Uinta County WY Archives History - Books .....Chapter Four Fur Traders And Trappers 1924
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Book Title: Uinta County, Its Place In History

CHAPTER FOUR 
Fur Traders and Trappers

    In 1823 William H. Ashley, a Virginian, who had settled in St. Louis,
entered the fur trade. He was commonly known as General Ashley, having gained
the title in the state militia of Missouri. With him was associated a group of
men whose names have become famous in western Wyoming. Andrew Henry, whose
services were invaluable both as organizer and explorer, became one of the
partners, and he holds a unique place in that sturdy band. He was fond of
reading and a skillful performer on the violin, which was his constant companion
as well as an object of great interest to his comrades. Others whose names are
connected with the region embraced in our subject are David F. Jackson, the
Sublette brothers, Etienne Provost, Jedediah S. Smith, James Beckworth and James
Bridger, all men of ability in some line.

    The first year Ashley established a trading post on the Yellowstone in what
is now eastern Montana. This was soon abandoned because of the hostility of the
Indians. In 1823 his men crossed to the mouth of the Big Horn and followed it to
its source. [1]

[1] Chittenden.   "American Fur Trade."


    The Interior Basin embraces the northern part of the Rocky Mountain region
and was the last to be explored by the fur companies. It is cut off from easy
access by the diverging chains of mountains, the Big Horn and Medicine Bow
ranges to the east, the Uinta and Wasatch to the south, and the Wind River and
Bitterroot ranges to the west.

    In the spring of 1824 Ashley brought out the main body of his trappers to
the Spanish River, which he rechristened Green River in honor of one of his St.
Louis partners. Here the men separated into small companies and started out in
different directions with the understanding that all were to assemble in the
Green River Valley, at the mouth of the Sandy, on or before the tenth of the
following July. One party of seven, headed by a man named Clement, traveled up
Green River, exploring the region that was later part of the original Uinta
County. Geography was in the making and we are unable to trace their course with
any degree of accuracy, but it is interesting to note that on one of the small
streams flowing in from the west they saw a band of wild horses near the site of
the present town of Daniel, and gave the stream the name of Horse Creek, which
it still bears. They had trouble with Indians, and one of the number, named
LaBranch, was killed while he was separated from the main band. [2]

[2] Ibid.


    On the first of July, 1824, they gathered, according to appointment, for the
first Rocky Mountain rendezvous. The place of meeting had been changed to a spot
about twenty miles north of the mouth of Ham's Fork of Green River. Success had
attended the efforts of the trappers and the scene is one to stir the
imagination. General Ashley had brought out a supply train of pack horses with
traps, clothing, goods for Indian trade and other provisions, including whiskey.
Furs were counted, experiences of the various expeditions were exchanged, notes
on the topography of the country compared, and rough maps drawn which became the
foundation of the geography of the future. General Ashley, accompanied by fifty
men, left the following day with the furs, which were to be loaded in boats on
the Big Horn en route to St. Louis. [3]

[3] Ibid.


    Some idea of the scale on which the business was conducted may be gained
from the account of an Indian raid on Bovey's Fork of the Big Horn, in which a
single trapping party lost one hundred horses and forty traps.

    Beckworth says that the men remaining at the rendezvous after Ashley's
departure did not separate for a week, and were joined by twenty-five of those
who had left with the leader after they had loaded the furs on the boats. His
accounts of their doings, as well as of many incidents of the fur traders, were
gathered into a volume entitled "The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckworth,
Mountaineer, Scout, Pioneer and Chief of the Crow Nation," which was published
from his dictation late in his life. He was a unique character, of mixed French
and negro parentage, and while he can hardly be called great in any direction
save that of prevarication, his book gives us some realistic pictures of
mountain conditions. He was commonly called "Jim Beckwith." He was not without
his admirers, one of whom, William F. Drannon, says: "He was a hero in his day.
For bravery he was far above the average, and at the same time he was honorable
and upright." [4] He entered the employ of the American Fur Company, and in his
old age went to Denver, where he is said to have married a negro woman. The
story goes that the Indians, who looked upon him as a sort of mascot against ill
luck, induced him to return to them in the year 1867, and that as he was
preparing to leave them they served him with a poisoned dish, from the effects
of which he died, thus keeping his mortal remains in the tribe. [5]

[4] Drannon.   "Thirty-one Years on the Plains."

[5] Coutant.   History of Wyoming, Volume One.


    The work of trapping requires both patience and skill. The beaver is a wise
little animal and great care is necessary in its capture. Traps were usually
approached by water to avoid leaving traces of the presence of man, and were
baited with spice mixed with a substance of penetrating smell obtained from the
loins of the beaver and called castor. The secret of its manufacture was
carefully guarded and it is said that beavers as much as a mile distant would be
attracted by its scent. [6]

[6] Alexander Majors.   "Forty Years on the Frontier."


    The Canadian trappers traveled by canoe and on foot, and their example was
followed by the first Americans in the trade, but as distances covered grew
longer, horses gradually came into use. Ashley mounted all of his men and made
it a point to employ expert marksmen. With all of their advantages there was
danger in these innovations. A mounted horseman was not easily concealed from
the sharp eye of the Indian, who was growing more and more resentful over the
encroachment on his hunting grounds, and many a man was followed stealthily to
his traps and killed beside his game that was then stolen. There were soon
hundreds of trappers in the employ of various companies, and Coutant estimates
that fully two-thirds of them met death sooner or later at the hands of the red
men.

    In the autumn of 1826 Ashley, now a rich man as wealth was counted in those
days, sold out to Jedediah S. Smith, David Jackson and Captain William Sublette.
He acted for some years as agent for his successors, but did not come to the
mountains again. In 1831 he was elected to Congress, and at the expiration of
his term of office, in 1837, he returned to his home in St. Louis, where he died
the next year. [7]

[7] Chittenden.   "American Fur Trade."

    The Sublette brothers were Kentuckians by birth, who had made their homes in
St. Louis. There were four of them who entered the fur trade. Milton was an able
frontiersman, but his fame has been partially eclipsed by that of William, who
was one of the most commanding figures of the day. He was six feet two inches in
height, and his personality was so marked that the Indians bestowed upon him the
name of "Fate."

    In 1830 Milton Sublette, James Bridger, Henry Fraeb and Jacob Fervais bought
the controlling interest in their company, which was then called the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company.

    In the meantime the Missouri Fur Company had been at tracted to the rich
fields of the Interior Basin and competition grew keen. The American Fur
Company, as the Astorians were now called, was also pushing its men into the
Rocky Mountain region, and was ruthless in following the experienced trappers
and taking advantage of their knowledge of the country. After the rendezvous of
1832 in Pierre's Hole, James Bridger, with a companion named Fitzpatrick, tried
in vain to elude two of these designing men, named Vanderbourgh and Dripps, and
finally decided on the desperate course of leading them into the country of the
hostile Blackfeet. Vanderbourgh was killed by the Indians, and Bridger himself
was badly wounded. In spite of all strategy the American Fur Company was
unsuccessful in competition. Fontenelle, one of their employes, wrote, on July
1, 1833,: "We have always been too late, and our opponents in the country make a
great boast of it."

    The methods employed in competition differed but little in character from
those of today. Small companies were frozen out, and while the big ones kept in
the public eye by assisting government expeditions in their explorations, there
was much complaint over their heartlessness toward the men who had given their
best years to the work and were left to spend their old age in poverty.

    The most serious indictment against the fur trade was the deliberate
debauchment of the Indians by means of whiskey. Strict laws had been passed by
our country prohibiting its sale to them, as the terrible effects of its use
upon the Indians were well known, but the American companies claimed that
without it they were powerless to compete with the English, who had no such
restrictions. It was smuggled out in every possible manner, and for impurity
rivaled the most poisonous bootleg product of today. The enforcement of the law
was largely dependent on the character and ability of the Indian agent, who was
too often chosen for purely political reasons. It was not until the appointment
of Andrew Dripps, in 1842, that any degree of success was achieved. He was
indefatigable in his efforts to enforce the law, and did not hesitate to cross
the mountains in the dead of winter to follow up every possible clew. He held
the office for four years, and while he was accused by his enemies of favoritism
toward the American Fur Company, yet his disinterested loyalty to duty is a
matter of history.

    Major Andrew Dripps was a native of Pennsylvania. Like many of the fur
traders, he married an Indian woman and was the father of several children. His
papers were preserved by one of his daughters, who married a man named William
Mul-key, and lived in St. Louis, where Dripps died in i860 at the age of
seventy-one. Much valuable information concerning the times has been gleaned
from this source. [8]

[8] Ibid.

    With the expansion of the fur trade the rendezvous grew in importance. It
was held in the summer at some point decided on the previous year. The mouth of
Horse Creek was a favorite spot, and other meeting places were the Popo Agie
River, Bear Lake, Cache Valley and Pierre's Hole. Traders from the east, as well
as trappers all the way from the Canadian to the Mexican border, came to these
reunions, and from the names handed down we find that all nationalities that
went to make up our early civilization were represented. They came from
different stations of life, and while financial gain and love of adventure were,
doubtless, the leading motives of the majority, yet there were among them men of
larger vision who realized something of what the West was to mean to coming
generations. Of these none stands higher than Jedediah S. Smith, who made
accurate drawings of the Hoback River and many other sections of the Interior
Basin, before entering on his explorations in Southern California. He was killed
by the Commanches on the Cimeron desert in 1831. His letters reveal a man of
well-rounded Christian character and high aspirations as well as a conscientious
student and chronicler. A geography of the Rocky Mountain region prepared by him
was published after his death. [9] Smith's Fork of Green River, as well as the
Snake River tributary, was named for him.

[9] Dale.   "Ashley-Smith Explorations."


    There is little doubt that the names of Henry's Fork and Black's Fork were
derived from Andrew Henry and Daniel Black, who came here with the Ashley men.
Burnt Fork is said to have been so called because of forest fires along its
bank, the effects of which are still visible. The beautiful stream Fontenelle
preserves for us the name of the French frontiersman, Lucian Fontenelle. He was
born in New Orleans about 1807, and was said to be of royal lineage. At an early
day he entered the fur trade and worked with Dripps, and was later associated
with Bridger. He was married by Father de Smet to a woman of the Omaha tribe and
had four children. It is said that he committed suicide at Fort Laramie in 1837.
[10]

[10] Coutent.   History of Wyoming.


    At first the furs were brought to the rendezvous on horseback, but Captain
Bonneville, who came out in 1832, used wagons, and to avoid the daily packing
and unpacking, trappers soon adopted this method where roads permitted. The
company trappers were paid in proportion to their catch. In the early days $1200
was considered a fair compensation for a year's work, but as prices advanced a
good trapper often made as much as $3000. [11] The Indians brought their furs to
the rendezvous, and when under the influence of liquor would sell the harvest of
months for a mere song. There were few abstainers among the white men, and
brawls were frequent, for it was a rough life, but the vices incident to the
frontier were offset by the vritues [sic] of courage and fidelity.

[11] Majors.   "Forty Years on the Frontier."


    Many trappers took squaw wives and fell into the ways of the red men so
completely as to be taken for Indians. The "squaw man" would build a log cabin
of one or two rooms in some place convenient to his traps and establish a rough
home where his Indian wife would cheerfully slave for him and bear his children.
There was some rude furniture and the manner of living was in some respects an
improvement over that of the native Indian, but it lacked its easy method of
house cleaning, which was simply to move the wickiup. It was a strange, wild
life, well-nigh devoid of higher ambition or refinement, and yet there is proof
that there were many happy homes, built upon the fidelity of the white man to
his squaw wife. Among their descendants are some of the substantial citizens of
our state. Many of the half-breed children were sent to "the states" to school,
and though it is true that the majority grew up in ignorance, we must remember
that most of the trappers were unlettered men, who, as a rule, did the best that
they could for their offspring.

    The year 1832 was the most eventful of the fur trade, for it brought to the
mountains two parties of explorers who were destined to play important roles in
the history of the West.

    As Captain William Sublette, with a party of sixty men, was about to start
for the mountains, he was overtaken at Independence, Missouri, by an expedition
under the leadership of Nathaniel J. Wyeth. Mr. Wyeth was a Bostonian who, at
his own expense, had fitted out twenty-two New Englanders for the mountains. All
were inexperienced in mountain life, and they gladly availed themselves of the
permission to join Sublette's party, promising to obey its orders. They took the
well-known route across Wyoming to the upper waters of Green River, and each
day's experience was a fresh revelation of the vastness of the stretches of
travel and the difficulties under which the pioneers labored. Robert Campbell,
one of Sublette's men, tells of an unsuccessful attack made on them by a band of
Blackfeet on a stream flowing west from the Wind River mountains, where they had
their first taste of the dangers of Indian warfare. From here they crossed the
Shoshone and Wind River ranges to Pierre's Hole. Here, on the 18th of July, they
had an encounter with a large band of Blackfeet Indians, in which one white man
was killed and Captain Sublette was wounded. Wyeth proved both his skill and
courage, and gained the admiration of the more experienced mountaineers, but
some of his men lost their zest for further adventure, and two days after the
battle a party of seven set out toward the east. In it were two grandsons of the
famous Daniel Boone, a New Englander named Joseph More, a man named Foy from
Mississippi, Alfred K. Stephens of St. Louis, and two others. They reached
Hoback Canyon July 25. As they were going down the hill a band of Blackfeet
started in pursuit. More was thrown from his horse and was promptly killed by
the Indians. Foy and Stevens, who had turned back to help him, were shot, and
Foy died on the spot. Stevens managed to rejoin his companions, but died five
days later in Sublette's camp, to which the survivors returned. [12]

[12] Chittenden's "American Fur Trade."


    On the first of May of the same year the Bonneville expedition was launched.
Benjamin Louis Bonneville was a Frenchman of fine education, who had obtained a
commission in the United States Army. He was granted a three-year leave of
absence from 1832 to 1835 "to explore the Rocky Mountains and beyond," for the
purpose of making for the war department reports on the "character and customs
of Indian tribes, the condition of the fur trade, and the natural features of
the country." [13] He was to bear all of the expense of the expedition.

[13] Irving.   "Astoria."


    On the first day of May, 1832, Bonneville left Fort Osage on the Missouri
with one hundred and ten men and a full equipment, including twenty-eight
wagons, horses, mules and oxen. His were the first wagons to go through South
Pass. They reached Green River on the 27th of July and traveled up Horse Creek,
where they put up a building for the purpose of making it a fur-trading post.
This was the first attempt to establish such a station in Wyoming, as Fort
Laramie was not built until 1834. Some time was spent in erecting the necessary
fortifications of breastworks against the Indians. Fontenelle, whom he had met
on the way out, joined him here, and he put up a camp near by. Competition arose
in dealing with the Indians, and their parting was less friendly than their
meeting. After giving his jaded animals a rest of a few weeks, Captain
Bonneville, leaving some of his supplies and his wagons at the post, proceeded
northwest across Jackson's Hole to Pierre's Hole. In what he calls "the dark
defile leading to Jackson's Hole" he came across the bodies of More and Foy, and
buried them."

    Bonneville spent the following winter on the Salmon River country and early
the next spring started with thirteen men for his fort. He had left there a
party under the command of a trapper named Mathieu, and three of them had been
killed by Indians. The rendezvous of that year was to be held near by, but,
owing to the hostility of the Indians, it was not so well attended as usual.
There had been many casualties, and one man, who was leader of a party that had
trapped in the Crow country, was the only survivor of his little band of men,
the rest having been killed.

    The life of the fur traders was too full of change to permit deep-seated
grudges. At the rendezvous of 1833 Bonneville was filled with surprise over the
friendly intercourse between the men of the Pacific Fur Company and those of the
Rocky Mountain Company, following so quickly on the Vanderbourgh-Dripps affair,
but it is only one of the many striking examples of the tolerant spirit of the
wilds. The underlying rectitude of Dripps outweighed his reprehensible methods
in competition in the minds of his co-workers. To them a, tried friend was the
dearest of possessions, but the enemy of the day was often the ally of the
morrow, and the necessity of standing together against the red men was an
ever-strengthening bond.

    From the rendezvous Bonneville sent out a party of forty men to explore Salt
Lake. They were under command of a man named Walker, and were instructed to meet
the captain on Bear River the next July. After Walker's departure Bonneville set
out for the Big Horn with his furs. Boats were made of buffalo skin for the
journey down the Yellowstone and the Missouri to St. Louis. Wyeth had been
unsuccessful in the fur business, and he and some of his party returned to St.
Louis with the Bonneville men. The captain, after seeing them started on their
way, turned again westward. From his cache on Green River he supplied his
trapping parties and sent them out, and then explored the Wind River country,
taking notes and making maps. On the 24th of October we find him at Ham's Fork.
From here he crossed over to Bear River and then to the Snake. The next few
months he spent in the northwest, and it was not until July that he again
entered the Interior Basin. Here he was joined by Walker, whose expedition has
been a complete failure, for he had squandered the money furnished him in the
Mexican settlements of California, and had accomplished nothing for the cause of
exploration. Bonneville was nearly at the end of his resources, and he made a
desperate effort to reimburse himself, but the Indians had been influenced by
the Hudson Bay Company not to trade with him, and his own men did not meet with
the success that he expected. In November, 1834, he went into winter quarters on
Upper Bear River, where he found game was plentiful. The following April they
broke camp and set out for Ham's Fork, and on the 22nd of June passed for the
last time out of the region with which this book deals. The abandoned trading
post on Horse Creek, which was named Fort Bonneville, came to be known by the
fur traders as "Fort Nonsense," and soon fell into ruin.

    In spite of financial failure and many disappointments, the work of the
"Bald-headed Chief," as the Indians called Captain Bonneville, was a valuable
one. His maps and reports on the wide range of subjects assigned in the
government instructions under which he was sent out, were of untold value, and
have given him a name among the foremost explorers of the world. Much of his
work was carried on within the bounds of the region with which this book deals.
Both the lake and the mountain that bear his name lie without its borders, but
the site of Fort Bonneville has been definitely established within the original
Uinta County. On August 9, 1915, eighty-three years after the fort was built, H.
C. Nickerson and Grace Raymond Hebard, president and secretary of the Oregon
Trail Commission for Wyoming, visited the spot and set up a granite marker on
which was carved the following inscription: [14]

                SITE OF FORT BONNEVILLE 1832-1915

[14] Dr. J. W. Montrose of Daniel was one of the leaders in marking this
historic sport. Isolated though the region is a large audience gathered for the
ceremony and participated in a patriotic program of great interest. The bounds
of the old stockade were easily traced by logs buried to the depth of three feet
or more.


    The Wyeth expedition was even less successful than that of Captain
Bonneville, but in 1833 he came out with a second party with the purpose of
establishing forts for the convenience of traders and travelers. With him were
Jason and Daniel Lee, missionaries sent out by the Methodist Board, and Jason
Lee preached the first sermon west of the Rockies near Fort Hall. This post
remains as a monument to Nathaniel Wyeth, and well has it served its purpose.

    Other Christian workers followed, and never was there a finer set of
pioneers, nor men who did more for the perpetuation of American ideals. In 1825
the American Board of Foreign Mission, a union of Congregationalists and
Presbyterians, sent out Rev. Samuel Parker and Dr. Marcus Whitman to look over
the western field. At the rendezvous, which was held at the mouth of Horse Creek
in July, there was a great gathering of white and red men, and so impressed were
the missionaries that Dr. Whitman decided to go no farther before urging upon
the board the need for reinforcements. The response came the following year, and
on the 4th of July, 1836, a little band of Christian workers knelt on the summit
of South Pass and claimed the land to the west in the name of America and the
Church of Christ. The leaders were the returning Dr. Whitman and the Rev. Henry
H. Spaulding, and they brought with them their brides, the first white women to
make the journey to Oregon.[15] With deep emotion the old trappers greeted them
when they reached Green River, and the Indians, not to be outdone in
hospitality, gave an exhibition of riding and lassoing that the young brides
found more terrifying than entertaining. From there they traveled on through the
dusty summer hills to Fort Hall, accompanied as far as Bear River by the famous
scout, Jim Bridger. A new song was breaking in on the music of the wilderness.
Patriotism, education and duty were its keynotes. Try as he might to ignore it,
the gentle but persistent tones pierced to the soul of the frontiersman and
brought back to him memories of his childhood and a vision of the future.

[15] Eels.   "Marcus Whitman.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

UINTA COUNTY ITS PLACE IN HISTORY
ELIZABETH ARNOLD STONE
GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A. 
THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY

A History of the Original Uinta County, Wyoming, and its Subdivisions

To the dear memory of my father,
Rev. F. L. Arnold


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