Hudson's Bay Company
(1670-present)
- Chartered on May 2, 1670, the
Hudson's Bay Company
(HBC) is the
oldest commercial corporation in North America and is one of the oldest in
the world. In its early days, it was headquartered in London, England and
controlled the fur trade throughout much of British-controlled North
America for several centuries. Forging early relationships with a number
of Native American tribes, the company's trappers and traders were some of
the first European people to set eyes on many locations that would later
become the United States and Canada. The company's network of trading
posts functioned as the de facto government in many areas of the continent
prior to the arrival of large-scale settlement. At one time, the company
was the largest land owner in the world. When the fur trade began to
decline, the company evolved into mercantile business selling vital goods
to settlers in the Canadian West. Today the company, headquartered in
Toronto, Canada is best known for its department stores such as The Bay,
Zellers, Fields, and Home Outfitters.
 Meriwether Lewis
(1774-1809) - The official leader of
the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Meriwether Lewis has been called
"undoubtedly the greatest pathfinder this country has ever known." Born
near Charlottesville, Virginia to William and Lucy (née Meriwether)
Lewis, his family moved to Georgia when he was ten. At thirteen, he was
sent back to Virginia for education by private tutors. Later, he joined
the Virginia militia and in 1794, participated in putting down the Whiskey
Rebellion. The next year he joined the regular army, in which he continued
to serve until 1801, reaching the rank of captain. That same year, he was
appointed private secretary to President Thomas Jefferson and became
immediately involved in the planning of the
Corps of Discovery Expedition.
For the next two years, Jefferson prepared Lewis to lead the group of
explorers by having him study
navigation, cartography,
plants, and animals at the University of Pennsylvania. After leading the
expedition, along with
William Clark,
the pair returned after three years. Jefferson then appointed Lewis
governor of the Louisiana Territory. In September 1809 Lewis set out for
the nation's capital to answer complaints about his actions as governor,
and on this trip died a violent but mysterious death in a tavern about 70
miles southwest of Nashville, Tennessee. Whether he committed suicide, as
Jefferson believed, or was murdered, as his family maintained, remains
uncertain even today.
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Benjamin "Ben" Vernon Lilly (1856-1936) -
Often called the “last of the mountain men,”
Ben Lilly
was known as the greatest lion and bear hunter in the southwest. Born in
Wilcox County, Alabama, in 1856,
Lilly grew
up in Mississippi, learning to be an expert hunter. He attended a
military academy, but the boy wanted freedom, rather than discipline, and
soon ran away to Tennessee where he worked for a time as a blacksmith.
But, Lilly's
passion was always hunting and where the panthers and bears were,
Lilly would
soon find them.
Though he was married twice and had
several children, this didn’t stop his wandering. By 1906, he could
no longer be confined, and turning all his property over to his wife, he
left home for good. However, though he was gone, he continued to support
his family.
Over the years,
Lilly acted
as a hunting guide for Teddy Roosevelt in Louisiana, and hunted bears and
panthers in the Big Thicket of east
Texas
before making his way across the
Lone Star
state to Mexico, where he hunted for many years. In 1911, at the age of
55, he moved on to the Gila Wilderness of southwest
New Mexico
where he spent the rest of his life hunting mountain lions, wolves, and
bears. He died at the age of 80 on December 17, 1836 near Silver City,
New Mexico.
Lilly is
credited with killing the last Grizzly Bear in the Gila Forest, and in
total some 500 bears and 600 mountain lions during his lifetime.
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Joseph Lafayette Meek
(1810-1875) - Born in Washington County, Virginia on February 7,
1810, Meek was propelled westward at an early age by a disagreeable
stepmother. He first went to Lexington,
Missouri
where he joined two of his brothers. By 1829 he had signed on with William
Sublette as a Rocky Mountain trapper, and for the next eleven years he
lived the strenuous life of a mountain man. By 1840, the trapping
industry was waning and Meek, along with his third
Indian wife, traveled
to the Willamette Valley in
Oregon.
He worked first for various farmers before becoming the sheriff. By
1845 he was a prosperous farmer himself, and won a seat in the
Legislature. Following the Whitman Massacre in November of 1847, Meek led
a delegation across to Washington, D. C., asking for protection and to
urge territorial status for
Oregon .
The following year, Congress approved his requests and Meek was appointed
the territory's federal marshal, a post he held for the next five years.
In 1855, he played a leading part in the Yakima War, organizing the
Oregon
Volunteers and winning the rank of major for his service. In June of 1875,
Joe died at his home.
Moses Embree "California
Joe" Milner (1829-1876) - Scout and frontiersman, Moses Embree
Milner was born near Stanford, Kentucky on May 8, 1829. During the Mexican
War, he served as a teamster for Stephen Kearney. He later married a girl
from Tennessee and the couple would eventually have four sons. He drifted
to
St. Louis,
Missouri,
where he joined a trapping party and headed westward. Somewhere along the
line, he was reported captured by
Ute
Indians
but was later rescued.
When the
California Gold Rush broke out, worked in
the gold fields for a time before moving to Corvallis,
Oregon where
he established a farm and began to run pack trains to mining camps near
Walla Walla, Washington. When gold was discovered in
Montana, he
once again tried his hand at prospecting. While in
Bannack, he fought off three claim jumpers,
killing one and wounding another. He earned his nickname in
Virginia City,
Montana where
he killed another man in 1862. He was soon run out of town by
vigilantes
and returned to
Oregon.
He ten wandered
throughout the west, spending time in
New Mexico,
Nevada and
Texas, where
he reportedly fought with
Kit Carson at
the
Battle of Adobe Walls in 1864. In In 1868, Milner was named Chief of
Scouts for
George Armstrong Custer
and in 1874, served as
Custer's scout on the famous Black Hills expedition, in which gold was
discovered. Milner soon staked out a home site near present day Rapid
City,
South Dakota.
He would later scout for
General George Crook
when the officer was pursuing the
Sioux
after the
Battle of
the Little Bighorn. On October
29, 1876, he was at Fort Robinson,
Nebraska
where he got into an argument with a man named Tom Newcomb, who wound up
shooting California Joe in the back. Milner was Cemetery east of North
Platte,
Nebraska. Two
years after he was murdered, his killer was also shot in the back,
probably by one of California Joe's friends.
Zebulon Pike
(1779-1813)
- A military man and explorer, Pike was born on
January 5, 1779 in
Lamberton,
New Jersey. Pike’s father was a military man and young Zeb grew up on
military posts and started his own military career in 1794, at the age of
15. In 1803, when President Thomas Jefferson
sent
Lewis and
Clark to explore the Northwest General James Wilkinson sent
Pike to explore the Mississippi River to discover its headwaters. Two
years later, he was sent to discover the headwaters of the Red and
Arkansas Rivers, which some thought might provide a water route to the
Pacific Ocean. He was also tasked with determining the extent of
Spanish fortifications along the
Texas - New
Mexico
Spanish border. This route took him across the Southwest where he
first spied the 14,110 feet Mountain on the
Colorado
plains that would eventually bear his name. Though he attempted to climb
it, the peak proved to be too high. When he crossed over the Sangre
de Cristo Mountains into
New Mexico,
Spanish troops arrested his expedition for trespassing and escorted them
to Santa Fe.
After several months of negotiation, Pike and his men were released and
returned to Washington, D.C., bringing valuable information about the land
and its resources. During the War of 1812, he led a successful advance on
York (now called Toronto), Canada, in which he and 52 of his men were
killed by a hidden mine. Pike died on
April 12, 1813.
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