MOUNTAIN MAN
mountain man
• A trapper and explorer who lives in the wilderness. They
were most common in the North American Rocky
Mountains from about 1810 through the 1880s (with a
peak population in the early 1840s). They were
instrumental in opening up the various Emigrant Trails
(widened into wagon roads) allowing Americans in the
east to settle the new territories of the far west by
organized wagon trains traveling over roads explored
and in many cases, physically improved by the mountain
men and the big fur companies originally to serve the
mule train based inland fur trade.
• They arose in a natural geographic and
economic expansion driven by the
lucrative earnings available in the North
American Fur Trade, in the wake of the
various 1806–07 published accounts of
the Lewis and Clark Expedition
• Approximately 3,000 mountain men
ranged the mountains between 1820 and
1840, the peak beaver-harvesting period.
While there were many free trappers, most
mountain men were employed by major fur
companies. The life of a company man
was almost militarized. The men had mess
groups, hunted and trapped in brigades
and always reported to the head of the
trapping party.
• Donald Mackenzie, representing the North
West Company, held a Rendezvous in the
Boise River Valley in 1819. The
rendezvous system was later implemented
by William Henry Ashley of the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company, whose company
representatives would haul supplies to
specific mountain locations in the spring,
engage in trading with trappers, and bring
pelts back to communities on the Missouri
and Mississippi rivers in the fall. Ashley
sold his business to the outfit of Jackson
and Sublette. He continued to earn
revenue by selling that firm their supplies.
This system of rendezvous with trappers
continued when other firms, particularly the
American Fur Company owned by John
Jacob Astor, entered the field.
• The annual rendezvous was often held at
Horse Creek on the Green River, near
present-day Pinedale, Wyoming. By the
mid-1830s, it attracted 450-500 men
annually, essentially all the American
trappers and traders working in the
Rockies, as well as numerous Native
Americans
• In the late 1830s, the Canadian-based
Hudson's Bay Company instituted a policy
to destroy the American fur trade. The
HBC's annual Snake River Expedition was
transformed to a trading enterprise.
Beginning in 1834, it visited the American
Rendezvous to buy furs at low prices. The
HBC was able to offer manufactured trade
goods at prices far below that with which
American fur companies could compete.
• Combined with a decline in demand for
and supply of beaver, by 1840 the HBC
had effectively destroyed the American
system. The last rendezvous was held in
1840. During the same years, fashion in
Europe shifted away from the formerly
popular beaver hats; at the same time, the
animal had become overhunted. After
achieving an American monopoly by 1830,
Astor got out of the fur business before its
decline
• By 1841 the American Fur Company and the
Rocky Mountain Fur Company were in ruins. By
1846 only some 50 American trappers still
worked in the Snake River country, compared to
500-600 in 1826. Soon after the strategic victory
by the HBC, the Snake River route was used for
emigrants as the Oregon Trail, which brought a
new form of competition. Former trappers
earned money as guides or hunters for the
emigrant parties
• A second fur trading and supply center grew up in Taos
in what is today New Mexico. This trade attracted
numerous French Americans from Louisiana and some
French Canadian trappers, in addition to AngloAmericans. Some New Mexican residents also pursued
the beaver trade, as Mexican citizens initially had some
legal advantages. Trappers and traders in the Southwest
covered territory that was generally inaccessible to the
large fur companies. It included parts of New Mexico,
Nevada, California and central and southern Utah. After
the decline in beaver and the fur trade, with some
emigrants to the West using the Mormon Trail, former
trappers found work as guides and hunters for the
traveling parties
• After the short-lived American Pacific Fur
Company was sold, the British controlled the fur
trade in the Pacific Northwest, under first the
North West Company and then the Hudson's
Bay Company. To prevent American fur traders
from competing, the British companies adopted
a policy of destroying fur resources west of the
Rocky Mountains, especially in the upper Snake
River country. After the Hudson's Bay Company
took over operations in the Pacific Northwest in
1821, the Snake River country was rapidly
trapped out.
• This halted American expansion into
the region. After 1825 few American
trappers worked west of the Rocky
Mountains, and those who did
generally found it unprofitable. This
policy of the Hudson's Bay
Company forced American trappers
to remain in the Rocky Mountains,
which gave rise to the term
"mountain men
• The stereotypical mountain
man has been depicted as
dressed in buckskin and a
coonskin cap, sporting bushy
facial hair and carrying a
Hawken rifle and Bowie knife,
commonly referred to as a
"scalpin' knife." They have
been romanticized as
honorable men with their own
chivalrous code, loners who
would help those in need but
who had found their home in
the wild
• Most trappers traveled and worked in
companies. Their typical dress combined woolen
hats and cloaks with serviceable Indian-style
leather breeches and shirts. Mountain men often
wore moccasins, but generally carried a pair of
heavy boots for rough terrain. Each mountain
man also carried basic gear, which could include
arms, powder horns and a shot pouch, knives
and hatchets, canteens, cooking utensils, and
supplies of tobacco, coffee, salt, and pemmican.
Items (other than shooting supplies) that needed
to be "at hand" were carried in a "possibles" bag.
Horses or mules were essential, in sufficient
number for a riding horse for each man and at
least one for carrying supplies and furs
• In summer, mountain men searched for fur
animals, but they waited until autumn to set their
traplines. They sometimes worked in groups.
Several men would trap, others would hunt for
game, and one would remain in camp to guard
the camp and be a cook. Since there were
always Indians in the areas where they trapped,
trappers had to deal with each tribe or band
separately. Some tribes were friendly, while
others were hostile. Mountain men traded with
friendly tribes and exchanged information.
Hostile tribes were avoided when possible
• The life of a mountain man was rugged. They explored
unmapped areas. Bears and hostile tribes presented
constant physical dangers. Mountain men had to use
their senses of hearing, sight, and smell to keep
themselves alive. When they were sick, they would use
whatever herbs they had to try to get well. If game was
scarce, they would go hungry. In summer they could
catch fish, build a log cabin, and roam in search of fur.
Cabins were built near friendly Indians. But in other
areas, most camps were just temporary. Most winters
were brutal. Heavy snow storms or extremely low
temperatures keep men in their cabins. But no matter
what the season, there was always danger. Many men
did not last more than several years in the wilderness
• With the exception of coffee, their food supplies
generally duplicated the diet of native tribes in
the areas where they trapped. Fresh red meat,
fowl, and fish were generally available. Some
plant foods, such as fruit and berries, were easy
for the men to harvest. They traded with the
tribes for prepared foods, such as processed
roots, dried meat, and pemmican. In times of
crisis and bad weather, mountain men were
known to slaughter and eat their horses and
mules
A free trapper
• A free trapper was a mountain man who, in
today's terms, would be called a free agent.
He was independent and traded his pelts to
whoever would provide him with the best
price. This contrasts with a "company
man," typically in debt to one fur company
for the cost of his gear, who traded only
with them (and was often under the direct
command of company representatives).
Some company men who paid off the debt
could become free traders using the gear
they had earned. They might sell to the
same company when the price was
agreeable/convenient .
George Druilliard (1774/75?–1810).
• Hunter, interpreter, sign-talker on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Often considered as one of Lewis' two most appreciated members
with John Colter. Born to a French Canadian and Shawnee mother
in Detroit, Drouillard proved to be the most skillful hunter on the
expedition, notably during the harsh wintering in Fort Clatsop. He
eventually went on trapping in today's Wyoming and Montana after
the expedition, working for Manuel Lisa. Missouri Fur Company he
had signed on with in 1807. Often venturing out alone like John
Colter, notably to the headwaters of the Big Horn River from the
Yellowstone and around the Three Forks of the Missouri, George
Drouillard was savagely killed in May 1810 by Blackfeet Indians in
the Three Forks area.
•
.
Jim Beckwourth (1800–
1866)
• born into slavery, came to Missouri with his
parents and was freed by his father. He
started working with the Ashley expedition,
signed on with the Rocky Mountain Fur
Company, and became a well-known
mountain man. He lived with the Crowfor
years and became a war chief. He was the
only African American in the West to have
his life story published (1856). He was
credited with the discovery of Beckwourth
Pass in the Sierra Nevada in 1850, and
improved a Native American path to create
what became known as the Beckwourth
Trail through the mountains to Marysville,
California.
Jim Bridger (1804–1881)
came west in 1822 at the age of 17, as a
member of Ashley’s Hundred exploring the
Upper Missouri drainage. He was among the
first non-natives to see the geysers and other
natural wonders of the Yellowstone region. He is
also considered one of the first men of European
descent, along with Étienne Provost, to see the
Great Salt Lake. Because of its salinity, he first
believed it to be an arm of the Pacific Ocean. In
1830, Bridger purchased shares in the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company. He established Fort
Bridger in southwestern Wyoming. He was also
well known as a teller of tall tales
John Colter (1774–1812),
• one of the first mountain men, was a member of
the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He later became
the first European man to enter Yellowstone
National Park, and to see what is now Jackson
Hole and the Teton Mountain Range. His
description of the geothermal activity there
seemed so outrageous to some that the area
was mockingly referred to as Colter's Hell.
Colter's narrow escape following capture by
Blackfeet, leaving him naked and alone in the
wilderness, became a legend known as "Colter's
Run".
Kit Carson (1809–1868)
• achieved notability for his later
exploits, but he got his start and
gained some recognition as a trapper.
Carson explored the west to California,
and north through the Rocky
Mountains. He lived among and
married into the Arapaho and
Cheyenne tribes. He was hired by
John C. Fremont as a guide, and led
'the Pathfinder' through much of
California, Oregon and the Great
Basin area. He achieved national fame
through Fremont. Stories of his life as
a mountain man turned him into a
frontier hero-figure: the prototypical
mountain man of his time.
John "Liver-Eating" Johnson
(1824–1900)
• was one of the more notable latter-day mountain
men. Johnson worked in Wyoming and
Montana, trapping for beaver, buffalo and wolf
hides. Unaffiliated with a company, Johnson
bargained independently to get prices for his
hides. Elements of his story were portrayed in
the film Jeremiah Johnson.
Joseph Lafayette "Joe" Meek
(1810–1875)
• was a trapper, law enforcement official, and
politician in the Oregon Country and later
Oregon Territory of the United States. A
pioneer involved in the fur trade before
settling in the Tualatin Valley, Meek would
play a prominent role at the Champoeg
Meetings of 1843 where he was elected as
a sheriff. Later he served in the Provisional
Legislature of Oregon before being selected
as the United States Marshal for the Oregon
Territory.
Jedadiah Smith (1799
- circa 1831)
• was a hunter, trapper, and fur trader whose explorations
were significant in opening the American West to
settlement by Europeans and Americans. Smith is
considered the first man of European descent to cross
the future state of Nevada; the first to traverse Utah from
north to south and from west to east; and the first
American to enter California by an overland route. He
was also first to scale the High Sierra and explore the
area from San Diego to the banks of the Columbia River.
He was a successful businessman and a full partner in
the Rocky Mountain Fur Company after the departure of
Ashley. Smith had notable facial scarring from a grizzly
bear attack.