33



THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN FUR COMPANY.



old North American Company, at the head of which Mr. Astor still remained,
began to range the country about the head waters of the Mississippi and the
upper Missouri. Also a few American traders had ventured into the northern
provinces of Mexico, previous to the overthrow of the Spanish Government;
and after that event, a thriving trade grew up between St. Louis and Santa
Fe.
  At length, in 1823, Mr. W. H. Ashley, of St. Louis, a merchant for a long
time'engaged in the fur trade on the Missouri and its tributaries, determined
to
push a trading party up to or beyond the Rocky Mountains. Following up
the Platte River, Mr. Ashley proceeded at the head of a large party with
horses
and merchandise, as far as the northern branch of the Platte, called the
Sweet-
water. This he explored to its source, situated in that remarkable depression
in the Rocky Mountains, known as the South Pass-the same which Fremont
discovered twenty years later, during which twenty years it was annually
trav-
eled by trading parties, and just prior to Fremont's discovery, by missionaries
and emigrants destined to Oregon. To Mr. Ashley also belongs the credit of
having first explored the head-waters of the Colorado, called the Green River,
afterwards a favorite rendezvous of the American Fur Companies. The coun-
try about the South Pass proved to be an entirely new hunting ground, and
very rich in furs, as here many rivers take their rise, whose head-waters
fur-
nished abundant beaver. Here Mr. Ashley spent the summer, returning to St.
Louis in the fall with a valuable collection of skins.
  In 1824, Mr. Ashley repeated the expedition, extending it this time beyond
Green River as far as Great Salt Lake, near which to the south he discovered
another smaller lake, which he named Lake Ashley, after himself. On the
shores of this lake he built a fort for trading with the Indians, and leavingf
in it
about one hundred men, returned to St. Louis the second time with a large
amount of furs. During the time the fort was occupied by Mr. Ashley's men,
a
period of three years, more than one hundred and eighty thousand dollars
worth
of furs were collected and sent to St. Louis. In 1827, the fort, and all
Mr.
Ashley's interest in the business, was sold to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company,
at the head of which were Jedediah Smith, William   Sublette, and David
Jackson, Sublette being the leading spirit in the Company.
  The custom of these enterprising traders, who had been in the mountains
since 1824, was to divide their force, each taking his command to a good
hunt-
ing ground, and returning at stated times to rendezvous, generally appointed
on the head-waters of Green River. Frequently the other fur companies, (for
there were other companies formed on the heels of Ashley's enterprise,) learn-
ing of the place appointed for the yearly rendezvous, brought their goods
to
the same resort, when an intense rivalry was exhibited by the several traders
as to which company should soonest dispose of its goods, getting, of course,
the
largest amount of furs from the trappers and Indians. So great was the com-
petition in the years between 1826 and 1829, when there were about six hun-
dred American trappers in and about the Rocky Mountains, besides those of
the Hudson's Bay Company, that it was death for a man of one company to
dispose of his furs to a rival association. Even a " free trapper "-that
is, one
not indentured, but hunting upon certain terms of agreement concerning the