Tag Archives: Fort William

Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Tour

By Andy Hahn

A few weeks ago Camp­bell House docent Tom Gron­s­ki and I returned from a 2,500 mile trip West, vis­it­ing the impor­tant sites of Robert Camp­bell and Rocky Moun­tain fur trade.

Red Rocks Canyon on the road up to the South Pass through the Wind Riv­er Range of the Rockies.

We fol­lowed the route of the Ore­gon Trail, which had been blazed by Camp­bell and oth­er moun­tain men and fur traders dur­ing the 1820s and 30s. Our first stop was at the Joslyn Art Muse­um in Oma­ha, Nebras­ka. The Joslyn holds one of the most impor­tant col­lec­tions of art of the Amer­i­can West, includ­ing works by Karl Bod­mer, Alfred Jacob Miller and George Catlin.

Fol­low­ing a 500-mile dri­ve along the Plat­te Riv­er through Nebras­ka we arrived at Fort Laramie, where we met Alan McFar­land, Robert Camp­bel­l’s g‑g-g-grand nephew, fresh off the plane from his home in North­ern Ire­land. Alan has a spe­cial inter­est in his uncle’s career in the fur trade and has made numer­ous research trips to Amer­i­ca. Fort Laramie was the per­fect place for our meet­ing because Camp­bell and his part­ner Bill Sub­lette found­ed Fort Laramie (orig­i­nal­ly called Fort William) in 1834. At this Nation­al His­toric Site we were able to view an authen­tic fur trade encamp­ment recre­at­ed by mem­bers of the Amer­i­can Moun­tain Men. The group lat­er cre­at­ed tableau vivant from one of Alfred Jacob Miller’s art­works depict­ing a fur trade camp.

A lit­tle fur­ther west we fol­lowed the Sweet­wa­ter Riv­er across Wyoming towards the Wind Riv­er Moun­tain Range and the South Pass. Bill Sub­lette was the first per­son to take a wag­on this far into the Rocky Moun­tains in 1830, set­ting a course for thou­sands that would fol­low the Ore­gon and Mor­mon Trails. The next few days were spent in the vicin­i­ty of Jack­son, Wyoming where we vis­it­ed most all of the sites of the Rocky Moun­tain Ren­dezvous. The high­lights includ­ed vis­its to the Muse­um of the Moun­tain Man where we were able to see some orig­i­nal Camp­bell let­ters and Pier­re’s Hole, site of the 1832 Ren­dezvous and sub­se­quent bat­tle.  Camp­bell hero­ical­ly saved his friend Bill Sub­let­te’s life dur­ing the bat­tle as recount­ed by Wash­ing­ton Irv­ing in the Adven­tures of Cap­tain Bon­neville. Our trip end­ed with vis­its to oth­er Ren­dezvous sites at Bear Lake, Cache Val­ley and final­ly Fort Bridger.

Enjoy the pic­tures and fol­low us West!

Monday Update » 6.11.12

Wel­come back to Mon­day, every­one! We hope you’ve been enjoy­ing your sum­mer so far. As usu­al, we’ve been busy here and we have some fun things to report to you:

Facelift for Camp­bell House
Actu­al­ly, more like a coat of paint. 2012 marks the 10-year anniver­sary of the com­ple­tion of the exte­ri­or ren­o­va­tion of the house, and we’re due for anoth­er paint job. For­tu­nate­ly, we’ve secured a gen­er­ous grant from the Robert J. Tru­laske, Jr. Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion for the funds to have the brick, win­dows and cor­nices repaint­ed. Since the house is so big and tall, this is going to be an excit­ing process because the painters will have to use a series of lifts to reach the high­est points of the house. Work will like­ly begin this sum­mer after we com­plete spot tuck­point­ing, and we’ll be sure to share pic­tures as the work pro­gress­es. Three cheers for the Robert J. Tru­laske, Jr. Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion for help­ing us keep the Camp­bells’ home in tip-top shape!

We ♥ Our Interns
Camp­bell House has a full com­ple­ment of six interns this sum­mer. Though most of them are from St. Louis, they rep­re­sent uni­ver­si­ties from all over the coun­try, (Vas­sar, Wart­burg Col­lege and Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty) and a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines includ­ing art his­to­ry, chem­istry (real­ly) and Amer­i­can cul­ture stud­ies. They’ll get the full muse­um expe­ri­ence this sum­mer by giv­ing tours, con­duct­ing research, inven­to­ry­ing the Camp­bell col­lec­tion as well as all of the oth­er day-to-day stuff that needs to get done (i.e. water­ing the gar­den, book­ing tours, work­ing on mem­ber­ship renewals, etc). Check back in with us as we post intern pro­files to the blog. These dynam­ic — and wicked­ly smart — stu­dents breathe new life into this house, and we’re for­tu­nate to have their fresh per­spec­tive. While they’re learn­ing the muse­um biz, we get new insight and ideas for mak­ing this old house cur­rent and rel­e­vant to a young demo­graph­ic. Are you inter­est­ed in join­ing us for an intern­ship, too? Email Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn at andy [at] campbellhousemuseum.org.

Inte­ri­or of Fort Laramie by Alfred Jacob Miller
Water­col­or, 1858–1860

Retrac­ing Robert’s Route
This week, Intre­pid Researcher Tom™  and our illus­tri­ous Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy are tak­ing a trip out to the wild west to vis­it Robert’s old stomp­ing grounds. Begin­ning at Fort Laramie, the pair will meet Robert’s great-nephew Alan (who is com­ing all the way from North­ern Ire­land) to see the annu­al Ren­dezvous that reen­acts the year­ly event where trap­pers would meet with mer­chants to trade furs for goods. Fort Laramie is sig­nif­i­cant because Robert found­ed Fort William, which was Fort Laramie’s pre­cur­sor. This year’s event will com­mem­o­rate artist Alfred Jacob Miller’s 1837 trip to the ren­dezvous. Miller pro­duced some of the most famous images of the Ore­gon Trail and Fort Laramie, includ­ing the one on the right. After the ren­dezvous, the trio will vis­it Muse­um of the Moun­tain Man, Pier­re’s Hole (the site of the famous bat­tle in which Robert and pal Bill Sub­lette played a major role), and final­ly — if they have time — a trip to Fort Bridger. We’ll be sure to post pic­tures after the trav­el­ers return.

A pic­ture from the process: the entire key­board was removed from the body of the piano.

Music to Our Ears
In what proved to be a five-month project, the Camp­bells’ piano is DONE! JoAnn Kaplan of Kap­stan Piano Ser­vices worked tire­less­ly to clean, fix and/or cus­tom-fab­ri­cate new parts, and final­ly tune the old Schomack­er. We did­n’t do all that work for noth­ing — we’ll start host­ing par­lor con­certs lat­er this year. Check back for details.

Tours on Tap
Did you miss our wild­ly suc­cess­ful Lucas Place/Tap Room walk­ing tour last fall? Have no fear — we’ll offer it again and then some. This week we’re meet­ing with our friends at Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion of St. Louis to put togeth­er some fun and infor­ma­tive tours. As soon as we work out the details we ‘ll get a sched­ule of events post­ed. Do you have an idea for a build­ing, neigh­bor­hood or spe­cial tour of Camp­bell House? Let us know! Send your bright idea to shelley.satke [at] gmail.com and we’ll see what we can do.

Detail of the reuphol­stered piano bench. That’s silk vel­vet and yes, it feels as good as it looks.

Facelift 2.0: Bidet and Piano Stool
The house is get­ting repaint­ed, and two pieces of fur­ni­ture have been reuphol­stered, too. The fab­ric on Vir­gini­a’s bidet cov­er had dete­ri­o­rat­ed to noth­ing more than threads, and the piano stool was­n’t in much bet­ter shape. Board mem­ber and inte­ri­or design­er Tim Rohan gen­er­ous­ly donat­ed new fab­ric and had the tops of both pieces of fur­ni­ture reuphol­stered over the exist­ing fab­rics so we would not lose the orig­i­nal mate­r­i­al (what was left of it, anyway).

New Geo­cache
Are you into urban trea­sure hunt­ing? We have a new geo­cache in our garden.…dig up your GPS or down­load a geo­cache app to find it, and add your name to the list!

Board Pres­i­dent Fritz Clif­ford with St. Louis Bal­let dancers.

We’re the Daaaahncers
Last week we wel­comed a crew of St. Louis Bal­let dancers who per­formed at our Mag­i­cal Spring Thing in April. They got the VIP tour with Andy and Board Pres­i­dent Fritz lead­ing the way.  Do you have a spe­cial group that would like to have a spe­cial behind-the-scenes expe­ri­ence at Camp­bell House? Con­tact Andy (andy [at] campbellhousemuseum.org) or Shel­ley (shelley.satke [at] gmail.com) and we are more than hap­py to accom­mo­date you!

Bye, Bob
Bob’s going away.…for now. The beloved gar­den gnome that was left on our front steps as a prank will be vaca­tion­ing back at the DeMe­nil Man­sion until we launch a secret expe­di­tion to bring him home.  <super sadface>

.…and that’s all the news that’s fit to print for now. Have a spec­tac­u­lar week!

This week in history: April 18–24

Today you tech­ni­cal­ly get mul­ti­ple let­ters, all wrapped into one!  On April 22, 1835, William Sub­lette start­ed a let­ter to Robert Camp­bell, who was at Fort William.  Sub­lette added to it on May 1.  He made one more addi­tion on May 2, before final­ly send­ing it to Robert.  The let­ter cov­ers every­thing, from busi­ness to fam­i­ly to gos­sip from home. One inter­est­ing and impor­tant ref­er­ence Sub­lette makes is to “Fontinell”.  “Fontinell” was Lucien Fontenelle, a well-known French-Amer­i­can fur trad­er who worked for the Amer­i­can Fur Com­pa­ny, run by John Jacob Astor and the Rocky Moun­tain Fur Co. and Sub­lette and Camp­bel­l’s biggest com­pe­ti­tion.  Sub­lette also tells Robert that “Vir­ginia”, mean­ing 13 year old Vir­ginia Jane Kyle, who Robert would mar­ry in 1841, is doing well and “Mrs Fox also lent Vir­ginia com­pli­ments to you”.  Enjoy this fas­ci­nat­ing look into Sub­lette & Camp­bel­l’s busi­ness and per­son­al lives!

http://campbellhousemuseum.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/this-week-in-history-november-5-november-11/
[Front Cover]
Mr. R. Campbell
Fort William

St. Louis MO April 22nd 1835

Dear Robert,
I received your let­ter from Colum­bia and also one from Lex­ing­ton dat­ed april 18th. I wrote you by the first mail after you left at Lex­ing­ton and also to Inde­pen­dence.  Enclos­ing those notes you wished [spelled wisht] Fontinell to Set­tle, as he refused doing so here but stat­ed [spelled stait­ed] he thought he would Set­tle them when you deliv­ered over the fort to him.  I have writ­ten all that passed between us to you in my let­ter to Inde­pen­dence which I pre­sume you will get before you leave the Unit­ed States although you did not state in your let­ter from Lex­ing­ton whether you had received mine or not.  Galio [?] sent a let­ter to you from your broth­er to Inde­pen­dence and I now also send one let­ter to Fontinell.  Fontinell has only vis­it­ed my room but twice since you left he appears too [spelled two] busi­ly engaged in court­ing or some­thing else that I can scarce­ly get to see him.  On yes­ter­day Mr Fontinell & Beret both came to my room.  I showed them both the part of the let­ter you sent me or so much as relat­ed to their [spelled there] mat­ters and they made [spelled maid] no objec­tions.  Fontinell told me he expect­ed to leave tomor­row but you know him, the peo­ple is all well here gen­er­al­ly, and not much change in affairs.  Since you left Capt. Fleise­he­man is dead and buried, mar­riages Marpy & Shan­ice is both mar­ried, Miss Bil­low also & Miss Cale­na is expect­ed to be in the same sit­u­a­ti­a­tion in a few days etc. etc.

[Pg. Break] There appears to be but lit­tle alter­ation in Mil­ton since you left Sis­ter Sophron­ice Cook is now in St. Louis and expects to leave shortly.

I have received a let­ter from Mr J.J. Car­pen­ter of N.Y. stat­ing our furst is still unsold and that sev­er­al per­sons has been lookng at them but will think them too [spelled two] dear.  The Saulaper­ans are all here as yes but expect to leave in a few days.  Bean Gar­den & Lane all let out short­ly up the Mis­sis­sip­pi sur­vey­ing.  I had word from Edmond Christy a few days since he is well and they say is doing well keeps him­self steady and atten­tive to business.

May the first I have this morn­ing received your let­ters with Andrew from Inde­pen­dence April 21 1835.

I have you will per­cieve by this com­menced [spelled comenced] this let­ter sev­er­al days since.  I have just called on Fontinell and he informs me he will start this evening or tomor­row morn­ing for a cer­tain­ty, Cabanne, came down last night Fontinell has been so busi­ly engaged court­ing gala­vant­i­ng etc. that he has hard­ly been to see Mil­ton but one time since you left (it appears to be fine times with him) Mil­ton has much mend­ed since I com­mence this let­ter I have had him rid­ing out and he is now bout on his crutch­es lest his leg is about the same the lig­a­tures still remain.  Mrs. Ash­ley has been quite unwell but is now bet­ter I have paid but one or two vis­its since you left and I can assure you I feel quite lone­some.  I expect to take Mil­ton to the farm in a few days where I shall stay principly.

[Pg. Break] I have received but one let­ter from your Broth­er but what I have sent you and I enclose it with this I expect anoth­er in a few days, Ran­dolph has vis­it­ed Mil­tons room sev­er­al times I expect there is some­thing on foot as he has been try­ing to get employ­ment and Mil­ton appears dis­sat­is­fied [spelled dis­at­is­fied] with Fontinells deten­tion here and have I believe expressed [spelled expresst] him self.  So I will fin­ish this let­ter by piece meals [?] whilst Fontinell remains.  Robt. this evening I received a let­ter from Hugh stat­ting he will deter­mine in a day or two whether he will vis­it St Louis or no if so he will leave about the first of June his stay will be short and he will return through Ten­nesee, Alaba­ma, and Ken­tucky.  He states he received a let­ter from Broth­er Andrew dat­ed 26th Jany last all friends was well at that date and noth­ing new.

I would send you the let­ter which is dat­ed the 17th of april only it con­tained a list of my fruit trees and a descrip­tion of them etc prinic­i­paly on that subject.

I was at Miss Kyle’s this evening all was well and wished I would remem­ber them in my let­ter to you.  Mrs Fox also lent Vir­ginia com­pli­ments to you there has noth­ing tran­spired since you left worth notice I am get­ting on with my build­ing and farm as well as could be expect­ed Mr Jack­son is now in St Louis I have had a set­tle­ment with him Smith & Ashley.

[Pg. Break, top of front cov­er] May 2 1835 Robert I have just been to see Fontinell he says he will leave pos­i­tive­ly today.  W & Mrs Stephan­son leaves to day for Gale­na.  Mgr Bean also Gor­don is gone.  Miss Cale­na is mar­ried and off to Illi­nois.  Miss Tharp is also mar­ried and so forth,  Beut and Sare­na is still here but will leave short­ly         Your friend W Sublette

[Sec­tion Break, upside down] I intend for­ward­ing our bill on for the goods spo­ken of imme­di­ate­ly I have been wait­ing to hear from you at Inde­pen­dence or I would have done so before now Mil­ton wish­es to be remem­bered & Sis­ter Cook has left and I feel entire­ly at a loss what to do or how to employ myself as you know I have been a bird of pas­sage the last twelve years yours farewell, W.L.S.

This Week in History: September 29 — October 5

Fort William Fri­day Octo­ber 13th 1833
My Dear Mary

I owe you a let­ter of more than a year stand­ing, and I know not now but I had bet­ter allow inter­est to accu­mu­late than attempt  to liq­ui­date the debt. In fact there is so lit­tle in this coun­try that could prove inter­est­ing to you (  I know your taste is not  Sav­age) that it is not with­out reluc­tance I take up my pen: and  but for our con­sid­er­a­tion I would pro­cras­ti­nate a lit­tle longer  —  Name­ly that it brings fresh my rec­ol­lec­tion the pleas­ant  evenings I passed with you in Decem­ber and Jan­u­ary last: and I  can now indulge the delu­sive idea that I am seat­ed in your room  on Wal­nut Street enjoy­ing the agree­able soci­ety it always  con­tained, and look­ing on the only Broth­er and Sis­ter that  inhab­it the same con­ti­nent as myself. Can you imag­ine to your­self how agree­able such dreams are? No, ’tis impos­si­ble. We can only  know plea­sure by con­trast and you who have no alloy to mix with  pure hap­pi­ness can­not pos­si­bly appre­ci­ate the feel­ings of one  whose whole life is bus­tle and anx­i­ety with­out a com­pan­ion (I  don’t mean a wife) to share it. To fan­cy myself trans­port­ed from  fif­teen hun­dred miles beyond the bounds of civ­i­liza­tion, leav­ing  all my cares behind, and enter­ing the most agree­able and  accept­able Soci­ety that I can imag­ine, pro­duces a sen­sa­tion that  it beg­ging words to describe; just call to mind the hap­pi­est  moments of your life, then that twice told, can enable you to  form some idea of what I should feel if I could pass one evening  with you at this time, and what I now expe­ri­ence in writ­ing you  notwith­stand­ing the immense dis­tance we are apart –

[Pg. Break] As I write vol­umes to Hugh you prob­a­bly have a pret­ty good knowl­edge of what a per­son sac­ri­fices who embarks in this  life, and yet I might say to you it is not with­out some enjoyment

” — this our life exempt from pub­lic haunt
“Finds tongues in trees, books in the run­ning brooks
“Ser­mons in stones and good in every thing”

Roam in what direc­tion we may, nature in all her beau­ties (and  some of her defor­mi­ties) meets our eye and should our soli­tude be inter­rupt­ed, it is only by a son of nature who affords quite as  good a sub­ject for con­tem­pla­tion as the scenery he con­tributes to diver­si­fy; and I can assure you there are times when such are my feel­ings that I would scarce exchange a walk in the vicin­i­ty of  Fort William with an unso­phis­ti­cat­ed Son of the Prairie that I  might hap­ly meet,  and with whom I could only “talk by signs”,  for a prom­e­nade in Ches­nut Street on a fine sun­ny day when all  the fash­ion and beau­ty of the city are on the move. My taste you  will say is bar­barous– I con­fess it else I would not now be  writ­ing you from the Mouth of the Yel­low Stone

I could tell you so many excel­lent sto­ries in praise of the  Indi­ans that you would be led to admire them. And for our trust  in their char­ac­ter (and sor­ry I am to record it) for which I  can­not offer an excuse; and that is their bar­barous treat­ment of  the ____[?] sex. Fash­ion it as I may I can­not pal­li­ate this  offense: to one who has not been accus­tomed to see our pret­ty  Girls in the States wait­ed on from time to time they become  mar­riage­able until they get a hus­band, and if they man­age him  prop­er­ly ever after, it is hard to look at the poor crea­tures in  this coun­try– Youth, Beau­ty– I had almost said refine­ment but  they poss­es nei­ther that nor intel­li­gence–  noth­ing can exempt  them from drudgery. Even the daugh­ter of a chief if she works to  get a hus­band (and they all do) must show that she is capa­ble of  dress­ing Buf­fa­lo Robes–  pack­ing wood and if occa­sion requires  pack­ing a heavy bur­den a days march whilst the detestable men  step ahead encum­bered only by their gun and bow and arrows
[Pg. Break] I have fre­quent­ly had the Indi­ans boast to me that  they were not poor for they had two, three or four wives (tell it not in Goth) who could dress Buf­fa­lo Robes to pur­chase what they might require. A Nabob in the Old Domin­ion could not speak of  his human stock with more indif­fer­ence than an Indi­an does of his wives; nor is this all. They will dis­pose of their daugh­ters for a gun or a Horse or any oth­er arti­cle they may require with­out  regard to their feel­ings, but I must add the Lady, like a true  daugh­ter of Eve will have her own way, and if her Father’s choice does not please her, she sel­dom fails to choose for her­self  after­wards in which she is jus­ti­fied by the Cus­toms of her Nation
I intend the first leisure to smoke sev­er­al pipes of Tobac­co —  (I am indebt­ed to Knicker­backer for the plan) explain­ing, at  the risk of being laughed at, the dif­fer­ence between our  treat­ment of  the sex and theirs
You per­ceive the bad exam­ple dai­ly set before me oper­ates as it  ought, in pro­duc­ing the great­est ven­er­a­tion for the ladies I have the mis­for­tune to be so far removed from. The more I see of  these Sav­ages the more glar­ing appears the injus­tice. No dan­ger  that like vice.

“Seen too oft famil­iar with the face
We must endure, then tru­ly them embrace”

But if some hus­bands had a prece­dent such as I could fur­nish  then, Lord help their wives — there­fore the less they know of  Indi­an usage the better.
I hope you have been able to enter­tain my friend Sub­lette as  agree­ably as you did last sea­son, I trust how­ev­er your fair  friends  are not as fas­ci­nat­ing as they thus were, or I shall  expect an addi­tion­al part­ner in our concern
When I left St Louis your sis­ters spoke of the two of them going to Phi­la, but all being anx­ious to live with “Sis­ter Mary” they  had not deter­mined whose should be the hap­py lot — please  present my respects to them
Is it not pro­vok­ing to be placed so as to not expect a let­ter  before June or July next —  this is indeed one of the great­est  griev­ances — I find in this coun­try — Could I expect to hear  from you and Hugh  and a few of my oth­er friends once a month,  then would I be the hap­pi­est amongst the self-exiled — as that  is denied me, I shall do myself the plea­sure of sub­scrib­ing  myself your most sin­cere and most devot­ed friend and Brother

Robert Camp­bell

p2