|
1837 Green River (Siskeedee-Agie) Rendezvous: Once again Thomas
Fitzpatrick would lead the supply train up to rendezvous, although this
time the supplies were bound for trappers working for Pratte, Choteau and
Company. The supply train,
which left either Newport
or Independence, would include 30 wagons and two carts.
Accompanying the train were Etienne Provost, Sir William Drummond
Stewart and Alfred Jacob Miller. Sir
Drummond William Stewart was a wealthy Scotsman, and this was his fifth
year attending rendezvous. His interest in
this event was as a tourist and sports hunter.
He was responsible for bringing Alfred Jacob Miller, an artist, to
this years rendezvous, for the purpose of recording the sights, people and
spectacle of this annual event on canvas.
Stewart would afterwards take Miller to Scotland, where he
commissioned him to paint large murals based on his field sketches.
No other individual who attend the annual rendezvous ever left a
more detailed written or visual description then did Miller.
To see some of Alfred
Jacob Miller’s work (this link takes you to another site).
No journal or log is available for the supply train to the
mountains, other than what is described by Miller.
The train arrived
at Fort William in June.
Milton Sublette, who had been
majordomo at the fort had died there on April 5th, 1837
, from the infection in his leg that had troubled him for the last couple
of years of his life. Lucien
Fontenelle was in charge of Fontenelle would
accompany the pack train from Fort William to rendezvous.
Alfred Miller records the following about Fontenelle “he
distinguished himself for speed of foot in running from a grizzly bear; he
having no gun with him at the time.”
Osborne
Russell, Robert Newell and others arrived at the rendezvous site as
early as June 10th. William
Gray, one of the missionaries traveling with Dr. Marcus Whitman the
previous year, arrived July 2nd.
He was returning east to find a wife, and would then return to the
Indian missions. A small party
of Hudson’s Bay Company men out of Fort Hall
would also be present at this years rendezvous.
It is not certain when this rendezvous broke up.
Osborne Russell records that he and a party left rendezvous on July
20th , and he indicates that they joined up with a party under
Fontenelle on the 25th of July.
Robert Newell indicates that he left with a small party on July 22nd.
The exact date when the train packing furs left for St. Louis is not certain.
In his journal William Gray states that he was told it would not
leave until August 5th or 10th.
This may have been misinformation given to Gray, being as Gray was
in a powerful hurry to return east, and Gray was strongly disliked by most mountain
men. Thomas Fitzpatrick and
Andrew Drips would return with the furs to St. Louis.
When they arrived they would find that the country was gripped in a
financial panic, and the price of furs had plummeted.
|