A Majority of Scountrels - Don Berry

by Don Berry

  CHAPTER 23

  1. Ramsay Crooks "and associates" bought the Northern Department and retained the name American Fur. The St. Louis house of B. Pratte bought the Western Department (which they had been operating) and continued under the name Pratte, Chouteau & Company. BACK

  2. Wyeth’s letter book makes it clear that Fitzpatrick's letter was addressed to Milton Sublette, rather than Bill. Letter CXCIII, March 13, 1834, refers to Fitzpatrick’s robbery by the Crows-information Wyeth could only have had from Milton, through Tom’s letter. Letter CCVII, to Fitzpatrick himself, says: "You may expect me by the lst July at the rendesvous named in your letter to Milton which which you sent by Dr. Harrison who opened it and I presume told Wm Sublette of the place.” Hugh Campbell’s statement that "the nature [of RMF’s agreement with Wyeth] has not fully transpired" is further evidence of the secrecy with which Milton was handling the arrangments. All Bill Sublette had was Fitzpatrick's reference to "our aramgents with Wyeth" from the rilled letter. BACK

  3. The Santa Fe parties were indeed to be officially escorted; that trade was rapidly growing in importance. In 1822, the year our narrative opened, it had amounted to $15,000. This year of ’34 would see ten times that amount: $150,000, and involving only 160 men. The Santa Fe trade was operating more efficiently from the point of view of wages. Only eleven men had been lost, while the mountain trade had accounted for around 150 in the same period. But men, were, after all, only men. The thing that kept the mountain trade going was that rosy possibility of a really big killing; that unqualifiedly successful season of which every trader dreamed. The average margin of pront in Santa Fe was only 15 per cent to 20 per cent, and it was estimated that the B. Pratte-Ashley mountain venture of ’27 had netted around 70 per cent on their investment. BACK

  4. The stomach was opened, and a tin pan lowered into the belly juices. The most recent water the animal had drunk would be near the top, and flow over the edges of the pan. BACK

  5. Wyeth himself noted: "The companies here have all failed of making hunts, some from quarreling among themselves some from having been defeated by the Indians and some from want of horses and what few furs have been taken have been paid to the men."

  The great California expedition of Joe Walker—presumably for the benefit of Captain Bonneville—had been a pathetic and total loss. Bonneville sent back to civilization "about 10 pack"——a maximum of $3,500 St. Louis, without deductions—"and men going down to whom there is due l0,000$." (Wyeth’s figures. Lucien Fontenelle reported twelve to fourteen pack for Bomieville, but added "it is not enough to pay their retiring hands. . . . I think by next year he will be at an end with the mountains." Which was correct.) American Fur had not done too badly-not, in any event, as badly as the others. While eight or ten packs had been lost through mountain attrition (and another eight or ten "by the rascality of a few men"), they would still return almost 8,000 pounds of beaver with Fontenelle. BACK