Charles Wright

During my career as a naturalist/interpreter I took a book from the Living History re-enactments, and gave programs as historical figures. Being a plant nerd, I identified with Charles Wright.

" Good evening. I am Charles Wright. I was born in Wethersfield Connecticut October 29^th, 1811. I graduated from Yale University in 1835 and after two years in Natchez Mississippi, moved to Texas. I became a teacher and in 1845 was the principal at the first college in Texas, the Methodist Rutersville College near La Grange. Because of a course in botany at Yale, I often taught botany to my students and by 1844 was corresponding with Asa Gray at Harvard. Dr. Gray helped me immensely – he bought my specimens, sent me supplies, and gave me letters of introduction to other botanists, including George Englemann in Saint Louis and Ferdinand Lindheimer in San Marcos. In 1847 I moved to Austin, still teaching, but also spending much more time making botanical collections. I was also hired as to survey Mason County.

In 1849, Dr. Gray arranged for me to travel with Captain S.G. French to El Paso and back beginning May 21st in San Antonio. I was with the supply train for a battalion of men led by Major Van Horn, who was to establish a fort at El Paso. We had 275 wagons and 2500 head of livestock. At least two parties of ‘49ers had traveled our route earlier, as well as Lt. Whiting expedition three months before us. Rip Ford and Texas Indian Agent Robert Neighbors traveled our way a month earlier than us, but started from Austin. Captain Randolph Marcy would soon travel north of our route on his return trip after surveying the Fort Smith to Sante Fe route, and we would utilize part of his route past the Guadalupe Mountains on our return.

 To the east of the Pecos, we had several encounters with friendly Lipan Apaches led by Castellito, but west of the Pecos, we ran into unfriendly Mescalero Apaches under Espejo (looking glass). Our scout was a friend of Jose Policarpo Rodriguez, Whiting’s assistant scout. Richard Howard was Whiting’s chief scout. Our scout, Jose Ruiz, was a relative of the great Texas patriot Antonio Navarro and he knew the Lipan Apaches we had earlier met, and served as interpreter. He had been a go-fer on one of Richard Howard’s surveying crews that I had served on in Mason County – Policarpo had been Howard’s chief hunter.  Ruiz was never mentioned in Captain French’s report, although Ruiz did a superb job during our trip. Although we were following a large command, his reconnaissance forewarned our wagon train of the presence of Espejo’s scouts.

Captain French made me walk. I did not mind, not that much. The wagons only traveled six to eight hours a day, and at the same rate as I walked. With a wagon train that stretched out sometimes over a mile, I could wander away from the road when I spotted something and still catch up. French felt that I was placing myself in danger and would fuss at me for wandering off the way. This evening I would like to tell you of one of my adventures during the trip on August 12th.

On the 12^th we left the Pecos River (which we crossed 30 or so miles below Horsehead Crossing) and headed to Escondido Creek. We traveled up a wide valley, with a large mesa to our north. The road led up a hill beyond, and angling slightly southwest would pass into another valley – that of the Escondido. As we climbed up the hill between the watersheds I found a showy Oenethera that I had not seen before, and was not in Thomas Drummond’s collections west of Austin during the mid-1830’s. Nor had I seen it before during my explorations with the surveying party.

It was an unusual Oenethera – a perennial with a long tubular calyx. It formed wonderfully floriferous clumps. Like many evening primroses, the flowers wilt by mid morning, but with this species the flowers hang on the plant and slowly turn orange during the heat of the day. Although it grew in limestone soils, it seemed to be more prolific in a white chalky soil. Young Ruiz later called the soil caliche – the first time I had heard this Spanish word. He said it was common in northern Mexico. He said it often was underneath the soil a few feet down in places where people tried to farm in regions with little rainfall.

Intrigued by the soil, I wandered about examining the other flora. Being the heat of summer, the landscape was dry. Dry for the most part, that is. Rainfall comes by thunderheads during the summer, so isolated areas were as green as can be. The wagon train and cattle disappeared over the hill – but I was not worried – I could see the dust rising from it, even after it crested the hill.  

I found the dried remains of an Orobanche or broomrape, under a green mound of fine leaves on a multi-trunked perennial. Broomrape species are parasitical, but I had no clue what the little green mounds were. I kept looking, hoping to find blooms and seeds, but the rains that had greened up the Oenethera had only caused new green growth on the little mounds. Before I left the caliche I shifted my vasculum (a field collecting container) to my other shoulder and viewed the trail behind me.

In the far distance I saw two horsemen. I immediately knew (or felt in my heart) that they were Indians. I also felt in my heart that these men were not Lipans – I cannot explain why I felt dread at their sight.

Even at the distance of three or four miles, I believed I could see tension in their postures, so I looked in the direction their horses faced. Ruiz was skylined on the mesa to the south of the valley, and was headed my way. I decided to skedaddle and began jogging up the hill. After ten minutes I neared the top of the hill and turned to look back. I could no longer see either the strange horseman, or Ruiz. I went on over the top and alternated jogging with walking and constantly looked back. I jogged among a number of large Spanish bayonets standing taller than a man on horseback. I kept noticing a number of small round cactus in the crevices of the areas where bedrock was exposed and wished I could collect them – one variety was in bloom, and the blooms were quite variable, with shades ranging from pinkish to reddish to even hints of orange.

When I reached the point I could see down into the valley of the Escondido, I could see the wagons and cattle spread out along several ponds. Around the ponds were cattails and reeds, but there were almost no trees. Scattered here and there were a number of dwarfed mesquite bushes. Instead of forming multi-trunked bushes or trees as they did on the other side of the Pecos, here most were in the form of hillocks, as if blowing dirt had collected at their base and somehow kept their height down.

Feeling safer, I decided to take a short rest. I sat on the last outcropping of rock of the hill, above the long slope to the valley. The late afternoon sun was about to be blocked by a towering thunderhead far to the west -- where Ruiz said tall mountains were to be found. I had asked him how he knew that, and he had replied that he had met a scout that had lead Dr. Connelly’s wagon train from Chihuahua City in 1845.As I sat there, I heard the sound of hooves. When I looked back, I could see Ruiz coming, so I waved him down and asked him about the two horsemen.

“They are Mescaleros – some of Espejo’s bunch, I am sure. He is a young leader how to prove himself to Chief Gomez who lives in the mountains ahead. Gomez gave Whiting a big scare a few months ago. The Apaches are not happy to have so many visitors to their territory. They have dealt with the soldiers at the presidios along the river for years, but they don’t have much experience with U.S. army soldiers. I imagine Espejo will have people watching us, and then Gomez will too. If a small group gets separated from this wagon train, then they might be in danger.”

I took Ruiz’s hint and started walking toward the encampments being formed up in the valley. About a half mile from the first camp I noticed another plant I had not seen before. It vaguely resembled a Sphaeralcea common further east, but the blossoms were paler, and the leaves had broader lobes. I couldn’t resist – after not collecting the cactus, I had to collect this species. When I knelt down, Ruiz chuckled and told me, “You’ll probably be safe – I hope my mess has some food hot.” He rode on and I dug in the tight gray clay of the valley."

***The Indians were Mescalero Apaches, but they did not catch Wright.  Charles Wright returned to San Antonio with over 2500 specimens. Of these, 67 were type specimens – the first ever collected of those species, including the species mentioned above, now known as Calylophus tubicula. He later became one of the foremost botanical explorers of the 19^th century. The trip mentioned above was one of the first ever co-sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution.