Its correct transcription, as shown by the accompanying photograph is as follows:. Translated into English it reads: "Antoine Robidoux passed here November 13, , to establish a trading house on the river Green or White. This inscription, the finest yet found in the state of Utah, is cut on the smooth face of a sandstone cliff near the mouth of what is locally known as Westwater canyon in the Book Cliffs, twelve miles west of the Colorado line, on the upper or old Larsen ranch, in section 5, township 18 south, range 24 east, Grand County, Utah, 15 miles due northwest of Westwater, Utah, a station on the D.
The nearest town is Mack, Colorado. Robidoux was camped in a cave or rock shelter near the mouth of the canyon on that date, and cut the inscription just south of the cave opening. The date is unmistakably , and for that reason it is a little difficult to understand Robidoux's message.
Fort Uintah had been established by him in the Uintah Basin as early as Apparently, on his journey of , he intended to locate a new post somewhere on the Green or White river and abandon the old Fort Uintah. This intention was never carried out, since Gen. Fremont and others visited Fort Uintah in the old location as late as In the fall of that year it was burned and the defenders massacred while Robidoux himself was on a trading expedition in the neighborhood of Fort Bridger.
Robidoux's intention to locate on the Green or White River, as indicated by this inscription, may have been prompted by the explorations of Denis Julien along the Green in the previous year, as evidenced by his five inscriptions on that stream, all dated in The location of this Robidoux inscription gives a clue as to the route of the Old Spanish Trail from the Grand river crossing to the Uintah Basin. From Robidoux's camp of Nov. Robidoux's headquarters were in Santa Fe from which place he branched out to establish a post on the Umcompahgre and later on the Uintah.
He arrived in Santa Fe in Above the shield is an inscription that reads:. Antoine Robidoux passe ici le 13 Novembre pour etablire maison traitte a la Rv.
These uncertainties have long been grist for debate among Utah historians. An accurate interpretation is important because it defines where and when Robidoux actually built his first trading post in the area.
If he meant Uinta, then it may have been ten miles farther north, near Bottle Hollow Resort and the confluence of the Green and Uinta rivers. Antoine Robidoux was born in , one of five sons of Joseph Robidoux, Sr.
Louis—based fur trading company. One or another of the Robidoux men are mentioned in many an explorer and immigrant journal of the s and 50s. For the Robidoux family was a prolific clan.
In business with Joseph, Sr. The men were not quite the cultured scions of St. Louis society that some writers have made them out to be. Most of them maintained rustic, nomadic lifestyles into old age. But they did become wealthy in the fur trade.
Antoine the elder as distinguished from a nephew Antoine spoke English, French, and Spanish and as a young man worked for his father, helping to extend their trade farther and farther west. By the early s Antoine was developing his own trade route along the Spanish intermountain corridor between Santa Fe and the Uinta Basin. He even became a Mexican citizen to facilitate licensing and partnerships, and he built Fort Uncompahgre on the Gunnison River.
Another of his posts was the Fort Uintah referred to in the Westwater inscription. Kit Carson mentioned encountering Antoine in the Uinta Basin in
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