Explorers, Trappers, Traders & Mountain Men

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John C. "Grizzly" Adams (1812-1860) - Born in Massachusetts on October 12, 1812, Adams first worked as a shoemaker before becoming a hunter in New England's forests. When gold was discovered in California in 1858, Adams, along with thousands of others, made his way west. However, when he failed to find his fortune, he earned his living by trapping in the Sierra Nevada mountains. He became a professional hunter of grizzly bears to supply early California restaurants, and also caught and trained them to sell to zoos and circuses. The buckskin clad trapper became a well-known figure when he took his bears to New York City and later became involved in P.T. Barnum's Circus. Adams died on October 25, 1860 from meningitis from an open head wound that resulted from an accident while training a monkey on tour with P.T. Barnum. Barnum paid for his tombstone.

American Fur Company (1808-1842) - Founded by John Jacob Astor in 1808, the American Fur Company would become one of the largest businesses in the country at the start of the 19th century. Astor began this ambitious venture to compete with the two great fur-trading companies in Canada - the Hudson Bay Company and the North West Company. Initially, Astor's operation in the Columbia River valley of Oregon was under a subsidiary called the Pacific Fur Company and his Great Lakes efforts were under another subsidiary -- the South West Company. However, the War of 1812 destroyed both companies. Five years later, in 1817, Congress passed an act which excluded foreign traders from U.S. territory, making the American Fur Company the biggest in the Great Lakes region. In 1821, the company partnered with the Chouteau interests of St. Louis, Missouri, giving the company a monopoly in the Missouri River region and later, in the Rocky Mountains. Growing larger each year, the American Fur Company made a practice of buying out small businesses or putting them out of business with stiff competition, virtually having a market on the entire fur trade by 1830.

Astor withdrew in 1834 and the company split up. To save expenses a number of the many trading posts were closed and heavy competition began to resurface. Shortly, thereafter, the demand for furs began to decrease dramatically. Despite efforts to increase profits by diversifying into other industries like lead mining, the American Fur Company folded in 1842. The remaining assets of the company were split into several smaller operations, most of which failed by the 1850s.

William Henry Ashley (1778-1838) - A native of Virginia, Ashley moved West in 1803 to St. Genevieve in what was then called Louisiana, and would later become Missouri. In 1808,he moved to St. Louis where he earned a small fortune manufacturing gunpowder from a lode of saltpeter mined in a cave near the headwaters of Missouri's Current River. Serving in the Missouri Militia during the War of 1812, he was elevated to the rank of Brigadier General. In 1822 Ashley and a business partner named Andrew Henry, a bullet maker whom he met through his gunpowder business, decided to form the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. To ready for their adventure, the post advertisements in St. Louis newspaper seeking one hundred "enterprising young men . . . to ascend the river Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years." The men who responded became known as "Ashley's Hundred." For the next three years, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company made several large scale fur trapping expeditions in the west. It was Ashley's idea for trappers, Indians and traders to meet annually in a predetermined location to exchange furs, goods and money. The first mountain man's rendezvous took place on Henry's Fork of the Green River in what is now Wyoming in 1825. Ashley's innovations in the fur trade earned him recognition, money, and helped to open the western part of the continent to American expansion. In 1826, he sold the trading company to Jebediah Smith and other traders and moved on to politics, becoming a U.S. Representative. When Missouri was admitted to the Union Ashley was elected its first Lieutenant Governor. Ashley died of pneumonia in 1838 and was interred atop an Indian burial mound in Cooper County, Missouri.

John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) - Astor, who formed the American Fur Company, was the head of the Astor family dynasty and the first millionaire in the United States. More ...

James Pierson Beckwourth (1798-1860) - Born as a slave in Fredricksburg County, Virginia on April 6, 1798, his mother was a mulatto slave in the service of his white father's household. The Beckwourth family later moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where James was raised "free" and completed four years of schooling before being apprenticed to a blacksmith for five years. When he was 18, he ran away but had trouble trouble finding work until he joined General William Henry Ashley's Rocky Mountain Fur Trading Company. In 1825, he left Ashley's expedition and went to live among the Crow Indians for the next six years, where the Crows made him a chieftain and called him "Bull's Robe." In 1837 he returned to "civilization," established two trading posts and helped to found the town of Pueblo, Colorado. He later fought in the Seminole War in 1842 and the California Revolution in 1846. In 1848 he became General John C. Freemont's chief scout. In 1850, he discovered a safer route through the Sierra Nevadas, which is now called "Beckwourth Pass." There he built a ranch and trading post. Beckwourth's last adventure took place in 1866 when he fought in the Cheyenne War. Over the years, Beckwourth's travels took him from the everglades of Florida to the Pacific Ocean, blazing the trail in the early exploration and settlement of the American West. He died in October, 1860 of mysterious causes while visiting the Crow Indians along the Bighorn River.

Charles Bent (1799-1847) - One of the famous Bent brothers who helped "open the West," Charles was born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1799. He later became a trader and he and his younger brother, William, built Bent's Fort in Colorado in 1833. The only privately owned fortification in the west and the only major permanent white settlement on the Santa Fe Trail, the fort was established to trade with the Plains Indians and area trappers. In 1846, Charles was appointed as the first Governor of the newly acquired New Mexico Territory. He was assassinated on January 19, 1847 during the Taos Revolt.

William Bent (1809-1869) - The younger brother of Charles Bent, William was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1809. The brothers established Bent's Fort in Colorado in 1833 to trade with the plains Indians and area trappers. The only permanent white settlement on the Santa Fe Trail, the privately owned fortification soon became a premier trading center and rendezvous point. He became the primary manger of the fort when Charles moved south to Taos, New Mexico Territory. William also served as a scout for Stephen W. Kearny and Sterling Price in the Mexican War. In 1849 he destroyed the fort and built a new trading post farther down the Arkansas River in 1853. Bent died in 1869 and was buried in the Las Animas Cemetery.

James "Jim" Bowie (1796-1836) - An American frontiersman and explorer, James was born in Kentucky in 1796 before his family moved to Missouri, then Louisiana. Bowie was a knife wielding adventurer who quickly gained a reputation for his bold and fearless disposition. The long knife he carried in his adventures seeking silver and gold, soon began to bear his name. Bowie moved to Texas in 1828 and joined the fight against Santa Anna for independence. He was the commander of the volunteers at the Alamo and was killed on March 6, 1836, along with 189 defenders.

John M. Bozeman (1835–1867) - Originally from Pickens County, Georgia, Bozeman headed west in 1858, abandoning his wife and children. By 1861 he was working in the gold fields of Colorado. When his mining claims failed there, he headed to Deer Lodge, Montana in 1862. In 1863, he and a companion named John Jacobs returned to Colorado taking a route from Bannack, Montana east of the Bighorn Mountains through lands reserved by treaty to the Native Americans. The only other approaches into Montana from the east were from the Missouri River or a trail leading north from the Oregon Trail to Idaho. Bozeman was excited about his short cut and began to lead people along the path from central Wyoming to Virginia City, Montana, providing a more direct and better watered trail. The short-cut became known as the Bozeman Trail and John settled in the Gallatin Valley, laying out the town of Bozeman, Montana in 1864. In 1865–66 the federal government built Forts Reno, Phil Kearney, and C. F. Smith to guard the trail. However, after the Fetterman Massacre in December, 1866, the trail south and east of Fort C. F. Smith was abandoned. In April, 1867, Bozeman was murdered while traveling along the Yellowstone River . His partner, Tom Cover, reported they had been attacked by a band of Blackfoot Indians. Inconsistencies in his story; however, later caused historians to suspect that Cover may have murdered Bozeman himself.

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