The Encyclopedia of Trade Goods – Volume 1, Firearms of the Fur Trade
Winner of the gold medal for best reference book from the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Firearms of the Fur Trade is Volume I of the Museum’s new research and publishing project, a six-volume Encyclopedia of Trade Goods. It is 600 pages long and contains 1,500 illustrations, most in color, of long guns and pistols made for the fur companies to trade to Indian and white customers or as government gifts throughout North America. The book encompasses the results of seventy years of research, including historical studies and archeological investigations from across the continent. It draws together the all significant information currently available about Dutch, French, Belgian, British, and American fur trade arms. Illustrated examples include firearms from public and private collections in Sweden, Belgium, Britain, Canada and the US. The work provides pioneering analysis of the origins of the firearms trade, the value and use of guns by American natives, and how they changed the indigenous cultures and the nature of hunting, diplomacy and warfare. It establishes chronological typologies of government contract weapons and debunks the myths about guns being of little use when compared to native arms. – Museum of the Fur Trade
ISBN – 978-0-912611-18-1
583 Pages
Hardback
11 1/4″ x 11 1/4″
Museum of the Fur Trade, 2011
Firearms, Traps, and Tools of the Mountain Men – A Guide to the Equipment of the Trappers and Fur Traders Who Opened the Old West.
This classic history of early-nineteenth-century fur trappers and traders showcases the devices that enabled path-breaking frontiersmen to open the unmapped American West, including:
Canoes and flatboats, axes and tomahawks, Native American spears and pikes, beaver and bear traps, rifles and muskets, knives, hand guns, and more…
Many of the illustrations included were created by the author’s own work on the artifacts available: Carl P. Russell examined, measured, sketched, and photographed them himself. In some instances, the rare specimens were loaned from private or public museum collections for inclusion in this history.
ISBN: 978-1-60239-969-3
458 Pages
Softback
6″ x 9″
Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2011
Foraging the Mountain West
There’s food in them thar hills! There is also food in the valleys, meadows, swamps, and all around town, too… maybe even in your own backyard. Foraging the Mountain West is a guide to harvesting and celebrating nature’s abundance. Reach out and explore the world with your taste buds. Discover new delights you will never find at the store. Connect with nature on a deeper level by meeting, greeting, and eating the plants, fungi, and creatures that share the neighborhood. Become a little more self-sufficient, and a lot more aware.
Foraging the Mountain West is a hands-on manual for identifying, harvesting, and preparing real food. It is written for the backpacker who would rather bring more knowledge and fewer provisions into the wilderness. It is intended for the happy homemaker who wants to eat well and spend less. It is ideal for the creative chef who wants to explore new ingredients and impress diners with novel dishes.
ISBN – 978-1-892784-36-0
346 Pages
Softback
6″ x 9″
HOPS Press LLC., 2014
Fort Union & Fort William – Letter Book & Journal, 1833 – 1835
From 1828 until the late 1860s, the Upper Missouri Outfit of the American Fur Company controlled the fur trade on the upper Missouri River from its headquarters at Fort Union on the western edge of present day North Dakota. In contrast, Fort William, an outpost of the rival Missouri Fur Company located a few miles east at the mouth of the Yellowstone River, struggled and sold out to its competitor less than a year after it opened in 1833.
Published in full for the first time, the 1833-1835 Fort Union Letter Book features dispatches from several prominent fur-trade figures. This rare official record of outgoing correspondence reveals intriguing details about the day-to-day workings of an industry on the cusp of change. Robert Campbell’s journal of his year at Fort William, on the other hand, is a personal account of his attempts to keep Fort Union founder Kenneth McKenzie from taking over the fledgling post he and William Sublette had started.
ISBN – 978-1-941813-27-0
131 Pages
Softback
8 1/2″ x 11″
South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2020
Here, at last, is a book that explores some of the lesser known historical sites in Wyoming. In her hallmark engaging style, Candy Moulton documents scores of Wyoming way stations, military establishments, battlefields, Pony Express stations, Oregon and Overland Trail sites, military expeditions- even ferries and “hog ranches”. Whether you’re a serious student of Wyoming history or just a casual reader, you must have this book on your shelf. This is history that needs to be preserved and Moulton has faced the task head-on with outstanding results.
ISBN – 978-0-931271-92-2
232 Pages
Softback
5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″
High Plains Press, 2010
Forty Miles A Day on Beans and Hay – The Enlisted Soldier Fighting the Indian Wars
The enlisted men in the United States Army during the Indian Wars (1866-91) need no longer be mere shadows behind their historically well-documented commanding officers. As members of the regular army, these men formed an important segment of our usually slighted national military continuum and created the framework of law and order within which settlement and development become possible.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-1113-1
382 Pages
Softback
5 1/2″ x 8″
University of Oklahoma Press, 1973
Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri – The Personal Narrative of Charles Larpenteur, 1833 – 1872
The son of French immigrants who settled in Maryland, Charles Larpenteur was so eager to see the real American West that he talked himself into a job with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in 1833. When William Sublette and Robert Campbell sold out to the American Fur Company a year later they recommended the steady and sober young Larpenteur to Kenneth McKenzie, who hired him as a clerk. For forty years, as a company man and as an independent agent, the French-man would ply the fur trade on the upper Missouri River. Based on Larpenteur’s daily journals, this memoir is unparalleled in describing the business side and social milieu of the fur trade conducted from wintering houses and subposts in the Indian country. As Paul L. Hedren notes in his instruction, Larpenteur moved comfortably among Indians and all levels of the trade’s hierarchy. But he lived during a time of transition and decline in the business, and his vivid recital of this affairs often seems to bear out his feeling that he was “born for misfortune.” His lasting legacy is this book, which is reprinted from the one-volume Lakeside Classics edition of 1933.
ISBN: 0-8032-7930-2
388 Pages
Softback
5″ x 8″
University of Nebraska Press, 1989
From Mountain Man to Millionaire – The “Bold and Dashing Life” of Robert Campbell
The western fur trade era – a time when trappers and traders endured constant danger from man, beast, and weather – was on e of the most colorful periods in American history. Over a decade ago, William R. Nester wrote the first biography of Robert Campbell (1804-1879); the subsequent discovery of nearly five hundred new documents, most from two major caches of letters, led to this even-more-detailed and vivid account of Campbell’s self-described “bold and dashing life.”
Exploring the letters, journals, and account books that Campbell left behind, Nester places him in the context of the times in which he lived, showing the economic, political, social, and cultural forces that provided the opportunities and challenges that shaped his life. Nester provides new insights in to Campbell’s ownership of slaves, his attitudes toward slavery, nd his behind-the-scenes political and economic activities during the Civil War. This comprehensive exploration of Robert Campbell’s life depicts a fascinating era in American history.
ISBN: 978-0-8262-1929-9
311 Pages
Softback
6 1/8″ x 9 1/4″
University of Missouri Press, 2011
From Sand Hills to Forests and Mountains
Harold Showers writes a matter-of-fact memoir, but many today would find his early life in the 1920’s and 1930’s on the Upper Green River of western Wyoming exotic and primitive. As a child and young man, Harold witnessed the power of weather, vast distance, wild animals, illness and plain hard times – things that could make a man question his own survival and fear for his family.
But whether trapping for mink, leading hunters into the high peaks, packing the mail by dogsled or enjoying a Sunday picnic with fresh-caught trout and homemade ice cream, Harold and his family also managed to experience the very best a life in the mountains can offer.
Harold’s down-to-earth approach doesn’t keep him from expressing the awe and wonder he felt in the Wyoming wilderness. This book is not only a record of what it took to hang on in the Kendall Valley, but also a testimony by an early day settler who loved the land because he knew it so well.
ISBN: 0-9768113-4-0
171 Pages
Hardback
6 1/4″ x 9 1/4″
Bear Print Press, 1988
Fur Trade and Exploration – Opening the Far Northwest, 1821-1852
The volume discusses the role that the fur traders had in the exploration of the far Northwest, an area that includes the western Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and eastern Alaska. (Choice)
ISBN: 978-0-8061-2093-5
330 Pages
Softback
5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″
University of Oklahoma Press, 1983
Fur Trade and Rendezvous of the Green River Valley – HB
The Green River Valley has a story to tell….
In 1824, a group of fur trappers crossed South Pass, in what is now western Wyoming. They entered the beaver-rich valley of the Green River and kicked off the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade. Little did they know, they would also create America’s first far western hero, the Mountain Man.
For 16 years, the Green River Valley served as the center of the mountain fur trade, supplying prime beaver pelts as well as hosting a majority of the renowned annual rendezvous. On this stage, some of the most colorful events in the early history of the American West took place.
Contents
Introduction – by Brenda D. Francis
The Rendezvous Era – by Kerry R. Oman
The “Fair of the Wilderness” – by Dale F. Topham
Attire, Arms & Accoutrements – by Stephen V. Banks
Key Men of the Rendezvous – by Dale F. Topham
A Fur Trade Timeline
Indian Participation in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade – by Jay H. Buckley
Books, Bibles, and Beaver Trappers – by Doug M. Erickson
Images of the Mountain Man – by S. Matthew Despain
Map and Historical Sites – by Kerry R. Oman
The Museum of the Mountain Man – by Laurie Hartwig
Other Contributing Authors
Jim Hardee
Kelly Sanderson
Lawrence L Francis
Jim Wirshborn
Artists
Alfed Jacob Miller
John Clymer
David Wright
Richard Luce
Carl Bodmer
Joseph Fama
Charles M. Russel
Tucker Smith
Nicholas Coleman
Jim Norton
ISBN: 0-9768113-1-6
136 Pages
Hardback
8 1/4″ x 11 1/4″
Museum of the Mountain Man, 2005
Edited by Fred R. Gowans & Brenda D. Francis
Fur Trade Cutlery Sketchbook
Illustrations and descriptions of early cartouche knives, scalping knives, skinning knives, and many more. These books are illustrated with pen and ink drawings made from actual specimens or contemporary illustrations.
ISBN: 0-912611-02-2
48 Pages
Softback
10 7/8″ x 8 1/2
The Fur Press, 2002
Fur Traders Trappers and Mountain Men of the Upper Missouri
John Jacob Astor’s dream of empire took shape as the American Fur Company. At Astor’s retirement in 1834, this corporate monopoly reached westward from a depot on Mackinac Island to subposts beyond the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers.
ISBN: 0-8032-7269-3
138 Pages
Softback
5″ x 8″
University of Nebraska Press, 1995
Our genuine beaver pelts are of great quality. On average they measure about 32 inches long and 18 inches wide. Measurements can vary from time to time.
Most pelts are of a light to dark brown color. They still have their guard hairs attached to the pelt. Most include the face of the beaver. Pelts have been tanned and are ready to be sold.
Our genuine beaver pelts are of great quality. On average they measure about 20 inches long and 14 inches wide. Measurements can vary from time to time.
Most pelts are of a light to dark brown color. They still have their guard hairs attached to the pelt. Most include the face of the beaver. Pelts are tanned and ready to be sold.
Give Your Heart to the Hawks – A Tribute to the Mountain Men
In Give Your Heart to the Hawks, Win Belvins presents a poetic tribute to these dauntless “first Westerners” and their incredible adventures. Here, among many, are the stories of:
-John Colter, who, in 1808, naked and without weapons or food, escaped captivity by the Blackfeet and ran and walked two hundred fifty miles to Fort Lisa at the mouth of the Yellowstone River.
-Hugh Glass, who was mauled by a grizzly in 1823 and left for dead by his trapper companions, crawled three hundred miles to Fort Kiowa on the Missouri.
-Kit Carson, who ran away from home at age seventeen, became a legendary mountain man in his twenties, and served as a scout and guide for John C. Fremont’s westward explorations of the 1840’s
-Jedediah Smith, a tall, gaunt, Bible-reading New Yorker whose trapping expeditions ranged from the Rockies to California and who was killed by Comanches on the Cimarron in 1831.
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1435-2
336 Pages
Softback
5 1/2″ x 8 1/4″
A Forge Book, Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.,1973
