Feeding the Fad For Furs
by Jim Tompkins

The development of the Oregon Country started with the demand for furs. Oregon fur trade started in 1778 by Captain Cook trading for sea otter. The Spanish traded from California. The Russians traded the Pacific coast as the Russian-American Company. Americans, called Bostons by the natives, started trading in 1790. Up to 18,000 skins a year were taken from Oregon as part of a round the world circuit called the China Trade.

Then came the land-based fur trapper and trader known as mountain men. They were distinctively American in nature. Part romantic adventurer, part self-made entrepreneur, and part hermit, they would roam the mountains for years at a time collecting furs to trade.

The first two mountain men were members of Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery. Private John Colter left the expedition in 1806 as it was on its way back on the headwaters of the Missouri River. George Drouillard returned a year later for the life of furs. Both men worked for the Spaniard Manuel Lisa who was clandestinely trading American furs out of St. Louis. Colter discovered the geyser basins of "Colter's Hell" and Yellowstone and escaped naked from an Indian firing squad. Drouillard was killed in 1810 by Shawnees who cut off his head and disemboweled him.

At the same time millionaire John Jacob Astor was also entering the fur trade. He expanded his business empire to the Pacific coast in 1810 when he started the ill-fated Pacific Fur Company. Astor's plan was to send his ship Tonquin with trade goods around Cape Horn to the Columbia River to meet up with an overland party, load up with furs and head to China. The overland party under Wilson Price Hunt left St. Louis March 1811, crossed Union Pass and headed up the Snake River where they found game scarce, split up, got lost, had to eat their own moccasins and drink their own waste fluids. Morale was poor. The Tonquin under Lt. Jonathon Thorn, said to be mad by his crew, entered the Columbia River April, 1811 and set up Fort Astor, later to be called Astoria. Two months later while trading with the Salish on Vancouver Island Thorn's cruelty angered the Indians who murdered all crewmen except one who managed to blow up the Tonquin and several hundred Salish Indians. The Hunt Party arrived at Astoria in February, 1812 and trade started in May. It would only last a year. Trading houses were set up side by side with the British North West Company. Robert Stuart and six men left Astoria early in 1813 to return overland to St. Louis to inform his superiors of the sorry state of affairs in Oregon. Enroute he discovered South Pass which would be the funnel for so many covered wagons through the Rockies on the Oregon Trail.

In the spring of 1813 the NWC informed the Astorians of the ongoing War of 1812. Astoria was sold to the NWC without any reluctance. Some Astorians joined the NWC and others went independent.

The mountain men were now the only Americans trading furs in Oregon. Armed with Hawken rifles or pistols, knives, hatchets and a possible bag full of food, tobacco, tools, and bullets these buckskin clad fur trappers lived the life of the Indians with whom they worked so closely. They had Indian wives and in some cases white wives back in St. Louis as well. They included Ewing Young, Joseph Walker, and Kit Carson. They were mentioned in passing in the diaries of Oregon Trail emigrants. Some such as Stephen and Joseph Meek, Old Bill Williams, Tom Fitzpatrick and William Robidoux even guided wagon trains to Oregon.

During the peak fur trapping years around 100,000 beaver pelts a year were being consumed for the production of men's top hats. During the 1830's the increasing use of silk saved the Beaver from extinction. The plains Buffalo then became the chief animal hunted for its skin. The most successful mountain man was William Ashley, who in 1822 advertised in the St. Louis Gazette for men who wanted employment for up to three years. The ad was answered by Jedidiah Smith, Thomas Fitzpatrick, David Jackson, William Sublette, and Jim Bridger, who made up the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Ashley earned $50,000 the first year and retired to politics after the second.

Ashley started the first Rocky Mountain Rendezvous in 1825. There were sixteen annual get-togethers. The site was predetermined, usually along Wyoming's Green River. The first day was spent in drinking, gambling, ball playing and racing. From the second day on it was serious trading. Furs were sold for traps, guns, ammunition, knives, tobacco and liquor ($64 a gallon) all brought from St. Louis. The last rendezvous was in 1840.