Mountain Man Rendezvous
In the early 1800s, as beaver hats were becoming all the rage back East and across Europe,
adventurers made out for the largely unexplored, empty (of whites, at least) and beaver-plentiful
American West. These mountain men and trappers would spend all fall and winter hunting beaver and
preparing the hides. Spring and summer were reserved for the 1,000-mile (one-way) journey to St.
Louis where they could sell their furs. But then in 1824, a St. Louis trading company came up with a
novel idea: instead of the trappers coming to them, they, along with supplies, would go to their
trappers. The first rendezvous was held in 1825 near the present southern Wyoming town of Burntfork.
Before the mountain man/trapper life died (starting in the late 1830s, beaver hats were replaced by silk
ones in fashionable circles), a total of 16 rendezvous were held, one a year from 1825 through 1840.
Ten of these 16 were in Wyoming. Each was attended by hundreds of fur trappers and traders,
mountain men, thousands of Native Americans and the occasional missionary or two. There’d be
socializing, contests of skill (tomahawk throws, shooting, skinning), trading, tall tales told, and more
than a little drinking. These lasted anywhere from weeks to months.
1830 – 1838 Riverton, Wyoming
The 1830 supply caravan, led by William Sublette, consisted of eighty-one men on mules, ten wagons
drawn by five mules each, two Deerborn carriages, twelve head of cattle, and a milk cow. Sublette left
St. Louis on April 10th and arrived in the Wind River Basin on July 16th. The supply caravan averaged
fifteen- to twenty-five miles a day. Sublette stopped for a rest on July 4th, 1830 at a large rock
outcropping on the Sweetwater River. The rock is called Independence Rock.
The Smith, Jackson and Sublette firm collected one hundred and seventy packs of furs with a value of
eighty-four thousand four hundred and ninety-nine dollars. This was the firm's most profitable year, but
the partners had concerns over the future viability of the fur trade. At the Riverton rendezvous of
1830, Smith, Jackson, and Sublette sold out to a partnership of Thomas Fitzpatrick, James Bridger,
Milton Sublette, Henry Fraeb, and Jean Gervias, but William Sublette remained the St. Louis supplier
for the rendezvous.
Fitzpatrick, Bridger, Sublette, Fraeb, and Gervias named the new company the Rocky Mountain Fur
Company. Although the term Rocky Mountain Fur Company is widely used in fur trade history, the
period from 1830 to 1834 is the only time that there was an actual company called the Rocky Mountain
Fur Company.
Word of Caution: If you are looking for the 1830 and 1838 rendezvous site, it was on the southeast
corner of Riverton, Wyoming, just south of Monroe Street. The map in Dr. Gowans' book, Rocky
Mountain Rendezvous, shows the site several miles north of Riverton.
1838 Wind River Rendezvous: Same site as 1830 Rendezvous:
The 1838 rendezvous was scheduled for the Green River Valley, but to escape trading pressure from
the Hudson's Bay Company, the location was moved to the site of the 1830 rendezvous on the Wind
River. This note was written with charcoal on an old storehouse door:
Come to Popoasia (Popo Agia) on Wind River and you will find plenty trade, whiskey, and white women.
According to Jerome Peltier (Mountain Man and the Fur Trade Series), Moses "Black" Harris wrote this
note. Harris a frequent companion of William Sublette, has been described on several Internet sites as
a black man, but there is no evidence to support this other than his nickname "Black". The following
description of Harris was left by Alfred Jacob Miller:
This Black Harris always created a sensation at the campfire, being a capital raconteur, and having
had as many perilous adventures as an man probably in the mountains. He was wiry form, made up of
bone and muscle, with a face apparently composed of tan leather and whip cord, finished off with a
peculiar blue-black tint, as if gunpowder had been burnt into his face.
Andrew Drips was in charge of the supply train, accompanying him was August Johann Sutter. Sutter
went on to California and built Sutter's Fort where gold was discovered in 1849. Drips was also
accompanied by a large group of missionaries headed for Oregon and Sir William Drummond. Stewart
was making his last visit to the mountains before returning to Scotland. The 1838 rendezvous is one of
the best documented rendezvous. Four of the missionary wives kept diaries.
According to Robert Newell, the company men were hard nosed in regards to business at the
rendezvous. Prices were extremely high and some trappers were slipping away from the rendezvous
because they could not pay the Company their debts. Credit was a thing of the past (Gowans).