by Don Berry
***
The Spring '30 hunts was made by two divisions. Davey Jackson took about half the men back across the divide into the Snake country.6 There is, inevitably, no scrap of information. ( I have a growing conviction that Davey Jackson selected his brigades by showing his men a pen. If they knew what it was for, they were ruthlessly weeded out.)
The remaining half, under Jedediah Smith, set off in the other direction—north. They soon crossed over the range separating the Powder from the Tongue River; trapped on the latter for a while; and moved west to the Bighorn itself. Times were good, according to Meek’s report, and the pelts began to mount up. While they were on the "Bighorn a heavy spring snow was dumped on them, making traveling hard. When the snow melted, it raised streams to dangerous heights. Trying to cross Bovey’s Fork of the Bighorn (present Beauvais Creek, Montana), Smith lost thirty horses and 300 traps. This was a crippling blow to the party, but there was nothing for it but to move on with what they had.
From the time they left the Tongue River they had probably been following a line roughly parallel to the east-west course of the Yellowstone proper, and some miles south of it; intersecting the various named streams and spending at few days or more on each one, trapping up and down from their general line of march.
After the loss on Bovey’s Fork, Smith crossed the Pryor Moimtains (the northern horn of the Bighorns) through Pryor’s gap, and cut almost due west to Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone; thence to the Rosebud River. (This is not the present Rosebud—which is about 150 miles east—but the Stillwater River.)
While trapping the Rosebud, Meek—again with two others—found himself another bear, or, rather, the bear found him. They had just killed a fat buffalo cow, gorged themselves on it—the mountain manna—and rolled into their blankets for the· night. The choice pieces they wanted to save were stuck under their heads, which was a standard way of keeping food away from animals. However, the animal that came hunting was not a skunk, as was frequent, but a large, hungry bear. Joe was wakened near dawn by "sometl1ing very large and heavy walking over him, and snuffing about him with a most insulting freedom." Joe says:
You may be sure that I kept very quiet, while that bar helped himself to some of my buffalo meat and went a little way off to eat it. But Mark Head . . .raised up, and back came the bear. Down went our heads under the blankets, and I kept mine covered pretty snug, while the beast took another walk over the bed, but finally went on again to a little distance. Mitchel then wanted to shoot; but I said, "no, no, hold on, or the brute will kill us, sure." When the bar heard our voices, back he run again, and jumped on,the bed.
Eventually, after a good deal more promenading over the blanket bundles, the grizzly decided "he couldn’t quite make out our style," and took off down the mountain. Joe, "wanting to be revenged for his impudence," followed after and killed him. "Then," says, he, with a justifiable satisfaction, "I took my turn at running over him awhile!"
Reaching the Yellowstone, which was also in high water, Smith made bullboats to ferry the goods across. Mrs. Victor mentions another system of crossing rivers, which is of some interest:
The mode . . . was to spread the lodges on the ground, throwing on them the light articles, saddles, etc. A rope was then run through the pin-holes around the edge of each, when it could be drawn up like a reticule. It was then filled with the heavier camp goods, and being tightly drawn up, formed a perfect ball. A rope being tied to it, it was launched on the water, the children of the camp on top, and the women swimming after and clinging to it, while a man, who had the rope in his hand, swam ahead holding on to his horse’s mane. In this way, dancing like a cork . . . the lodge was piloted across .... A large camp of three hundred men, and one hundred women and children were frequently thus crossed in one hour’s time.
Smith was moving north again; across the Yellowstone and up to the headwaters of the Musselshell. Now he was in Blackfoot country again, and the harassing began. He moved—still north—to the Judith, and things were no better. However rich the country might be, it was no good unless you could trap it. And owing to the constant annoyance of Bug’s Boys, Smith found "trapping impracticable."
The spring hunt had been good, however; good enough that there was no reason to risk another massacre for the sake of a few more pelts. They tumed back, having made only a halfhearted attempt to penetrate the implacable wall of violence and hostility that surrounded this rich ground. It was now late spring anyway, and time to begin thinking about Rendezvous 1830. Since much of the fur was cached at Wind River, the rendezvous was scheduled there.
Smith’s party wound its way back up the Bighom to the valley of the Wind and raised the cache there. Samuel Tulloch took another small party back up to Milton Sublette's cache on the Bighorn. (Sublette’s had been dug into an overhanging bank the previous December.) Meek was with this group, and while he and a "Frenchman named Ponto" were digging out the—cache, the bank collapsed on top of them. Ponto was killed almost instantly, "rolled in a blanket, and pitched into the river." Meek came out of it alive, but had to be packed up with the furs and carried back to Wind River.
Someplace along the line, "Jackson also arrived from the Snake country with plenty of beaver." Of course. Now all that remained was the supply train from St. Louis.
III
Bill Sublette and Black Harris reached St. Louis about February 11, 1830. Chances are Sublette didn’t like what he found there. There were ominous storm clouds on the horizon, strangely resembling John Jacob Astor.
Shortly after Sublette’s arrival, Pierre Chouteau found an opportunity to chat with him. Chouteau’s firm, B. Pratte & Company, had become the Western Department of American Fur in December, 1826 (see Chapter 9). Now, there were a few things Chouteau would like to know, purely in a friendly— way. Sublette, like a Hemingway hero, said nothing.
The disgruntled Chouteau dually had to write Astor: "Je Pai beaucoup questiorme. Je n’ai rien obtenu de satisfaisant. Il me regard toujaurs comme un opponent"
It is hard to see how Sublette could have seen Chouteau as anything but an opponent. By now he knew that the Western Department was outfitting an expedition for the mountains on its own. It had signed on two of Pilcher's former partners, Fontenelle and Drips, and one of the Robidoux brothers to lead it. This was bad news, particularly when it came in addition to another threat. The virtual monopoly of SJ&S on the motmtain trade was about to be broken; that much was obvious. If not this year, then the next. John Jacob Astor was moving west with all the relentless inevitability of the tide.
Six months after American Fur had absorbed B. Pratte & Company, another merger was negotiated. This time Astor bought up the small—but annoying—Columbia Fur Company. (This was the company based at the Mandan villages, far north on the Missouri, which had been started by a combine of former Nor’westers and some Americans.) This was retitled the Upper Missouri Outfit, or simply UMO.
The Western Department was in virtual control of the lower river (having bought out the last serious competition, Joseph Robidoux; $3,500 ‘cash for his goods, and $1,000 a year for two years to say out of competition). With the establishment of UMO at the Mandans, this made the Missouri—in so far as the fur trade was concerned—the private creek of John Jacob Astor.
When he bought Columbia Fur, Astor got a bargain, because with it he secured the services of Kenneth McKenzie. One of McKenzie’s first orders of business was to build the new post at the mouth of the Yellowstone, Fort Floyd. (It became Fort Union—and the greatest of American posts almost immediately, and will be so called here.)
Sublette certainly knew of Fort Union; Hugh Glass had gone there in the fall of '28 to invite McKenzie to the feast. Other considerations had prevented, and McKenzie hadn’t been able to get a supply party into the mountains for Rendezvous 1829, as desired. But Sublette was perfectly well aware that it was simply a matter of time before SJ&S was caught between two forks of American Fur: the Western Department from St. Louis and the Upper Missour
i Outfit from Fort Union. Like the tide, Astor did not destroy, he simply engulfed. If SJ&S was to escape drowning, it was time to scamper for higher ground.
But Bill had come back to St. Louis with some good ideas for a supply caravan; some new ideas, and he proceeded to put them into effect.
Instead of the customary horse-and-mule caravan, Bill had in mind to try a radical innovation—wagons. As a further change he would take along cattle, to provide for the party until they reached good buffalo country. The idea of letting the provisions carry themselves proved to be a good one.
Sublette worked fast. By April 10, two months after his arrival, he was ready to go. It seems highly likely he was hurrying to get back before Western Department’s caravan could move; and he succeeded. The party of Fontenelle, Drips, and Robidoux did not get off until May.
Sublette’s party consisted of eighty-one men, all of them mounted on mules. There were ten wagons, drawn by five mules each, and two of the lighter Dearborn carriages, which required only one mule. They were driving twelve head of cattle and one milch cow, making up a caravan the likes of which had never been seen in the mountains.
He sent the supply train on ahead, while he remained behind to tie up the loose business ends. Principally he had to get his new license from General Clark and settle up with Ashley. The trading license was issued on April 14, and two days later Sublette went over his accounts with Ashley.
Not so good. Their credit was $28,160, mostly from Campbell’s furs of last fall (the previous $6,684 balance made up the balance). But the accumulated debits were a staggering $29,177.15, including $1,000 cash advanced on the day of settlement. SJ&S was back in the red by $1,017.15.
Still, there had been a pile of furs en cache when Sublette left the mountains, and he could reasonably expect a decent spring hunt. This would more than take care of the relatively small debt and probably leave a good deal over, to be divided among the partners. Most important, the outlay for this supply caravan was the last expense; and it would also pay for bringing the cached furs back to St. Louis for final settlement of the business. Anything from here on in was profit.
I am here making an assumption that Sublette decided, on the basis of what he saw of the mounting opposition, to get out of the business before it was too late. Historians have wondered why Smith Jackson & Sublette broke up at the time they did. Itseems obvious to me that a man of Bill Sublette’s demonstrable shrewdness could have seen the writing on the wall, and drawn the only sensible conclusions. Witness that the business of SJ&S was on an extremely tenuous financial basis, even while the firm held an effective monopoly on supplies. The losses from Indian depredations, accident, and plain mountain attrition were simply too great; even a goodly a markup on supplies didn’t give enough margin. But this state of affairs was dependent on one condition: that they be actively engaged in taking beaver, because that was where the losses occurred. On the other hand, a company that did nothing but supply—did not directly hunt at all—would completely bypass the stage of the business where loss was heavy. The losses would already have been absorbed by the active hunters before the suppliers even came into the picture.
But that was for another year, and the problem now was to get out from under before John Jacob Astor sat down. Sublette gave Ashley a note for the balance owing, and caught up with his supply train a few days later.
He later described his course:
Our route from St. Louis was nearly due west to the western limits of the State; and thence along the Santa Fe trail about forty miles; from which the course was some degrees north of west, across the waters of the Kanzas, and up the Great Platte river, to the Rocky Mountains, and to the head of Wind River, where it issues from the mountains.
They fell in with sufficient buffalo to support the train some 350 miles out, on the Platte: "the quantity being infinitely beyond what we needed." They had been obliged to butcher only eight of their meat animals; the remaining four and the milch cow made the trip all the way to Wind River, where they doubtless provoked a good deal of hilarity among the mountain men. A milch cow in the Wind River valley? Wagh! That’s some, now!
The letter to the Secretary of War went on to say that the wagons could have crossed the divide without dificulty—via South Pass—"had it been desirable for them to do so, which it was not." They had made an average of fifteen to twenty-five miles a day, and run into no insuperable obstacles. The worst were ravines and creekbanks, which sometimes had to be cut away to let the wagons pass. But the trip was not only feasible, it was easy, and there were no losses.
The conclusion:
. . . the ease and safety with which it was done prove the facility of communicating over land with the Pacific Ocean. The route from the Southern Pass, where the wagons stopped, to the Great Falls of the Columbia, being easier and better than on this side of the mountains, with grass enough for horses and mules, but a scarcity of game for the support of men.
This was is little overoptimistic, but the import is clear enough. Settlers, colonists, families, and wagons can go to Oregon just as soon as their beneficent Uncle takes care of the dragon that guards the gates to that promised land: HBC.
Arriving at Rendezvous 1830, Sublette sat his partners down and told them which way the stick was fioating. Fortunately, there happened to be five buyers on hand.
PART THREE
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN FUR COMPANY
1830-1834
CHAPTER 16
'Rushed, upon him like so many blood-hounds”
A LEGEND was born at Rendezvous 1830; a legend that went under the name and style of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. "The greatest name in the mountains," Bernard DeVoto called it, and he was right. Ironically enough, in succeeding years the very greatness of the name created a mythos around RMF that thoroughly obscured the reality. The literature of the trade has dealt, for the most part, with the legend; the actual status of the company has been hidden behind luminous clouds of folklore. The difference is a significant one, for "the greatest name in the mountains" was doomed to failure from the beginning. They committed the unforgivable sin. They put their trust in the wrong people.
RMF was headed by a five-man partnership; all of them superb trappers, the epitome of the breed we know as mountain men. Unfortunately, there was not a politician among them, nor a business mind. Tom Fitzpatrick was their brain, in the sense that he constituted RMF’s main liaison with Bill Sublette. The other partners were Jim Bridger ('Old Gabe" to the trappers, "Casapy"—Blanket Chief—to the Indians), Milton Sublette, Henry Fraeb, and Jean Baptiste Gervais. In the increasingly bitter competition of the trade, this combination of practical trappers was at a distinct disadvantage. The RMF partnership probably thought at fur company would be successful if it trapped more furs than anybody else; it would seem a not-unreasonable hope.
But it was the sheerest naiveté; the competition in the field, fierce as it was, was as nothing compared to the financial manipulations these men had to face. The profits of a business that contained such men as William Ashley, Bill Sublette, the Chouteaus, and John Jacob Astor would accrue to the manipulators, not the trappers.
In the pages that follow it will appear that RMF’s hardest fight was with American Fur’s expansion to the mountains, and this is the traditional view. It is true only in a limited sense. The competition between RMF and the Company produced some of the most dramatic and bitter events of the trade. The fact that American Fur came to be known simply as "the Company" is proof enough of their awe-inspiring power. Invitably, RMF is seen as "the Opposition." Historians have generally followed this line and seen the story of RMF as a process of being "humbled" by the monolithic power of the Company.
The mountain conflict between the two firms was certainly a potent factor in the eventual destruction of RMF. But it was not the only factor, nor was it even—in my opinion—the most important one. The history of RMF is made comprehensible only through a consideration of its relations with one man, who was, ostensibly, on th
eir side. This was Bill
Sublette.
Bill Sublette served as midwife at the birth of RMF, as nurse and confidant, and—when the company ceased to serve his own purposes—as executioner.
It is my contention that the Rocky Mountain Fur Company existed almost as the personal instrument of William L. Sublette; that he manipulated its fortunes with a sure and steady hand; that the company served as a pawn in a game being played between Sublette and John Jacob Astor.1
Normally I would be better content to let a point of this sort develop gradually, as the narrative proceeded. I mention it here because I feel the events that follow will make a more coherent pattern for the reader if he views them in this light.
***
The Fall '29 and Spring '30 hunts of Smith Jackson & Sublette had been good ones; part of this no doubt due to Jedediah Smith’s good sense in turning back from the Blackfoot country when the going got rough. There must have been around 170 packs of beaver at the Wind River rendezvous. Most of this would be free and clear; SJ&S were indebted to Ashley for only about $1,000. When the beaver was turned into cash, it would amount to nearly $84,500; even after deductions for expenses, commissions, and what not, a very sizable sum would remain to be split among the three partners, netting them better than $17,500 apiece.2
Sublette's wagon caravan had arrived at Wind River in the middle of July. Rendezvous 1830 lasted almost three weeks, until August 4. By the lst of the month the important business of the day had been completed and Smith Jackson & Sublette had ceased to exist. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company had come into being.