Denis Julien’s most famous rock inscription, in Hell Roaring Canyon on the Green River, upstream from confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. The date says May 3, 1836. Note what appears to be a boat carved next to it.
Antoine Robidoux founded Fort Uncompahgre in Colorado and Fort Uintah in Utah. Denis Julien was associated with Robidoux and probably worked for him at Fort Uintah during the 1830s. Handbags Manufacturer
Members of the Julius Stone expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers stopped to examine Julien’s inscription in 1909.
Denis Julien’s most famous rock inscription, in Hell Roaring Canyon on the Green River, upstream from confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. The date says May 3, 1836. Note what appears to be a boat carved next to it.
Sometime in 1831, a French-American fur trader carved an inscription on a sandstone surface near what is today Whiterocks, Utah, not far from the Uintah River. The message said simply: “Denis Julien 1831.”
Over the next dozen years, Julien left at least eight rock messages in Utah and one in Colorado. But it would be another century before historians began to unravel the mystery of Denis Julien.
And it wasn’t until the 21st century that a detailed biography of Julien was written, showing he operated at least two different trading posts, traded with a variety of Native American tribes and didn’t make his way to the Rocky Mountain West until he was in his mid-50s.
During the latter part of the 19th century and the early 20th century, however, all that people knew was someone named Julien carved his name, often in places along the Green and Colorado rivers that appeared accessible only boat. His most famous inscription, just above Cataract Canyon along the Green River, is next to a drawing of what appears to be a small boat with a mast.
That has prompted speculation that Julien was one of the earliest Euro-Americans to attempt to boat down the Green and Colorado rivers, decades before Major John Wesley Powell made the first documented river trip down the two rivers in 1869.
Julius Stone led an expedition down the Green and Colorado in 1909, and he remarked on the inscription above Cataract Canyon. But Stone also knew little about its author. “It is well known that trappers and hunters visited the river long before the canyons were systematically explored,” he wrote. “Possibly D. Julien was one of these.”
The 1831 White Rocks inscription had been seen by many people over the years, but no one had made the connection to the carvings along the Colorado and Green rivers until Utah historian Charles Kelly was shown the site in 1931. Then, he began seeking information about Julien’s background.
Kelly reasoned that Julien was associated with Antoine Robidoux, who opened Fort Uintah, a trading post near the Uintah River, in 1831.
Kelly contacted authorities in St. Louis, Robidoux’s home town, and tracked down documents showing four children belonging to Denis Julien and his Native American wife, Catherine, were baptized in St. Louis between 1798 and 1809.
Antoine Robidoux founded Fort Uncompahgre in Colorado and Fort Uintah in Utah. Denis Julien was associated with Robidoux and probably worked for him at Fort Uintah during the 1830s.
Kelly also wrote there were five Julien inscriptions “found in different places on the Green and Colorado rivers,” all with the date 1836 attached.
He concluded: “Since no record can be found that he survived the year 1836, it seems logical that he may have been the first white victim of the treacherous rapids of Cataract Canyon.”
However, thanks to the research of author James Knipmeyer and the observations of others, it is now clear that Julien left several rock inscriptions in the region after 1836.
One, in Echo Park in what is now Dinosaur National Monument, is the only inscription found in Colorado. It says: “DJ 1838.” Because the initials are carved in the style of other Julien inscriptions, researchers are certain it was his.
The last carving attributed to Julien was discovered in a remote area of Arches National Park in 1977. It reads: “Denis Julien” “9 6me 1844,” meaning Sept. 6, 1844. Although different in style from his other rock carvings, it is consistent with Julien’s signature on some written documents, Knipmeyer said.
Whether Denis Julien was born in St. Louis in the 1770s, or moved there with his family when he was young, as so many French-Canadians did in the last decades of the 18th century, it’s clear he was associated with French fur traders in the Mississippi River town.
Julien’s name appears in the ledgers of St. Louis fur-trade family Chouteau in 1803 and 1805, and he was awarded licenses to trade with the Sioux and Iowa Indians then. He initially operated as an independent fur trader, conducting business primarily with his wife’s relatives, the Iowa Indians along the Des Moines River.
In 1805, he opened a small trading post on the east side of the Mississippi River near today’s Navoo, Illinois. He and his family remained their 14 years, and he regularly hired other French-Canadians to trade in the backcountry for him.
In 1821 he was listed as a property owner in Prairie du Chien, on the Mississippi River in today’s Wisconsin.
By 1824, he had moved to Fort Atkinson on the Missouri River in Nebraska. His children were grown by then, and it’s unclear what happened to his wife, Catherine.
Members of the Julius Stone expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers stopped to examine Julien’s inscription in 1909.
In 1825, Julien shot and wounded a man at Fort Atkinson. He wasn’t prosecuted, but he soon left the area. In 1826, he joined Francois Robidoux on a journey from Taos, New Mexico, to recover furs cached in Ute country in today’s Colorado or Utah.
In 1828, Antoine Robidoux established Fort Uncompahgre on the banks of the Gunnison River just outside today’s Delta, Colorado. The same year, three men, including Denis Julien, opened a small trading post near the junction of the Whiterocks and Uintah rivers.
So Julien was familiar with the area by the time Robidoux purchased their store, rebuilt a larger store a few miles away and renamed it Fort Uintah. In fact, Julien may well have accompanied Robidoux when he traveled from the Gunnison River to the Uintah River in November of 1831.
When Julien began exploring the banks of the Colorado and Green rivers beginning about 1836, it was likely to find new sources of beaver and other fur-bearing creatures. Whether he hiked into the sites where he inscribed his name or used a boat is unknown.
By the time he inscribed his name on the wall in Arches National Park, the fur trade had declined dramatically, and so had Antoine Robidoux’s fortunes. Angry over the deaths of some Utes in Santa Fe at the hands of New Mexico officials in the summer of 1844, Utes in Colorado attacked and burned Fort Uncompahgre in September, and later Fort Uintah. Robidoux, who was not present at either when the attacks occurred, abandoned the trading posts.
Julien may have been making his way between the two posts in the aftermath of the attacks, Knipmeyer speculated, and traveling on to Taos. He would have taken an out-of-the-way route to avoid contact with the Utes, and that’s likely when he carved the inscription in Arches.
After carving that message, Julien disappeared from the historical record. In 1938, a Denver newspaperman said Julien had gone to California with the Robidoux brothers, and had died there. But Knipmeyer could find no record of him in the Golden State.
Also in the 1930s, a historian in Wisconsin wrote that Julien had returned to Prairie du Chien, and was buried in that fur-trade community. But Knipmeyer could find no record of Julien being there after the 1820s.
Denis Julien was about 70 when he carved his 1844 message.
Sources: “The Mysterious ‘D. Julien,’” by Charles Kelly, Utah Historical Quarterly, July, 1933; “The Life and Times of Denis Julien, Fur Trader,” by James H. Knipmeyer,; “The Denis Julien Inscriptions,” by James H. Knipmeyer, Utah Historical Quarterly, January 1996; “A Canyon Voyage,” by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, 1926; “Canyon Country,” by Julius F. Stone, 1932.
Bob Silbernagel’s email is bobsilbernagel@gmail.com.
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