Mountain Men Rendezvous Sites

[Gypsy Heart]

All the rendezvous were held west of the Continental Divide with the exception of the 1829, 1830, and 1838 rendezvous. Six of the sixteen rendezvous were held outside the United States in territory belonging to Mexico. Except for two sites in Utah and one in Idaho, all of the rendezvous were held in Wyoming; six of the sixteen rendezvous were held on Horse Creek in the Green River Valley near present-day Daniel, Wyoming. Another point of interest is that all of the rendezvous were held in the territory of the Shoshone, or Snake, Indians.

1825 Burnt Fork, Wyoming
N41° 2' 33.1" W109° 59' 39.2
July 1, 1825, on Henry’s Fork of the Green River, Ashley wrote:

On the 1st day of july, all the men in my employ or with whom I had any concern in the country, together with twenty-nine, who had recently withdrawn from the Hudson Bay company, making in all 120 men, were assembled in two camps near each other about 20 miles distant from the place appointed by me as a general rendezvous, when it appeared that we had been scattered over the territory west of the mountains in small detachments from the 38th to the 44th degree of latitude, and the only injury we had sustained by Indian depredations was the stealing of 17 horses by the Crows on the night of the 2nd april, as before mentioned, and the loss of one man killed on the headwaters of the Rio Colorado, by a party of Indians unknown.

Part of Ashley’s one hundred and twenty men were at least twelve men with Etienne Provost from Taos and possibly other Indians besides those that had defected from Peter Skene Ogden of the Hudson’s Bay Company with seven hundred pelts.

Ashley left the day after the gathering and took his furs over South Pass and down the Bighorn Canyon to near present Thermopolis, Wyoming. The furs were loaded into bullboats and floated down the Bighorn and the Yellowstone rivers to the Missouri River where Ashley met the Atkinson-O'Fallon Expedition. General Henry Atkinson and Indian agent Benjamin O’Fallon had come up the Missouri in a paddle wheeler to negotiate treaties with the various Indian tribes along the Missouri River, and they hauled William Ashley’s furs to St. Louis.http://www.thefurtrapper.com/rendezvous_sites.htm

 

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[Gypsy Heart]

1826 - 1831 Cove, Utah
N41° 57' 26" W111° 49' 37"

The site of the 1826 rendezvous in Cache Valley (Willow Valley) is disputed between Cove and Hyrum, Utah. The renowned historian Dale Morgan believed that it was on Blacksmith Fork near Hyrum. Dr. Morgan based this assumption on the July entries of Jedediah Smith's Journals.

July 1st 25 Miles North along the shore of the Lake. Nothing material occurred.

[July] 2nd 20 Miles North East Made our way to the Cache. But Just before arriving there I saw some indians on the opposite side of a creek. It was hardly worth while as I thought, to be any wise careful, so I went directly to them and found as near as I could judge by what I knew of the language to be a band of the Snakes. I learned from them that the Whites, as they term our parties, were all assembled at the little Lake, a distance of about 25 Miles. There was in [the] this camp about 200 Lodges of indians and as the[y] were on their way to the rendevous I encamped with them.

[July] 3d I hired a horse and a guide and at three O Clock arrived at the rendezvous. My arrival caused a considerable bustle in camp, for myself and party had been given up as lost. A small Cannon brought up from St. Louis was loaded and fired for a salute.

Dr. Morgan took the term cache to mean where goods from the 1826 rendezvous were cached. Dr. Morgan further speculated that Smith's direction of travel was up Box Elder Canyon and over Sardine Pass. Based on these assumptions, he located the 1826 rendezvous in the area of Hyrum, Utah. For me, there are several fallacies to these assumptions. I will state three, and if anyone is interested, email me and we can discuss several others.

From the Dr. Morgan's Blacksmith Fork location, it is approximately thirty-airline miles. This is steep rugged country and there is absolutely no way Smith, or anyone else, could ride a horse up Blacksmith Fork Canyon and arrive at the south end of Bear Lake (Sweet Lake) by three o'clock in the afternoon. Smith's own words of the third would indicate the cache was somewhere else, and the most likely place is twenty-five miles north at John H. Weber's winter camp near Cove, Utah.

If the Indians were traveling with their families, the trail had to be wide enough to pull at least a three-foot travois. A possible Indian trail from Cache Valley to Bear Lake would be up Indian Canyon to the upper end of Logan Canyon. The mouth of Indian Canyon is five- or six-miles south of Weber's camp. From Weber's camp, it is twenty-six-airline miles to Bear Lake, but it is only about fifteen miles up Indian Canyon to the upper end of Logan Canyon. At this point, there would have been a relatively easy trail to Bear Lake. From the mouth of Blacksmith Fork Canyon to this same point in Logan Canyon is twenty-seven miles.

Jedediah Smith and Robert Campbell left St. Louis in late October with sixty men, one hundred and sixty mules, and twenty thousand dollars worth of trade goods. Snowed in on the Republican Fork of the Kansas River, Smith sent a message for Ashley to bring more mules; a third of Smith's mules had died. Ashley responded with twenty-three more men and mules. When the combined party reached Green River, Dr. Gown states that sixty to seventy trappers joined the caravan. From the Green River Valley several routes have been proposed for the route to Cache Valley, but all accounts have the caravan following Bear River into the north end of Cache Valley. This means that the caravan stopped at or close by John Weber's winter camp at Cove, Utah. The trip from St. Louis had been a long hard journey; up to thirty men had deserted. My question is why would Smith re-pack the mules and leave a well-known, establish camp and travel another twenty-five miles?

At the conclusion of the 1826 Willow Valley rendezvous, Ashley met with Jedediah Smith, David Jackson, and William Sublette on Bear River between Georgetown and Soda Springs, Idaho. Ashley sold his interest in the Ashley Smith Fur Trade Company to the new company of Smith, Jackson and Sublette. The previous year, he had taken Jedediah Smith as his partner after Andrew Henry had left the partnership in 1824. Ashley had made enough money from the fur trade to quit and pursue his interests in politics. Ashley remained as the rendezvous supplier for the new firm of Smith, Jackson, and Sublette.

Cache Valley received its name because it was an area mountain men used to cache their supplies.

 

[Gypsy Heart]

1827–1828 Sweet Lake Rendezvous
N41° 49' 31.7" W111° 19' 46.3"

Ashley's hired forty-six men to take the 1827 supply caravan to the Sweet Lake (Bear Lake) rendezvous near Laketown, Utah. The trade goods sent out this year by Ashley is the first listing of alcohol (Rum) being sent, but there are reports of it at the two previous rendezvous. With the caravan was a small cannon mounted on two wheels. This two-wheeled cart made the first wheeled tracks over South Pass. On the way back with the furs, Hiram Scott become ill, and was later abandoned. His body was found three years later near Scott's Bluff, Nebraska.

There were few trade goods for the 1828 rendezvous on Sweet Lake. Sublette had brought out the trade goods the previous fall, and they were pretty much gone. Joshua Pilcher arrived with a few goods that had been cached the previous year...Pilcher, Lucien Fontenelle, Andrew Drips, Charles Bent, and H. H. Vanderburgh had formed a company and brought their trade goods out the previous year. Crow Indians stole their horses near South Pass, and they had to cache their trade goods.

In both the 1827 and 1828 rendezvous, there were fights with the Blackfeet near the rendezvous sites. There were no trappers killed in the first battle, but Lewis Boldue was killed in the 1828 fight.

 

[Gypsy Heart]

1829 – Lander, Wyoming
N42° 51' 06.4" W108° 41' 45.5"

1829 rendezvous on the Popo Agie (Popoasia, Little Wind River) north of Lander, Wyoming was the first rendezvous held east of the Continental Divide. There was a small gathering of mountain men on the Popo Agie, and as soon as the trading was concluded, Sublette left for Pierre's Hole in Idaho with the remaining trade goods. Sublette traveled over Togwotee Pass into Jackson Hole and then over Teton Pass into Pierre's Hole. There he found Jedediah Smith, who had been in the Oregon Country for two years, and David Jackson. Robert Newell recorded that at this second rendezvous there was one hundred and seventy-five mountain men

 

[Gypsy Heart]

1830 – 1838 Riverton, Wyoming
N43° 0' 44.7" W108° 21' 39.2"

The 1830 supply caravan, led by William Sublette, consisted of eighty-one men on mules, ten wagons drawn by five mules each, two Deerborn carriages, twelve head of cattle, and a milk cow. Sublette left St. Louis on April 10th and arrived in the Wind River Basin on July 16th. The supply caravan averaged fifteen- to twenty-five miles a day. Sublette stopped for a rest on July 4th, 1830 at a large rock outcropping on the Sweetwater River. The rock is called Independence Rock.

The Smith, Jackson and Sublette firm collected one hundred and seventy packs of furs with a value of eighty-four thousand four hundred and ninety-nine dollars. This was the firm's most profitable year, but the partners had concerns over the future viability of the fur trade. At the Riverton rendezvous of 1830, Smith, Jackson, and Sublette sold out to a partnership of Thomas Fitzpatrick, James Bridger, Milton Sublette, Henry Fraeb, and Jean Gervias, but William Sublette remained the St. Louis supplier for the rendezvous.

Fitzpatrick, Bridger, Sublette, Fraeb, and Gervias named the new company the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Although the term Rocky Mountain Fur Company is widely used in fur trade history, the period from 1830 to 1834 is the only time that there was an actual company called the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.

Word of Caution: If you are looking for the 1830 and 1838 rendezvous site, it was on the southeast corner of Riverton, Wyoming, just south of Monroe Street. The map in Dr. Gowans' book, Rocky Mountain Rendezvous, shows the site several miles north of Riverton.

1831 Rendezvous: Same site as 1826 Rendezvous.

The supply train did not reach the rendezvous area in time, so no general rendezvous was held. Thomas Fitzpatrick had gone to St. Louis after supplies, but Smith, Jackson, and Sublette had left for Santa Fe...Comanche killed Jedediah Smith on the Cimarron River. After outfitting Fitzpatrick in Santa Fe, Sublette and Jackson dissolved their partnership. Jackson went to California, and Sublette returned to St. Louis.

Henry Fraeb met Fitzpatrick east of South Pass and took the supplies to Willow Valley. He distributed the supplies out from there. Fitzpatrick headed for St. Louis to make sure the next year's supplies arrived on time.

 

[Gypsy Heart]

1832 Pierre's Hole, Idaho
N43° 46' 25" W111° 10' 20"

Sublette and Campbell were the main suppliers to the 1832 rendezvous, which was held in Pierre's Hole a valley below and west of the Tetons. As was the usual case, the American Fur Company supply brigade did not arrive until after the rendezvous was over. That spring, William Sublette had renewed his fur trade license. He was allowed to take four hundred and fifty gallons of whiskey for his boatmen, but was compelled to post a bond not to sell whiskey to the Indians. The route Sublette used to the Pierre’s Hole rendezvous did not require the use of a single boatman (Chittenden).

Mountain men from several different companies attended the rendezvous in Pierre's Hole: Rocky Mountain Fur Company, American Fur Company, Hudson's Bay Company, plus independent companies such as Bean and Sinclair, Gant and Blackwell, and Nathaniel Wyeth. The Pierre's Hole rendezvous was one of the largest rendezvous held in the Rocky Mountains. It is estimated there were four hundred mountain men, one hundred and eight lodges of Nez Perce, eighty lodges of Flatheads, and over three thousand horses. Indian and Mountain Man camps extended from Teton Creek on the south end of Driggs, Idaho north along the west side of the Teton Mountains to Tetonia, Idaho. The Rendezvous covered an area of seven square miles, or more. The main reason for being so spread out was to keep the various horse herds separated.

Joe Meek left this description:

All the parties were now safely in. The lovely mountain valley was populous with the different camps. The Rocky Mountain and American companies had their separate camps; Wyeth had his; a company of free trappers, fifteen, led by a man named Sinclair from Arkansas had the fourth; the Nez Perce and Flatheads, the allies of the Rocky Mountain company and the friends of the whites, had their lodges along all the streams; so that all together there could not have been less than one thousand souls, and two or three thousand horses and mules gathered in the place.

The most significant occurrence at the 1832 rendezvous was the Battle of Pierre's Hole. This was the largest engagement between the mountain men and hostile Indians in the Rocky Mountains. Dr. Fred Gowans, through meticulous research using satellite imagery, has located the Battle of Pierre's Hole in the marshy area near the junction of Fox Creek and the Teton River N43° 39' 3.1" W111° 10' 16". The above picture is to the right of the battle location. Dr. Gowans places the main encampment of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company a little ways upstream from where Highway 33 crosses over Teton Creek on the south end of Driggs, Idaho.

Most journals refer to the Indians as being Blackfeet, but they belonged to Gros Ventre tribe. It should also be pointed out that the Gros Ventre belonged to the Atsina Nation, as did the Arapaho, and were not part of the Blackfeet Nation as is often stated.

There is a wide discrepancy in the written accounts associated with the Battle of Pierre's Hole. Captain Bonneville was not an eyewitness to the battle, but his information came from two of the main participants, William Sublette and Robert Campbell. A few weeks after the Battle of Pierre's Hole, Campbell recorded in his journal:

On the trip going out we [Sublette and Campbell] had passed Captain Bonneville and his party on the Blue, and as we were coming back we passed him on the Green river and gave him an account of our fight with the Blackfeet.

Bonneville's account of the battle, as told to Washington Irving a few years later, is the generally accepted one. The following is an edited version taken from The Adventures of Captain Bonneville by Washington Irving that was published in 1837.

On the 17th of July, a small brigade of fourteen trappers, led by Milton Sublette, brother of the captain, set out with the intention of proceeding to the southwest. They were accompanied by Sinclair and his fifteen free trappers, and Nathaniel Wyeth and his men. On the first day, they proceeded about eight miles to the southeast, and encamped for the night. On the following morning, just as they were raising their camp, they observed a long line of people pouring down a defile of the mountains. They at first supposed them to be Fontenelle and his party, whose arrival had been daily expected. Wyeth, however, reconnoitered them with a spy-glass, and soon perceived they were Indians.

Two trappers of Sublette's brigade, a half-breed named Antoine Godin and a Flathead Indian rode towards the Indians. The Blackfeet halted and one of the chiefs advanced unarmed, bearing the pipe of peace. Godin and the Flathead met the Blackfoot chief half way. When the chief extended his hand in friendship, Antoine grasped it, and the Flathead leveled his piece and fired. Antoine snatched the chief's scarlet blanket and galloped off with it as a trophy to the camp.

The Indians immediately threw themselves into the edge of a swamp, among willows and cottonwood trees, interwoven with vines. Here they began to fortify themselves; the women digging a trench, and throwing up a breastwork of logs and branches. In the meantime, an express had been sent off to the rendezvous for reinforcements.

Captain Sublette, and his associate, Campbell, were at their camp when the express came galloping across the plain. Every one turned out with horse and rifle. The Nez Perces and Flatheads joined. As fast as a horseman could arm and mount he galloped off; the valley was soon alive with white men and red men scouring at full speed.

As Sublette approached the Indian fort, he perceived an Indian peeping through an aperture. Sublette fired and the ball struck the savage in the eye. While he was reloading, he called to Campbell, and pointed out to him the hole; "Watch that place," said he, "and you will soon have a fair chance for a shot." Scarce had he uttered the words, when a ball struck him in the shoulder, and almost wheeled him around. Campbell took him in his arms and carried him out of the thicket. The same shot that struck Sublette wounded another man in the head.

At one time it was resolved to set fire to the Indian's fort; and the squaws belonging to the allies were employed to collect combustibles. This however, was abandoned; the Nez Perces being unwilling to destroy the robes and blankets, and other spoils of the enemy, which they felt sure would fall into their hands. During one of the pauses of the battle, a Blackfeet chief cried out:

There are four hundred lodges of our brethren at hand. They will soon be here--their arms are strong—their hearts are big--they will avenge us!

After this speech was translated two or three times by Nez Perce and creole interpreters, and then rendered into English, the chief was reported to have said that four hundred lodges of his tribe were attacking the encampment at the other end of the valley. A party was left to keep watch the fort; the rest galloped off to the camp. The next morning when their companions returned from the rendezvous with the report that all was safe, they advanced towards the fort without opposition. The fort had been abandoned during the night. The bodies of ten Indians were found within the fort; among them the one shot in the eye by Sublette. The Blackfeet afterward reported that they had lost twenty-six warriors in this battle.

Five white men and one half breed were killed, and several wounded. Seven of the Nez Perces were also killed, and six wounded.

Dr. Gowans' book gives five different eye witness accounts of the Battle of Pierre's Hole: Warren Ferris, George Nidever, Zenas Leonard, Joe Meek, and Nathaniel Wyeth. These chroniclers vary to such a degree that it makes you wonder if it was the same battle. The journals do not even agree on how many were killed. Of the five eyewitness accounts, the cowardly act of Antoine Godin appears in Meek's account and a distorted version in Nidevers. The other writers do not mention it at all. It should be pointed out that these mountain man journals, with the exception of Ferris, were written many years after the mountain man-writer left the mountains.

Not long after the Battle of Pierre's Hole, July 24th, 1832, Captain B. L. H. Bonneville and Joseph R. Walker led one hundred and ten men with twenty-wagon loads of provisions through South Pass into the Green River Valley. These were the first wagons to cross South Pass on what would be the Oregon Trail. On the 27th, Irving noted:

As it would be necessary to remain some time in this neighborhood, that both men and horses might repose, and recruit their strength; and as it was a region full of danger, Captain Bonneville proceeded to fortify his camp with a breastworks of logs and pickets.

This description does not fit the picture of Fort Bonneville on the Fort Bonneville Monument in Sublette County, and there is no evidence that Bonneville did anymore to build a "fort". By 1838, there appears to have been little evidence left of a Fort Bonneville, except for reference to an old storehouse by Osborn Russell. Russell does not indicate this was at Fort Bonneville, but even if it was, how does any kind of a constructed building get to be old in six years? This old trapper cabin on Sheep Creek, which is about thirty miles from Fort Bonneville, is around seventy-five years old.

Because of the severe winters, mountain men called Capt. Bonneville's choice of location Fort Nonsense, but it was ideally situated for the summer rendezvous. Six of the last eight mountain man rendezvous were held on nearby Horse Creek.

 

[Gypsy Heart]

1833, 1835, 1836, 1837, 1839, 1840 – Daniel, Wyoming
N42° 51' 42" W110° 9' .05"
Fort Bonneville was in the trees beyond the upper blue patch of the Green River on the right.

The Rocky Mountain Fur Company, Fontenelle and Drips of the American Fur Company, and the newly formed St. Louis Company of William Sublette and Robert Campbell were at the 1833 rendezvous. Campbell had brought out the yearly supplies along with forty to fifty men, including Sir William Drummond Stewart, Charles Larpentuer, Edmund Christy and Ben Harrison, the son of William H. Harrison, who was soon to be President of the United States. Stewart, a wealthy Scotsman, made several trips to the mountains. Ben Harrison had been sent west by his father who hoped it would cure his son's drinking problem.

Lucien Fontenelle and Andrew Drips arrived with the American Fur Company goods on July 8th. The central gathering place for the rendezvous was at Fort Bonneville. But as the rendezvous progress, the American Fur Company moved approximately five miles downstream to the junction of Green River and Horse Creek. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company was camped on the Green River five miles below the mouth of Horse Creek.

A new company called the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and Christy was formed at the 1833 rendezvous. The new company, organized on July 20th, was to operate for one year. The new partner had invested six thousand six hundred and seven dollars in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.

A highlight of the 1833 rendezvous was the following incident that comes from Joe Meek (Victor).

During the indulgence of these excesses, while at this rendezvous, there occurred one of those incidents of wilderness life which make the blood creep with horror. Twelve of the men were bitten by a mad wolf, which hung about the camp for two or three nights. Two of these were seized with madness in camp, sometime afterwards, and ran off into the mountains, where they perished. One was attacked by the paroxysm while on a hunt; when, throwing himself off his horse, he struggled and foamed at the mouth, gnashing his teeth, and barking like a wolf. Yet he retained consciousness enough to warn away his companions, who hastened in search of assistance; but when they returned he was nowhere to be found. It was thought that he was seen a day or two afterwards, but no one could come up with him, and of course, he too, perished. Another died on his journey to St. Louis; and several died at different times within the next two years.

At the time, however, immediately following the visit of the wolf to camp, Captain Stuart [Stewart] was admonishing Meek on the folly of his ways, telling him that the wolf might easily have bitten him, he was so drunk. "It would have killed him,--sure, if it hadn't cured him! " said Meek,--alluding to the belief that alcohol is a remedy for the poison of hydrophobia.

After the rendezvous broke up, Thomas Fitzpatrick and Milton Sublette entered into an agreement with Nathaniel Wyeth to bring the supplies for the 1834 rendezvous.

 

[Gypsy Heart]

1834 Granger, Wyoming
N41° 35' 14.3" W109° 58' 35.9"

Nathaniel Wyeth left Independence on April 28, 1834, with Milton Sublette, Jason Lee, a Methodist minister, and two naturalists, Thomas Nuttall and Kirk Townsend, plus seventy-five other men and two hundred and fifty horses. When William Sublette learned of the arrangement between Fitzpatrick and Wyeth, he left a few days later. Sublette over took Wyeth and passed him during the night. When Sublette reached Laramie Creek near where it empties into the North Platte River, he left several men to start construction on Fort William (Fort Laramie).

Once at the rendezvous, Sublette forced Fitzpatrick to buy his supplies from him; he still held notes on the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. When Wyeth arrived a few days later, he noted:

...and much to my astonishment the goods which I had contracted to bring to the Rocky Mountain Fur Co. were refused by these honorable gentlemen.

The suppliers at the rendezvous were the American Fur Company, Sublette and Campbell, and Nathaniel Wyeth. The American Fur Company was camped near the junction of Ham's Fork and Blacks Fork where the above picture was taken. Sublette and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company were five to ten miles up Ham's Fork and Wyeth was another five or so miles above them.

After the rendezvous, a disgruntled Wyeth took his supplies to the Portneuf River near its junction with Snake River and built Fort Hall. Wyeth sold Fort Hall to the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1835.

At the end of the 1834 rendezvous on Ham's Fork, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was dissolved and a new company Fontenelle and Fitzpatrick emerged. A year later, William Sublette sold Fort William to the Fontenelle and Fitzpatrick partnership and agreed to leave the mountains. Thus ended the major influence of the "Ashley men” on the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade.

This same year, Jacob Astor ended his fur trade career with the selling of his holdings in the western department of the American Fur Company to Pratte, Chouteau and Company of St. Louis. The remaining portion of the American Fur Company was acquired by Ramsey Crooks. Operating on the Upper Missouri and the Great Lakes area, Crooks retained the name American Fur Company. Pratte, Chouteau and Company was now the chief supplier for what was left of the Rocky Mountain fur trade, however most journals continued to refer to them as the American Fur Company.

Two trading posts built in 1834, Fort William (Fort Laramie) by Sublette and Fort Hall by Wyeth, would have a lasting effect on travel over the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail. Along with Fort Bridger (built in 1843), these posts were the major supply and layover points on the Mormon, California, and Oregon trail for hundreds of thousands of weary travelers.

1835 Green River Rendezvous: Same location as 1833:

Accompanying Lucien Fontenelle with the 1835 supply train was two missionaries, Dr. Marcus Whitman and Samuel Parker. During the rendezvous, Dr. Whitman removed a metal arrowhead from Jim Bridger’s back. Bridger had been shot three years before in the Blackfeet country. The Nez Perce at the rendezvous were so receptive to having missionaries among them that Dr. Whitman returned to the East to recruit more missionaries.

Samuel Parker left a description on the plight of the mountain man.

The American Fur Company have between two and three hundred men constantly in and about the mountains engaged in trading, hunting and trapping. These all assemble at rendezvous upon the arrival of the caravan, bring in their furs and take new supplies for the coming year, of clothing ammunition and goods for trade with the Indians. But few of these men ever return to their country and friends. Most of them are constantly in debt to the company, and are unwilling to return without a fortune, and year after year pass away while they are hoping in vain for better success.

1836 Green River Rendezvous: Same location as 1833:

Narcissa Whitman and Elisa Spaulding on the way to the Oregon missions with their husbands Dr. Marcus Whitman and Henry Spalding were the first white women to attend a rendezvous and to cross South Pass on the Oregon Trail. At the conclusion of the rendezvous, the missionaries were escorted to Walla Walla by a Hudson's Bay caravan under the leadership of Thomas McKay and John McLeod. McKay's father, Alexander McKay, was with Alexander Mackenzie on his crossing to the Pacific Ocean in 1793, and a partner in the Pacific Fur Company. Alexander McKay was killed on the Tonquin at Nootka Sound.

1837 Green River Rendezvous: Same location as 1833:

Accompanying Thomas Fitzpatrick with the supply train of 1837 were Etienne Provost, Sir William Drummond Stewart, and a young artist, Alfred Jacob Miller. Stewart had brought Miller to capture on canvas the activities of the rendezvous. Stewart later took Alfred Miller to Scotland where he painted large murals based on the sketches he had made in the mountains. During the sixteen-year history of the rendezvous, neither mountain man, traveler, missionary, or visitor left a more detailed description of the wilderness experience than did Alfred Jacob Miller (Gowans).

1838 Wind River Rendezvous: Same site as 1830 Rendezvous:

The 1838 rendezvous was scheduled for the Green River Valley, but to escape trading pressure from the Hudson's Bay Company, the location was moved to the site of the 1830 rendezvous on the Wind River. This note was written with charcoal on an old storehouse door:

Come to Popoasia on Wind River and you will find plenty trade, whiskey, and white women.

According to Jerome Peltier (Mountain Man and the Fur Trade Series), Moses "Black" Harris wrote this note. Harris a frequent companion of William Sublette, has been described on several internet sites as a black man, but there is no evidence to support this other than his nickname "Black". This description of Harris was left by Alfred Jacob Miller:

This Black Harris always created a sensation at the campfire, being a capital raconteur, and having had as many perilous adventures as an man probably in the mountains. He was wiry form, made up of bone and muscle , with a face apparently composed of tan leather and whip cord, finished off with a peculiar blue-black tint, as if gunpowder had been burnt into his face.

Andrew Drips was in charge of the supply train, accompanying him was August Johann Sutter. Sutter went on to California and built Sutter's Fort where gold was discovered in 1849. Drips was also accompanied by a large group of missionaries headed for Oregon and Sir William Drummond. Stewart was making his last visit to the mountains before returning to Scotland. The 1838 rendezvous is one of the best documented rendezvous. Four of the missionary wives kept diaries.

According to Robert Newell, the company men were hard nosed in regards to business at the rendezvous. Prices were extremely high and some trappers were slipping away from the rendezvous because they could not pay the Company their debts. Credit was a thing of the past (Gowans).

1839 Green River Rendezvous: Same location as 1833:

The only account of the 1839 rendezvous is in the journal of Dr. Frederick A. Wislizenus, a German physician. Moses Harris led the train with only nine helpers...a far cry from Sublette's train to the 1830 rendezvous.

1840 Green River Rendezvous: Same location as 1833:

Andrew Drips, assisted by Jim Bridger and Henry Fraeb, directed the caravan to the 1840 Rendezvous. Leaving Westport on April 30th, 1840, it was the last fur trade caravan headed for the Rocky Mountains. With Drips was Father Pierre DeSmet and the family of Joel Walker, brother of Joseph R. Walker. Joel and Mary Walker with their five children were the first homesteaders to travel the Oregon Trail. According to Joel Walker:

About this time the Government of the United States offered emigrants six hundred and forty acres of land.

At the close of the 1840 rendezvous, an exciting chapter in American history came to an end, and another one started. The Rocky Mountain Rendezvous were over, the Oregon Trail migrations started.

Mountain men that had explored the country in search of beaver often led the wagon trains over the Oregon Trail. Two of the most famous guides were Thomas Fitzpatrick and Moses "Black" Harris. The length of the Oregon Trail is approximated at two thousand miles. It is interesting to note that wagons on the Oregon Trail traveled one- to two-miles per hour with an average of one hundred miles a week. At this rate, it took five month to reach Oregon. One estimate has one of every seventeen travelers (men, women, children) dying in route to the Oregon Country (Bailey). This gives a death rate on the Oregon Trail of over ten people per mile. The main causes of death on the Oregon Trail were disease (Cholera), crossing rivers, and accidental gun shot wounds...not from Hollywood Indians circling the wagons. One figure gives three hundred and fifty-six emigrants killed by Indians

Several factors brought an end to the Rocky Mountain fur trade era:

By 1834, men hat fashion had turned from beaver to silk hats producing a drastic effect in the price of beaver. In the early 1830's, beaver was worth almost $6/lb in Philadelphia; by 1843 the price was not even $3/lb (Virginia.edu).

In the Rocky Mountains, the relentless competition of the late 1820s and early 1830s destroyed the beaver reserves, first in the accessible areas of the central Rockies, then progressively outward from this core into the southern and northern Rockies. No other factor, even the collapse of the market after 1834, had a greater influence on the decline of the Rocky Mountain Trapping System than this blind destruction of the fur-bearing animals (Wishart).

Profit margins for the St. Louis trading firms did not justify the expense and risk of taking supplies to the rendezvous sites.

Nutria (coypu) from South America was as good as beaver for making felt hats and much cheaper to obtain.

The typical trapper left the mountains with just about what he started with...nothing. The early fur trade company owners and the St. Louis suppliers reaped any profits from the fur trade. The typical trapper never got out of debt.

There is a tendency to think that the beaver fur trade ended with the collapse of the Rocky Mountain fur trade, but fourteen years later, Hudson's Bay auctioned off five hundred thousand beaver pelts in London. Hudson’s Bay Company records show that from 1853 to 1877 the company sold some three million beaver pelts. With the end of the Mountain Man-Indian Fur Trade in the Rocky Mountains, the emphasis shifted to the Indian buffalo robe trade. In 1840 the American Fur Company sent sixty-seven thousand buffalo robes to St. Louis, and in 1848, one hundred and ten thousand robes and other skins along with twenty-five thousand buffalo tongues and great quantities of tallow (Chittenden).

The demise of the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous system signaled a new way of life for a great many Americans.

(1) The colorful buffalo robe-open sky lifestyle of the mountain man was gone.

This was the way to live, free and easy, with time all a man's own and none to say no to him. A body got so's he felt everything was kin to him, the earth and sky and buffalo and beaver and the yellow moon at night. It was better than being walled in by a house, better than breathing spoiled air and feeling caged like a varmint. - A. B. Guthrie, Jr., The Big Sky

(2) The first non-missionary wife and children traveled the Oregon Trail in 1840. Manifest Destiny had begun for the hundreds of thousands of Americans that traveled the Oregon, Mormon, and California trails.

(3) Beginning of the end for the Plains Indian Culture.

Forty-six years after the first immigrant family (Joel Walker's) traveled over the Oregon Trail, the last buffalo hunt was held in the Judith Valley, and the vast majority of free-roaming Plains Indians were confined to reservations.

The Rendezvous Site 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.

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

Gypsy,

good information.

I enjoy reading about that period.

Mountainmen, free trappers, the company trappers,
and all the rest of the misfits that ended up in the
new country areas. Sure was a strong/strange lot
of folks.

Read that some would move on if they were able
to hear the shots of another person hunting.

Must have been something seeing the country at
that period of time; being out front of the first
settlers.

Interesting time from the Chouteaus' and those
who followed.

Any special site(s) you recommend on their history?

Again, interesting posts.

have a good un.......................
SHERMANVILLE

 

[Gypsy Heart]

Sherm
I love this era also...Would love to go hunt these areas as I am sure there are some fantastic relics waiting to be dug up... Just the freedom that these men enjoyed....Love it ...
http://www.lexisnexis.com/academic/guides/western_hist/st_louis_fur/fur12.asp

http://www.mdc.mo.gov/conmag/1997/02/10.htm


http://www.oregon.com/history/oregon_trail_timeline_1816_1830.cfm

Somewhere in this mountain of books I have a fur traders book about Chouteau. If I can unearth it I will mail it to you....

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

Gypsy,

thank you nice lady



Have, "Before Lewis and Clark", by Shirley Christian;
subtitled ; "The story of the Chouteaus, the French
Dynasty that ruled America's Frontier."

have a good un................
SHERMANVILLE

 

[WV Hillbilly]

Great post Gypsy , I read everything I can get my hands on about mountain men , fur trappers ect . It would be great to be able to hunt these areas .

 

[EDDE]

man i found that site a while back from a link someone posted was a great read!

 

[TreasureTales]

Great posts, wonderful info. That's so much Gypsy.

Last June I visited the Mountain Man Museum in Pinedale, Wyoming. I enjoyed the place so much I'm hoping to return this year. The volunteer organization that built the museum and runs it published a book about the rendezvous locations and what went on during the gatherings. The men would party so hardy that they wound up owing their companies MORE than they earned in that year's furs. Sorta like the company store of the coal miners and lumbermen.

That is one of the most fascinating periods in American history, IMO. The freedom to roam and live off the land, the adventures and hair-raising escapes. What a way to live!!! I would have liked to have been born then and be like one of them. One of my favorite movies is Jeremiah Johnson. What I would give to find a trapper's fire flint and steel to add to my collection of early camp tools.

Ah, the wild herds of buffalo, the antelope, the cougars and wolves. The beaver and muskrat, the mink and otters and deer. I'd make jerky out of all of them. LOL

 

[shadowwalker]

Gypsy, I lived in Wyo for 30, I only knew of three of those sites. Thanks, when I move back to wyo. I will have more to hunt!

 

[Mighty AP]

man i found that site a while back from a link someone posted was a great read!

You can read DeKalb?? Wow!
Nice job Gypsy! I too like this period, Lewis & Clark came right through here, Im a few miles from the Shoshone Reservation (too bad they wont let me hunt out there, eh?) Now, if I can talk Ed into reading some of this to me, I might learn something new!

 

[EDDE]

braille

 

[Mighty AP]

 

[Montana Jim]

I live in Great Falls, MT... 45 minutes from Fort Benton, with a wonderful history of it's own.

I can walk the very footsteps L&C walked... but I don't think they lost too much that they didn't bury for the return trip.

They land-sailed their boats over the prairie a stones throw from my house...

I've been to the Crazy Woman Mountains (Name changed to just Crazy Mountains in the 1970s). Legend has it that's where the Indians killed a woman's entire family, except her, and she lost her mind. I've detect near portions of the famed "Judith River" and the "Sun River" and walked the same barren flats that those mountain men walked and trapped and fished and hunted on. Not much has changed at all on almost all of the Montana L&C trail. Think: Jerimah Johnson movie...

I love it out here. The history is rich, but the "lost stuff" is few and far between.

For EDDEKALB: The above text translated:

 

[Gypsy Heart]

Montana Jim....That Crazy Woman Mountains story has always been one of my very favorites....go figure....I hope to hunt there soon....my sister lives in Bozeman and is lining some places up for me....