In the early 19^th century, various fur trapping companies set up posts along the front range of the Rocky Mountains in what is now Colorado: Bent and St. Vrain (Fort Lookout), Sublette and Vasquez, Fort Jackson, and Fort Lupton. These “forts” were built in the 1830s within 10 miles of the South Platte River” forming a chain connecting the fur traders.

Trappers based at these forts and working for larger companies went out into the wilderness to trap beaver and buffalo or to trade with the various native tribes living in the area including the Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and occasionally the Crows, Pawnees, Shoshones and Blackfeet. Many of the pelts collected by the trappers, either through trapping or trade, would be collected or sent back east for sale.

It is difficult to track the movements of the trappers as there is little written evidence of their travels, but a few were known to have traveled along the South Platte River and likely through the Fort Morgan area.

In 1812 William H. Ashley of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company along with a young Jim Beckwourth traveled up the South Platte. In May 1827, Albert G. Boone set off from the foothills with furs and traveled down the South Platte River to St. Louis. In April of 1831, John Gantt led 70 men across the South Platte river and in 1836, Andrew Sublette took furs east through the area followed in 1838 by Peter A. Sarpy and Henry Fraeb. Other traders who possibly traded with Indians in the Fort Morgan area were Robert Newell in 1836-7, Antonio Montero in 1839-40, Sir William Drummond Stewart and William L. Sublette in 1843, Kit Carson, Oliver Perry Wiggins, James Beckwourth, and Ike Chamberline in 1846 and Kit Carson again in 1847.

Painting of William Drummond Stewart 1850. Greeting the Trappers or The Greeting 

19^th century explorers such as Long and Fremont employed fur trappers who knew the area as guides, indicating that these men had been in the area for years. Two French fur trappers, Joseph Bijeau dit Bissonet (or Bissonette), for whom Bijou Creek is named (see the post Bijeau of Bijou Creek), and Abraham Ledoux (or Ladeau) living amongst the Pawnee worked as guides for the Long expedition.

George Frederick Ruxton (1821-1848), a former British soldier and travel writer  would recount his adventures hunting along the front range of Colorado in 1846-1847. His book "Life in the Far West" begins near the Fort Morgan Area on the Bijou Creek where he describes a camp of some area fur trappers who he names as Killbuck and La Bonte:

Away to the head waters of the Platte, where several small streams run into the south fork of that river, and head in the broken ridges of the “Divide” which separates the valleys of the Platte and Arkansa, were camped a band of trappers on a creek called Bijou. It was the month of October, when the early frosts of the coming winter had crisped and dyed with sober brown the leaves of the cherry and quaking asp, which belted the little brook; and the ridges and peaks of the Rocky Mountains were already covered with a glittering mantel of snow, which sparkled in the still powerful rays of the autumn sun.

The camp had all the appearance of being a permanent one; for not only did one or two unusually comfortable shanties form a very conspicuous object, but the numerous stages on which huge strips of buffalo meat were hanging in process of cure, showed that the party had settled themselves here in order to lay in a store of provisions, or, as it is termed in the language of the mountains, “make mat.” Round the camp were feeding some twelve or fifteen mules and horses, having their fore-legs confined by hobbles of raw hide, and, guarding these animals, two men paced backwards and forwards, driving in the stragglers; and ever and anon ascending the bluffs which overhung the river, and, leaning on their long rifles, would sweep with their eyes the surrounding prairie. Three or four fires were burning in the encampment, on some of which Indian women were carefully tending sundry steaming pots; whilst round one, which was in the center of it, four or five stalwart hunters, clad in buckskin, sat cross-legged, pipe in mouth.

They were a trapping party from the north fork of the Platte, on their way to wintering – ground in the more southern valley of the Arkansa; some, indeed, meditating a more extended trip, even to the distant settlements of New Mexico, the paradise of mountaineers. The elder of the company was a tall gaunt man, with a face browned by a twenty years’ exposure to the extreme climate of the mountains; his long black hair, as yet scarcely tinged with gray, hung almost to his shoulders, but his cheeks and chin were cleanly shaved, after the fashion of the mountain men. His dress was the usual hunting-frock of buckskin, with long fringes down the seams, with pantaloons similarly ornamented, and mocassins of Indian make. As his companions puffed their pipes in silence, he was narrating a few of his former experiences of western life; and whilst the buffalo “hump-ribs” and “tender loin” are singing away in the pot, preparing for the hunters’ supper, we will note down the yarn as it spins from his lips…

Ruxton would travel with these trappers westward across the Kiowa River and into the mountains. He describes his traveling companions and life on the plains, encounters with the various tribes of in the area, and Mormans moving west in colorful detail and recounts stories old to him by the trappers.

Photo Robert Newell, fur trader.

Unlike most of the later travelers through the area, trappers were in the Fort Morgan area in all seasons including deep winter.

    

William Henry Ashley, a fur trapper and owner of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, regularly explored the western frontier trading with various Indian tribes. On November 3, 1824 Ashley set out from Fort Atkinson with a company that included Tom Fitzpatrick, Zacharias Ham, James Clyman, Robert Campbell, Moses (“Black”) Harris, Baptiste La Jennesse, LeBrache, Dorway, and Clement (or Claymore), and James P. Beckwourth (Beckwith), who was said to have explored the South Platte River with Vaquez as early as 1817. It was the height of winter and the going was difficult. Beckwourth later recalled the difficult journey noting the slow progress, “some days not advancing more than four or five miles.”

Ashley’s party traversed the Fort Morgan area at the end of December, 1824 stopping at Fremont’s Orchard on January 1, 1825 to recuperate. Ashley described his experiences in a letter to General Henry Atkinson dated December 1, 1825:

The morning of the [December] 26th was cloudy and excessively cold. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon it began to snow and continued with violent winds until the night of the 27th. The next morning (28th) four of my horses were so benumbed with cold that they were unable to stand, although we succeeded in raising them on their feet. A delay to recruit them would have been attended with great danger, probably even to the destruction of the whole party. I therefore concluded to set forward without them. 

The snow was now so deep that had it not been for the numerous herds of buffaloe [sic] moving down the river, we could not possibly have proceeded. The paths of these animals were beat on either side of the river and afforded an easy passage to our horses. These animals were essentially beneficial to us in another respect by removing (in their search for food) the snow in many places from the earth and leaving the grass exposed to view, which was the only nourishment our horses could obtain. 

We continued to move forward without loss of time, hoping to be able to reach the wood described by the Indians before all our horses should become exhausted. On the 1st January, 1825, I was exceedingly surprised and no less gratified at the sight of a grove of timber, in appearance, distant some two or three miles on our front. It proved to be a grove of cottonwood of the sweet-bark kind suitable for horse food, situated on an island, offering among other conveniences, a good situation for defense. [Fremont's Orchard] I concluded to remain here several days for the purpose of recruiting my horses, and made my arrangements accordingly. 

My Indian friends of the Pawne [sic] Loup deputation, believing this place to be nearly opposite to the Arapahoe and other Indian camps on the Arkansas determined to proceed hence across the country. They prepared a few pounds of meat and with each a bundle of wood tied to his back for the purpose of fuel, departed the following morning on their mission. 

Being informed by the Pawneys [sic] that one hundred of my old enemies (the Arikara warriors) were encamped with the Arkansas Indians, and my situation independent of that circumstance, being rendered more vulnerable by the departure of the Indians, who had just left us, I was obliged to increase my guard from eight to sixteen men. This was much the most severe duty my men had to perform, but they did it with alacrity and cheerfulness as well as all other services required at their hands; indeed, such was their pride and ambition in the discharge of their duties, that their privations in the end became sources of amusement to them. 

We remained on this island until the cottonwood fit for horse food was nearly consumed, by which time our horses were so refreshed as to justify another move forward. We therefore made arrangements for our departure and resumed our march on the 11th January…. From this last mentioned island, we had a clear and distant view of the Rocky Mountains bearing west, about sixty miles distant.

Harrison Clifford Dale, editor of the Ashley-Smith account, places the sighting of the Rocky Mountains at Beaver Fork just east of Fort Morgan though another account places the first sighting of the Rocky Mountains at Fremont’s Orchard about fourteen miles west of Fort Morgan.

Photo fur traders.

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Sources:

1. LeRoy R. Hafen, “Fort St. Vrain,” Colorado Magazine 29 (1952): 241-255.
2. Henry Inman, The Great Salt Trail (New York: Macmillan, 1898), 51.
3. LeRoy R. Hafen & Harvey Lewis Carter, Trappers of the Far West: Sixteen Biographical Sketches (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 153.
4. LeRoy R. Hafen, Broken Hand: The Life of Thomas Fitzpatrick, Mountain Man, Guide and Indian Agent (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 44.
5. Harrison Clifford Dale & William Henry Ashley, The Ashley-Smith Explorations and the Discovery of a Central Route to the Pacific: 1822-1829 (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1918), 125-127.
6. Life in the Far West: the experiences of a British Officer in America and Mexico During the 1840s by George F. Ruxton.