My recent blog about Isaac Cooper motivated me to learn more about his surroundings and the events of his time, and that led to the blogs about the Santa Fe Trail and then, Tombstone, AZ. To learn more about Isaac Cooper’s time, I was led to a book by Frank Hall written in 1889. The title of the book is “A History of the State of Colorado” and is primarily devoted to the discovery of gold and the subsequent influx of settlers to Denver and the surrounding area. To set the scene for his tale, the author explores the history of the mountain men and fur trappers who were the first white men to enter the area after it came under United States jurisdiction following the Louisiana Purchase.
As a young boy, I read about Kit Carson, Daniel Boone, Jedediah Smith and Davy Crocket and except for a few movies over the years, those books were the extent of my knowledge of those people and their contribution to the settling of this country. Even after reading about those early pioneers, I don’t think I fully comprehended what it meant to enter an uncharted wilderness with potentially unfriendly natives lurking at every turn. The terrain itself was foreboding enough, with Grizzly bears, cougars, and other large carnivores ready to take advantage of an unwary traveler. Even a well beaten path like the Santa Fe Trail claimed its fair share from Rattlesnake bites and the rampages of renegade Indians, not to mention the occasional drowning in swollen streams and accidents with overturned wagons.
Mr. Hall’s book was researched and written when many of the mountain men were still alive, and includes many personal interviews and first hand accounts of the life and times of those folks. In the early years, most of them worked either directly or indirectly for one or another of the great fur trading companies whose names many of us will recognize. The oldest and largest of those companies was the Hudson Bay Company (HBC). Formed by charter on May 2, 1670, the HBC became the largest landowner in North America and is still in existence today, operating retail chains across Canada. A competitor of HBC was the American Fur Company, founded in 1808 and wholly owned by John Jacob Astor. With the ouster of the British after the Revolution, the American Fur Company monopolized the fur trade in the United States by 1830. Encouraged by the new Republic in an effort to forestall the encroachment of British, Russian, and French incursions to the northwest territory, a third company, the Pacific Fur Company, was established in 1810 in Astoria, Oregon. This company was 50% owned by John Jacob Astor and 50% by the working partners.
A later arrival and smaller company, established in 1823 came to be known as the Rocky Mountain Fur Company (RMFC). This company contracted with Jedediah Smith, Jim Beckwourth, David Edward Jackson, Thomas Fitzpatrick and the five Sublette brothers including Milton and William to ascend the Missouri River to its source and spend two or three years trapping for furs. They also hired such notable figures as Jim Bridger, Joseph Meek, Robert Newell, George W. Ebbert, and Kit Carson.
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| Jedediah Smith |
Jedediah Smith (1799 – 1831) was one of the earliest mountain men. With Jim Beckwourth, Jim Bridger and others, Smith was one of the men to answer the 1822 call of William Henry Ashley for “Enterprising Young Men” to join a trapping expedition near the headwaters of the Missouri River. Later that year, the Arikaras Indians, who were becoming increasingly hostile, attacked the party and massacred 13 of the men; Jedediah survived. In 1824, along the Cheyenne River, Jedediah was stalked by a large Grizzly bear. In front of witnesses, the bear jumped Jedediah and pinned him to the ground. With one swing of its giant paw, the bear ripped open Jedediah’s side, breaking several of his ribs in the process; again, Jedediah survived.
In 1825, after four profitable years trapping the upper Missouri, Ashley sold his company to Jedediah Smith, David E. Jackson and William L. Sublette. By 1830, the new partners had made sizeable fortunes in the fur trade and sold their company to Tom Fitzpatrick, Milton Sublette (William’s brother), Jim Bridger, Henry Fraeb, and John Baptiste Gervais. These five men formed what would become known as the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. In 1830, Smith retired from the fur trading business and on October 11, returned to St. Louis with over 17,000 dollars, almost half a million in today’s dollars.
In 1827, traveling with eighteen men and two women, Jedediah crossed the Mojave Desert on his way to the California coast. At the Colorado River, the party was attacked by the Mojave Indians who killed ten of the men and took the two women; once again, Jedediah survived.
In 1831 Jedediah was leading a supply train along the Santa Fe Trail when he left the group to scout for water; he never returned. Later, when some of his possessions were discovered being peddled by a Mexican street vendor in Santa Fe, it was learned that he had been attacked by band of Comanche hunters and killed; he was 32 years old.
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| James Beckwourth |
James Pierson Beckwourth (April 6, 1798 – October 29, 1866) was an African American who was born into slavery and lived with the Crow Indians for many years and eventually became a war chief. He is credited with the discovery of Beckwourth Pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Although Beckwourth was hired by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, he sold his furs to the competing company of John Jacob Astor and as a result, his contract with the RMFC was not renewed. As a Crow war chief Beckwourth fought against other tribes and some white settlements. Later, as a guide for military excursions he fought against some of his own tribe. It seems that his allegiance was available to the highest bidder and he died a lonely man. On the trail as a guide, he suddenly developed severe headaches followed by an unstoppable nose bleed. He bled to death near Denver, CO, in 1866.
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| Jim Bridger |
Jim Bridger (1804 – 1881) was another early mountain man. He was included in that first group of the RMFC and is described as being tall and lank with a countenance that was “frank and kind, albeit uncouth, uneducated and without a trace of modern refinement.” He was known to be bold and fearless and explored most of the land between the Missouri River and the west coast. In his later years, he established a trading post on Block’s Fork of the Green River and, unlike many of his peers, managed to amass substantial holdings for himself. His trading post became one of the famous “Rendezvous” where most of the mountain men met each year to carouse and gamble away all their earnings. If you have seen one of the many movies that have been made about wealthy Europeans and their large entourages of servants arriving in the West and hiring guides to lead them on “hunts,” that guide was Jim Bridger.
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| Jim Baker |
Jim Baker (1818-1898) was a late arrival to mountaineering, and started his career working for John Jacob Astor and the American Fur Company where he met Jim Bridger. He was considered the best hunter of his time and is described as “scarred from scalp to moccasin by the battles he has fought and won over bears and Indians.” He was reputed to have lost nine thousand dollars worth of pelts playing “Spanish Monte” during one of the yearly rendezvous’.
In 1841, on a journey with Captain Frapp along the “Little Snake River” the party of 35 was ambushed by a large band of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians at Bitter Creek. Frapp was killed early in the fighting and Baker assumed command. It was a desperate fight, but the small group was successful in beating off the attack. Jim was married no less than six times, each to an Indian squaw. He lived with the tribes and adopted their ways and customs
After the Civil War, a friend presented Jim with a new “Henry” rifle and while practicing with it, the magazine exploded and tore one side of his face away. Doctors sewed the mangled mess back together but the scarring was severe. When Hall asked him, during an interview, about the scars, Jim said “Well, you see, I got one of them new repeatin’ rifles and the first shot I fired the damned thing bust and split my jaw.”
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| John "Liver-Eating" Johnson |
John “Liver-Eating” Johnson (1824-1900) was a latecomer to the fur trapping trade and came to the mountains when the fur trade was in rapid decline. His real name was John Garrison and he is reported to have been 6 feet tall and weighing over 200 pounds. Some say, in 1846, he found himself in the United States Navy when the government commandeered the ship on which he was working. Soon after, he struck an officer and deserted to the mountains, changing his name to Johnson.
Johnson was a loner who operated independently of the fur companies and is the man who was portrayed in the movie “Jeremiah Johnson.” “Jeremiah” carried on a twelve year vendetta against the Crow Indians, blaming them for the death of his Indian wife. John “Jeremiah” Johnson lived out his life in Wyoming and Montana and is buried in Cody, Wyoming.
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| John Colter Monument |
John Colter (1774-1812) was also one of the first mountain men and was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In 1809, he teamed up with John Potts, another member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and traveled to the Three Forks region of Montana. While canoeing up the Jefferson River the two men were accosted by several hundred Blackfeet Indians who demanded that they come ashore. Colter complied, but Potts remained in the canoe and was fired upon and mortally wounded by the Indians.
As depicted in the movie “A Man Called Horse,” Colter was stripped naked by his captors and given the chance to run for his life. After a few miles, Colter had left most of the braves in the distance, but one had kept up the pace. Luckily, Colter was able to overpower and kill the brave, gaining a blanket for his effort. After hiding in a beaver lodge during the day, he emerged at night and walked eleven days to a trading post on the Little Big Horn; this event came to be known as “Colter’s Run.” The next year, two of John’s partners were killed by the Blackfeet Indians and that convinced him to retire. John Colter returned to St. Louis where he died from unknown causes two years later.
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| George W. Ebbert |
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| Jackson Hole, Wyoming |
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| Joe Meek |
Joseph Lafayette "Joe" Meek (1810–1875) was a trapper, law enforcement official, and politician in the Oregon Country. Meek married “Virginia,” the daughter of Nez Perce chief Kowesota. He and Virginia had several children including a ten year old daughter who was killed in the Whitman Massacre of 1847. Meek later became the chief law enforcement officer of the Oregon Territory and presided over the conviction and hanging of the five Cayuse and Umatilla Indians responsible for his daughter’s death.
These are just a small sample of the many mountain men who traipsed across this country between 1810 and 1840. Many of those who came with them never made it and died alone, either killed by Indians, mauled by bears or frozen on a mountain top and it is a sure thing that their bones are scattered across the rugged terrain where they plied their trade. They all belonged to the same fraternity of trappers, Indian fighters and explorers, and they all knew each other on some level. Many were close friends and all had lost close friends battling the native Indians and the elements. Several had close encounters with Grizzly bears, some coming out victorious and others, not. With few exceptions, they were loners who could not tolerate towns or any civilization for long periods of time. On the whole, they were big men, many over six feet tall, a definite asset in the wilderness where the likelihood of hand to hand combat was an ever present possibility. They were rough, tough, and brave, mostly uneducated, and drank & cussed their way through life. Most of them gambled away their earnings during the yearly rendezvous’ and when the fur market collapsed in 1840, many established trading posts or became trail guides for the influx of settlers heading west. There’s was a unique time in the history of America.
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