This work comes with its share of frustrations. Research angles go nowhere. Lovingly and meticulously crafted annotation is rendered superfluous by new information. Most relevant to this post, some of our correspondents stubbornly remain ciphers. Recently, I worked on a two-letter exchange (to appear in a future volume) between Jefferson and an individual who signed as Anthony G. Bettay and who caught the president’s attention with the offer of a western plant that he supposed was “hitherto unknown to the world.” Bettay was writing in January 1808 from western Pennsylvania, having returned from a trip to the interior of the continent. In addition to the plant, which he had decided to call the “Silk nettle,” Bettay claimed to have discovered a silver mine near the Platte River or one of its tributaries, to which he was happy to lead an exploring party, provided he could be guaranteed a cut of the proceeds of the mine. He also claimed to have traveled across the continental divide and explored part of the way down a river said to have an outlet on the Pacific Ocean. Interesting stuff! A year after the Corps of Discovery completed their state-sponsored exploration, a random individual returned successfully from what seems to have been a solo voyage with similar goals—geographical exploration, economic exploitation, and natural history.
Given silver’s place in Colorado history (the headwaters of the Platte are in Colorado), the letter has not escaped notice. No previous scholars working on it, however, were able to learn anything about Bettay. “Aha!” I thought. “None of these other investigators enjoyed internet search tools such as now exist. I’ll have no problem sketching out a little biography” (Narrator voice: “He figured out nothing. Also, who says ‘such as now exist’?”). Bettay’s letter to Jefferson remains, so far as I can find, the sole evidence of his existence.
What then to make of his letter, which previous scholars—probably correctly—have deemed fabulistic? Take the purported plant for example. The nettle in the name derived from the pain it inflicted on those who touched it (like a cactus?). It grew eight-feet tall (ok, maybe still a cactus?) and had a “thick strong bark” that when weathered for a couple of months became silky and fibrous (wait, what?). Bettay believed that it could produce cordage and even finer wares. I’m no botanist, but I pretended to be one for this investigation and eventually did find a couple of possibilities—the Agave americana (century plant) and Agave filifera (thread agave). Both flower spectacularly, sending stalks high above the rest of the plant, but the latter thrives only in central Mexico, ruling it out. Agave americana’s flowering cycle occurs rarely (thus its alternate name), but its range includes parts of the present-day United States, and like filifera it is noted for its uses. A Scientific American article from 1885, for example, noted that Mexicans derived both needles and a coarse thread from it. Here’s a picture of the plant during its flowering phase:
Maybe not exactly how one might picture what Bettay discussed, but allowing for the lack of precise scientific understanding, its existence lends him some credibility.
What about the trip itself? Bettay claimed finding a passage across the great divide via the Platte and then traveling by a river he called the Cashecatrengo, which he believed flowed to the Pacific and along which he found the silk nettle growing. Let’s assume that he meant the Colorado River, the only waterway in the area that could be understood to have a Pacific outlet. The Platte splits into two main branches, the South and North, both of which have their headwaters in Colorado. The South Platte starts southwest of present-day Denver before flowing through that city and then northeast to its confluence with the North Platte in western Nebraska. The North Platte begins to the west of Fort Collins and flows north into Wyoming before bending southeast toward the confluence. The passes through the divide near the South Platte are high and treacherous and were not verifiably explored until the 1820s, but that area did yield silver mines and is closest to the headwaters of the Colorado. The North Platte affords more passable terrain over the divide, where an explorer might find either the Colorado or the Yampa River, which flows into the Colorado via the Green River. Those who previously pondered the question favored the South Platte as a route because of its more obvious proximity to silver lodes.
Regardless, this would have been a formidable journey full of peril, so the odds of Bettay actually having made it are very small. Trappers and traders from St. Louis, not to mention Zebulon Pike, had begun to scout the area between the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers, and Spanish exploration parties had been venturing from Santa Fe northwest into the Rockies. One such party ventured as far as the Sierra Nevada range. Bettay may have picked up some stories that were shared among explorers he encountered in St. Louis or elsewhere. Whatever the source, Bettay’s descriptions at least piqued Jefferson’s interest. Although indicating that tensions with the Spanish militated against any attempts to protect a mine so far removed from U.S. settlement, he welcomed an account of the Platte and of the river that Bettay “supposed to run into the Pacific.” He likely enclosed a copy of Bettay’s letter to Treasury secretary Albert Gallatin, describing it as an “account of a silver mine to fill your treasury.” The president may have been a bit arch here, and his phrase “supposed to run” indicates skepticism on his part. Then again, if he discounted Bettay’s account completely, he likely would not have sent it to Gallatin. About the plant, Jefferson was so intrigued by the prospect of a newly discovered, useful specimen that he inquired about it to Pennsylvania’s representatives in Congress, whom Bettay had claimed to have contacted. Those politicians had no information, so Jefferson urged Bettay to send seeds of the plant directly to him. No seeds were sent, and Bettay disappeared.
This disappearance clouds Bettay’s motivations. One possibility, suggested in conversation by our project director Jim McClure, is that Bettay was baiting Jefferson into embracing a tale that would expose an enthusiasm for new discoveries, however fantastical, something about which Federalist wags liked to ridicule him. Alternatively, Bettay may have been ingratiating himself to Jefferson because he perceived a shared interest. In this, he would have been far from alone. Because of his reputation as a champion of science, Jefferson attracted no small number of letters from otherwise unknown individuals sharing their passion for discovery or invention. Bettay was one of many correspondents who contacted the president about their work in steam power, perpetual motion, or surveying and discovery. Most would have been described condescendingly as “enthusiasts.” Bettay’s letter suggests someone more lucid than some of the other correspondents of this sort. But then, we don’t ultimately know anything about him. Perhaps he was something of a failure, who reached out to Jefferson as a means of elevating his own sense of significance. Or maybe he really did cross the divide. Maybe he returned to the Rockies and became a mostly solitary figure, trapping furs, interacting uneasily with Native American groups in the area (though peaceably enough to stay alive), and eventually mentoring would-be Jeremiah Johnsons. Sort of like this guy:
But here, I’m just engaging in my own enthusiasms, trying to make narrative sense out of a dead end tale with no answers.
Further reading:
Anthony G. Bettay to Jefferson, 28 Jan. 1808. See manuscript image at the Library of Congress. See early access transcription on Founders Online.
Jefferson to Bettay, 18 Feb. 1808. See manuscript image at the Library of Congress. See early access transcription on Founders Online.
“The Needle and Thread Plant,” Scientific American, 52 (1885), 407.
Charles J. Bayard, “A Notice of Silver Ore on the Upper Platte in 1808,” Colorado Magazine, 51 (1974), 43-51.
Mel Griffiths and Lynnell Rubright, Colorado: A Geography (Boulder, 1983), 22-32.
