Known by the Indians as "Broken Hand," Thomas Fitzpatrick was a trapper and a trailblazer who became the head of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. With Jedediah Smith he led the trapper band that discovered South Pass; he then shepherded the first two emigrant wagon trains to Oregon, was official guide to Fremont on his longest expedition, and guided Colonel Phil Kearny and his Dragoons along the westward trails to impress the Indians with howitzers and swords. Fitzpatrick negotiated the Fort Laramie treaty of 1851 at the largest council of Plains Indians ever assembled. Among the most colorful...
Known by the Indians as "Broken Hand," Thomas Fitzpatrick was a trapper and a trailblazer who became the head of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. With ...
The legendary mountain men the fur traders and trappers who penetrated the Rocky Mountains and explored the Far West in the first half on the nineteenth century formed the vanguard of the American empire and became the heroes of American adventure. This volume brings to the general reader brief biographies of eighteen representative mountain men, selected from among the essay assembled by LeRoy R. Hafen in The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West (ten volumes, 1965-72).
The subjects and authors are: Manuel Lisa (Richard E. Oglesby); Pierre Chouteau Jr. (Janet Lecompte);...
The legendary mountain men the fur traders and trappers who penetrated the Rocky Mountains and explored the Far West in the first half on the nineteen...
In the early 1800s vast fortunes were made in the international fur trade, an enterprise founded upon the effort of a few hundred trappers scattered across the American West. From their ranks came men who still command respect for their daring, skill, and resourcefulness. This volume brings together brief biographies of seventeen leaders of the western fur trade, selected from essays assembled by LeRoy R. Hafen in The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West (ten volumes, 1965-72). The subjects and authors are: Etienne Provost (LeRoy R. Hafen); James Ohio Pattie (Ann W. Hafen); Louis...
In the early 1800s vast fortunes were made in the international fur trade, an enterprise founded upon the effort of a few hundred trappers scattered a...
This classic history is filled with colorful pathmarkers like Jedediah Smith, John C. Fremont, and Kit Carson; with packers, home seekers, and mail couriers; and with horse thieves and enslavers of Indian women and children."
This classic history is filled with colorful pathmarkers like Jedediah Smith, John C. Fremont, and Kit Carson; with packers, home seekers, and mail co...
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.Fur Traders, Trappers, and Mountain Men of the Upper Missouri focuses on eighteen men who represented the American Fur Company and its successors in the Upper Missouri trade. Their biographies have been compiled from the classic ten-volume Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, edited by LeRoy R. Hafen.These...
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 fro...
"Frenchmen were far ahead of Englishmen in the early Far West, not only prior in time but greater in numbers and in historical importance," writes Janet Lecompte in her introduction to French Fur Traders and Voyageurs in the American West. They were the first to navigate the Mississippi and its tributaries, and they founded St. Louis and New Orleans. Though France lost her North American possessions in 1763, thousands of her natives remained on the continent. Many of them were voyageurs for Hudson's Bay Company, whose descendants would join American fur trade companies plying the...
"Frenchmen were far ahead of Englishmen in the early Far West, not only prior in time but greater in numbers and in historical importance," writes Jan...
In the development of the American West, no two decades were so full of romance and change as the years from the California gold rush of 1849 to the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869. In two decades, the West was conquered and the secession movement rose and fell. From slow ox-team and prairie schooner to the dashing Pony Express, the overland mail service mirrored these monumental strides.
Originally published in 1926, "The Overland Mail" was the first scholarly work to examine the impact of the postal service on the expansion of the West as the service evolved...
In the development of the American West, no two decades were so full of romance and change as the years from the California gold rush of 1849 to th...
More than a travel book, more than an autobiography, Ruxon of the Rockies is a rare and vivid account of a man who lived during a heroic age: George Frederick Ruxton lived among and wrote about the traders and trappers of the American West. Ruxton crammed a dozen lifetimes of adventure into his brief twenty-seven years. Leaving his native England in 1838, at the age of seventeen, he set out on endless journeys fighting in the Carlist Wars in Spain, stationed with the British army in Ireland, hunting with Indians in Upper Canada, attempting to penetrate to the interior of...
More than a travel book, more than an autobiography, Ruxon of the Rockies is a rare and vivid account of a man who lived during a heroic a...
To weary travelers on the Oregon Trail during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, Fort Laramie was a welcome sight. Its walls and flag-decked towers rose from the high plains, their solidity suggesting that the white man was gaining a toehold in the wilderness.
Hafen and Young present the colorful history of Fort Laramie from its establishment as Fort John in 1834 to its abandonment in 1890. Early on, the fort was controlled by the American Fur Company and patronized by trappers like Jim Bridger and Kit Carson. Then it was a vital supply center and rest stop for a tide of...
To weary travelers on the Oregon Trail during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, Fort Laramie was a welcome sight. Its walls and flag-de...
