Ewing Young in Far Southwest 7 search of nitre, one of the essentials in their powder- making enterprise, but being unable to find any or to obtain it from any other source, the party broke up, and all but three or four went back to Missouri. Young and Wolfskill were among those who remained in New Mex- ico. In the fall of 1822 they, with others, formed a party which trapped the waters of the Pecos. 3 The whereabouts of Young during the year 1823 are, at present, unknown. He may have returned to Missouri with the furs collected in the fall hunt but we have no documentary proof that such was the case. All we know is that he was not with Wolfskill who, in January, 1823, set out with a single companion on a trapping expedition down the Rio del Norte. Young, Wolfskill, and Slover lead a trapping party to the San Juan, 1824. In February, 1824, Young, Wolfs- kill, Slover and others fitted out a trapping party at Taos to trap on the San Juan and other tributaries of the Colo- rado or Rio Grande of the West as it was then called. "The party was numerous at first, but as it made around the foot of the west side of the Sierra Madre, the various members, one after another, took down the different streams that suited them for hunting, till there only were left Mr. Wolfskill, Slover, and Young, whose object was to get outside of where trappers had ever been. They remained out till the beaver season was over and arrived again at Taos in June." 4 The furs collected in this expe- dition brought some ten thousand dollars. The second expedition down the San Juan, 1824. A second and much larger expedition, one, in fact, consist- ing of about sixty or more men, made its way down the San Juan in the fall of 1824, but whether Young was a 3 H. D. Barrows, "The Story of an Old Pioneer. Biographical Sketch of Wm. Wolfskill" {The Wilmington Journal, October 20, 1866). This was originally printed over the initial "B," but was later read by H. D. Barrows before the Historical Society of Southern California and printed in the Annual Publications of that society for the year 1902, V. 287-294. 4 Ibid.
