feet north and south, and that they were seven¬ 
teen feet high. J. T. Hughes, however, in his 
“Doniphan’s Expedition,” printed in Cincinnati 
about 1847, says: 
“Fort Bent is situated on the north bank of 
the Arkansas, 650 miles west of Fort Leaven¬ 
worth, in latitude 38° 2' north, and longitude 103° 
and 3' west from Greenwich. The exterior walls 
of this fort, whose figure is that of an oblong 
square, are fifteen feet high and four feet thick. 
It is 180 feet long and 135 feet wide and is 
divided into various compartments, the whole 
built of adobes or sun-dried bricks.” (Page 26.) 
At the southwest and northeast corners of 
these walls were bastions or round towers thirty 
feet in height and ten feet in diameter inside, 
with loop holes for muskets and openings for 
cannon. Garrard speaks of the bastions as hex¬ 
agonal in form. 
Around the walls in the second stories of the 
bastions hung sabres and great heavy lances with 
long sharp blades. These were intended for use 
in case an attempt was ever made to take the 
fort by means of ladders put up against the 
wall. Besides these cutting and piercing imple¬ 
ments the walls were hung with flint lock mus¬ 
kets and pistols. 
In the east wall of the fort was a wide gate¬ 
way formed by two immense swinging doors 
made of heavy planks. These doors were 
studded with heavy nails and plated with sheet 
iron, so that they could never be burned by the 
Indians. The same is true of the gateway which 
entered the corral to be described later. 
Over the main gate of the fort was a square 
watchtower surmounted by a belfry, from the 
top of which rose a flagstaff. The watch tower 
contained a single room, with windows on all 
sides, and in the room was an old-fashioned 
long telescope or spyglass mounted on a pivot. 
Here certain members of the garrison, relieving 
each other at stated intervals, were constantly 
on the lookout. There was a chair for the 
watchman to sit in and a bed for his sleeping. 
If the watchman, through his glass, noticed any¬ 
thing unusual—for example, if he saw a great 
dust rising over the prairie—he notified the peo¬ 
ple below. If a suspicious looking party of In¬ 
dians was seen approaching, the watchman 
signalled to the herder to bring in the horses, 
for the stock was never turned loose, but was 
always on herd. 
In the belfry under a little roof which rose 
above the watchtower hung the bell of the fort, 
which sounded the hours for meals. Two tame 
white-headed eagles kept at the fort were some¬ 
times confined within this belfry or at others 
were allowed to fly about free, returning of their 
own accord to sleep in the belfry. One of these 
eagles finally disappeared and for a long time 
it was not known what had become of it. Then 
it was learned that it had been killed for its 
feathers by a young Indian at some distance 
from the fort. 
At the back of the fort over the gate, which 
opened into the corral, was a second-story room 
rising high above the walls, as the watchtower 
did in front. This room—an extraordinary 
luxury for the time—was used as a billiard room 
during the later years of the post. It was long 
enough to accommodate a large billiard table 
and across one end of the room ran a counter 
or bar, over which drinkables were served. 
These luxuries were brought out by Robert and 
George Bent, young men who did not come out 
to the fort until some time after it had been 
constructed, and who being city dwellers—for 
I have no record of their having any early ex¬ 
perience of frontier life—no doubt felt that they 
required city amusements. 
The watchtower and billiard room were sup¬ 
ported on heavy adobe walls running at right 
angles to the main enclosing walls of the fort, 
and these supporting walls formed the ends of 
the rooms on either sides of the gates in the 
outer walls. 
The stores, warehouses and living rooms of 
the post were ranged around the walls and 
opened into the patio, or courtyard—the hollow 
square within. In some of the books dealing 
with these old times, it is said, that when the 
Indians entered the fort to trade, cannon were 
loaded and sentries patrolled the walls with 
loaded guns. This may have been true of the 
early days of the fort, but was not true of the 
latter part of the decade between 1840 and 1850. 
At that time the Indians, or at least the Chey¬ 
enne Indians, had free run of the post and were 
allowed to go up-stairs, on the walls and into 
the watchtower. The various rooms about the 
courtyard received light and air from the doors 
and windows opening out into this court-yards, 
which was graveled. The floors of the rooms 
were of beaten clay, as was commonly the case 
in Mexican houses, and the roofs were built in 
the same fashion that long prevailed in the 
West. Poles were laid from the front wall to 
the rear, slightly inclined toward the front. 
Over these poles, twigs or brush were laid and 
over the brush clay was spread, tramped hard 
and gravel thrown over this. These roofs were 
used as a promenade by the men of the fort 
and their families in the evenings. The top of 
the fort walls reached about four feet above 
these roofs or breast high of a man, and these 
walls were pierced with loop holes through 
which to shoot in case of attack. 
Hughes in his “Doniphan Expedition, says: 
“The march upon Santa Fe was resumed Aug. 
2, 1846, after a respite of three days in the 
neighborhood of Fort Bent. As we passed the 
fort the American flag was raised in compli¬ 
ment to our troops and in concert with our own 
streamed most animatingly on the gale that 
swept from the desert, while the tops of the 
houses were crowded with Mexican girls and 
Indian squaws, intently beholding the American 
army.” 
On the west side of the fort and outside the 
walls was the horse corral. It was as wide as 
the fort and deep enough to contain a large herd. 
The walls were about eight feet high and three 
feet thick at the top. The gate was on the 
south side of the corral and so faced the river. 
It was of wood, but was completely plated with 
sheet iron. More than that, to prevent anyone 
from climbing in by night, the tops of the walls 
had been thickly planted with cactus—a large 
variety, which grows about a foot high, has 
great fleshy leaves closely covered with many 
and sharp thorns. This grew so luxuriantly 
that in some places the leaves hung over the 
walls, both within and without and gave most 
efficient protection against any living thing that 
might wish to surmount the wall. 
Through the west wall of the fort a door was 
cut, leading from the stockade into the corral, 
permitting people to go through and get horses 
without going outside the fort and opening the 
main gate of the corral. This door was wide 
and arched at the top. It was made large enough 
so that in case of necessity—if by chance an at¬ 
tacking party seemed likely to capture the horses 
and mules in the corral—the door could be 
opened and the herd run inside the main stock¬ 
ade. 
About 200 yards to the south of the fort 
and so toward the river bank, on a little 
mound, stood a large ice house built of adobes 
or sun-dried bricks. In winter when the river 
was frozen this ice house was filled, and in it 
during the summer was kept all the surplus 
fresh meat—buffalo tongues, antelope, dried 
meat and tongues and also all the bacon. At 
times the ice house was hung thick with flesh 
food. 
On hot days, with the other little children, 
young George Bent used to go down to the ice 
house and get in it to cool off, and his father’s 
negro cook used to come down and send them 
away, warning them not to go in there from the 
hot sun, as it was too cold and they might get 
sick. This negro cook, Andrew Green by name, 
a slave owned by Governor Charles Bent, was 
with him when he was killed in Taos, and after¬ 
ward came to the fort and was there for many 
years, but was at last taken back to St. Louis 
and there set free. In some of the books he is 
spoken of as “Dick.” 
Besides Bent’s Fort, Bent and St. Vrain owned 
Fort St. Vrain on the South Platte, opposite the 
mouth of St. Vrain’s Fork, and Adobe Fort on 
the Canadian. Both these posts were built of 
adobe brick. Fort St. Vrain was built to trade 
with the Northern Indians; that is, with the 
Sioux and Northern Cheyennes, who seldom got 
down south as far as the Arkansas River and 
so would not often come to Fort William. The 
Adobe Fort on the Canadian was built by re¬ 
quest of the chiefs of the Kiowa, Comanche and 
Apache to trade with these people. The chiefs 
who made this request were To'hausen (Little 
Mountain) and Eagle-Tail Feathers, speaking 
for the Kiowa, Shaved Head for the Comanche 
and Poor (Lean) Bear for the Apache. 
These in their day were men of importance. 
Shaved Head was a great friend of the whites 
and a man of much influence with his own peo¬ 
ple and with neighboring tribes. He wore the 
left side of his head shaved close, while the hair 
on the right side was long, hanging down to his 
waist or below. His left ear was perforated 
with many holes made by a blunt awl heated 
red hot, and was adorned with many little brass 
rings. Before peace was made between the al¬ 
lied Cheyenne and Araphoe and the Kiowa, Co¬ 
manche and Apache in the year 1840, the last 
three tribes were more or less afraid to visit 
Fort William, lest they should there meet a 
