Description

Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal, Volume 9

The Mystery of Alfred Jacob Miller’s Portrait of Captain Joseph Reddeford Walker
by Vic Nathan Bender
Questioning the identity of the person whose portrait Miller painted, the image of Joe Walker may not be him at all.

Wolverines in the Fur Trade
by Fred Poyner IV
Though the beaver was the most sought after animal during the fur trade era, many other creatures were sporting fine fur were trapped and harvested.

The 1808 Murder Trial of George Drouillard
by Melissa Tiffie
An in-depth look at an early St. Louis legal case, examining frontier justice using actual court documents.

Exploring Rocky Mountain Trapper Productivity
by Jim Hardee
Attempts to quantify beaver trapping, searching to discover how many pelts a mountaineer might reasonably expect to harvest in a twelve month period.  

Blackfeet Peacemaker:  The Search for Nicholas Small Robe
by George Capps
The search for the Piegan man who urged his people to work together for peaceful trade with neighboring tribes as well as with trappers.

Jim Bridger Challenges the HBC in the post-Rendezvous Era
by Jerry Enzler
A study of fur trade competition in the 1840s, utilizing important documents recently discovered in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives. Trappers continued to find relatively untrapped regions in the Southwest, and forts Hall and Bridger maneuvered to vie for furs in a less-profitable industry. 

Archibald Pelton, Mad Man on the Mountains
by Larry E. Morris
In Chinook Jargon, a language of mixed Native American and English vocabulary, the word for “crazy” stems from the forlorn tale of an early trapper, Archibald Pelton. The tragic tale of a young mountaineer and contemporary of Andrew Henry, Manuel Lisa, and Wilson Price Hunt. Local Native Americans treated Pelton with care and attention. Pelton’s case is the first mention of mental illness among Euro-Americans entering the Pacific Northwest.

Sublette County Historical Society, 2015