Read Online The Mammoth Book of the West by Jon E. Lewis - Free Book Online
Authors: Jon E. Lewis
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1806–7 fur traders poured into St Louis, ready to start upriver as soon as the ice broke. The most important of them was the Mexican entrepreneur Manuel Lisa. In the spring of 1807 Lisa worked his way west as far as the confluence of the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers, where he built a fortified trading post, Fort Manuel. From here Lisa sent out his beaver-trappers, among them John Coulter, the Virginian who had served with Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery. In a long solitary hunt through 1807–8, Coulter became the first White man to gaze upon the wonders of what is now the Yellowstone National Park, the steaming geysers of Wyoming (“Coulter’s Hell”).
He was also captured by Blackfeet. Coulter escaped death only by uncanny grit. Stripped naked, he was told to run for his life while a band of braves chased him. He dashed for the river six miles away, with stones and cactus tearing his feet. When one brave gained on him, Coulter stopped abruptly and spread out his arms. The Indian tumbled – and Coulter killed him with his own spear. Finally, Coulter fell into the stream and hid under a mass of wood for hours. Under the cover of darkness he stole back to Fort Manuel. It took seven days of hard marching, with only roots and berries for food. A year later, having survived another encounter with the Blackfeet, John Coulter retired from the West saying he would “be damned if I ever come into it again.” He died of jaundice in St Louis in 1813.
Even without the redoubtable John Coulter in his employ, Manuel Lisa and his Missouri Fur Company continued to make money out of furs. His partners included the explorer William Clark and two of the famous St Louisfur-trading Chouteau family, Auguste and Philippe. A ruthless and sharp competitor, Lisa knew his business well enough to cultivate good relations with the tribes of the upper Missouri. So prevailing did his influence become that he personally secured their allegiance to the United States during the War of 1812. But the company needed his firm personal hand at the helm. When Lisa died in 1820, the Missouri Fur Company sank into financial oblivion. Many other fur firms boomed (and bust) in the West, but only two others left a real mark behind them: the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and the American Fur Company of John Astor.
The Astorians
A squat New York merchant of German birth, John Jacob Astor made his first fortune exporting furs to China. His next, he decided, would be by monopolizing the fur trade of Louisiana. To this grandiose end, Astor planned a chain of trading posts across the far West from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean. With the encouragement of Thomas Jefferson, Astor founded the American Fur Company in 1808; in 1810 he created a subsidiary, the Pacific Fur Company, which was to have its headquarters at the mouth of the Columbia. Astor named the post after himself, Astoria. There only remained the matter of building it.
Astor sent out two expeditions to the Pacific, an overland party under Wilson Price Hunt and a maritime force in the sailing vessel, the
Tonquin
. Neither group fared well. The
Tonquin
was ruled by a petty tyrant, Jonathan Thorne, and barely escaped a mutiny en route. When the ship reached the Columbia, its leaking longboat foundered in heavy seas with the loss of eight lives. Only with luck did the
Tonquin
itself find a safe harbour, on 12April 1811, and the workers staggered ashore to build Astoria.
While the fort was being built, the
Tonquin
sailed north along the coast to trade with the Indians and collect furs. At Nootka Sound, on Vancouver Island, Captain Thorne slapped an Indian chief in the face. The Indians’ revenge was to seize the ship and slaughter her crew. One sailor survived by hiding, but when the Indians came back next day for another round of looting, he fired the ship’s magazine, blowing them and himself to pieces.
The “Overland Astorians”, meanwhile, had set out from St Louis along the route
He was also captured by Blackfeet. Coulter escaped death only by uncanny grit. Stripped naked, he was told to run for his life while a band of braves chased him. He dashed for the river six miles away, with stones and cactus tearing his feet. When one brave gained on him, Coulter stopped abruptly and spread out his arms. The Indian tumbled – and Coulter killed him with his own spear. Finally, Coulter fell into the stream and hid under a mass of wood for hours. Under the cover of darkness he stole back to Fort Manuel. It took seven days of hard marching, with only roots and berries for food. A year later, having survived another encounter with the Blackfeet, John Coulter retired from the West saying he would “be damned if I ever come into it again.” He died of jaundice in St Louis in 1813.
Even without the redoubtable John Coulter in his employ, Manuel Lisa and his Missouri Fur Company continued to make money out of furs. His partners included the explorer William Clark and two of the famous St Louisfur-trading Chouteau family, Auguste and Philippe. A ruthless and sharp competitor, Lisa knew his business well enough to cultivate good relations with the tribes of the upper Missouri. So prevailing did his influence become that he personally secured their allegiance to the United States during the War of 1812. But the company needed his firm personal hand at the helm. When Lisa died in 1820, the Missouri Fur Company sank into financial oblivion. Many other fur firms boomed (and bust) in the West, but only two others left a real mark behind them: the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and the American Fur Company of John Astor.
The Astorians
A squat New York merchant of German birth, John Jacob Astor made his first fortune exporting furs to China. His next, he decided, would be by monopolizing the fur trade of Louisiana. To this grandiose end, Astor planned a chain of trading posts across the far West from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean. With the encouragement of Thomas Jefferson, Astor founded the American Fur Company in 1808; in 1810 he created a subsidiary, the Pacific Fur Company, which was to have its headquarters at the mouth of the Columbia. Astor named the post after himself, Astoria. There only remained the matter of building it.
Astor sent out two expeditions to the Pacific, an overland party under Wilson Price Hunt and a maritime force in the sailing vessel, the
Tonquin
. Neither group fared well. The
Tonquin
was ruled by a petty tyrant, Jonathan Thorne, and barely escaped a mutiny en route. When the ship reached the Columbia, its leaking longboat foundered in heavy seas with the loss of eight lives. Only with luck did the
Tonquin
itself find a safe harbour, on 12April 1811, and the workers staggered ashore to build Astoria.
While the fort was being built, the
Tonquin
sailed north along the coast to trade with the Indians and collect furs. At Nootka Sound, on Vancouver Island, Captain Thorne slapped an Indian chief in the face. The Indians’ revenge was to seize the ship and slaughter her crew. One sailor survived by hiding, but when the Indians came back next day for another round of looting, he fired the ship’s magazine, blowing them and himself to pieces.
The “Overland Astorians”, meanwhile, had set out from St Louis along the route
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