The New Gang in Town

Manuel Lisa did well with his Missouri Fur Company.  When he died in 1820 of natural causes, he actually was a man of respectability and wealth, but there were two fellow St. Louis residents whose wealth soared over Lisa's.

William Henry Ashley and Andrew Henry started advertising in 1822 in local newspapers for "enterprising young men" willing to ascend the Missouri River to the source.  The list read like a who's who of mountain men - Jim Bridger, James Ayman, William and Milton Sublette, Edward Rose, Jim Beckworth, Thomas Fitzpatrick and Jedediah Smith.

Smith and Fitzpatriick were well educated.  Bridger was illiterate.  Rose who was half black, half Cherokee, had been a pirate on the Mississippi.  All were believers in adventure.

In 1822 the men moved up the Missouri by boat to build a fort and trading post.  After an attack by Indians, they set out in small groups, trading a portion of their catch for a year's provision. 

Henry retired in 1824 but Ashley continued the yearly "rendezvous" where he collected the pelts and re-provisioned the men as a representative from St. Louis.  Thus was born the freelance white trapper who is "the mountain man" as we know them today.  The rendezvous became highly anticipated as a frontier party where businessmen traded goods for pelts amid drunkenness, high stakes gambling, amid contests of strength and an atmosphere of mayhem. 

Next time...Mr. Bridger
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Today in Pioneer History: "On March 24, 1834, the great western explorer and conservationist John Wesley Powell is born near Palmyra, New York.  A soldier, teacher, explorer, geologist, and anthropologist, Powell played a pivotal role in the settlement and development of the American West.