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           Mountain Men Fur Trade History
                                                                              by
                                                                   O. Ned Eddins

Early North America history centers around the European fur trade. North of present day Mexico, the vast territory that would become the United States and Canada was explored, wars were fought, and Indian cultures destroyed in the pursuit of the Mountain Man Indian Fur Trade. Canadian fur traders and Mountain Men in search of beaver were the major explorers of North America. In addition to the economic benefits of the fur trade, the Mountain Man Indian Fur Trade was a major factor in determining the present boundaries of the United States, especially the Pacific Northwest. Fur traders from the Mountain Man-Indian Fur Trade era not only discovered the Oregon Trail, they provided the guides for America's western expansion over the Oregon Trail.

Native American Indians were the major source of beaver pelts and buffalo hides, for the Canadian, Great Lakes, and upper Missouri River fur trade from the late 17th to the early 19th century. During most of this period, Native Americans used nets, snares, deadfalls, clubs, etc. to obtain beaver pelts.

For easier navigation, the Mountain Man Indian Fur Trade article is divided into eight parts:
Early Fur Trade History                                  Fur Trade Explorers
Trade and Intercourse Act                              North West Fur Company
The Mountain Man                                        Rocky Mountain Fur Trade History
The Mountain Man Fur Trade Goods         Statistical Review of the Mountain

North America

Early Fur Trade History:

By the late seventeen hundreds, the Plains Indians were exchanging beaver pelts and horses to the Hudson’s Bay and North West fur traders for European goods. These trade fairs were held at the villages of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara on the Missouri River. The major items exchanged at these trade fairs were garden products (beans, squash, corn, etc.) raised at the Missouri River villages, horses, furs, and hides from the Plains Indians, and whiskey, guns, iron goods, trade beads, and a few beaver traps from the Northeast traders. By the mid-eighteen hundreds buffalo hides dominated the Indian fur trade. The demise of the large buffalo herds is often blamed on the white man, but Indians contributed a great deal to it as well.

Despite the European fur trade encompassing a wide variety of fur bearing animals, mountain men and the mountain man rendezvous are virtually synonymous with beaver. For well over two centuries in Britain and Western Europe the beaver hat defined style. From the early 1600s to the mid-1830s, if it was not a beaver, it was not a hat--but merely something that covered one's head (Neander97).

The glamour of the mountain man rendezvous and the search for beaver pelts by the mountain men of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Era has obscured the “bread and butter” of the fur trade. The staples of the fur trade were the muskrat, raccoon, fox, deer hides, and later buffalo robes. At a New York fur auction, John Jacob Astor sold upwards of half a million muskrat pelts in one day. Mountaineers, Indians, and the early settlers traded these furs and hides by the millions.

For many colonial settlers, the only source of "cash money” was furs and hides. An early frontiersmen, Daniel Boone was known as a long hunter. The principal goal of the Long Hunters was deerskin. Depending on its size and quality, a doe hide was worth fifty cents or more. The skin of a buck brought a dollar and up, hence the term "buck" as slang for currency. Small bands of hunters could bring back "several hundred, sometimes even a thousand, skins in a season. By the end of the War of 1812, the American tanning industry was a twelve million dollars business (Lavender).

Please Note: There have been several emails against the trapping of fur bearing animals. If the people that sent those emails had read the articles, they would know this site is not about trapping. The Mountain Man Indian Fur Trade site is concerned with the history of the fur trade. Still, it should be noted that the trapping of fur bearing animals was key to the mountain man and played a significant role in America's western expansion.

Mount Moran Reflection - Jackson Lake

Early Explorers in the Fur Trade:

The topography of Canada and the United States west of Lake Superior and north of the forty-second parallel was basically determined between 1793 and 1812. With the exception of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, fur traders from the American and Canadian fur trading companies did all of the early exploration. These fur traders were either accompanied by Native Americans or Native Americans told them about the major passes and routes through the Rocky Mountains. The origin and destination of furs is shown on the fur trade map below. This map has been altered from the original by Mike White...some of the names were removed and others were enlarged.

Fur Trade Route Map

In 1789, Alexander Mackenzie, a North West Company partner, explored the Mackenzie River from its source to the Arctic Ocean. Four years later, Mackenzie made the first successful crossing of North America. Accompanied by Alexander McKay, six French Canadians, two Indians, and a Newfoundland dog, Mackenzie left Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca in 1793. The fur traders followed the Peace River to the Parsnip River, and then up the Parsnip to the Continental Divide. After an eight hundred and forty-step portage to a lake, Mackenzie believed that he had reached the headwaters of the Columbia River; actually it was the Frazier River. A couple of hundred miles downriver, cataracts and falls made the waterway impassable.

Alexander Mackenzie Routes 1789 and 1793

Carrier Indians told Mackenzie the river could not be traveled by canoe, and when two Carrier Indians offered to serve as guides, the expedition headed cross-country toward the Pacific Ocean. Reaching the Bella Colla River, the expedition followed it to the Pacific coastline. While waiting at Dean’s Inlet for a clear day to determine the longitude and latitude, Mackenzie used vermilion in melted grease to write on the rock.

…Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by Land, the twenty-fecond of July, one thoufand feven hundred and ninety-three.

After his return from the Pacific, Mackenzie suggested to Simon McTavish, head of the North West Company, that if the Hudson’s Bay and North West joined forces they could control the fur trade of the Northwest Country above Spanish California. Rebuffed by McTavish, Mackenzie went to England to talk with leaders of the Hudson’s Bay Company. While in England, King George III knighted Alexander Mackenzie. Before returning to Canada, Sir Mackenzie wrote a book on his travels titled, Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Laurence. Mackenzie's book was eagerly read by President Jefferson and speeded up the timetable for the Lewis and Clark Voyage of Discovery to the mouth of the Columbia River .

President Jefferson's instructed Lewis and Clark to make note of fur-bearing animals, the attitude of Indians to the fur trade, and to determine a practical water course across the continent. President Jefferson hoped that this route would serve as a more practical route for the western fur trade than any the British could establish to the north.

When David Thompson arrived on the shores of Hudson Bay in 1784, the interior of North America was basically unknown. By the time David Thompson, a fur trader and a surveyor for Hudson’s Bay and then the North West Company, left the Northwest country in 1812, he had accurately plotted the main routes of travel and delineated the physical features of approximately 2.3 million square miles of Canada and the northern area of the American territories west of Lake Superior.

John Jacob Astor was behind the next group of men to cross the continent. Many historians and Internet writers infer that John Jacob Astor and his Pacific Fur Company was a dismal failure. In a two- and a half-year period, the Pacific Fur Company lost sixty-one men, the Tonquin, and thousands of dollars on the sell of Fort Astoria to the North West Company in November of 1813. If this is all you consider, it was a dismal failure, but in terms of the United States northern boundary, it was a resounding success. Within in a two-year period, the Astorians established trading posts on the Columbia, Willamette, Okanogan, Spokane, and Snake rivers. These fur trading posts, especially Okanogan, were a major factor in the State of Washington being part of the United States. The Pacific Fur Company also had a profound affect on America’s western expansion and Manifest Destiny. Except for a detour in western Wyoming, the trail of Robert Stuart and six Astorians over South Pass to St. Louis was the basic route used by Americans to reach the Oregon Territory. The "dismal failure” of the Astorians provided the Oregon Trail that led to America’s Manifest Destiny for several hundred thousand Oregon and Mormon pioneers, and the California gold seekers.

North West Fur Company Traders:

From 1818 to 1821, Donald Mackenzie, a brigade leader for the Canadian North West Company and a former Astorian, led yearlong trapping expeditions from Fort Nez Perce at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers into the upper Snake River country.

Upper Snake River

Dr. Dale Morgan wrote:

The bold and imaginative use of Mackenzie's men for trapping rather than for manning trading posts; his system of supply and the transport of his furs, which involved the use of horses in place of the boats to which the fur trade had been wedded; his maintenance of his trapping force in the field almost uninterruptedly for three years--all this displayed genius and laid the groundwork for the revolution which Jedediah Smith and his associates were about to effect in the conduct of the American fur trade.

Approaching from the west, Canadian trappers of the Snake River Brigade named three distinctive peaks the Trois Tetons (three breasts)...the Teton Range can be regarded as the geographical center of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade.

Trois Tetons

There is evidence that at least some of North West brigade trappers may have entered the thermal areas of Yellowstone (Mattes).

Upper Mineral Springs - YNP

The North West Company's Snake River Brigade led by Donald Mackenzie trapped the Green River Valley of Wyoming three years before Jedediah Smith and the Ashley trappers arrived there (Morgan). After the amalgamation of the North West and the Hudson’s Bay Companies, the headquarters for the Snake River Brigades was moved to Flathead House near Thompson Falls, Montana. During the period of 1822 to 1824, Michel Bourdon, Finian McDonald, and Alexander Ross led large brigades of Hudson's Bay trappers from Flathead House into the central Rockies. These Canadian fur trade brigades trapped as far south as the Bear River area of Idaho and Utah.

After the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company were forced to merge in 1821, the head of the Hudson’s Bay Company, George Simpson, instituted a "scorched earth policy”. Simpson reasoned that if there were no beaver, there would be no reason for Americans to come to the Oregon Country. The Hudson's Bay fur trapping brigades succeeded in the "scorched earth policy" to the point that beaver become nearly extinct on the Snake River drainage system. This “scorched earth policy” was not the customary policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Normally, the Company practiced strict conservation policies. Trapping brigades were prohibited from returning to a stream for a two- to three-year period after the area had been trapped. Modern studies have shown that if disease or habitat destruction is not a factor, beaver can repopulate a depleted watershed within a three- to five-year period (Neander97).

Dissatisfied with the results of the Snake River brigades, George Simpson placed Peter Skene Ogden in charge of the fur trapping expeditions of 1825. Under Ogden and then John Work, the Snake River brigades departed from Fort Vancouver, Fort Nez Perce, or Flathead House early each fall with approximately one hundred men and three hundred horses. Many of the Iroquois and Delaware trappers in the brigades took their families with them.

Trade and Intercourse Acts:

The colonial fur trade, and later the mountain man fur trade, had a pronounced effect on Native American Indians. The federal government tried to protect the American Indians from land speculators, fur traders, and eventually the mountain men and the suppliers of the mountain man rendezvous through the Trade and Intercourse Acts. These acts are often referred to as the non-Intercourse acts. Beginning in 1790, Congress passed a series of laws to regulate the purchase of Indian lands and the Mountain Man-Indian Fur Trade. These laws were renewed every two years until 1802 when they were made permanent. The basic outline of the Federal Indian Policy were formed by these Trade and Intercourse Acts (Avalon Project).

No person shall be permitted to carry on any trade or intercourse with the Indian tribes, without a license - term of license not exceeding two years.

No citizen or inhabitant shall trespass on Indian lands, make a settlement on lands belonging to any Indian tribe, or shall survey such lands, or designate their boundaries, by marking trees, or otherwise, for the purpose of settlement, he shall forfeit a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars, nor less than one hundred dollars, and suffer imprisonment not exceeding twelve months.

No purchase or grant of lands, or of any title or claim thereto, from any Indians or nation or tribe of Indians, within the bounds of the United States, shall be of any validity in law or equity.

No person shall be permitted to purchase any horse of an Indian, or of any white man in the Indian Territory, without special license for that purpose.

It shall and may be lawful for the President of the United States, to cause them to be furnished with useful domestic animals, and implements of husbandry, and also to furnish them with goods or money, in such proportions, as he shall judge proper, and to appoint such persons, from time to time, as temporary agents, to reside among the Indians.

This last provision of the Trade and Intercourse Acts instituted the Factory System of government trading houses. These posts were established to supply quality merchandise at a fair price in exchange for Indian furs. An unstated goal of the factory system was to make the Indians dependent upon the United States government. In other words make it easier for the government to acquire Indian lands.

President Jefferson proposed placing restriction on the Mountain Man-Indian liquor trade, and a law prohibiting the sale, or trade, of liquor to Native Americans was passed on March 30, 1802. The law of 1802 did not have the desired effect and a stronger law was passed in 1822. Neither of these laws prevented the fur traders from carrying whiskey for the use of boatmen going to the mountain man rendezvous. Finally in 1832, Congress bluntly declared: No ardent spirits shall be hereafter introduced, under any pretence, into the Indian country.

This was all well and good, but who was going to enforce any kind of laws on the fur traders and mountain men at the mountain man rendezvous. Supplying Indians with alcohol was not the only laws broken at the mountain man rendezvous. Mountain men were trespassing on Indian Territory, which was prohibited by the Trade and Intercourse Acts, and the first five mountain man rendezvous in the Rocky Mountains were held south of the forty-second parallel in Mexican territory.

Rocky Mountain Fur Trade History:

Manuel Lisa, field trader of Lisa, Menard, and Morrison Fur Company, established a fur trading post at the junction of the Bighorn and Yellowstone rivers in November of 1807. This was the first organized trading and trapping expedition to ascend the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains (Oglesby). Located on the left bank of the Bighorn River, Fort Raymond (Fort Ramon, Manuel’s Fort) was the first American trading post built in the Rocky Mountains.

Not long after arriving at the mouth of the Bighorn River, Manuel Lisa dispatched three men to visit the Crow Indian villages: John Colter to the Stinkingwater (Shoshone) and Wind river villages; George Drouillard to the Bighorn and Powder river villages; Edward Rose to the Tongue River villages. The fur trappers carried word of a trading post at the mouth of the Bighorn River for the Crow Indians spring fur and hide trade. During his travels, John Colter entered what would be Yellowstone National Park, but the mountain men did not refer to the Yellowstone area as Colter's Hell. The mountain man's Colter's Hell was a thermal mud pot area at the junction of the North and South Stinkingwater rivers near Cody, Wyoming...not Yellowstone National Park.

Lisa, Menard, and Morrison took on new partners and become the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company in 1809, and in 1812, the name was changed to the Missouri Fur Company. The Missouri Fur Company and John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company, founded in 1808, confined their activities to the Missouri River watershed. The War of 1812 and the economic depression that followed put a damper on the fur trade for the next ten years.

Note: A Majority of Scoundrels by Don Berry is especially interesting from the business aspects of Ashley and the St. Louis fur trade suppliers. After reading Majority of Scoundrels, it is apparent why most Mountain Men left the mountains with what they started with...nothing.

1822 was a pivotal year in the Rocky Mountain fur trade: John Jacob Astor established the western department of the American Fur Company in St. Louis; Congress discontinued the Factory System; William Henry Ashley advertised for young men to trap the Missouri River to its source.

This ad appeared in the Missouri Gazette & Public Advertiser Feb. 13, 1822 and in the St. Louis Enquirer two weeks later.

TO: Enterprising Young Men

The subscriber wishes to engage ONE HUNDRED MEN, to ascend the river Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years. For particulars enquire of Major Andrew Henry, near the Lead Mines, in the County of Washington, (who will ascend with, and command party) or to the subscriber at St. Louis.

Some of the best-known names in the annals of the fur trade responded to General Ashley's advertisement i.e. Jedediah Smith, David Jackson, Hugh Glass, Daniel T. Potts, Jim Bridger, and the trio Mike Fink, Talbot, and Carpenter. Three men often credited with being among the original Ashley men are Thomas Fitzpatrick, William Sublette, and Etienne Provost. Thomas Fitzpatrick and William Sublette did not go West with Ashley until 1823, and Provost was never one of Ashley's men. When Ashley reached the mountains in 1825, he met Etienne Provost in southeastern Utah. Provost and his men were Taos, New Mexico trappers.

The Ashley-Henry Company sent two keelboats up the Missouri River in the spring of 1822. One of the boats under the command of Daniel Moore sank with ten thousand dollars worth of provisions on it. Ashley equipped another boat and reached Henry at the junction of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers where Henry and his men had started to build Fort Henry. Ashley returned to St. Louis after more supplies for the next year.

The following year, 1823, the William Ashley Expedition was attacked by the Arikara (Rees) Indians near the North and South Dakota border. Ashley lost fifteen men before withdrawing to the mouth of the Cheyenne River. Jedediah Smith had come downriver with a request from Henry for more horses, and Ashley sent him back upriver to get Henry and his men. Several of the William Ashley men had had enough of the Indian fur trade, and on the way back to St. Louis, they carried word of the attack to Colonel Leavenworth at Ft. Atkinson.

Colonel Henry Leavenworth responded with six companies of soldiers. Besides the military, there was Joshua Pilcher and some of his men from of the Missouri Fur Company, and six hundred Sioux warriors. After several days of military indecisiveness, the Sioux left in disgust. While the fur traders stood helplessly by, Colonel Leavenworth negotiated a peace treaty with the Arikara. An angry Joshua Pilcher, head of the Missouri Fur Company, declared that by Leavenworth’s ineffectual action to teach the Indians a lesson, he had destroy commerce on the Missouri River for years to come. Joshua Pilcher stated:

You came to restore peace and tranquility to the country, & leave an impression which would insure its continuance, your operations have been such as to produce the contrary effect, and to impress the different Indian tribes with the greatest possible contempt for the American character. You came to use your own language to "open and make good this great road": instead of which you have by the imbecility of your conduct and operations, created and left impassable barriers.

After the Arikara battle, William Ashley dispatched Jedediah Smith, Thomas Fitzpatrick, William Sublette, James Clyman, Thomas Eddie, Edward Rose, Stone, Branch, and two other men whose names have been lost to history overland to the Rocky Mountains. Andrew Henry returned upriver and sent another company of trappers under John H. Weber to the same area. In February of 1824, Jedediah Smith and his party crossed the Continental Divide through South Pass to reach the valley of the Sis-kee-dee (Prairie Hen River, Fat River)...the Green River Valley of Wyoming. The re-discovery of South Pass was soon widely heralded as an easy wagon route to the mouth of the Columbia, whereas the Astorians discovery in 1812 had been for the most part forgotten.

In the fall of 1824, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Stone, and Branch returned to Ft. Atkinson; the trappers had crossed South Pass and then down the North Platte River. On hearing that the mountains were rich with beaver, William Ashley outfitted a supply train, and in November 1824, struck out for the mountains. Ashley followed the Platte River and then the South Platte River to the Front Range in Colorado. Indians had told Ashley that there was better feed for his pack animals along the South Platte than the North Platte River. Reaching the Front Range in Colorado, Ashley turned northwest and crossed the mountains into the Green River Valley.

William Ashley divided his men into four groups. Three of the parties were to trap, while he and several other men floated down the Green River. Ashley told the men that he would make a cache of his good about one hundred miles downstream, and near that point, there would be a general rendezvous on or about July 10.

Ashley’s new plan of operation differed from that conducted by the early fur traders on the Upper Missouri. Ashley did not depend on Indian trappers, and with the exchange of supplies and beaver pelts at a rendezvous, there was no need for trading posts.

The fact that several Congressional Trade and Intercourse Acts starting in 1790 made it illegal to trespass on Indian lands, sell alcohol to Indians, or that the 1825 and the 1826 rendezvous were held on Mexican soil did not bother General William H. Ashley, the Lieutenant Governor and future Missouri Congressman, one bit...one constant in history is that politician change little with time.

Ashley is credited with the innovation of the Rendezvous System, and in terms of the Rocky Mountains, this is true. However, Ashley was not the first to use a rendezvous for the exchange of pelts and to re-supply the trappers. The North West Company had held an annually rendezvous at Grand Portage and later at Fort William since 1783.

The men that came west with Ashley to start the rocky mountain fur trade are often referred to as the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Over the fur trade period these men formed several different fur companies.

1822-1824 Ashley-Henry
1825-1826 Ashley-Smith
1826-1830 Smith-Jackson-Sublette
1830-1833 Rocky Mountain Fur Company
1833-1834 Rocky Mountain Fur Company and Christy
1834-1840 Fontenelle and Fitzpatrick under a St. Louis company

The Mountain Man:

The Rocky Mountain fur traders centered their operations in the Green River Valley and from there to the headwaters of the Missouri, Colorado, Snake, Columbia, and the northeastern section of the Great Basin. The Canadian Fur traders in the northwest trapped the watershed of Columbia, its major tributary the Snake River, part of the Great Basin, and into the Green River Valley. The Taos fur traders trapped the Arkansas and Rio Grande valleys of Colorado and the Salt and Gila rivers of the Southwest. The areas trapped by the various fur companies overlapped and on occasion led to conflict between the fur trappers.

Spring and fall were the season for prime beaver pelts. Mountain men frequently traveled to the areas selected for the hunt in brigades of thirty to forty trappers. Once there, the trappers set out in parties of two to four to set their traps in the streams. If it was a party of four, there would usually be two trappers and two camp tenders.

Teewinot - Grand Teton National Park

The beaver traps were checked night and morning. Once the beaver were caught, they were skinned, dried on a hoop, and then folded in half with the fur to the inside. Sixty pelts were pressed into a bundle that weighed about ninety pound for hauling back to St. Louis. On average, a dried beaver plew weighed one and a half pounds. Sixty beaver pelts, pressed and tied together, weighed ninety pounds--the standard beaver pack.

Osborne Russell in his book, Journal of a Trapper, gave a description of the typical mountain man.

A Trappers equipment in such cases is generally one Animal upon which is placed...a riding Saddle and bridle a sack containing six Beaver traps a blanket with an extra pair of Moccasins his powder horn and bullet pouch with a belt to which is attached a butcher Knife a small wooden box containing bait for Beaver a Tobacco sack with a pipe and implements for making fire with sometimes a hatchet fastened to the Pommel of his saddle his personal dress is a flannel or cotton shirt (if he is fortunate to obtain one, if not Antelope skin answers the purpose of over and under shirt) a pair of leather breeches with Blanket or smoked Buffalo skin, leggings, a coat made of Blanket or Buffalo robe a hat or Cap of wool, Buffalo or Otter skin his hose are pieces of Blanket lapped round his feet which are covered with a pair of Moccasins made of Dressed Deer Elk or Buffaloe skins with his long hair falling loosely over his shoulders complete the uniform."

Joe Meek gave this account of the mountain man's winter quarters.

This was the occasion when the mountain-men "lived fat" and enjoyed life a season of plenty, of relaxation, of amusement, of acquaintanceship with all the company of gayety, and of, "busy idleness." Through the day hunting parties were coming and going, men were cooking, drying meat, making moccasins, cleaning their arms, wrestling, playing games and in short everything that an isolated community of hardy men could resort to for occupation was resorted to the mountaineers. Nor was there wanting in the appearance of the camp, the variety and that picturesque air imparted by a mingling of the element for what with their Indian allies, their native wives and numerous children. The mountaineers camp was a motley assemblage, and the trappers with their affectation of Indian coxcombry [conceited dandy] the least picturesque individuals.

Bull Elk - Twenty Below Zero

Meek's description is a little over done. Hunting elk in weather like pictured above would not be that "joyous". On several occasions, the mountain man winter camps were moved because of extreme cold and lack of game in the area.

The price of trade goods were normally marked up at the rendezvous several hundred percent. In 1826, a prime beaver plew in the mountains had an approximate value of $3.00, by 1833 the value was $3.50, and by 1840, the value was $2.00 (Wishart). These values demonstrate why the trade good suppliers to the rendezvous made the money in the fur trade, not the trappers.

Values of Trade Goods:

During the early Indian fur trade period, the major articles traded to Indians for various furs and horses were: guns and ammunition, trade blankets, vermillion, silver, mirrors, knives, axes, beads, ribbons. thimbles, awls, cloth, copper kettles, sugar, and various pieces of horse tack. With the advent of the Rocky Mountain fur trade, the various trade articles brought to the rendezvous supplied both the Mountain Man and the Indians.

The 1826 agreement between William Ashley and the new firm of Smith Jackson and Sublette stipulated that...Ashley or his agent would deliver to Smith Jackson and Sublette or to their agent at or near the west end of the little Lake of Bear River...the following items:

North West Fuzils [trade gun] - twenty-four dollars each
Gunpowder of the first and second quality - one dollar fifty per pound
Lead - one dollar per pound
Shot - one dollar twenty five cents per pound
Flints - fifty cents per dozen
Beaver traps - nine dollars each
Fourth proof rum reduced [?] - thirteen dollars fifty cents per Gallon
Bridles assorted - seven dollars each
Spurs - two dollars per pair
Horse shoes and nails - two dollars per pound
Three point blankets - nine dollars each
Green blanket - eleven dollars each
Two and a half point blankets - seven dollars each
Sugar - one dollar per pound
Coffee - one dollar twenty five cents pr pound
Flour - one dollar per pound
Alspice [allspice] - one dollar fifty cents per pound
Raisins - one dollar fifty cents per pound
Dried fruit - one dollar and fifty cents per pound
Scarlet cloth - six dollars per yard
Blue cloth common quality - four to five dollars per yard
Grey cloth common quality - five dollars per yard
Flannels common quality - one dollar fifty cents per yard
Calicos assorted - one dollar per yard
Domestic cotton - one dollar twenty five cents per yard
Thread assorted - three dollars per pound
Worsted binding [?] - fifteen dollars per gross pound
Finger rings - five dollars per gross.
Beads assorted - two fifty cents per pound
Vermillion - three dollars per pound
Hand kerchiefs assorted - one dollar fifty cents each.
Ribbons assorted - three dollars per bolt
Buttons - five dollars per Gross
Looking glasses - fifty cents each
Mockacine [moccasins] awls - twenty five cents per dozen
Tabacco [tobacco] - one dollar twenty five cents per pound
First quality James River Tobacco - one dollar seventy five cents per pound
Iron buckles assorted - two dollars fifty cents per pound
Butcher Knives - seventy five cents each
Files assorted - two dollars fifty cents per pound
Tin pans assorted - two dollars per pound
Fire steels - two dollars per pound
Copper kettles - three dollars per pound
Tin kettles different sizes - two dollars per pound
Sheet iron kettles - two dollars twenty five cents per pound
Squaw axes - two dollars fifty cents each
Steel bracelets - one dollar fifty cents per pair
Large brass wire - two dollars per pound
Washing soap - one dollar twenty five cents per pound
Shaving soap - two dollars per pound

The Hudson's Bay Company used the "made beaver" as the unit of currency during the fur trade period. A made beaver was a prime beaver skin, flesh removed, stretched, and dried. The value of all trade goods was based on made beaver plews or pelts. The value of other furs, i.e. otter, fox, rabbit, martin, were valued in terms of made beaver. Eventually, the Hudson's Bay and the North West companies issued tokens. The token value was based on the value of the made beaver.

Hudson's Bay Company's bead value for a made beaver:
=six Hudson's Bay beads
=three light blue Padre (Crow) beads
=two larger transparent blue beads.

Thirty beaver pelts = 1 keg of rum [diluted]

One Ordinary Riding Horse
= 8 buffalo robes
= 1 gun and 100 loads ammunition
= 1 carrot of tobacco weighing 3 lbs.
= 15 eagle feathers
= 10 weasel skins (Ermine)
= 5 tipi poles
= 1 skin shirt and leggings, decorated w/ human hair and quills

Fine race horse = 10 guns
Fine buffalo horse = several pack animals

One Buffalo Robe
= 3 metal knives
= 25 loads of ammunition
= 1 large metal kettle
= 3 dozen iron arrow points
= 1/2 yards of calico
= 1 white blanket
Three buffalo robes
Four buffalo robes = 1 scarlet Hudson's Bay blanket
Five buffalo robes = 1 bear claw necklace

Ten ermine pelts = 100 elk teeth...during the summer the ermine's color is brown with a yellow belly and is called a weasel.

Ernie the Ermine - Gayle Eddins

Hudson's Bay Point Blanket:

Hudson's Bay 325th Year Anniversary Blanket

The Hudson's Bay blanket was first introduced into the fur trade in 1780. The Witney weavers of Oxfordshire, England were the principal suppliers of Hudson's Bay Blankets. The wool has always been a blend of varieties from England, Wales, New Zealand and India. The is selected for qualities that will make the blanket water resistant, soft, warm and strong. Hudson's bay blankets came in a variety of colors and patterns.

A point system is used to grade each blanket as to weight and size. The number of points were identified by five inch lines woven into the side of each blanket. The number of points represented the overall finished size of the blanket, not its value in terms of beaver pelts. Points ranged from one to six depending upon the size and weight of the blanket. The standard measurements for one point blanket was: eight feet. in length, two feet and eight inches wide, and weighed three pounds and one ounce.

Statistical Review of the Mountain Man:

Richard J. Fehrman did a statistical evaluation of the 292 biographical sketches of mountain men that appeared in the ten volume Mountain Men Series that was edited by LeRoy Hafen and published by the Arthur H. Clark Company.

Of the 249 known birthplaces, four areas accounted for 53% of the trappers: Canada 38, Missouri 34, Kentucky 31, and Virginia 29. Thirty-one percent (78) were foreign born of these close to half were Canadians with the remaining coming from Europe or the British Isles. The average year of birth was 1805.

41% or 118 were free agents, or as many as with the first six leading companies combined. The term "free agents" signified that although he might be carried on a company roll, he could' trap where he chose, either in a regular expedition or alone, but usually sold his furs to the company.

As to the marital status of the Mountain Men, there were 268 men whose status is known, Those who were married totaled 226, or 84% combined for a total of 304 known marriages. It is of interest to note that a further breakdown indicates that 140 or 62% married whites only; 63 or 28% married Indians only; and 23 or 10% married both whites and Indians. As near as can be determined about 34% of the white women taken as wives were of Mexican extraction. The majority of the children born to Mountain Men were born in wedlock. Of the 226 married trappers, 169 or 75% fathered 880 children, or an average of nearly four children per married subject.

The great majority - 134 or 58% of the known cases of these Mountain Men - died of old age or associated physical illnesses. Only 25, or 11%, of the subjects were murdered by Indians, while another 7% were killed by others than Indians. (If the study were to include all men who went to the mountains, the percentage killed by Indians would be greater. Regarding many of those who were killed, so little is known that no biographical sketches could be written - Dr. Hafen) Disease and illness accounted for the death of 38 or 16%, while eight or 3.5% were accidental deaths. The remaining 4.5% were due to suicide, alcoholism, and miscellaneous causes. Loss of life from the grizzly bear was minimal. Non-violent deaths accounted for about 77% of the cases.

Composite picture of the average Mountain Man:

He was born in Canada in 1805, and was educated enough to be able to read and write. He left for the mountains in 1828 from St. Louis, and arrived at some point in the Rocky Mountains in 1830.

He traveled around the west, usually with his family, using horse or mule, or sometimes a bullboat. His wife cared for their three children as well as helping with many aspects of the trapping and fur preparation procedures.

When our man left the mountains in 1845, he turned to a career of farming or ranching. After leading a full life for 64 years, he passed away in 1869 as the result of old age or an associated illness. He was then laid to rest in the parts of the West where he had spent much of his life - Missouri and California.

This article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. Permission is given for material from this site to be used for school research papers.

Citation: Eddins, Ned. (article name) Mountainsofstone.com. Afton, Wyoming. 2002.

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