Fort Union Trading Post Historic Structures Report (Part II) Historical Data Section

The letter books of the period do not describe the beginning of construction of Fort Union. Chittenden, noting James Kipp's experience at fort building, has suggested that most likely he was the supervisor of the work. Another writer has stated that métis laborers did the actual work. [1] While there may have been some métis employed at the fort, it is more probable that the skilled workmen (carpenters, masons) came from St. Louis and that the large majority of the laborers were French Canadian engagés, out from Quebec. The American Fur Company regularly had a recruiter in Quebec, and a new batch of 43 mangeurs du lard had arrived at Fort Tecumseh in August 1829. [2]

The first task involved the cutting and hewing of suitable timber and hauling it to the site. A stout palisade of vertical logs soon enclosed a quadrangle 220 by 240 feet. The long axis of the fort ran almost due north and south; while the shorter sides paralleled the river. The apartments of the employees occupied a long building on the western side of the interior. A similar building containing the storerooms and the retail store stood opposite, on the east side. At the north end stood the bourgeois' house and, behind it, a kitchen. In the western half of the north end was a large but simple gate that led out on to the prairie. On the front, or southern end, were the main gate, a reception room for Indians, and shops for various trades such as the blacksmith and the tinner. Other, smaller structures stood here and there around the perimeter. At the northeast and southwest corners stood imposing, 2-story, stone bastions. In the center of the court a tall flag staff reached for the sky.

Each and all of these structures will be discussed individually and in detail in other sections of this report. However, the above general description will provide a stage for the incidents and events that were to befall the occupants for the next 35 years.

The first international visitor to Fort Union arrived in May 1830, when Prince Paul, or Duke Paul Wilhelm of W¨rttemberg, a southern German state, arrived on his second trip to the United States. Although a major general in the army of Frederick II of Prussia, and related to most of the reigning monarchs of Europe, Prince Paul was interested in neither the military nor court life. Instead, he dedicated himself to exploring the far corners of the world; at this time, Fort Union qualified as a far corner.

His biographer states that Prince Paul was a "fine sketch artist." However, no results of his pen have been found. There is an unsubstantiated, and hopefully erroneous, rumor that his work was destroyed during the air raids of World War II. [3]

While no written account by Prince Paul seems to have survived, there is a record of his purchases at Fort Union. [4] They show him to have been rather an easy spender. Between May 17 and August 2, he ran up a bill of $714.75. This sum can be broken down to show expenditures in buying trade goods, necessary supplies such as powder and ball, specimens of Indian handicraft, liquor, and pay for servants supplied by the company. [5] Although he seems to have paid his bill in full at Fort Union, Prince Paul returned to Germany owing money to Pratte, Chouteau, and Co. Later, in 1833, John Jacob Astor wrote his son from Europe that Prince Paul "has neither money nor credit, but he hopes to get the amount of your [Chouteau's] claim in the course of a few months. [6]

Another prince who visited Fort Union in 1830 was Tchatka, an Assiniboin. For most of the time that Fort Union was in existence, there was little danger of an attack by the Assiniboins, or anyone else. However, in this year, Tchatka, or le Gaucher, offered a very real threat. Having lost face among his followers when he suffered a defeat at the hands of the Blackfeet, le Gaucher attempted to regain his lost prestige by offering his 200 followers a scheme whereby to capture the fort. Arriving at the post, he persuaded McKenzie to believe that his men were on their way to attack Minnitarees and he asked for powder.

Despite the stout palisades, it was often the custom at Fort Union to allow trusted Indians to sleep inside the fort; on this occasion, McKenzie gave such permission. At bedtime, le Gaucher's men retired to the various rooms to which they had been assigned. According to the plan, they were to await a signal from le Gaucher, at which time they would attack their white roommates.

One of the white employees had an Assiniboin wife whose brother, one of the attackers, warned her of the plan. She, in turn, passed the warning on. McKenzie acted as if he knew nothing. During the night, he summoned the 80-odd employees then at the fort to come to the main house, a few at a time. He armed his men and had them occupy the stone bastions and other strategic points. When his men were ready, McKenzie had le Gaucher brought to his room. He informed the chief of his awareness of the attack, and gave him the opportunity to leave peacefully before the whites opened fire. The Assiniboins left. [7]

McKenzie traveled down the river in the summer of 1830. When he returned to Fort Union, he found there a trapper by the name of Berger. This old-timer had learned the Blackfoot language when working for the British. Until now, nearly every effort by Americans to trade with the Blackfeet or to hunt in their territory, which lay above Fort Union, had ended in an attack by the Indians. McKenzie persuaded Berger to visit the upper tributaries and to talk the Blackfeet into sending a delegation to Fort Union. Berger was successful in this effort in 1831, and the Blackfeet agreed to let McKenzie send James Kipp up to trade. This resulted in the eventual establishment of Fort McKenzie near the mouth of Marias River. McKenzie's success with the Blackfeet, where other American traders had failed, increased his stature as king of the upper Missouri.

Later, he turned his attention to the Crows on the Yellowstone and, in 1832, established Fort Cass at the mouth of the Big Horn River. This made Fort Union the pivot point for the upper reaches of both rivers; its storerooms supplied the trade goods and stored the furs and robes. [8]

A few months before the establishment of Fort Cass, McKenzie almost lost Fort Union to fire. In the middle of the night, February 3, 1832, shouts of "Fire!" woke him up. He ran from his house to find blazing "the range of buildings forming the west quadrangle of the fort (120 ft. by 24 ft.) and occupied by the clerks, interpreters, mechanics, and engagees, with their families, of squalling children not a few."

In describing the origins and results of the fire, McKenzie made mention of some structural details. The fire began in Francois Chardon's room, "originating beneath the floor, and there being. . . a free communication under the whole range, and much rubbish. . . it was almost simultaneous in every department." Among the items destroyed were trunks of clothing, a year's collection of buffalo tongues, rifles, pistols, and rare white beaver skins. McKenzie described both a loft and a cellar. The loft contained nearly 1,000 planks, stored there to season and which had taken two men six months to saw. The cellar was full of small kegs. Today, there is a depression in the ground about where the northwest room of this "range" should be.

The meat house was also threatened by the fire, but it survived. Also of great worry to McKenzie was a supply of gunpowder kept in the storeroom on the east side. By four a. m., however, the fire was under control. Besides the line of quarters, most of the west wall also burned. Quarters were found for the homeless and repairs of the wall began immediately. The men cut 170 trees on the next day and five days later had replaced all the burnt pickets. McKenzie wrote that it would be "months before the buildings can be reinstated. In our wooden houses I fear we are all too little cautious." [9] By early summer, most of the fire scars had disappeared and it was time for the boats from St. Louis.

Until 1832, the principal craft on the upper Missouri for hauling supplies upstream was the keelboat. A crew of 20 to 40 men pulled this craft against the current by means of a line, or cordelle. Occasionally the wind would be strong enough to use sails; from time to time conditions of the water or the banks would force the crew to pole or to row. All the time, getting a cargo the 2,000 miles from St. Louis to Fort Union was desperately hard work. [10]

McKenzie believed that the transportation problem could be greatly reduced by employing a properly-designed steamboat on the Missouri Snags, boiler explosions, mechanical breakdowns would be dangers, but danger awaited all kinds of craft when the river was in a rage. McKenzie finally persuaded Pierre Chouteau, Jr., to invest in the building of a shallow-draft steamboat. In 1831, the Yellow Stone puffed as far as Fort Tecumseh, about two-thirds of the way to Fort Union.

Writing from Paris in the summer of 1832, John Jacob Astor asked, "How did the Yellow Stone behave, and what said the Indians about her?" He soon got the answer. McKenzie's idea was a success; the Yellow Stone reached Fort Union about the middle of June. [11]

Aboard was Pierre Chouteau, Jr., himself, who had had a fine time coming up, including a stopover to christen the rebuilt fort at Tecumseh as Fort Pierre. John F. Sanford, sub-Indian agent and who married Pierre's daughter, Emilie, was also a passenger. [12] But the passenger destined to become more widely known than they was George Catlin, America's first artist on the upper Missouri. Scorned by artists who later visited Fort Union, Catlin has survived the passing decades and his portraits of far-western Indians are today recognized as a substantial contribution to art and to ethnology. [13]

However, Catlin's two sketches of Fort Union leave much to be desired by the historian. One of these is a mere scribble, possibly done aboard the steamboat approaching the post. [14] The other is a finished painting that Catlin displayed in his European exhibits. This is not a great drawing of the distant fort either, although it does catch the appearance of the country. On the other hand, the drawing is not as bad as its critics have maintained. [15]

In the end, Catlin earned a reputation of hastiness and awkwardness. John C. Ewers points out, however, that during the 86 days Catlin spent on the Missouri, he produced more than 135 pictures, a very large output for so short a time. [16]

Of greater interest than his painting are Catlin's comments on Fort Union. The post struck him as a very substantial Fort. . . with bastions armed with ordnance, and our approach to it under the continued roar of cannon for half an hour, and the shrill yells of the half-affrighted savages who lined the shores, presented a scene of the most thrilling appearance. Catlin noted that Union was "the largest and best-built establishment of the kind on the river, being the great or principal head-quarters and depot of the Fur Company's business in this region."

During the next few days, he learned other details of the post "which contains some eight or ten log-houses and stores, and has generally forty or fifty men." Among the buildings already in use was the all-important and "spacious" ice-house, used for preserving meat and cooling drinks. He noted, too, that McKenzie had a scow for crossing to the south bank, a boat large enough to ferry one-horse carts. Catlin did not say where he slept, but he reported using one of the bastions as a painting room, "My easel stands before me, and the cool breech of a twelve-pounder makes me a comfortable seat, whilst her muzzle is looking out at one of the port-holes."

Indians were allowed into the fort to watch Catlin paint. He observed that when they entered they had to place their weapons in the "arsenal." He was the only one to use this term; it is difficult to determine what room was used for this purpose.

Catlin was as much impressed with McKenzie as he was with the post. He described the king as "a kind-hearted and high-minded Scotsman," who "lives in good and comfortable style." McKenzie's table "groans under the luxuries of the country; with buffalo meat and tongues, with beavers' tails and marrow-fat; but," strangely enough, "sans coffee, sans bread and butter. Good cheer and good living we get at it however, and good wine also, for a bottle of Madeira and one of excellent Port are set in a pail of ice every day, and exhausted at dinner."

The artist also met James Archdale Hamilton, another of the unusual characters at Fort Union. Hamilton was an Englishman of exceptionally good education. His associates believed him to be a nobleman whose real name was Archibald Palmer. Considered to be a good host, but an eccentric man, Hamilton hated Indians, a rather odd attitude considering his environment. The French Canadian employees were said to hold him in awe because he took a bath and put on a clean shirt every day. [17] Catlin described Hamilton as a gentleman who was "a complete store-house of ancient and modern literature and art."

Besides the Assiniboins, Catlin had the opportunity to study both Blackfeet and Crees, when a band of each came in at the same time. To keep them from fighting, McKenzie had them camp on opposite sides of the fort, out on the prairie, and he disarmed them for the duration of their stay. That he could enforce such acts was an acknowledgement of his great power. According to Catlin, there was no trouble until the Crees broke camp. At the last minute, one of them poked "the muzzle of his gun through between the piquets [sic] and fatally wounded a Blackfoot inside the fort. [18]

The Indians would call the steamboats the "Fire Boats that walked on the waters;" and the successful trip of the Yellow Stone introduced the beginning of a new period of travel on the upper Missouri. Fort Union was already on its way to being the most handsome of posts; now, with the ease of transportation, McKenzie and his successors would turn it into an establishment almost luxurious in nature. News of the boat's success was carried by newspapers in both America and Europe. Astor wrote from France, "your voyage in the yellow stone attracted much attention in Europe & has been notiesed in all the Papers here." Crooks wrote Chouteau, "I congratulate you most cordially on your perseverance and ultimate success in reaching the Yellow Stone by steam, and the future Historian of Missouri will preserve for you the honorable and enviable distinction of having accomplished an object of immense importance." [19]

For the moment, the American Fur Company had complete control over the upper Missouri and its tributaries. But it had not yet control over the Rocky Mountain trade; now, from that region, came the threat of opposition. Robert Campbell had left Northern Ireland in 1824 and had migrated to St. Louis because of poor health. Before long, he entered the fur trade wherein he met up with William Sublette, one of several brothers who collectively were known throughout the length and breadth of the far west. At the end of 1832, the two formed a partnership and planned to challenge the American Fur Company by erecting a competing fort next to every company post along the Missouri.

In the summer of 1833, Campbell led a group of traders overland to the mouth of the Yellowstone where he met Sublette, who had come up the Missouri by steamboat with supplies and trade goods. Near the junction, on the same side of the river as Fort Union, and about 2-1/2 miles below as the crow flew, the partners began building the wooden establishment, Fort William, named for Sublette. [20]

One of their employees, Charles Larpenteur, described the fort as being 150 by 130 feet, located 200 yards from the Missouri, precisely where Fort Buford's sawmill would stand in the 1870's. The 15-foot stockade was made of cottonwood, with an additional three feet planted in the ground. The bourgeois' house was a cabin of two rooms separated by a breezeway. In addition, there were two rooms for men's quarters, a combination store and warehouse, ice and meat houses, various shops, "and two splendid bastions." The entire complex was finished by Christmas, an indication of its inferiority to Fort Union which took over four years to complete. [21]

Sublette, sick ever since he arrived, went back to St. Louis after three weeks. His departure would mean trouble for Kenneth McKenzie as will be later noted. Campbell, supplied with a large quantity of illicit liquor set out to capture the Indian trade from McKenzie. [22] McKenzie, also well supplied with alcohol, was determined to destroy Fort William economically. By the end of the year, Campbell would learn just how ruthless McKenzie could be.

The irritations began in the fall. When Campbell made an offer to sell out, McKenzie turned him down. He would rather force Campbell out than buy him out. A few days later, Campbell learned that two men had found a packet of beaver that he had lost the past summer and had sold the beaver to McKenzie. Campbell went up to Fort Union to argue that the furs were his, but without success. Next, he discovered that Francois Dechamps, an employee, was actually a spy for McKenzie. Worst of all, "McKenzie gives as much wisky as the Indians can drink for nothing. Barrel after Barrel he sends all around amongst the Indians and those will not trade otherwise." [23]

On New Year's Eve, Campbell was wholly discouraged, "I can safely say as unhappy a time as this I have never before passed during my life. What is worst our prospects are not good for McKenzie has hired our interpreters and bribed them whilst they were here to betray us." [24]

McKenzie was almost enjoying his destruction of the opposition. In January 1834, he wrote, "although on their first start here, they made a great show and promise to the Indians and although among the men nothing was talked about but the new company, they live now at the sign of 'The case is altered.' Their interpreters have. . . left them and are now working hard for me." He concluded, "the new company is in bad odor and must sink." [25]

Then, in April 1834, just when McKenzie was sure of driving out Sublette and Campbell, Chouteau wrote him that he had bought out the opposition. [26] McKenzie was disappointed, and not at all convinced that it had been necessary to have spent the money. His method would have been cheaper.

Before leaving Campbell and his fort, a further look at his journal is necessary. Several times in 1833 he was a guest at Fort Union, and his diary entries add to our information. In September he went up to visit Hamilton who had been ill. Being the gentleman, Hamilton showed Campbell "the buildings even to the Ice House and Stables and every convenience of the fort. The Ice House serves for Lumber having a door in the floor and a descent by rope ladder to the Ice." Assuming his description to be accurate, there should be traces of the ice house cellar today. [27]

On December 15, Campbell made an entry in his journal of a disaster at Fort Union: "Last night two sides of McKenzies new fort was leveled with the ground" because of a strong wind. "He had built a stone and lime foundation and raised his pickets thereon but it appears something more substantial is required in this country to brave the winds." [28] Fort Union's carpenters solved this problem when they rebuilt the walls. Denig described the new construction: "This space is enclosed by pickets. . . twenty feet high, made of hewn cottonwood, and founded upon stone. The pickets are fitted into an open framework in the inside, of sufficient strength to counterbalance their weight, and sustained by braces in the form of an X, which reaches in the inside from the pickets to the frame, so as to make the whole completely solid and secure, from either storm or attack." [29] These braces may be seen in at least two of the sketches made of Fort Union's interior.

Campbell was also a visitor to Fort Union on the occasion of a dinner for Prince Maximilian of Wied, the second German prince to visit Fort Union. On October 2, Campbell wrote, "I received a note from Mr. Hamilton inviting me to dine and to be made acquaint[ed] with the Baron Bransburgh [Braunsberg, which Maximilian liked to call himself] or Prince of Newyd [Neuwied]." Campbell went up "and passed a pleasant evening in this society." [30]

The prince had arrived at Fort Union with McKenzie on June 24. Travelling with him was a Swiss artist, Charles Bodmer, and a secretary, Mr. Drydopple. After a few weeks at Union, the party traveled up to Fort McKenzie. When the prince returned to Fort Union that fall, he learned that McKenzie was again temporarily down the river. The prince remained for a few weeks as a guest of Hamilton then went down to spend the winter at Fort Clark. Alexander Culbertson met Maximilian and thought he looked like anything but a prince--unostentatious, toothless, greasy trousers, and a worn black coat. Maximilian had had considerable experience as a Prussian soldier, having been made a prisoner-of-war at Jena, and, like Prince Paul, a major general. In 1813 he had been in the allied army that had occupied Paris. [31] Now he was an explorer-scientist and committed to a simple manner of living.

Maximilian's journal gives an intimate look at Fort Union, beginning with his first view of the post late in the evening of June 24, 1833: "Fort Union, on a verdant plain, with the handsome American flag, gilded by the last rays of evening, floating in an azure sky, while a herd of horses grazing animated the peaceful scene." As the steamer approached, the fort's cannon fired a welcome salute. Hamilton came forth to greet the visitors, while the employees, "Americans, Englishmen, Germans, Frenchmen, Russians, Spaniards, and Italians, about 100 in number, with many Indians, and half-breed women and children" welcomed the season's steamboat.

In describing the fort, Maximilian said that the river was only 50 to 60 feet from the front of the fort. To him the pickets seemed to be 15 or 16 feet high, "squared, and placed close to each other, and surmounted by chevaux-de-frise," or a barrier of spikes. He noted the large, folding gate at the front entrance, on the river side. Facing the gate stood the bourgeois' house, "one story high, and has four handsome glass windows on each side of the door. The roof is spacious, and contains a large, light loft. This house is very commodious, and, like all the buildings of the inner quadrangle, constructed of poplar wood [cottonwood?], the staple wood for building in this neighborhood." This is the earliest clear statement that in the beginning the main house was only one story high, a height that Bodmer's painting seems to confirm.

Maximilian also noted that several half-breed hunters had erected their tipis around the flagpole and that "a cannon was also placed here, with its mouth towards the principal entrance." Besides its personnel, the fort contained "about fifty or sixty horses, some mules, and an inconsiderable number of cattle, swine, goats, fowls, and domestic animals." He saw that the horses were taken out on the prairie during the day, under guard, but were brought back inside each night. This was not too happy a situation, for it kept the yard very dirty, especially when it was wet. McKenzie was concerned about this and was planning a separate enclosure for the horses.

During the next few weeks, Maximilian's busy pen made notes on the fort, Indians, and the fur trade. In summing up the trade at Fort Union he observed that buffalo hides (40,000-50,000) surpassed the number of beaver (25,000) skins. Other skins collected included otter, weasel, marten, lynx, red fox, cross fox, silver fox, mink, muskrat, and deer. The personnel of the fort, by themselves, consumed from 600 to 800 buffalo annually. He mentioned that corn was bought from neighboring tribes. He did not say that McKenzie used this corn in his still, but that is another story.

He learned that vegetables did not thrive, but that mosquitoes did. He listed the birds and animals he saw, and attempted to give a census of the Assiniboins, deciding there were 28,000, of whom 7,000 were warriors, and that they lived in 3,000 tipis. A few "wretchedly poor" Indians were at the fort when the prince arrived. He wrote that "several apartments in the fort were assigned to these visitors, where they cooked and slept."

As for himself and his companions, they had "a comfortable lodging" in McKenzie's house, "and we lived here very pleasantly, in a plain style, suitable to the resources of so remote a place." The prince did better than Catlin in that he had coffee as well as wine every day, along with buffalo flesh and bread.

Very shortly after Maximilian arrived, a large number of Assiniboins came in, impressing the Europeans greatly:

Towards the northwest, the whole prairie was covered with scattered Indians, whose numerous dogs drew the sledges with the baggage; a close body of warriors, about 250 or 300 in number, had formed themselves in the center, in the manner of two bodies of infantry, and advanced in quick time towards the fort. The Indian warriors marched in close ranks, three or four men deep, not keeping their file very regularly, yet in pretty good order, and formed a considerable line. Before the center. . . three or four chiefs advanced, arm in arm, and from the ranks. . . loud musket-shots were heard. The whole troop of these warriors now commenced their original song. . . many abrupt, broken tones. . . . The loaded dogs, guided by women and children, surrounded the nucleus of warriors . . .

They advanced to within about sixty paces, then halted at a fosse [a ditch, or small ravine] running from the Missouri past the fort, and waited, the chief standing in front, for our welcome.

Maximilian realized that he was witnessing an event, a way of life, that would disappear from the American scene as fast as man could destroy it. His vivid description fixes permanently the image of that way of life.

Bodmer was the artist of the expedition, but the prince himself drew a general plan of the fort on which he labeled the various structures. Although this plan is known to exist still, it is not at this time available for publication. While the plan would illuminate this report, optimism suggests that it will be available in time to be of value to any potential restoration.

When Maximilian left, July 6, for Fort McKenzie among the Blackfeet, McKenzie had a fireworks display set off along the bank of the river, hoisted the American flag, and fired several guns. No prince, German or otherwise, could ever complain about the hospitality.

When he returned in the autumn, the prince found "the whole prairie . . . naked, dry, and withered." Instead of hundreds of Assiniboins, there was but one tent, inhabited by a half-Blackfoot. The Missouri itself was "shallow, narrow, and full of sand banks." McKenzie had gone; there were only fifty persons at the fort under the control of Mr. Hamilton.

During the absence of the prince, several improvements had occurred at the fort. Referring to the fire of 1832, he noted that "a handsome solid powder magazine, of hewn stone, which was capable of containing 50,000 lbs. of powder, was completed." He noted too that a rail fence, which had to be renovated, was almost finished. Another fence, the one around McKenzie's house, "was damaged by a horse chewing on it even though it had been painted reddish brown. "

Maximilian had gathered a large number of specimens and souvenirs by this time and, to his great pleasure, Hamilton gave him the "spacious loft" in the bourgeois' house where he could take everything out of the boxes and barrels to dry and air. Bodmer also was given "a good clear room" in which to paint. Out of his efforts came a number of superb paintings which were later reproduced and made famous. The most important to the purposes here was one of Fort Union from the north. It was the first detailed illustration known to have been done.

As their time for departure neared, the visitors went on a buffalo hunt. Among the post employees to accompany them was McKenzie's Negro slave. Maximilian noted other persons he met at the fort, such as Robert Campbell, the bourgeois at Fort William, who came up to Union for dinner with the prince. He recorded too those cool fall evenings, when he visited Hamilton in his apartment and sat by the fireplace enjoying good punch and good conversation.

When Maximilian decided to spend the winter at Fort Clark, both McKenzie and Hamilton were disappointed for they were losing a good companion who would have helped wile away the long blizzards of winter. The party left Fort Union on October 31. The boat stopped briefly at Fort William where Campbell gave them a parting gift of cigars. The long summer sojourn would not be Maximilian's last contact with the American Fur Company. The very next year, he would entertain Kenneth McKenzie at his German estates. [32]

McKenzie's sudden decision to visit Europe seems to have been based partly on a scandal of his making, a scandal that threatened the operations of the American Fur Company. In the summer of 1832, the U. S. Government tightened the laws that prohibited liquor in the Indian country. Long a staple of trade, liquor had always found its way to the traders who felt it to be essential in order to at tract the Indians away from competitors, including the British who did not prohibit it. In the fall of 1832, Crooks wrote a worried letter regretting "truly the blindness of the Government in refusing liquor. . . in the vicinity of the Hudson's Bay Posts." [33]

McKenzie was so alarmed by the prohibition that he made a personal visit to Washington in January 1833. When that failed, he cast about for some other means--in addition to the time-honored but risky smuggling that all traders had and would continue to carry out. By spring, he had concluded that while the laws prohibited the transportation of liquor they did not prohibit its manufacture in the Indian country. On the same steamboat that carried Prince Maximilian to Fort Union that summer rode McKenzie's brand new distillery. [34] Also on board was a supply of alcohol, but it was taken off when the boat was searched on the way up the river. [35]

McKenzie wrote Crooks in December 1833 telling him that Campbell and Sublette had succeeded in smuggling an abundance of alcohol. However, Crooks need not be alarmed, "For this post I have established a manufactory of strong water, it succeeds admirably. I have a good corn with a very respectable distillery and can produce as fine liquor as need be drank: I believe no law of the U. S. is hereby broken though perhaps one may be made to break up my distillery but liquor I must have or quit." [36]

Unknown to McKenzie, news of his still had already reached a rather wide circle of government officials and others. When McKenzie finally did learn that the secret was out, he blamed Nathaniel Wyeth.

Back in August, Wyeth, returning to the East overland after attempting to establish his own fur empire in the Pacific Northwest, stopped at Fort Union for three days. Wyeth was highly impressed with McKenzie, "all possible hospitality and politeness," by Hamilton, "a man of superior education and an Englishman," and by Fort Union, "better furnished inside than any British fort I have ever seen [including Fort Vancouver] at Table we have flour Bread Bacon Cheese Butter. . . they live well."

Wyeth went on to say that "Fort Union is pleasantly situated on the N. bank of the Missouri. . . . I am told that there is not enough moisture here to raise vegetables potatoes grass ect." As he inspected the post, he saw "a small sturgeon but they are very rare. . . Cat fish are good and plenty. . . they have cows and bulls milk etc. I saw lime burning also [char]coal." He also saw the still, "here they are beginning to distil spirits from corn traded from the Inds. below. This owing to some restrictions on the introduction of the article into the country." [37] Later, on November 11, back in Cambridge, Mass., Wyeth wrote a letter to the editor of a paper naming the many people who had treated him well on his expedition. Among the names was Kenneth McKenzie's. [38]

Nowhere in Wyeth's accounts can one find even a hint of his being displeased about his treatment while at Fort Union, or of his deliberately reporting McKenzie's still to the authorities. Yet, McKenzie blamed him, "in return for my civilities & furnishing him with a boat. . . on his arrival at Cant n. Leavenworth I hear he made some tremendous strong affidavits about my new manufactory." [39] Charles Larpenteur, who was to work for McKenzie, also thought it was Wyeth who told, as revenge for the exorbitant prices McKenzie charged him for supplies. [40]

However, Wyeth may have been blamed for something he did not do, or did not do alone. Travelling down the Missouri with him was none other than McKenzie's arch-rival, William Sublette. [41] The Indian Commissioner in Washington learned about the distillery from Henry L. Ellsworth, agent at Fort Leavenworth.[42] According to Ellsworth, he learned about the still from "a mountain trapper on his way down the Missouri." He went on, "Mr. Sublitz of St. Louis just from there [Fort Union], says, he tasted the whiskey made there, and found it an excellent quality." [43]

Federal officials gave serious thought to suspending the UMO's trading license. Pierre Chouteau, Jr., argued that the distillery was intended only "to promote the course of Botany." While the license was not suspended, Ramsay Crooks did not think the excuse to be very funny, "prenez-y-garde--Don't presume too much on your recent escape from an accusation, which might have been attended with serious consequences." [44]

Meanwhile, from the isolation of Fort Union, McKenzie, unaware that he had been experimenting in botany, came up with his own excuse, "An old acquaintance of mine in Red River Mr. J. P. Bourke addressed me last spring. . . in consequence whereof I purchased a still in St. Louis, & brought it hitherto & last fall he apprised me of his intention to come or send for it in April next." He again accused Wyeth of telling. [45]

The incident finally blew over. The friends of the American Fur Company, some of whom held high office, such as Secretary of War Lewis Cass, came to its assistance both in this and other incidents involving McKenzie and his associates. [46]

The location of the still in the fort cannot be established; however, Larpenteur mentioned the existence of a distillery house. This, of course, was not the end of the liquor trade; the company continued to smuggle alcohol in quantity. Larpenteur, the tee-totalling bartender, recounted, "The liquor business, which was always done at night, sometimes kept me up all night turning out drunken Indians, often by dragging them out by arms and legs." [47 As for McKenzie, upset by the buying out of Campbell and Sublette and the business of the still, 1834 seemed like a good time to leave the upper Missouri for a time and to visit Europe.

A few miscellaneous entries in the records of the early 1830's add some detail to our understanding of the post. At the end of 1833, McKenzie noted that "the tin Smith arrived here Nov. 29. he is a good workman. I shall find him a most useful artisan." [48] There undoubtedly was some work for the tinsmith to do with regard to the fort itself; however, his most important job was making trade items such as bracelets, rings, and pots.

After McKenzie left on his vacation in 1834, Hamilton became the acting bourgeois. In September, he advised McKenzie by letter that one bastion was roofed, shingled, and pointed, and the other was built up as high as the pickets. This rather obscure news implies that either the two stone bastions were being rebuilt or Catlin and Bodmer had chosen to depict the fort as it would look, rather than as it did when they made their sketches. [49]

Hamilton continued his news by saying that Luteman (the head carpenter) had "made his arrangements for the kitchen," and had "erected and shingled five compartments, under the intended gallery." These compartments should not be confused with the range of apartments in which the clerks, interpreters, etc., lived; they were additional rooms built against the pickets and under a gallery that would eventually extend around the fort. He noted also the production of charcoal, "Michel has got 300 barrels of coal housed & his last kiln is now ready to draw. [50]

Three weeks later, Hamilton reported that (the stone mason?) "Miller has finished the bastions & starts today for St. Louis." Hamilton tried to get Miller to stay, but the latter asked for too much money and, besides, "his work is inferior in finish to Pow[der] Mag[azine]." [51]

After Pratte, Chouteau, and Company bought out Campbell and Sublette, McKenzie and Hamilton had Fort William on their hands. They moved all or part of the stockade from William to Union to make the long-wanted corral for the horse herd. Larpenteur referred to this by writing, "Fort William was to be rebuilt within 150 yards of Union." The foreman for this project proved so incompetent, according to Larpenteur, that "the pickets were set in crooked, some too high, some too low." Larpenteur was then given the job of superintendent and he had the men take everything down, straighten and level the trench, and start again. He succeeded in building a respectable compound; at least he thought so. [52]

Although the pickets were moved up to Fort Union, the buildings at Fort William remained where they were. In October 1834, Larpenteur was selling drinks to a number of half-breeds, when a violent argument broke out. During the fight, one of the Deschamps killed another man. Larpenteur was able to quiet things only by putting laudanum (opium) in their whiskey. When the drunks recovered, they "went home to Fort William, where all those families were kept, as were also some of the Company's men who had squaws, and the horse guard with the horses." [53]

As early as August 1832, John Jacob Astor had written that he feared "Beaver will not sell well very soon unless very fine, it. . . appears that they make hats of silk in place of Beaver." [54] This letter was Astor's admission that the heyday of the beaver trade (and the fabled mountain man) was drawing to a close. Silk was in fashion and, also, the beaver was fairly well trapped out. Beaver would continue to be an acceptable fur, along with all the others, but as far as Fort Union was concerned, the buffalo, already important, would play an increasing role in the returns. McKenzie, in advice to one of his subordinates in January 1834, recognized this moment in the fur trade, "I am so burdened with Apichemons [?], pieces of lodge & mean wolf skins, I must restrict you in the trade of those articles." Moreover, "dressed Cow skins should be traded only on very low terms. I have some thousand by me. Elk skins, Beaver skins & robes you cannot get too much of." [55]

The increasing importance of buffalo robes is pointed up by the references to them in the company correspondence. For example, Kipp wrote McKenzie in September 1834, without mentioning any other furs or skins, "Expect to get as many buffalo robes as last year." [56]

John Jacob Astor, no longer a young man, felt no excitement in the change in emphasis from beaver to buffalo. As early as 1828, Pierre Chouteau, Jr., learned that Astor was contemplating selling his controlling interest in the American Fur Company. [57] The old man held out for six more years before retiring on June 1, 1834. Ramsay Crooks took over the Northern Department. Pratte, Chouteau, and Company brought out the Western Department. As far as the public was concerned, the term American Fur Company still applied to both. Crooks and Chouteau remained close business friends, and the extensive correspondence between them continued unabated. The UMO retained its special relationship to the St. Louis company and, when he got back from his European jaunt, McKenzie returned up the Missouri to take charge of his empire. [58] Nevertheless, the future would be different than the past. Beaver was no longer king. Astor had grown old and had quit. There would be an exciting future for Fort Union, but it would reflect the changes taking place on the upper Missouri. As Tennyson would have it,

The old order changeth
Yielding place to new.