Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1901-02-28

never look upon it's like in this country
again, nor perhaps in any other. Lone
some and solitary to a degree during the
greater part OF the time, it was every
now and then enlivened with episodes,
in which there vas excitement enough
and to spare. The motley and unruly
population with which the trader had to
deal, lawless hunters and treacherous
Indians, made the element of danger an
ever present one, and there was scarcely
a fort in the western country which did
not witness tragic and noteworthy events
in the course of it's existence.
ST. LOUIS WAS HEADQUARTERS.
"St. Louis was the emporium of the
fur trade, and all the expeditions started
from and returned to that point. They
always travelled by boat when going up
the Missouri, and the early navigation
of this stream was one of the most inter-
esting and singular features of the bust
ness. Before the steamboat came the
keelboat was always used. 1t was a
very respectable craft, and was propelled
in a variety of ways. Sometimes thirty
or forty men would pull it along with a
line reaching to the shore; again they
would push it with poles from the deck
of the boat, when the cordelle could not
be used, or would propel it with oars
when both other methods failed. A
great assistance was the prairie breeze,
and the sight of sails was a common
thing on the Missouri river in those
early days.
"The steamboat, as may be imagined,
was a marvel without parallel in the eyes
of the Indian, and the scarcely more civ
ilized trapper. 1t was an impressive
sight to see the huge craft standing high
above the river bottoms. moving against
the powerful current without visible
means of propulsion, and carrying great
cargoes of merchandise and a great num-
Der of passengers. 1t is said that the ad-
vent OF, the steamboat was the thing that
finally won the respect of the Indians
for the Americans as against the British.
Hitherto they had regarded their visitors
from the north as being rather superior
to those from the south. but the scale
was, turned when theysaw the American
'1rehoat' and its power to walk on the
water
1.-The mountain trade of the central
west could not, of course, be conducted
by water, although there were instances
where cargoes of furs came down the
Big Horn, the Yellowstone and the Mis-
souri, rivers from the very heart of the
mountains. AS a general thing the ex-
petitions were conducted by pack trains.
The Rocky Mountain Fur company near
ly always adopted this method. Often
the trains we're of such a size as to
stretch along in single file for more than
a mile. They were as novel in their way
as were the Missouri craft in their par
ticular field.
INDIAN RENDEZVOUS.
"As the mountain traders did not make
use OF boats, neither did they build trad
ing posts. Instead, they held annual
rendezvous at places agreed upon a year
before. Hither at the appointed time
the nomadic populations of the country
assembled-the free hunter with his re-
t%ainers, parties of hired trappers, and
bands of wild Indians-to transact the
business of the year. Several days and
perhaps a week, with any amount of fun
and frolic, and never without abundant
dissipation and debauch, which left the
luckless trapper nom the richer for his
years hard labor. The rendezvous
over, the caravan returned with the furs
to the states, and the trapper to his re-
treat in the mountains. These rendez-
vous were among the most romantic fea-
lures of a business which was never
wanting in unique and picturesque de-
tails.
1.-THE business of the fur trader, as
one may readily see, developed important
commercial establishments andproduced
many noted characters. The two more
important companies that operated along
the Missouri were the old Missouri Fur
company and the Great American Fur
company. The latter company, founded
by John Jacob Astor, was a mighty
power on the river during it's forty years
of business there, and it absorbed prob
ably three-fourths Of the entire trade.
The Rocky Mountain Fur company did
much of the mountain business down to
1884, when it went out of existence.
There was no regular company in the
Santa Fe trade, which was wholly a bus
mess of small proprietors, but there was
the important firm of Bent & St. Vrain,
which did business on the frontier a
short distance below where Pueblo now
stands.
among the leading fur merchants
were Astor l. Crooks, of New York, and
the Chouteaus, Sarpys, Sublettes, Bents,